|
 |
|
 |
|
|
David Burrows
King becomes cook 2004
film detail
|
|
|
|
'The Sneeze 80 x 80' at Iziko SANG
'The Sneeze 80 x 80' was conceived and produced by the artists Peter Lloyd Lewis (UK) and Natasha Makowski (USA). The film pays homage to Thomas Edison's kinograph film of a sneeze, a random and connective act. It includes footage by 80 video artists from 29 countries and 5 continents and is presented as a single work, in which new narratives are constructed through the introduction of a continually changing sequence structure. The artists were invited to submit 80 seconds of footage for the film, meaning that accumulatively the pieces acquire the length of a feature film.
South Africa is represented by the artists Sue Williamson and Thando Mama.
Opens: June 26
Closes: October 28
Iziko South African National Gallery
Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 467 4660
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Tue - Sun 10am - 5pm
|
|
|
|
Ondrej Brody and Kristofer Paetau
De Profundis 2006
stills from movie
|
|
|
|
'Hell Yeah' at the Museum of Contemporary Art
Taking its premise from the understanding that no god is natural, 'Hell Yeah' presents artworks attempting to challenge preconceptions through their arresting conceptualisation, discomforting subject matter or unusual angle of vision. The show features an impressive line-up of leading artists working in South Africa and internationally, as well as some new names: Ondrej Brody and Kristofer Paetau, Robert Sloon, Dawie 'Little Fires' van Vuuren, Doreen Southwood, Spunk Seipel, Matthew Hindley, Andrew Lamprecht, Ruth Sacks, Barend de Wet, Avant Car Guard and Bianca Baldi.
Many of the works explore personal and spiritual conflict situations or hint at the unease underlying appearances. From Barend de Wet's mundane approach, to the unethical dilemmas of people living with Satanism. Local 'errorealist' Ed Young will assail the audience with a provocative opening speech. Similarly provocative is the work of Andrew Lamprecht. Dawie 'Little Fires' van Vuuren, a younger generation South African artist, explores similar terrain, revealing the destabilising nature of self-projection. Undertones of sexually charged violence emerge in the work of Ruth Sacks and Bianca Baldi.
Opens: July 13
Museum of Contemporary Art
10th Floor, 74 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town
Email: museumofcontemporaryart@gmail.com
Hours: 6.30pm - 9.00pm
|
|
|
|
Johannes Segogela
At Prayers 2004
oil on carved wood
dimensions variable
Eliza Kentridge
Pasop vir die hond 2007
coloured felt and stitching
96 x 98.5 cm
Billie Zangewa
Working nights (detail) 2007
silk tapestry
80 x 80 cm
|
|
|
|
'Social Fabric' at Goodman Gallery Cape
The latest offering from the Goodman Gallery Cape, 'Social Fabric', features Johannes Segogela, Billie Zangewa and Eliza Kentridge. The exhibition is a carefully composed collection of biting commentary that is often tempered by the personal engagement of the artists with their subjects.
Both Kentridge and Zangewa use fabric in their work. Malawian Zangewa presents her distinctive silk tapestries that continue to narrate personal experiences and histories. Zangewa's idiosyncratic manipulation of her chosen medium is consummate - never twee the work is nonetheless distinctively feminine and personal. The less recognizable work of Kentridge is made up of colourful fabric collages that engage social realities.
The self-taught Segogela presents his characteristically naive sculptures which combine acute social commentary with a sensitive awareness of form and characterisation. Assessing Segogelaís role in contemporary South African art, Linda Givon says, 'Segogela has made an important contribution to crossover culture in the new South Africa.' Segogela is represented in several major collections, including that of the National Gallery.
Opens: July 28
Closes: August 18
Goodman Gallery Cape
3rd Floor Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock
Tel: (021) 462 7573
Fax: (021) 462 7579
Email: info@goodmangallerycape.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10am - 4pm
|
|
|
|
Nick Miller
Masonite on Shannon 2006
oil on linen
168 x 214 cm
John Gerrard
Smoke Tree III 2006
real-time 3D
117 x 68 x 53 cm /variable
|
|
|
|
'Singing the Real' at Iziko SANG
'Singing the Real' is the first exhibition of contemporary Irish art organised by the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), Dublin to be seen in South Africa. Patrick T. Murphy, RHA Director explains: '"Singing the Real" is a multi-media, cross generational and gender diverse exhibition that explores the combination of scientific method and art practice that is an evident and strong strain in Irish art today. Observing, recording, describing, hypothesizing and analyzing are the empirical dynamics that underscore the artwork in this exhibition. As if by the co-option of empirical that the artist can directly engage the material, and indirectly the new materialism in Ireland, to establish new relationships with traditional values of the land and the community.'
