Archive: Issue No. 95, July 2005

1.07.05 'Intersections' in D�sseldorf
1.07.05 'Looking Both Ways' in Edinburgh
1.07.05 Royal Academy Summer Show
1.07.05 'ART out of place' in Norwich
1.07.05 [prologue] new feminism / new europe in Manchester

3.06.05 51st Venice Biennale
3.06.05 Prague Biennale
3.06.05 Penny Siopis at the Freud Museum, London
3.06.05 'meanwhile in Africa...' in Germany

9.05.05 'Africa Remix' at the Pompidou in Paris
9.05.05 Hentie van der Merwe at MartA in Germany

AUSTRALIA

1.07.05 James Webb on Liquid Architecture festival

USA

1.07.05 'A Cross Cultural View of Women in the Arts' in Chicago
 

Distinguished photographer David Goldblatt has a major solo show of his Intersections photographs at the prestigious Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf Germany to coincide with the Prestel publication of his book by the same name. The collection of photographs, which was on show at the Michael Stevenson gallery in Cape Town earlier this year, comprises of four bodies of work; stark landscapes of the Northern Cape, personal and public memorials within these landscapes, small South African towns in the time of AIDS, and portraits of municipal officials.

Opens: June 11
Closes: August 21

The highly acclaimed exhibition, 'Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora' originally opened in 2003 at the Museum for African Art in New York, and now moves to Edinburgh to coincide with the Edinburgh Festival and G8 Summit.

The exhibition, curated by Laurie Ann Farell, 'explores the increasing globalization of the African diaspora through the presentation of Africa-born artists who now live and work in the West', with the title of the exhibition referring to the artists' practice of looking at the ever shifting terrains of Africa and the West and the complex geographies in between.

Kendell Geers constructs a museum of African/other art within the museum, using steel factory shelving and panels of poured concrete set with shards of broken green glass for his enclosure. His 'exhibits,' ranging from flea market African artefacts to a Shiva figure to a statuette of Lara Croft are all wrapped in Geers' signature chevron tape.

Moshekwa Langa presents a series of energetic mixed media work. His Garden of Earthly Delights, a visual version of one of Langa's 'list' works, packs the picture frame with faces, one of them possibly a self portrait, a jet, a village hut, a stray with bared teeth, spiders and webs and a pasted cat.

The full list of participating artists is: Fernando Alvim, Ghada Amer, Oladélé A. Bamgboyé, Allan deSouza, Kendell Geers, Moshekwa Langa, Hassan Musa, N'Dilo Mutima, Wangechi Mutu, Ingrid Mwangi, Zineb Sedira and Yinka Shonibare.

Opens: June 18
Closes: September 11

South African born photographer, Mandy Lee Jandrell, is exhibiting her digital Lambda print, Swan, Hampstead Heath, London at the 237th annual Royal Academy Summer Show, focussed this year on printmaking and the multiple. Her often humorous expositions of constructed cultural spaces and tourist icons have been increasingly well received, both in South Africa and the UK. With her print sharing an exhibition space with the likes of Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor Wood, Gavin Turke and Julian Opie at the Royal Academy show, Jandrell seems to be heading swiftly towards an happy integration into that ever elusive London art scene.

Opens: June 7
Closes: August 15

Norwich Castle in Norfolk, England, is the venue for 'ART out of place' a show of contemporary art by a number of leading artists to encourage a confrontation between the old and the new, the museum and the contemporary.

The work is located in all areas of the museum from the natural history and archaeology sections to the corridors, toilets and reception where the work is intended to draw attention to the museum as a social space.

Artists on the exhibition are: Dorothy Cross, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, Frances Goodman, Lucy Gunning, Des Hughes, Marina Kappos, Richard Long, Rory Macbeth and Darren Phizacklea, Cornelia Parker, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Elizabeth Wright.

July 2 - September 25, 2005

The result of a Europe-wide project that sets out to examine the social, economic and cultural position of women in the new Europe, [prologue] new feminism / new europe is a radical and witty exhibition and weekend of live performances by female artists addressing prejudice against the word 'feminist' through art. [prologue] will consider a young generation of artists unafraid to be known as feminists. Collectively organised by seven curators from venues across Europe, the gallery-based exhibition at Cornerhouse and weekend of live-art at Green Room will feature 27 artists from 17 countries. The project will see Manchester welcome participating artists, academics and delegates to discuss theory, activism, and the visual and political forces affecting women in the new Europe.

Artists featuring in the gallery show include Chicks on Speed, Frances Goodman, Senam Okudzeto, Anna Jermolaewa.

