Archive: Issue No. 90, February 2005

04.02.05 Jan van der Merwe at Sanlam Art Gallery
04.02.05 Nicholas Hales and 'Girls Night Out' at João Ferreira
04.02.05 Muzi Kuzwayo at Photographers Gallery za
04.02.05 Sean Wilson at Photographers Gallery za
04.02.05 Tony Meintjes at 34 on Long
04.02.05 David Goldblatt at Michael Stevenson Contemporary
04.02.05 'Sweet Nothings' and 'Rugby vs. Soccer' at Bell-Roberts Gallery
04.02.05 Sheila Nowers and Marta de Arespacochoga Llopiz at Irma Stern Museum
04.02.05 Malcolm Payne at Irma Stern Museum
04.02.05 Vanessa Cowling at 3rd i Gallery
04.02.05 Slack, Geustyn and O'Flynn at the AVA
04.02.05 'Democracy X' re-opens at the Castle of Good Hope

07.01.05 Paul du Toit at Erdmann Contemporary
07.01.05 'South African art 1840 - now' at MSCG
07.01.05 Philip Barlow, Raymond Smith and Lize Grobler at the AVA
07.01.05 Dani Le Roy at VEO Gallery
07.01.05 'Ilifa Labantu Heritage of the People' at SANG

05.11.04 'The Muse of History': Helmut Starcke at the Old Town House
05.11.04 'Voice-overs': Wits brings African artworks to the SANG
05.11.04 Guy Tillim - DaimlerChrysler Award winner at the SANG
05.11.04 'Curiosity CLXXV' at Hiddingh Hall, Michaelis School of Fine Art

STELLENBOSCH

04.02.05 Villa and Skotnes at Lanzerac

Jan van der Merwe exhibits a series of installations in this exhibition called 'Unknown'. Curator Stephan Hundt says the show will be of particular interest to students and scholars because 'it successfully demonstrates a contemporary approach to art-making without being obscure or deliberately complicated'.

Van der Merwe works primarily in rusted metal with found objects that he collects and transforms into sculptures or installations. Hundt says: 'Van der Merwe has developed a language that speaks subtly yet eloquently of the South African psyche and society. His works, fashioned from familiar objects unlike much tendentious installation art in South Africa, are deliberately accessible and encourage the viewer to pause and reflect.'

Professor Gavin Younge of UCT's Michaelis School of Fine Art will open the exhibition at 7pm on February 1.

Opens: February 1
Closes: March 24

Nicholas Hales' show entitled 'Portals' promises to be an interesting exploration about 'blocked energy, releasing of energy and entrances to a different dimension'. Although it sounds fairly obtuse, Hales has grounded his work in gritty reality.

The starting point is Manenberg. Hales became aware, while working on a project in the area, of the dark energy over this Cape Town suburb with its boarded windows and doors, violence and social imprisonment. Shortly thereafter, Manenberg was struck by a tornado and Hales became interested in the way energies attract one other and how energy blocks can become a catalyst for change.

He says: 'I'm interested in that brief moment when a shift in consciousness occurs when one can get a brief glimpse of the perfect structure to all things.'

Also running at the gallery this month is a group show called 'Girls Night Out', which forms part of the Cape Town Month of Photography. It features an intriguing mix of artists, including Bridget Baker, Lien Botha, Claire Breukel, Katherine Bull, Geeta Chagan, Tracy Lindner Gander, Dorothee Kreutzveldt, Senzeni Marasela, Sarah Nankin, Varenke Paschke, Claire Sarembok, Penny Siopis, Sue Williamson, Arnold Erasmus and Lance Slabbert.

Hales opens: February 2
Hales closes: February 26

'Girls Night Out' opens: February 15
'Girls Night Out' closes: March 22

Muzi Kuzwayo, a published author and partner of King James advertising agency, is a graduate of the New York Institute of Photography. In this exhibition, he presents a series of photographs of his childhood hometown of Payneville near Springs in Gauteng.

The area has been reduced to a pile of stones after the inhabitants were subjected during apartheid to forced removals. The result is a series of landscapes that evoke both pain and beauty. Kuzwayo has also written text, which accompanies the images.

He says: 'These are images of my own private Egypt. When I get impatient with the imperfections of the present, they remind me of where this whole journey started. That way, I can focus on the progress instead of perfection because trying to be perfect can wear you down.'

Opens: February 23
Closes: March 19

Sean Wilson shows 15 colour portraits of regular traders at the Milnerton flea market in this exhibition entitled 'One man's waste is another man's want'. The series reflects a life-long fascination for the artist.