The artists include Barrie Cooke, Dorothy Cross, Grace Weir, Susan Tiger, Cecily Brennan, Nick Miller, Neva Elliott, John Gerrard, Gary Phelan and Martin Healy.
Opens: July 19
Closes: September 30
Iziko South African National Gallery
Government Avenue, Company Gardens, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 467 4660
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Tue - Sun 10am - 5pm
|
|
|
|
Tracy Payne
Awakening II 2006
oil, glitter and gold shimmer on combed acrylic on canvas
128 x 180cm
|
|
|
|
Tracy Payne at Michael Stevenson Gallery
In Tracy Payne's early work she expressed the domain of abuse, the domination of yang over yin and subsequent bodies of work have been concerned with bringing these energies into balance. Following on from her previous exhibition, 'Sacred Yin' (2005), Payne's mind turned to the notion of sacred yang after encountering the actions of China's Shaolin monks.
As she recalls, 'I was transfixed. These are spiritual men, Zen Buddhists, and at the same time masters in the martial art of kung fu - a seeming paradox. They are so strong yet their bodies looked soft and their faces serene. They seem to embody the masculine principle, sacred yang, a perfect marriage of spiritual and physical. They set out not to conquer others but rather to use their physical strength in self-defense to protect that which is sacred. It was as if I'd found through these monks a new beginning with "man", a place of forgiveness and sacred appreciation.' The exhibition is a series of portrait paintings that explores a range of emotions from inward serenity through to an outward expression of power.
Payne was born in Cape Town in 1965 and graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1987. In 2006 her work was included on the traveling exhibition 'New Painting' and on 'Second to None' at the Iziko South African National Gallery.
Opens: July 12
Closes: August 11
Michael Stevenson Gallery
Hill House, De Smidt Street, Green Point
Tel: (021) 421 2575
Fax: (021) 421 2578
www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1p
|
|
|
|
Nicholas Hales
Looking in No. 5 2006
oil, wax, glass, metal and wood
136 x 168.5 cm
|
|
|
|
Nicholas Hales at João Ferreira
With Nicholas Hales' second show at João Ferreira, he draws on contemporary South African urban imagery in order to examine the meditative and contemplative modalities of subjectivity. The exhibition is entitled 'Adytum', which means the innermost sanctuary or shrine, and the work looks at the difficult process of trying to still the mind and create an inner space free of distraction, noise and confusion. It investigates an alternative paradigm for meaning than one fixated with acquisition and consumption.
Hales is based in Cape Town. Since his first show at João Ferreira he has participated in a number of group shows including a show at the Alphan Gallery, Huntington, New York and 'Flesh' at this year's Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn where he was nominated for a Kanna award for best work at the festival. His work has been shown at the Detroit Museum of New Art, USA and is held in private collections in America, Europe and Asia.
Opens: August 1
Closes: September 1
João Ferreira Gallery
70 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 423 5403
Fax: (021) 423 2136
Email: info@joaoferreiragallery.com
www.joaoferreiragallery.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 11am - 6pm, Sat 11am - 3pm
|
|
|
|
Shane de Lange
|
|
|
|
Shane de Lange at CUBE
Shane de Lange's 'Anticube' is an ongoing project for the artist and represents a paradoxical attempt to bring into context the whole 'idea-of-art': a discipline that has documented the history, ideology, domination, and narcissism of 'mankind' and humanism. The artist sees the cube as representative of the idealism, logic, and rationalism of modernism. 'Anticube' situates the traditional, typically modernist art gallery as a space that sanctifies the narcissism of modernist values.
