Claudette Schreuders

Listings(s)

'Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now'

Sue Williamson, John Muafangejo, Cameron Platter, Sandile Goje, Senzeni Marasela, William Kentridge, Kudzanai Chiurai, Claudette Schreuders and Bitterkomix at MoMA

During the oppressive years of apartheid rule in South Africa, not all artists had access to the same opportunities. But far from quashing creativity and political spirit, these limited options gave rise to a host of alternatives—including studios, print workshops, art centers, schools, publications, and theaters open to all races; underground poster workshops and collectives; and commercial galleries that supported the work of black artists—that made the art world a progressive environment for social change. Printmaking, with its flexible formats, portability, relative affordability, and collaborative environment, was a catalyst in the exchange of ideas and the articulation of political resistance.

Drawn entirely from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, 'Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now' features nearly 100 posters, books, and wall stencils created over the last five decades that demonstrate the exceptional reach, range, and impact of printmaking during and after a period of enormous political upheaval. From the earliest print in the exhibition, made in 1965 (the Museum’s first acquisition of work by a South African artist), to printed posters from the height of the antiapartheid movement in the 1980s, to projects by a younger generation that reflect new and evolving artistic concerns, these works are striking examples of printed art as a tool for social, political, and personal expression.

23 March 2011 - 14 August 2011

'Close, Close'

Claudette Schreuders at Jack Shainman Gallery

'Close, Close' is a continuation of a narrative that began with 'The Fall', an earlier group of work exploring the trajectory of a couple’s relationship using biblical imagery. 'Close, Close' continues the couple’s story by delving into the complexities of family life. Where Schreuders’ work previously consisted mostly of single figures, these sculptures predominantly include two or more figures carved from a single block of wood. In Eclipse a mother holds up her baby so that he can see and be seen, obscuring herself from the viewer. In One a father considers with both love and detachment an infant grasping his legs. The vein connecting these works is the idea of the individual being threatened by the very thing he or she desires. For Schreuders, the craving for children and motherhood holds many of these contradictions.  Schreuders calls upon family photographs and literature as source material, exploring her personal experience as a white descendent of colonial settlers in apartheid-era South Africa. While many of the works in 'Close, Close' plumb the depths of individual emotion, Schreuders also approaches the realities of South African racial relationships and the way they permeate family life, as in Abba, where a black woman carries a white baby on her back.

17 March 2011 - 16 April 2011

Summer 2010/11

Anton Kannemeyer, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Hylton Nel, Viviane Sassen and Claudette Schreuders at Stevenson in Cape Town

Anton Kannemeyer, following his successful exhibition with the gallery in May this year and the publication of his much-debated Pappa in Afrika book, will show the final works in his Alphabet of Democracy series. The artist has been working on this series for the past five years, chronicling the absurdities of life in the democratic South Africa; his imagery subverts the narrative, history and myth of the ‘rainbow nation’ with acute humour and critique. This exhibition will be accompanied by a book, published by Jacana, bringing together the approximately 70 images in the series.

Dutch photographer Viviane Sassen (Amsterdam, 1972) will exhibit at the gallery for the first time. Sassen grew up in East Africa and has been taking photographs on the continent since her first return visit in 2002. Her imagery is infused with memories of her youth, from the beauty of the landscape and the children with whom she used to play to the poverty of the shanty towns and her doctor-father's terminally ill patients. She will show new work alongside some images from her Flamboya and Ultra Violet series, for which she won the Dutch art prize, the Prix de Rome, in 2007. According to the judges, ‘Sassen knows how to go beyond the confines of her subject. The photographs do not just portray death, loss and urban life in Africa. They show genuine humanity, cultural clichés, Sassen's personal life story and aesthetics.’

Claudette Schreuders will show five new sculptures, prior to a solo exhibition in April 2011 at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. This is the first time since 2004 that she has exhibited a significant group of sculptures in South Africa. The new series is entitled Close, close, taken from a poem by Elisabeth Bishop which describes a sleeping couple and reflects on the ‘closeness’ being both comforting and stifling:

Close, close all night
the lovers keep
They turn together,
in their sleep …

Schreuders’ previous series of sculptures, 'The Fall', dealt with the trajectory of a couple’s relationship. 'Close, close' picks up the story after the arrival of children. Where her work till now has consisted mostly of single figures, in this group the individual figure largely disappears, with each of the sculptures featuring two or more figures carved from a single block of wood. On show will also be a series of drawings inspired by historical and contemporary sculptures that grapple with the challenges of incorporating more than one figure into a single sculpture.

The winner of the 2010 Tollman Award for Visual Art, Serge Alain Nitegeka, will show meditations on form based on his experience of Johannesburg. Nitegeka writes:

What occupies my mind is the question of how to reduce or even organise the 'surplus' and clutter of urban shapes to simple lines and forms that allow focus and appreciation. These works arose out of a curiosity about the everyday shapes, forms and structures of a city, and human access and relations to them ... In a contemplative process of looking and re-looking, I create forms that appear as abstracted versions of original shapes. During this process, the familiarity of form is lost; their individuality disappears and dissolves into simple abstraction.

In anticipation of Hylton Nel’s 70th birthday in 2011, the gallery will exhibit recent works by the artist for the first time in five years. Nel continues to develop his distinctive style of work, rich in references to the decorative arts, literary and art-historical sources, and South African life. His plates, bowls, vases, plaques and figurative pieces are idiosyncratically decorated with witty and sometimes poignant line drawings and script. His imagery ranges from penises to madonnas, cats to angels, and his quotes are drawn from poetry and the daily press as well as his observations of the world around him. The occasion will also be celebrated by a new book on Nel’s work by Michael Stevenson, published by Jacana.

02 December 2010 - 15 January 2011