Archive: Issue No. 100, December 2005

9.12.05 Gerard Sekoto at SANG
9.12.05 South African Art: 1948 Till Now at Michael Stevenson
9.12.05 South East and Mashups at 34LONG
9.12.05 Contemporary beadwork at the Old Town House
9.12.05 Iintsimbi zesiXhosa at the SANG
9.12.05 Art Salon at the Bay
9.12.05 João Ferreira's Summer Show
9.12.05 Portraits of Positive Living at the Castle of Good Hope
9.12.05 Farrago at the AVA
9.12.05 Christmas Market at what if the world...
9.12.05 Wavescapes at VEO
9.12.05 Christopher Slack at Blank Projects

4.11.05 Michaelis Graduate Show
4.11.05 Anton Kannemeyer at Erdmann Contemporary
4.11.05 William Kentridge at 34Long
4.11.05 Drawing Room II at what if the world...
4.11.05 Committee's Choice and new shows at the AVA
4.11.05 Robert Slingsby at Bell-Roberts

2.09.05 'ReVisions: A Private Narrative of SA Art' at SANG

FRANSCHOEK

9.12.05 The Summer Show at Grande Provence

4.11.05 'Shaping Place' at The Gallery at Grande Provence
 

'Gerard Sekoto - From the Paris Studio' opens at Iziko South African National Gallery this month. In 2000, the Gallery received a donation of over 2000 items from Sekoto's Paris studio, including paintings, drawings and prints as well as memorabilia and photographs of an artist considered by many to be the pioneer of urban black art and social realism.
Also included in the exhibition are works by artists who knew Sekoto such as Gregoire Boonzaier, Peter Clarke, Solly Disner, Lippy Lipshitz, Ernest Mancoba and Louis Maurice.
At 10:30 on Sunday December 11, Friends of SANG host a walkabout of the exhibition which will cover different periods in the artist's life - from his early teaching years, his life in apartheid South Africa, his visit to Senegal to the time spent in Paris where he lived in voluntary exile from 1947.
Opens: December 6
Closes: February 25

Michael Stevenson's annual exhibition of South African art is an important event on the collector's calendar, and this year it has been extended to run throughout the holiday season. As has been the case for the past 10 years, a selection of work by South African 20th Century 'masters' will be exhibited, including Irma Stern, Gregoire Boonzaier, Gerard Sekoto, Albert Adams, Ezrom Legae, Sydney Kumalo, Ephraim Ngatane, Walter Battiss, Stanley Pinker and Peter Clarke.

There will also be a selection of major new works made for the exhibition by the gallery's contemporary artists. These include photographs by Guy Tillim, Pieter Hugo, David Goldblatt and Zanele Muholi, as well as paintings by Mustafa Maluka, Deborah Poynton and Tracy Payne, ceramics by Hylton Nel, prints by Churchill Madikida, a performance by Nicholas Hlobo and an installation by Wim Botha.

Michael Stevenson's annual exhibition provides an interesting view of trends in South African art, and as always is accompanied by a well-researched catalogue.

Opens: December 6
Closes: January 14

In 'South-East' at 34LONG selected South African artworks will be on view alongside contemporary works from Japan and China. New work by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami will be a highlight of the show, and for the first time ever in South Africa, work by contemporary Chinese painter Feng Zhengjie, who took the international scene by storm at this year's Venice and Prague Biennales, can be seen.

Local participants will include well-loved regulars like William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Norman Catherine, Robert Hodgins, Willie Bester, Hylton Nel, Roelof Louw, David Brown and Wendy Anziska as well as newer talent like Matthew Hindley, Peter Eastman and Frank van Reenen.

Meanwhile the newly renovated and extended upstairs part of the gallery will be launched as a more contemporary and trendy space with 'Mashups', a print collaboration between Capetonians Matthew Hindley and Peter Eastman.

Opens: December 13
Closes: January 14

'Synergy', featuring contemporary bead art, opens at Iziko Michaelis Collection (The Old Town House) from December to March next year.
The brainchild of Dr. Elbé Coetsee of Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation and Jeanetta Blignaut of Cape Town-based Qalo, the exhibition celebrates the work of 11 renowned South African artists, who have created designs that have been interpreted and realised by bead workers. The participating artists who have been commissioned include Willem Boshoff, Mbongeni Buthelezi, Paul Edmunds, Faiza Galdhari, Rookeya Gardee, Claire Gavronsky, Liza Grobler, Nicholas Hlobo, Karel Nel, Lindelani Ngwenya, Rose Shakinovsky and Doreen Southwood.