Drawing inspiration from institutionalised styles - like that of Dada, De Stijl, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism - de Lange presents drawings, paintings and animations that deconstruct the narratives of modernism. 'Anticube breaks-down the architecture of the cube, and it is itself a deconstructed cosmology that is very much under construction. "Anticube" is inseparable from the cube because of its opposition to it. This is why "Anticube" can be said to tell a story of dualism, revealing a mythology-based, media-orientated, technological world of instant access and communication. It reveals the anatomy of communication and the consequences of gaining access to the cube.'
Opens: July 7
Closes: July 30
CUBE Gallery
89 Bree Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 422 1100
Fax: (021) 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10am - 2pm
|
|
|
|
Justin Anschutz
Clockworks 2007
digital illustration
|
|
|
|
Justin Anschütz at João Ferreira
In his third solo exhibition at João Ferreira, Justin Anschütz presents both paintings and digital illustrations from paintings in an effort to reconsider the medium. With a visual language that is both graphic and painterly, Anschütz builds his images on the reverse side of glass and the paintings are framed in squares, lines, semiotic markings, emblematic abstractions and occasional representational elements.
Anschütz explains, 'Working in the city on the edge of poverty and a first world, advancing technology, modern architecture and commodifications confront me in industry, imbalance and development. My painting style attempts to blend and observe the eclectic. It is satisfying to use the poetry of paint alongside the eclecticisms, commodifications and technological advancements of the growing city.'
Opens: July 4
Closes: July 28
João Ferreira Gallery
70 Loop Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 423 5403
Fax: (021) 423 2136
Email: info@joaoferreiragallery.com
www.joaoferreiragallery.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 11am - 6pm, Sat 11am - 3pm
|
|
|
|
Fabian Saptouw
Unravelled and Rewoven Canvas (detail) 2006
installation
Fabian Saptouw
Unravelled and Rewoven Canvas (detail) 2006
installation
Fabian Saptouw
Unravelled and Rewoven Canvas (detail) 2006
installation
|
|
|
|
Fabian Saptouw at Michael Stevenson Side Gallery
Currently a Master's student at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Fabian Saptouw spent much of last year conceiving and executing a single project: unravelling and reweaving a section of blank canvas. The result encompasses the reconstructed canvas itself, as well as elements that were discarded, the equipment used and documentation of the process.
With the prevalence of automated processes, manual weaving has become all but extinct, as Saptouw explains in the text accompanying his work: 'Textiles are hand-woven primarily in three areas: where this technology is not available, as a craft/art, or when imbued with some religious significance.' With this in mind, he chose not only to restrict himself to manual labour, but also to manufacture all the required hardware himself. In a gesture marked by subtle irony, he relied largely on online tutorials to teach himself the old-fashioned craft of hand-weaving. Saptouw also set out to methodologically document the process. First, he installed a CCTV camera in his studio, which recorded the project on VHS cassettes. Second, he used a stopwatch to time the different elements of the unravelling and reweaving at set intervals. The results of these qualitative and quantitative observations became integral parts of the installation, and will be exhibited in the form of the full collection of tapes, selected video footage and accompanying graphs.
Opens: July 12
Closes: August 11
Michael Stevenson Gallery
Hill House, De Smidt Street, Green Point
Tel: (021) 421 2575
Fax: (021) 421 2578
www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gabi Ngcobo at blank
Gabi Ngcobo, freshly back from a residency in New York, presents a series of new drawings at blank projects. In the past, Ngcobo has focused on issues of identity in her work. A successful artist in her own right, Gabi Ngcobo was formerly a curator at Iziko SANG and recently successfully saw through the curation of the 'Cape '07' event. She is based in Cape Town.
Opens: July 25
Closes: August 3
blank projects
198 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town
Tel: 072 198 9221
Email: blankprojects@gmail.com
Hours: Wed 4pm - 7pm, or by appointment
|
|
|
|
Curators Carrie Timlin and Lily Luz
|
|
|
|
'The Inchoate, Idiosyncratic Descent into Nihilism' at blank projects
After the riotous first instalment of this ongoing series of controversial opening nights, the second event shows Michaelis student Shane Mark's Love Your Neighbour. The show focuses on the idea of 'art for art's sake' and is a performance that centres on the confinement of the gallery space.