[prologue] Live, a weekend of live-art, interventions and performances at Green Room, extends the traditional frame of the gallery exhibition and allows for the experience of live art - an essential medium in which feminist artists have worked for generations. It will begin on Friday 29 July and conclude on Sunday 31 July with a brunch and one-day symposium featuring Katy Deepwell, editor of n.paradoxa; and theoretrician and Alena Williams, an Art Historian from Colombia University, New York and an internet consultant to Rhizome; with artists from the exhibition and curators in conversation about the value of feminist criticism.

Exhibition: July 30 - September 18, Cornerhouse, Manchester

Live Art Weekend: 29 - 31 July 29 - 31, Green Room, Manchester

Under the direction of the first women to be appointed to the position, Maria de Corral, and Rosa Martinez, the most venerable of the world's biennales, the 51st Venice Biennale, opens in the Giardini di Castello and its surroundings on June 12. Continually lambasted by critics from all sides for not presenting a cohesive vision of the new, the event holds its position as the grand old lady of the art calendar. For a full rundown on the event and the South African participation, go to Andrew Lamprecht's preview on News.

Opens: June 12
Closes: November 6

Opening immediately after the Venice Biennale (and one might have thought it would have been politic to wait a day or two longer so the international art crowd could finish partying in Venice before moving on), the International Biennale of Contemporary Art - A Second Sight will showcase the work of 400 artists from 20 countries. The biennale will 'focus on the traditional phenomena of post modern culture', presenting extensive new media projects while not abandoning the 'traditional' media of painting and sculpture.

German gallerist Dr Ralf Seippel has curated the African section of the biennale, entitled 'African Facets', pointing out in a curatorial statement that Africa 'cannot be pressed in to an artistic idiom just as little as the rest of the world. The positions that are presented in 'African Facets' consistently deal with African history, identity and urbanity'.

Participating artists are: Mbongeni Buthelezi, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Beezy Bailey, Minnette Vàri and Andrew Tshabangu from South Africa, Ingrid Mwangi from Kenya and Susan Hefuna from Egypt. A catalogue, in Czech and English will be available.

Opens: June 13
Closes: September 11

Curated by London-based Jennifer Law, 'Three Essays on Shame' by Johannesburg artist Penny Siopis will open at the Freud Museum in London on June 3. The exhibition will be an important extension of Siopis' work of the past few years, exploring the psychology of 'shame' and 'a poetics of vulnerability', and will mark the centenary of Freud's publication Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). Through the display of paintings and objects that reference Freud's work, the artist will explore the significance of Freud's theories on sexuality (in particular as they relate to shame) in wide cultural terms.

The exhibition comprises three interventions into the intimate spaces of Freud's house. In Freud's famous study the artist situates seven 'voices' (audio recordings) of South African personalities who have all publicly expressed feelings on or about shame. Antjie Krog, author of Country of my Skull (describing her experience as a reporter for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) reflects on this experience as well as more personal aspects of shame. Edwin Cameron, judge and AIDS and Gay activist, speaks of his personal experience of being HIV positive in the context of the pandemic of AIDS in Africa.

Fatima Meer, well-known sociology professor and detainee of the apartheid regime, describes the torture of her political detention as well as more personal memories of 'shame', while Paul Verryn, Bishop of the Methodist Church of Johannesburg, and activist priest in the apartheid era, speaks of his personal role in the Truth and Reconciliation hearings.

The second intervention, installed in Freud's dining room, incorporates a series of objects, artworks and film combined to orchestrate a chain of cultural and psychological associations reflecting the psycho-sexual state of shame in its broader cultural context. A terracotta figurine in Freud's collection of antiquities is the trigger for these associations, and is displayed as a key part of the installation. The figurine (probably of Egyptian origin) depicts a woman in a squatting pose, exposing her genitalia, with one hand gesturing towards the site of exposure. This provocative pose is identified with the character of Baubo of Greek mythology.

One of the films included in the installation, To Walk Naked, is a short documentary about a particular instance in apartheid South Africa in which a group of black woman stripped in front of white policemen intent on bulldozing their homes, using their nakedness and 'shame' as a weapon of resistance.

The third installation comprises paintings and found objects including personal items belonging to Freud. These works, which give form to the imaginative realm of shame, conceptually condense all the complex and contradictory qualities of shame as it specifically relates to sexuality.

Opens: June 3
Closes: July 3, 2005

'Gleichzeitig in Afrika...' is a series of lectures and artistic presentations to take place in a number of venues in Germany this month. Curated by Christian Hanussek under the auspices of Africome, a governmental information organisation, the series was conceived, says Hanussek because art in Africa 'remains rather an exotic topic in the German art world'. Lectures will be accompanied by presentations of a number of initiatives from across Africa, one of which will be the CDRom ArtThrob: The Archive 1998-2003

The programme remaining is:

'Taxis Zinkpe', installation by Dominique Zinkpe

Opens: 11am, June 3
Closes: September 4

Iwalewa House, Bayreuth
Munzgasse 9

The mega show of contemporary art from the continent of African and the diaspora, 'Africa Remix', opens at the Pompidou Centre in Paris on May 15, on the third leg of a world tour which opened at the Kunstpaleis in Düsseldorf and continued to London's Hayward Gallery.