Opens: December 1
Closes: March 31

'Iintsimbi zesiXhosa' , an exhibition of glass beadwork, is on loan to the National Gallery from Switzerland for three months. This extensive collection of traditional, contemporary, ornamental and functional beadwork, created by South African women and collected by Margaret Holdsworth during the 1970s, was recently acquired by Zurich's Volkerkunde Museum.

Opens: December 1
Closes: February 1

The 14th annual 'Art Salon at The Bay', curated by art consultant Rose Korber, opens at The Bay Hotel in Camps Bay this month. The Salon aims to present a varied and comprehensive overview of the current state of South African art featuring painting, sculpture and ceramics. Artists featured include William Kentridge, Willie Bester, Sam Nhlengethwa, David Koloane, Conrad Botes, Colbert Mashile, Johann Louw, Robert Slingsby, Deborah Bell, Jaco Sieberhagen, Claudette Schreuders and Stephen Inggs.
Alongside these established names, younger artists such as Peter Eastman, John Murray, Traci Henen, Ruan Hoffman, Alastair Whitton, Francois van Reenen and Daniel Halter are well represented.
Opens: December 23
Closes: January 12

The João Ferreira Gallery's Summer Show includes new paintings by artists who have previously exhibited at the gallery, as well as sculptures from the gallery collection. The pieces on display are intended to encourage an animated dialogue between the different works and the viewer. Exhibiting artists include Anton Karstel, Nicholas Hales, Paul Edmunds, Jordan Tryon, Tony Scullion, Arlene Amir-Raviv, Trasi Henen, Ruth Sacks and Tom Cullberg amongst others.

Opens: December 7
Closes: January 28

To raise awareness of the right of HIV positive people to anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment and to draw attention to the lives of those on ARV treatment, a photographic exhibition opens on World Aids Day at Iziko Good Hope Gallery, Castle of Good Hope.

The exhibition comprises 60 portraits of people on ARV treatment, interspersed with photographs of their homes and the communities in which they live. The photographer, David Chancellor, spent two months in Khayelitsha, Langa and Nyanga, where he worked closely with staff, volunteers and recipients of the South African Red Cross Society's Community Home-Based Care programme (CHBC), capturing the positive effects ARVs have had on the lives of people living with HIV.

Opens: December 1

The AVA's final exhibition of the year is a group show featuring new works by Kevin Brand, Anthony Cawood, Matthew Hindley, Louis Jansen van Vuuren, Lonwabo Kilani, Greta Matthews and Gerald Tabata. The gallery closes on December 24 and re-opens on January 3.

Opens: December 12
Closes: January 19

The first annual Christmas Market at what if the world... features a diverse selection of craft, décor, fashion and gifts by South African designers and creative talents, such as Heath Nash, knolc, Bella von Hase, tokyo vuctim, missibaba, Tamsin Relly, Jeanne, Jesse Breytenbach, Tac, Blackbird, Alfalfa and Heather Moore. what if the world... will run special operating times in the evening for these 12 days of Christmas (see www.whatiftheworld.com for details).

Opens: December 12
Closes: December 24

Accompanying Cape Town's Wavescapes Surf Film Festival is an art exhibition featuring work by Brett Murray, Sanell Aggenbach, Conrad Botes, Cameron Platter, Richard Scott and others. Each has been provided with a replica of Shaun Thomson's late 70's single fin board shaped by the legendary Spider Murphy and the freedom to decorate it in any way they see fit. The results will be auctioned with proceeds going to the NSRI and the Shark Spotting programme in False Bay.

The film festival runs from December 9 - 18. See www.wavescapes.co.za for more info.

Opens: December 7
Closes: December 13

'In Sector 17' takes its title from the infamous 'Abu Ghraib' incident where British and American forces were caught on camera physically and sexually abusing Iraqi detainees. Christopher Slack has based a series of painting and silkscreens on a ficticious photo shoot of the incidents. In these works he explores the relationship between the opresser and the opressed, and the cruelty, de-humanisation and psycho-sexual dynamics of such a situation.

Slack was born in and lives in Cape Town where he has held several one-person shows. His work is held in several local and international collections.

Opens: December 7
Closes: December 28

The Michaelis Graduate Show opens at the end of this month. The Graduate Show features the work of all the many graduating final year and Masters students of 2006. The show is a great opportunity to see (and purchase) work by Cape Town's up-and-coming young artists.

Opens: November 30
Closes: December 21

'Days of my Lives' is a showcase of recent prints, drawings and paintings by Anton Kannemeyer. The theme (with a nod to the popular soapie) refers to the systematic recording and investigation of everyday events in the artist's journals and sketchbooks by himself or his alter ego, Joe Dog. These 'events' include newspaper articles, portraits, general and personal history, all scrutinized by Kannemeyer's ironic and satirical eye. Kannemeyer co-founded the highly regarded Bitterkomix with Conrad Botes.