Open: 6pm, July 18
blank projects
198 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town
Tel: 072 198 9221
Email: blankprojects@gmail.com
Hours: Wed 4pm - 7pm, or by appointment
|
|
|
|
Andrew Lamprecht
|
|
|
|
'The Inchoate, Idiosyncratic Descent into Nihilism' at blank projects
Michaelis students Carrie Timlin and Lily Luz continue with their series of opening nights. In the third installment of this exhibition, the provocative and controversial art theorist and lecturer Andrew Lamprecht will engage his audience in a spiritual experience.
Open: August 3, 6pm
blank projects
198 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town
Tel: 072 198 9221
Email: blankprojects@gmail.com
Hours: Wed 4pm - 7pm, or by appointment
|
|
|
|
Andrej Nowicki
Hunters in the Snow 2006 - 7
oil on canvas
220 x 140cm
|
|
|
|
Andrej Nowicki at What if the world/Albert Hall
Andrzej Nowicki makes paintings and drawings that create parallel universes where people and objects multiply and metamorphose into ever more strange visions. His disquieting dreamlike tableaux combine the seductive allure of fairy tales with the perverse playfulness of Surrealism and the insight of speculative fiction to create disordered narratives that hold several tensions in balance: between old and new, centre and periphery, East and West, sense and non-sense, logic and absurdity, beauty and grotesquery.
Born in Kielce Poland, before moving to South Africa in 1989, his work frequently deals with transit and transience, often containing undercurrents that highlight the double side of globalisation - the glamour, speed and consumption of travel and technology but also the detritus and architectural scarring that it leaves behind. While he frequently depicts scenes from his hometown of Kielce, the spaces he creates have a generic quality, and yet they look strangely familiar: non-places where one gets the eerie feeling that not only has a crime been committed, but also that its secrets are so deeply buried they can only be imagined.
Opens: July 28
Closes: August 26
what if the world/Albert Hall
1st Floor Albert Hall, 208 Albert Road, Woodstock
Tel: (021) 448 1438
Email: info@whatiftheworld.com
www.whatiftheworld.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 10am - 4pm, Sat 10am - 3pm
|
|
|
|
Paul Painting
Untitled 2007
oil on canvas
Mary-Rose Hendrikse
Mark Divided 2007
oil on canvas
|
|
|
|
Mary-Rose Hendrikse, Catherine Price and Paul Painting at the AVA
Mary-Rose Hendrikse reflects an ongoing preoccupation with the human face, its corporeal and psychological expressions. Hendrikse embraces the inherently volatile language of oil paint and rebels against the urge to subdue it as is often seen in traditional portraiture. Hendrikse's recent body of paintings entitled 'Mostly Portraits' will employ the Main Gallery. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at UNISA in 1998 and has gone on to exhibit nationally and internationally. Hendrikse was one of the 12 finalists in the Winsor and Newton Worldwide Millennium painting competition and was twice a finalist in the Brett Kebble awards.
Catherine Price's ceramic installation 'A000001-A825491' fills the Long gallery. This body of work was informed by a visit to an abattoir in 2005. Price started working, instinctively juxtaposing cattle hair and bones with white clay formed into hand basins, pouring bowls and soap dishes. The impact of the work lies in its ability to seduce and repulse the viewer. Price completed her Bachelor of Fine Art at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2006.
Paul Painting has always found the full nude a powerful, primal icon, the more so when stripped of further artifice and innuendo, any hint of eroticism pared down to matter-of-fact objectivity. He studied graphic design at Wits Technikon and embarked on a full time painting career in 2006 the fruits of which form his first exhibition in the AVA Artsstrip.
Opens: July 9
Closes: July 27
AVA
35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: avaart@iafrica.com
www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Nicola Vinci
|
|
|
|
Nicola Vinci at the Photographers Gallery za
This is Italian photographer Nicola Vinci's first exhibition in Cape Town. In 'Moonlight' he presents 15 new diptych portraits of young children. Vinci's photographs are simultaneously complex and simplistic, familiar and foreign. Vinci, who completed his studies at the Fine Art Academy in Bari, lives and works in Verona.
Opens: July 25
Closes: September 1
The Photographers Gallery
63 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 422 2762
Email: photogallery@mweb.co.za
www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za
Hours: Tue - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Dylan Culhane
Snow falling in Tamachi
|
|
|
|
Dylan Culhane at Exposure
In an age where the magic of photography is undeniably taken for granted, Dylan Culhane aims to shift perceptions of the camera as a ubiquitous accessory and explore its potential as an image-making device. Drawing on a variety of graphic influences including MC Escher, Japanese sumi-e painting and Op-Art, 'Driven to Abstraction' features a collection of multiple exposure prints. Though predominantly non-representational, the images convey a strong sense of place derived from time the artist spent in Tokyo.