He says: 'Flea markets provide a welcome relief from the antiseptic malls and their mass-produced and over-priced tacky merchandise - For me, the piles of old stuff carried layers of meanings and associations that seemed to resonate endlessly onwards and outwards. 'Junk' was not so much the discarded artifacts of a society but rather a kind of distilled essence of its character.'

Opens: February 21
Closes: March 19

Photographer Tony Meintjes, who lives in Cape Town, is exhibiting a series called 'Becoming History' as part of the Cape Town Month of Photography. Of the work he says, 'I have recently found myself viewing the environment as a chronicle of events, with me periodically jabbing at the timeline with a camera, trying to rouse something memorable, unusual, or even insightful.'

Meintjes is interested in the 'twin topographies' of geographic history, layered with complex cultural and industrial interactions imprinted upon it, and the chosen moment. He says: 'Not only is it fascinating to me where these three elements intersect, but their relationship is dynamic: an endless source of continuously shifting opportunities.'

Meintjes studied photography in Durban and worked as a photographer in the Cape Town advertising industry until 2000. He then started Southern Editions, making prints for photographers and fine artists.

At 2.30pm on Wednesday February 16, Meintjes will host Friends of the National Gallery and guests at his Woodstock studio where he now runs this thriving concern using permanent lightfast inks to digitally print the works of such acclaimed artists as Jane Alexander, Guy Tillim, David Goldblatt and Berni Searle. This event is R20 for members and R30 for guests. Contact: Lizzie (021) 467-4662 (Tue-Thu 10am - 2pm).

Opens: February 8
Closes: February 23

David Goldblatt continues his exploration of the intersections between people, values and land in post-apartheid South Africa in this latest exhibition entitled 'Intersections'. A major body of work focuses on the landscapes of the Northern Cape. Alongside, he turns his lens to public and private memorials as well as South African towns in the time of AIDS. A new series of portraits of 'municipal people' responsible for local government comprises the final element.

Goldblatt will conduct a walkabout of this exhibition at 11am on February 10 (cost: R30). A book, also called Intersections, will be published by Prestel in mid-2005 to coincide with Goldblatt's solo exhibition at the prestigious Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Opens: February 7
Closes: March 12

Two shows run side-by-side this month in the new Bell-Roberts Gallery as part of the Cape Town Month of Photography. 'Sweet Nothings', curated by Sanell Aggenbach, is a group show of five women artists who each interpret romance in their own way. Jean Brundrit, Jillian Lochner, Svea Josephy and Dorothee Kreutzfeld as well as Aggenbach deliver a humorous and somewhat irreverent take on the theme in their individualistic ways.

Alongside, in an interesting juxtaposition, Pieter Badenhorst exhibits his photographic work entitled 'Rugby vs. Soccer'.

Opens: February 9
Closes: March 5 ('Sweet Nothings'); March 14 ('Rugby vs. Soccer')

This joint exhibition showcases the small-scale paintings of Sheila Nowers, which create an impact much beyond their physical size. In addition to her well known interiors and landscapes, Nowers has included in this exhibition witty figure studies which are a pastiche of some famous European masterworks by the likes of Ingres and Manet.

Alongside, Marta de Arespacochoga Llopiz combines the role of artist and ambassador's wife. According to the museum's publicity material, this artist paints landscapes that have a great feeling of distance and space encapsulated within a deep casement foreground, which is her view from the mills on her family's estates in Spain. The paintings on show depict the vast plains of northern Spain.

Opens: February 4
Closes: February 19

Malcolm Payne, who is Professor at UCT's Michaelis School of Fine Art, has worked over the past 35 years in a diversity of media and exhibited extensively both here and abroad.

In 'Illuminated Manuscripts', Payne exhibits new brilliantly coloured prints of commonplace objects of material culture. Although they have no explicit signification, Payne says a possible meta-text could reflect on a post-9/11 'warrior state mindset' and other representations of global disquiet.

He adds, 'This is achieved through dissonance, both in the improbable affinities or groupings assigned to these (non-menacing) objects and how they are refashioned in powerful software applications that causes damage to their structural coherence.'

One of Payne's new works, Q54Spell, was included in the International Print Center New York's New Prints 2004/Autumn publication. It featured 45 prints by 40 artists selected from a pool of over 1200 works.

Opens: February 23
Closes: March 12

In 'Strings and Flight' Vanessa Cowling explores the complexities of human attachment and detachment through her provocative and haunting imagery of flight and entanglement, according to 3rd i Gallery.

Photographer Jean Brundrit will open the exhibition at 6pm, followed by the Simon van Gend band at 7.30pm. Cowling will give a walkabout at 6.30pm on Wednesday February 23.

Opens: February 3
Closes: March 4

Christopher Slack exhibits new paintings in the Main gallery, using his trademark enamel paint. He deals with issues of life in a burnt-out, fast-tracked world in this show called 'B*Grade'.

