Archive: Issue No. 24, August 1999

collaborative wall lamps from sculptor Brett Murray and Bittercomix co-founder Conrad Botes

The invitation for "Babes"

Tracy Gander celebrates the sensuality of women in a series of photographic prints that hark back to the classic pinup photos of Hollywood's golden years when a star was a star and knew how to project it for the camera. Alongside these prints, are paintings of babies by Lilly Turner in a show entitled "Babes". It opens on Monday August 30 and runs until October 9.

Jean Brundrit's "Lavender Menace"

A different version of what being a woman can mean is projected by Jean Brundrit in a new series of photographs investigating the lesbian way of life in a show called "Lavender Menace" - a title which promises warmth and humour.

Opening August 30.

Photographs by Julia Knorr of the November 1998 student riots in Jakarta.
Show closes September 18. Tel: 447-0418.

Tracey Derrick
"Bare Necessity" series (1998)
black and white photograph

Opening on Tuesday 10 August is "Bare Necessity", a show of photographs by Tracey Derrick of sex workers in and around Cape Town. Derrick says that she found herself challenging the myths which society holds about sex workers and the trade they ply. The sassy black and white photographs reflect Derrick's admiration for the courage and wit of her subjects, and throw new light on this scorned and marginalised facet of society.

Also new at the AVA is work by sculptor Jan du Toit and multi-media works by Nadja Daehnke. Daenkhe's show has generated some excitement in its build up and promises to be quite interesting. She sets about to examine the construction of normality and morality in scientific text and images. The shows all close on August 28.

See Paul Edmunds' Review

Lionel Abrams
Proust in His Bath
Acrylic on canvas
124 x 124 cm

Peter Eastman
Rings
Old coins, bicycle reflectors

Also at the Lipschitz: "Low Lustre, High Art: Goldsmithing Today" is the show which drew appreciative audiences to the Nitskana Gallery in the Monument Building at the Grahamstown Festival. Curated by Errico Cassa, Carine Terreblanche and Saar Moritz, the show features quirky and often beautiful jewellery in a variety of materials and styles by more than 20 Western Cape artists. Ends August 31.

Jodi Bieber
The Fast Guns Hangout, Westbury, Johannesburg
Silver print

"Mami Wata Legba"
Agbali Kossi
Togo; wood, paint;
1973

From the collection of the Museum of Ethnology in Rotterdam comes this collection of splendid African objects. A more appropriate title might be "Africa Comes Home to Africa", but no doubt everyone involved with the organisation is hoping questions of cultural reclamation will not be raised. Opening August 4.
See review

In a fine photographic essay on the crowded lives of illegal Chinese immigrant men in New York, Chien-Chi Chang clicks on a worker dining on a fire escape.

The annual roundup of the best efforts of the photo journalists who roam the globe looking for the most heart-rending, grisly, electrifying and heart warming moments to illuminate our daily newspapers. Extremely popular. Until August 9.

Postcards designed by Brode Vosloo
i-Jusi/Orange Juice Design

Self professed "Official supplier of design to the Rainbow Nation" Durban's Orange Juice Design are known for their wild and free wheeling designs for clients and for i-Jusi ,an experimental graphic design magazine with a long list of contributors which aims "to encourage and promote South African graphic design to interested creatives and writers world wide". I-Jusi is published tri-annually, and spreads from the A3 format magazine have been gaffer-taped up at the Picto-Ifas Gallery. On all this month.

A painting by Velile Soha

Mostly awful work with no discernable theme with redeeming moments from Velile Soha, and Veronique Malherbe, who recreates the bedroom of a young gang rape victim, though what that has to do with New Age theology one cannot imagine. An initiative of Le Bon Ton ...& Art. Until August 6.

Detail of a piece by the artist

Veronica de Greeff-Gabrielse presents mixed media work on the theme of the mysteries of death and resurrection. August 2 - 27 at Bang the Gallery.
See review

Ian Pells with one of his ceramic pieces.

Ian Pells and Debbie Webb show ceramics and other work at the Chelsea Gallery until August 25. The exhibition will be opened by Jill Joubert on August 2 at 6.30 p.m.