Opens: July 4
Closes: July 25
Exposure Gallery
Shop E101, The Old Biscuit Mill, Albert Road Woodstock
Tel: (021) 447 4124
Email: exposuregallery@zsd.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 4.30pm, Sat 9.30am - 4pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
'Committee and Critics' Choice' at the AVA
The AVA will hold a 'Committee and Critics' Choice' exhibition, which will employ all four gallery spaces. Twenty six participating local art critics and committee members will individually nominate an artist that they feel is deserving of representation on this exhibition. The artists nominated have the opportunity to create new works or exhibit existing pieces. The exhibition will engage art critics, AVA committee members and artists to construct a forum for the public to view contemporary trends and notions of quality.
Opens: July 30
Closes: August 17
AVA
35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: avaart@iafrica.com
www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta
Untitled
acrylic on canvas
Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta
Untitled
acrylic on canvas
1.2 x 1m
|
|
|
|
Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta at Bell-Roberts
Bell-Roberts plays host to Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta's debut. His exhibition, 'Detached', explores South African socio-political issues. Sapeta explains, 'I find it difficult to ignore these issues; every time I turn on the TV, open my front door or walk in the streets.' The subject matter is dominated by human and urban images.
Sapeta was born in the township of New Brighton, Port Elizabeth.
Opens: July 25
Closes: August 18
Bell-Roberts Contemporary
89 Bree Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 422 1100
Fax: (021) 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10am - 2pm
|
|
|
|
Lisa Strachen
|
|
|
|
Lisa Strachen at Everard Read
Lisa Strachen illustrates botanical flora, concentrating on the more rare indigenous plants. All illustrations are portrayed life-size where possible, and the artist's strength lies in her attention to detail. Her artworks have been published in a hardcover book entitled Cotyledon and Tylecodon by Ernst van Jaarsveld, as well as numerous Aloe, Veldt Flora and Bothalia publications. Some of her work has been printed by Churchill China (UK) on three Fine Bone China mugs in a collection entitled 'Kirsten Florals'.
Opens: July 26
Closes: August 8
Everard Read Gallery
3 Portswood Road, V&A Waterfront
Tel: (021) 418 4527
www.everard-read-capetown.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 6pm, Sat 9am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Shirin Neshat
From the Turbulent series 1998
black and white photographic print
151 x 95 cm
Hasan and Husain Essop
The pit-bull fight 2007
inkjet print on backlit film
Kathryn Smith
Twin 2006/7
detail, part of diptych
|
|
|
|
'The Loaded Lens' at Goodman Gallery Cape
Taking its premise from the understanding that no image is neutral, 'The Loaded Lens' presents photographs attempting to challenge preconceptions through their arresting conceptualisation, discomfiting subject matter or unusual angle of vision. The show features an impressive line-up of leading photographers working in South Africa and internationally, as well as some new names: Hasan and Husain Essop, Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt, Richard Hamilton, Isaac Julien, Senzeni Marasela, Gideon Mendel, Tracey Moffat, Shirin Neshat, Adrian Piper, Tracey Rose, Lorna Simpson, Kathryn Smith, Joel Sternfeld, Mikhael Subotzky and Nontsikelelo Veleko.
Many of the works explore personal and social conflict situations or hint at the unease underlying appearances. From Gideon Mendel's photodocumentary approach, to the ethical dilemmas of recording people living with Aids, to Sue Williamson's participatory project with the citizens of an Egyptian village, to Joel Sternfeld's epic topographies, they challenge and blur the distinction between artist and photographer and between modes of photography. Urban existence takes on chilling undercurrents in the work of David Goldblatt, Senzeni Marasela and legendary pop artist Richard Hamilton, whose domestic scenes are reminiscent of his iconic 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?. Mikhael Subotzky's portraits of a Beaufort West antique dealer who also collects life-size mannequins explore the nature of obsessive collecting.