Opens: November 28
Closes: January 21, 2006

'From Private Selections' presents a selection of William Kentridge works from private collections. It features some of Kentridge's editioned works on paper, which sold out rapidly and have returned to the market extremely rarely, some works in bronze and an original edition of Felix in Exile, his 1999 movie. there are also some charcoal drawings. Also on exhibition will be some very recent work which was completed overseas and has not been shown or sold in South Africa before.

Opens: November 8
Closes: December 10

In May 2005, the first Drawing Room show was held at the now defunct Dirt Contemporary. This group exhibition was conceived as a show with affordable art with broad appeal, showcasing a selection of small paintings, prints, silk-screens, drawings, reverse glass paintings and illustrations. Its aim was to encourage art buying among young contemporaries and it sold very well.

Once again, Lucinda Mudge and Francesco Nassimbeni have assembled the collective and have put together another show of reasonably priced artwork. The participants include Jacqui Stecher, Heather Moore, Alfalfa, Jesse Breytenbach, Michael Taylor, Francesco Nassimbeni and Lucinda Mudge. Drawing Room is online and updated weekly - www.drawingroom.co.za

In the Main Gallery at the AVA is the annual Committee's Choice exhibition where each member of AVA's current committee and sub-committees selects a work by an artist of their choice. Artists featured this year include Adam Letch, Bill Ainslie, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Eris Silke.

At the same time, fine figurative painter Clare Menck shows new work in the Long Gallery. Upstairs a group show, primarily of paintings, by Sandra Hanekom, Cobus van Bosch, Martin Stiller and Kennett Sinclair, some of whom have never exhibited at AVA before.

Opens: November 21
Closes: December 10

Well known artist Robert Slingsby has been absorbed with the petroglyphs (rock engravings) of the Richtersveld for nearly three decades. His work reflects his obsession with these engravings and the environment of the Richtersfeld. He has become equally interested in the people who made them and those who he believes to be their living link i.e. the local Richtersveld or Nama people.

In this, his first exhibition in Cape Town since 1998, Slingsby has created bronze sculptures and paintings which attempt to convey the mystical power of the remnant dwellings, capturing the colours and textures of the petroglyphs in the surfaces of his canvases and bronzes.

Opens: November 30
Closes: December 23

This exhibition at the South African National Gallery claims to be drawn from one of the most impressive private collections of South African art assembled by an individual. Bruce Campbell-Smith started collecting in the mid-1980s and the result is a collection of work by almost 90 artists, mostly black South Africans, working from the 1920s until 1994.

Hayden Proud, curator at Iziko, says the collection is impressive because of its scope, its items of rarity and the fact that the collector has had a fine arts training himself, which has informed many choices. He says the collection contains works by well-known and now historical figures the public have never seen before. It is focused on artists working in the figurative traditions of painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture, with a strong Natal bias.

Artists represented include Gerard Bhengu, Trevor Makhoba, Sthembiso Sibisi, Maggie Laubscher, Amos Langdown, Arthur Butelezi, Mizream Maseko, George Pemba, Gerard Sekoto, Dumile Feni, Billy Mandindi, Peter Clarke, Neville Lewis, Gregoire Boonzaier, Marianne Podlashuc, Selby Mvusi, Irma Stern, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Sydney Khumalo, Louis Maqhubela, Tommy Motswai, Alfred Thoba, Noria Mabasa and Johannes Segogela.

Opens: September 24
Closes: March 19, 2006

The Gallery at Grande Provence in the Franschhoek winelands presents its '2006 Summer Show'. Curated by Cape Town art consultant Rose Korber, the 'Summer Show' features an extensive selection of paintings, mixed media works, original prints, sculpture, ceramics, photography and contemporary beadwork by both leading and emerging South African artists.

Artists featured include Sam Nhlengethwa, John Kramer, David Koloane, Wayne Barker, Karl Gietl, Diana Hyslop, Stephen Inggs, Nina Romm, Kevin Collins and Shany van den Berg, Sannell Aggenbach and Peter Eastman. Alongside these are ceramics by Barbara Jackson, Louise Gelderblom, Hennie Meyer, Heather Mills and Helen Vaughan. A wide range of exciting new beadwork pieces by Martine Jackson, Carol Nathan Levin and Tamlin Blake will also be featured.

Opens: December 18
Closes: February 28

'Shaping Place' curated by art consultant Rose Korber, will present work by two dozen artists who have all elected to explore the theme of landscape, be it aesthetically, politically and psychologically. Participants include Sanell Aggenbach, Willie Bester, Peter Eastman, David Goldblatt, Stephen Inggs, William Kentridge, Erik Laubscher and Judy Woodborne

Opens: November 5
Closes: December 11