Alongside in the Long gallery, printmaker Eunice Geustyn shows new mixed works on paper. Upstairs, Norman O'Flynn exhibits a series of colourful abstract painting.

Opens: February 14
Closes: March 5

This highly successful exhibition, visited by about 55,000 people last year, will be re-opened by Iziko Museums for two months due to public demand. The exhibition traces the long history of our country from the earliest cultural manifestations of human behaviour to contemporary post-apartheid South Africa.

'Democracy X' won the Western Cape Arts and Culture Award for the best urban museum project in 2004 and was also listed by London's Royal Academy as among the top 15 exhibitions worldwide.

A recently published catalogue with full-colour illustrations of all the objects on show, as well as essays, is now available. Democracy X: marking the present; representing the past is edited by Andries Oliphant, Peter Delius and Lalou Meltzer. Writers include Keorapetse Kgositsile, Bill Nasson, Muff Anderson, Guy Berger, Rosalie Finlayson, Pallo Jordan, Jeremy Cronin, Edward Lahiff, Mike van Graan, Rayda Becker, Patricia Davison, Duncan Miller and Simon Hall.

Opens: February 1
Closes: March 31

Paul du Toit, who had his last solo in Cape Town three years ago, is back. This exhibition, entitled 'Off the Wall', is a mixture of paintings, sculpture (including works in resin) and works on paper that represent the culmination of ideas stretching back over seven years.

Du Toit mostly exhibits internationally. He recently had a well-received solo exhibition in New York, followed by another in Holland in September. He also represented SA in Athens at the Artiade (Olympics for Visual Arts) in August, where he exhibited sculptures made from found industrial steel objects.

Opens: 26 January
Closes: 19 February

This annual show of South African art includes a wide range of pieces, from objects of late 19th century south-east African art, through work by major artists of the 1950s and 1960s to leading contemporary artists like Hylton Nel, David Goldblatt, Guy Tillim, Jeremy Wafer and Willem Boshoff. Young and emerging artists are also well represented, including new video stills from Berni Searle and Churchill Madikida, portrait paintings by Tollman Award winner Mustafa Maluka and a large canvas by Sandile Zulu.

Two catalogues accompany the show. Both curious and valuable: African art from late 19th century south-east Africa includes an essay on the acquisition of such objects by European soldiers, missionaries and travelers and the shift in the social significance that occurs along with the shift in ownership.

Highlights of the fine art catalogue include a previously unpublished Namaqualand landscape by Hugo Naudé, a 1932 painting of harvesters by Maggie Laubser, a large and important Johannes Meintjes portrait, and works from the 1950s and 60s by Dorothy Kay, Simon Lekgetho, Robert Hodgins, Gerard Sekoto and Douglas Portway.

Opens: January 19
Closes: February 5

Philip Barlow takes up the main gallery at the AVA with new oil paintings in his personal style of 'hazy, blurred backgrounds contrasting with colourful moving figures in the foreground' that appear almost abstract. This will be Barlow's second solo at the AVA.

In the Long gallery, Raymond Smith uses mixed media for his sculptural installation called 'Armchair Traveller'. It comprises eight pieces in cast aluminium, bronze and sand.

Lize Grobler is upstairs exhibiting her latest drawings in a show called 'Play with me'. Grobler has always embraced drawing but usually as part of her preparation for sculptural pieces. Here, the drawings function as artworks in their own right.

The series can be roughly divided into two: experiences at a recent international artists' workshop in New York and the development of the artist's relationship and subsequent wedding.

Opens: January 24
Closes: February 12

Le Roy, who runs her own furniture design business called Yu, has been experimenting with texture and colour to produce abstract paintings for her first solo exhibition, 'The Spaces Between', at VEO's newly opened Art Warehouse.

The exhibition includes larger-scale works and smaller collections of panels with quirky use of colour and a variety of media. She says: 'My style is accident driven. I love the unexpected merging of various mediums and experiment with varnish, spray paint, plaster of paris, marble dust, enamels, glitter and resin.'

Le Roy is a young artist and designer and has also been involved in a wire jewellery business. She is currently working on a new range of jewellery incorporating silver, perspex and horn components.

Opens: January 25
Closes: February 5

This exhibition, which opened on Heritage Day (September 24), showcases 150 African artworks acquired by the gallery over the past decade. 'Ilifa Labantu Heritage of the People' is curated by Carol Kaufmann, Iziko's African art expert. She says: 'The post-1994 sense of freedom has encouraged South Africans to look to the north to rediscover cultural affiliations with the rest of the continent.'