British film maker Isaac Julien and local 'terrorealist' Kendell Geers assail the viewer with provocative images. Similarly provocative is the work of Americans Adrian Piper and Lorna Simpson which deals with what it means to be black and female. Nontsikelelo Veleko, a younger generation South African photographer, explores similar terrain, revealing the destabilising nature of self-projection. Undertones of sexually charged violence emerge in the work of Kathryn Smith and Tracey Moffat.
Opens: June 30
Closes: July 21
Goodman Gallery Cape
3rd Floor Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock
Tel: (021) 462 7573
Fax: (021) 462 7579
Email: info@goodmangallerycape.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10am - 4pm
|
|
|
|
Youssef Nabil
Not afraid to love, Paris 2005
hand-coloured silver gelatin print
Zanele Muholi
Untitled 2007
lambda print
|
|
|
|
Zanele Muholi, Youssef Nabil, Rotimi Fani-Kayodé, and Athi-Patra Ruga at Michael Stevenson Gallery
Photographers Rotimi Fani-Kayodé, Zanele Muholi and Youssef Nabil exhibit at Michael Stevenson in June. Interrogating sexuality, desire and intimacy, these three photographers are undeniably important figures in the contemporary world of photography. Concurrently, fashion designer/artist Athi-Patra Ruga presents a multi-media installation in the side gallery.
The late Rotimi is considered to be one of the most important and influential black photographers of the 20th century. Of Yoruba descent, born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1955 , he was at the forefront of destabilising the stereotypical view of Africa and 'Africanness'. This exhibition promises a comprehensive overview of Rotimi's large-scale colour work.
Activist photographer Zanele Muholi represents the black female body in a frank yet intimate way that challenges the history of the portrayal of black women's bodies in documentary photography. Muholi will present Being, a series that engages with black lesbians in order to refute the stigma of lesbianism as being 'un-African'.
Born in Cairo in 1972, Youssef Nabil has always been fascinated with the glamour and style of early Egyptian cinema, the black and white photo-novels published at the time and the hand-coloured family portraits that still adorn most living rooms in Cairo. Nabir uses this as the basis for his staged, constructed and meticulously hand-coloured black and white portraits of celebrities, close friends and fellow artists such as Julian Schnabel, John Waters, Shirin Neshat (whose work can be seen at the Goodman), Tracey Emin and Ghada Amer.
In his latest body of work, entitled Sleep in My Arms, Nabil gives us access to stories about his relationships with various male friends through his delicately coloured, quiet and intimate portraits. Nabil, a voyeur by nature, places these young men in situations of his own imagining and sets up dreamlike moments that are imbued with a brooding sexuality.
Opens: June 4
Closes: July 7
Michael Stevenson Gallery
Hill House, De Smidt Street, Green Point
Tel: (021) 421 2575
Fax: (021) 421 2578
www.michaelstevenson.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Fritha Langerman
Reason
Fritha Langerman
Memory
|
|
|
|
Fritha Langerman at Bell-Roberts
Fritha Langerman continues her interest in the printed image with a solo exhibition entitled 'The Knowledge Commons'. The collection of prints and three dimensional work makes reference to the ordering system of the Encyclopédie and the play between image, text, symbol and print in the construction of meaning and definition. In alluding to a visual compendium, the work points to the fine distinction between sense and nonsense when collections and images are brought together. The exhibition co-opts the symbolic structure of the cathedral, referencing a play between sanctioned and unofficial bodies of knowledge. The history of printmaking as a protagonist in the (mis)translation between image and text is one of Langerman's specific concerns.
Langerman explains, 'Diderot and d'Alembert's lexicography, the Encyclopédie (1751-66) provided a taxonomic system of human knowledge at the time. It was the quintessential publication of the Enlightenment, being emblematic of the Age of Reason, yet simultaneously heralding the French Revolution in both its egalitarian content and its implied critique of the Catholic Church and its structures. It is this contradiction between reason and revolution within bodies of knowledge and their reception that is of interest to this new visual body of work.'