Under the artistic direction of Simon Njami and a team of international curators and featuring the production of 88 artists showing work made over the past 10 years, the show also includes furniture design, music, literature and fashion. South African-born artists make up 14 of the total - Jane Alexander, Andries Botha, Wim Botha, Willie Bester, Tracey Derrick, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Jackson Hlungwani, William Kentridge, Moshekwa Langa, Santu Mofokeng, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Rodney Place, Tracey Rose and Guy Tillim.

Marlene Dumas' work is a sober grid of ink and wash portraits of blindfolded or hooded figures, Jane Alexander shows her 'African Adventure' mixed media installation, Tracey Derrick presents a commissioned series of photographs of Western Cape farm workers, and Tracey Rose is represented by her seminal video, TKO, in which a camera concealed in a punching bag records her attack thereon. Jackson Hlungwani exhibits his outsize wooden figures with a biblical theme.

The exhibition is divided into three categories, with somewhat unoriginal titles - History and Identity, City and Land, and Body and Soul. This may not have been the curator's fault, however. Njami's original title for the entire exhibition was not the one the show now carries. His choice was the much more interesting 'Chaos and metamorphosis', but institutional pressure insisted on the inclusion of 'Africa' in the title.

In London, some critics took the attitude that while what was on offer was undoubtedly art from Africa, it could not be called 'contemporary' in terms of the British art world's understanding of the term. It will be interesting to see what the French critics have to say. Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn with 'Magiciens de la Terre' the 1989 show curated by Jean Hubert Martin at the Pompidou. Endlessly referred to in art journals as the exhibition which for the first time showed artists like Esther Mahlangu alongside western artists, as Njami has pointed out, the difference between Magiciens and Africa Remix is fundamental: not one of the African artists on the former had any art school training. All were self taught.

Plans are underfoot to bring Africa Remix to the Johannesburg Art Gallery after its next date, at the Mori Art Museum of Tokyo.

Opens: May 15
Closes: August 20

South African-born Hentie van der Merwe will be part of a group show entitled '(my private) HEROES' to open in a new Frank Gehry-designed museum called MartA in Herford, Germany. The show is under the direction of one of Europe's top curators, Jan Hoet.

A curatorial statement reads: 'The depiction of heroic individuals is one of art's great themes. This exhibition tells of heroes and the images of them in art stretching from the 19th century until the present day. In the 20th century, artists continuously rediscovered heroic modes of expression sometimes self-mockingly, such as Martin Kippenberger and Andy Warhol, and sometimes with a tragic, existential flavour, such as Jean Fautrier and Joseph Beuys.

'(my private) HEROES' deliberately avoids attempting to present unambiguous definitions of the heroic. Instead, it presents a much wider approach to themes such as idol and star, perpetrator and victim, and wounds and martyrdom. The exhibition calls into question the very nature of the hero. It investigates the ways in which artists nowadays portray themselves and work. The artist-heroes and media stars on show in this exhibition make up a subjective selection.'

Opens: May 7
Closes: August 14

Cape Town sound artist James Webb will be exhibiting a series of field-recordings on 'Incidental Amplifications', a group show curated by Lawrence English and Lloyd Barrett, to take place in various public spaces in Australia as part of the annual Liquid Architecture festival.

Two of Webb's works include Dancing Dragon Glitter Chicken, a recording of the 2005 Chinese New Year celebrations in Nagasaki, and Family Album, Toronto to Muizenberg, 1970 to 1979 an audio document of his family watching, laughing at and commenting on old family slides taken from that period and those places.

All the recordings in Webb's contribution to the event were captured in one go, with no edits, overdubs or electronic processing, and form part of a bigger series of environmental, industrial and domestic field recordings he has been working on for the past six years.

Incidental Amplifications (a component of the Liquid Architecture festival)

Various venues in Melbourne / Sydney / Brisbane / Cairns / Canberra

July 1-23, 2005

South African artists Sonya Rademeyer and Lorna March are part of an international group exhibiting in 'A Cross-Cultural View of Women in the Arts' at the Aldo Castillo Gallery in Chicago. The exhibition features the work of female artists whose work concentrates on global social issues such as overpopulation, violence, pollution and human rights.

Opens: June 9
Closes: July 10