'Ilifa' includes textiles from Ghana, beaded crowns and gold-weights from Nigeria, Kuba ceremonial beadwork from the DRC and 'repatriated' works like engraved Nguni cattle horns depicting scenes from the Zulu war of 1879.

The show reflects Iziko SANG's post-1994 policy of purposefully collecting and purchasing African art. Traditional beadwork, basketry, textile and ceramics, carvings in wood, leather and other materials now form a significant part of the Iziko Art collections.

There will be a series of organised tours. Contact Carol Kaufmann on (021) 467 4672 or email ckaufmann@iziko.org.za

Opens: September 24
Closes: April 2005

Helmut Starcke, a former lecturer at Michaelis School of Fine Art, shows a series of reworked celebrated Dutch masterpieces in this exhibition at the Old Town Hall. He juxtaposes classical figures from the Golden Age of 17th century art with characters and artifacts from Africa.

According to the artist, the show comprises 'mediations and meditations on the Dutch colonial adventure, with specific reference to Africa and the history of the Cape of Good Hope, colonised by the Dutch in 1652'.

The Old Town House, which houses the famous Michaelis Collection of 17th Century Netherlandish art, is therefore an appropriate exhibition context and setting. According to curator Hayden Proud, many of the interiors evoked in Starcke's works resonate with the proportions, lighting and architectural details of the venue itself.

Opens: November 17
Closes: April 2005

This exhibition comprises exceptional pieces chosen from the Standard Bank Collection of African Art at the University of the Witwatersrand Art Galleries. Curatorial responsibility lies with Wits experts Anitra Nettleton, Karel Nel, Julia Charlton and Fiona Rankin-Smith.

The collection from west, central and southern Africa includes a wide range of media and includes classical to contemporary techniques. The 120 items were chosen by 53 specialists with strong connections to Wits University. Each selector has also contributed a text in the form of poetry, short stories, artworks, narrative writing and traditional academic research.

Items on show include Jackson Hlungwane's Gabriel from the Altar of God, a Chokwe figurative staff from Angola, Sam Nhlengethwa's commentary on the death of Steve Biko It Left Him Cold, and a rare southern African beadwork panel dating from the 19th century.

Opens: November 20
Closes: February 6, 2005

Photographer Guy Tillim is no stranger to Cape Town gallery enthusiasts. Michael Stevenson Contemporary Gallery hosted in June a series of works called 'Leopold and Mobutu' from the Congo region.

Tillim's reputation, however, extends way beyond the Mother City. He is the most recent recipient of the prestigious DaimlerChrysler Award for Photography and this month the SANG exhibits his photographic work.

Tillim began taking photographs professionally in 1986 and has built up a strong reputation for his documentary-style work. In this show, Tillim turns his photographer's gaze from conflict-ridden sites in Africa to the inner-city life of Johannesburg. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Opens: November 27
Closes: March 21, 2005

Curated by Pippa Skotnes, Gwen van Embden and Fritha Langerman, this exhibition, part of the University of Cape Town's 175th anniversary celebrations, seeks to 'celebrate curiosity and scholarship, and the symbolic and narrative power of objects.' Historical treasures, curious paraphernalia of bygone days, teaching equipment, unique research materials and academic vestments will all be brought together in a vast installation at UCT's original campus, currently the home of its Art School.

The curators have scoured every old cupboard and every nook and cranny of the departments that make up the University. From these sometimes neglected and dusty locations they have taken objects that resonate with historical importance or are unusual, bizarre or are simply curious or strange. 175 cabinets fill Hiddingh Hall, echoing the 'cabinets of curiosity' of adventurous collectors and researchers of the past. According to Skotnes, who heads the Michaelis School of Fine Art, 'Objects have an extraordinary mobility of meaning. We hope that this act of curatorship will generate new ideas about UCT collections.'

Numerous staff members, artists and academics of the University have contributed objects or even 'curated' an individual cabinet. The exhibition promises to draw attention to the way in which material objects are intimately entwined in the creation of other forms of knowledge.

Opens: Tuesday November 23
Closes: April 1, 2005

Edoardo Villa (89) and Cecil Skotnes (78) are both renowned artists in their own right. Together, they also established a new movement in South African art that paved the way for an avant-garde group who reinterpreted their African artistic heritage for a contemporary market.

In 1957, the duo founded the Amadlozi group that included artists like Sydney Kumalo. They were very influential in the development of other artists - in particular at the Polly Street Centre where the careers of many black artists were launched. Skotnes recently received the Order of Ikhamange from President Mbeki in recognition of his role in the arts and the development of black artists.

This exhibition includes 60 sculptures by Villa in the front and back gardens of Lanzerac Manor and Winery in Stellenbosch. They range in height from 30cm to 3m. Skotnes' works are hung in the Manor House.

Opens: December 10
Closes: March