Opens: June 27
Closes: July 27
Bell-Roberts Contemporary
89 Bree Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 422 1100
Fax: (021) 423 3135
Email: suzette@bell-roberts.com
www.bell-roberts.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 8.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 10am - 2pm
|
|
|
|
Christo Basson
Waar is jy?
|
|
|
|
'Verstikland' at Rust-en-Vrede
This group show is the newest exhibition by the 'Am I Collective', a group of young creatives who have made a name for themselves with their compelling graphics and visual wit. With this exhibition the artists aim to visually investigate a 'creative imbalance, which holds the potential to be heaven and hell at the same time. "Verstikland" is a place where you childhood dreams can come true, but so too your nightmares. It is a place where binary opposites conjoin.'
Members of the 'Am I Collective' are Christo Basson, Ruan Vermeulen, Kris Hewitt, Rudi de Wet, Pete Lewis, Mine Jonker, Fred Peens and Emma Cook.
Opens: June 19
Closes: July 12
Rust-en-Vrede Gallery and Clay Museum
10 Wellington Road, Durbanville
Tel: (021) 976 4691
Email: rustenvrede@telkomsa.net
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 4.30pm, Sat 9am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Michael Taylor
In the company of a mummy
gouache on boarch
|
|
|
|
'Am I a painter?' at art b.
This show of paintings, entitled 'Am I a Painter?', is themed around the contemporary visualisation of the 'picturesque' and is a response to the archetypal genre of the still life. The show intends to draw a relationship between illustrative and abstract painting, to both conceptualise and visualise how narrative is structured from juxtaposing inactive forms, and also, make explicit how a 'story' is produced between the image and its title. The show includes the increasingly popular illustrator Michael Taylor as well as Lynette Bester, Judith Hendry and Karen Cronje.
Opens: June 13
Closes: July 7
artb.
Bellville Library Centre, Carel van Aswegen Street, Bellville
Tel: (021) 9182301
Fax: (021) 9182083
Email: info@artb.co.za
www.artb.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 8pm, Sat 9am - 5pm
|
|
|
|
Ken Rees-Gibbs
Untitled 2006
oil on canvas
Lindile Magunya
Pray while you walk 2007
mixed media
|
|
|
|
Josie Grindrod, Ken Rees-Gibbs and Lindile Magunya at the AVA
Josie Grindrod exhibits 'Internal Objects, Embodied Subjects' in the main gallery of the AVA. Her work investigates the relationships between image-making, psychoanalysis and childhood experience, in order to understand the ways in which the self is both articulated and interpreted. Grindrod is interested in aspects of self experience which are not communicable in words or which remain just outside consciousness and her work exploits the improvisatory nature of paint.
Concurrently, Lindile Magunya returns to the AVA for the second time with an exhibition in the long gallery entitled 'ABAZALI BAJONGENE NOTSHABA'. This body of work explores the role of parents in a society where the brutalisation of children is common place. The title of the exhibition translates to 'parents are facing the enemy'. Magunya reflects on the need for strong role models and guardians.
Ken Rees-Gibbs presents a body of oil paintings that are adaptations of the songs of Jethro Tull. Historically Jethro Tull was a poor farmer who invented innovative farming tools and was thus able to escape the cycle of poverty. In 1968 Ian Anderson founded the famous folk rock band, naming it after his agrarian hero Jethro Tull. Rees-Gibbs' oil paintings are a product of an empathy with these figures. Rees-Gibbs was selected for the 1991 Cape Town Triennial and has held many solo exhibitions nationally.
Opens: June 18
Closes: July 6
AVA
35 Church Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 424 7436
Fax: (021) 423 2637
Email: avaart@iafrica.com
www.ava.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Jason Lauré
Woodstock, Santana 1969
photograph
Jason Lauré
Woodstock, nude bathing 1969
photograph
|
|
|
|
Jason Lauré at 3rd i Gallery
From the summer of love in San Francisco to Woodstock in 1969, Jason Lauré's photographs take in the highs and lows of 'The Sixties'. The photographs reflect on the legacy of an era that people regard with great nostalgia, often hoping to recapture an illusory mood of optimism that defines our perception of that time. Lauré's photographs also reveal the dark side of that decade, with his first published photographs of the upheaval in Chicago in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
After Woodstock, Lauré turned his attention, and his camera to Africa. He now divides his time between Cape Town, Greenwich Village in New York and a home in Hollywood. Lauré has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.