Dead Pan
by Jan Verboom

Soundmeister Warrick Sony is one of those collaborating on a video installation by Nick Potgieter and Roger Smith on Prophecy 2000, which opened at the 3rd I Gallery on August 11. The show features work around predictions for or visions of the next Millennium. Other exhibitors include Bitterkomix' Conrad Botes, David May and Tyrone Appollis. Until September 10.

3rd I can be found at 95 Waterkant Street.
ph: (021) 425-2266.

Invite for the opening & award presentation
of the 1999 FNB Vita Art Prize

Featuring work by several exciting young artists - Brad Hammond, Usha Prajapat, Robin Rhode, Mocke Janse van Vuuren and Richard Penn (who collaborate on some stunning stop-frame animation work), Jose Ferreira and Mark Dunlop - "And many many more" reads the invitation - this show is more process-orientated than 'curated' in the strictest sense, developing over the duration of the exhibition. Rhode and Dunlop appeared recently on "Truth Veils: The Inner City" (Market Theatre Galleries) and Hammond recently won the Kempton Park/Tembisa Annual Art Competition, and received a merit award on this year's ABSA Atelier Competition. Until August 28.

See Kathryn Smith's Review

Frances Goodman
Sleep Series, 21 June - 24 June 1997 (detail) 1997
Papier mache, cloth
90 x 180 x 10cm

Curator Peter Schutz invited almost 20 artists to explore the sculptural possibilities of paper in its many forms. The results were gratifying, the show has been extremely well received, and a strong lineup includes Penny Siopis, Jeremy Wafer and Durant Sihlali. Check Review. Until August 7.

Lieke Grob
Daily Life in a Suitcase

"Daily Life in a Suitcase" is a project by Dutch artist Lieke Grob in which through an intemediary, Grob invited six South African women to fill a suitcase with written and gathered material portraying their lives over a ten year period, during which time Grob visited the women, and made a film about each. The results of this long term and intimate project are now on show.

Benni Neocleous
Home Sweet Home
mixed media
each unit is 18.5cm X 18.5 X 8.5cm

Approached with trepidation by students and perverse excitement by culture-watchers (ever since Kendell Geers' inflammatory review in a Johannesburg newspaper two years ago), this on again-off again-on again competition showcases work made independently (with no supervision or assistance by lecturing staff) by 3rd and 4th year Wits University Fine Arts students. The judges are Bongi Dhlomo, Jack Ginsberg and Tracey Rose. The show opens on 4 August at 18h00 and in the tradition of getting local luminaries to speak, Professor Andries Oliphant will do the honours this year.

See Kathryn Smith's Review

Filling Station
A landscape painting
by Walter Meyer

It is at about this time we start to wonder why, with the few art competitions we have in this country, they all have to be lumped together around the middle of the year? A more even distribution would prevent these from being taken for granted at best, and at worst, from creating a homogenous, polymorphous mass whose individual identities and agendas are rather opaque. Be that as it may, the Sasol New Signatures opens in Pretoria on Wednesday 18 August at 19h00. With Stuttafords Van lines on board shipping work across the country, perhaps this show, like the Kempton Park/Tembisa Annual event, is more representative of popular modes of production than say, the Vita Art Prize. First prize is R 10 000, followed by two judges' awards of R 3 000 each and a people's choice prize of R 2 000 (nominated by the gallery-going public). Past winners for the last two years will exhibit work in an adjacent hall. For those young artists who have never submitted work to a competition like this, negotiating the entries-days are truly�well�character-building. An update on the winning works will follow next week.

18 August - 5 September 1999

This photograph was made by Moses Khubisa in a workshop conducted by Stefan Bremer

James Beckett
Dark objective
Household objects painted black and installed in a gallery

The prospect of a world ruled over by manic machines is made more uneasily plausible by James Beckett's gallery-filling installation of domestic furniture and appliances gone black and out of control. Last few days- ends August 7

Malcolm Payne
Colour Test 1974
Screenprint

Kay Hassan
Egoli (The City of Gold) 1998
Installation detail

Jean Brundrit 1998
Does Your Lifestyle Depress your Mother? Series
Black and white photograph

Bongi Dhlomo
Flashes 1999
Mixed media
Installation view at the Van Reekum

[[Rewind]]Fast Forward.ZA: New work from South Africa

Gavin Jantjes
Untitled (from the series Zulu) 1989
Ink on paper

"Claiming Art/Reclaiming Space: Post-Apartheid Art from South Africa"