Opens: June 21
Closes: July 28
3RD i GALLERY
95 Waterkant Street, Cape Town
Tel: 021 425 2266
Fax: 021 425 2267
|
|
|
|
Tertius Meintjies
Elvis vs Shania Twain
|
|
|
|
Tertius Meintjies at Bell-Roberts Lourensford
While on a visit to Berlin, Tertius Meintjies started taking images of people on the streets of the city. After seeing these images the Goëthe Institute commissioned Meintjies to do a project called United People. The project is an exploration and celebration of the breaking down of boundaries and the positive dynamics this creates.
Meintjies is a well-known actor and writer in South Africa.
Opens: June 23
Closes: July 21
Bell-Roberts Gallery Lourensford
Lourensford Wine Estate, Lourensford Road, Somerset West
Tel: 021 847 0449
Email: jenni@bell-roberts.com
www.bell-roberts.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
'Felt-tip' at what if the world...
Held at their newly opened Woodstock gallery, 'Felt tip' is a collection of posters made by 30 prestigious designers and illustrators. Grafik magazine, in association with Letraset, invited them to create an artwork using very simple materials - a sheet of A1 premium paper from GF Smith and a set of Tria Markers from Letraset. The aim was to create an opportunity where designers could step away from their computers and create a piece of work that required them to interact physically with their materials.
The exhibition has been shown at the SEA Gallery in London and Colette in Paris.
Opens: June 23
Closes: July 22
what if the world...
1st Floor Albert Hall, 208 Albert Road, Woodstock
Email: info@whatiftheworld.com
www.whatiftheworld.com
Hours: Mon - Fri 9.30am - 5.30pm, Sat 9am - 4pm
|
|
|
|
John Muafangejo
The Pregnant Maria
linocut
|
|
|
|
Art from Rorke's Drift at Iziko SANG
Curator Joe Dolby presents an important collection of art from Rorke's Drift. A seminal fine arts training centre for black artists during the apartheid era, Rorke's Drift in KwaZulu Natal afforded oppportunities for those denied art training in South Africa. Established in 1968, the school was initially managed by two Swedish art teachers, Peder and Ulla Gowenius.
The show also demonstrates the collecting policy of the National Gallery. The first prints and tapestries from Rorke's Drift in the collection of the Iziko South African National Gallery were acquired in the mid-1960s. Most of the artists represented were confined to well-known names such as Azaria Mbatha and John Muafangejo. In 2006, funding provided by the National Lottery Board enabled the gallery to significantly augment their holdings and to assemble a more representative selection detailing the diverse range of artistic production of the school.
Opens: May 16
Closes: June 24
Iziko South African National Gallery
Government Avenue, Company Gardens
Tel: (021) 467 4660
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Tue - Sun 10am - 5pm
|
|
|
|
Pierre Croquet
Morning coffee 2006
|
|
|
|
'Love, Bytes & Soccer' at the Photographers Gallery
'Love, bytes & soccer' is a show of the portfolios of photographers
Pierre Crocquet, Dale Yudelman and Pieter Badenhorst. Elements of
Yudelman's successful Reality Bytes series will be juxtaposed
with Crocquet's existential Love First. The latter uses the
photographic lens to transcend nationality, race, religion and gender.
Badenhorst will display the second installation of his ongoing
Soccer vs. Rugby series .
All these photographers are enjoying international success with Dale
Yudelman and Pieter Badenhorst being included in the exhibition
'Uniform: South Africa's New Clothes' opening at the Spanierman
Gallery in New York on 3 May, and Pierre Crocquet's photographs are
included in an exhibition at Galerie Caprice Horn in Berlin opening on
28 April.
Opens: May 16
Closes: July 21
The Photographers Gallery
63 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 422 2762
Email: photogallery@mweb.co.za
www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za
Hours: Tue - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
|
|
|
|
Ulrich Apt the Elder
The Crucifixion 16th century
|
|
|
|
'Fabrications' at Iziko SANG
'Fabrications', an ongoing exhibition drawing on the gallery's permanent collection, examines the ways in which artists have creatively used, painted or sculpted approximations of fabric and costume in their work, revealing surprising insights into social history as well as the artistic process.
Iziko South African National Gallery
Government Avenue, Company Gardens
Tel: (021) 467 4660
Email: cquerido@iziko.org.za
www.museums.org.za/iziko
Hours: Tue - Sun 10am - 5pm
|
|
|
