Jo Ractliffe

Listings(s)

'As Terras do Fim do Mundo'

Jo Ractliffe at Stevenson in Cape Town

Over the past two years Ractliffe has been tracing the routes of the Border War fought by South Africa in Angola through the 1970s and 80s, travelling alongside ex-soldiers returning to the places where they fought for the first time since the SADF's withdrawal from the region. Her new body of black and white photographs follows 'Terreno Ocupado' (2007), in which she explored the social and spatial demographics of Angola's capital city of Luanda five years after the country's civil war had ended.

In 'As Terras do Fim do Mundo' (The Lands of the End of the World), Ractliffe captures the the traces of war focussing on the idea of landscape as pathology; how past violence manifests in the landscape of the present, both forensically and symbolically.

21 October 2010 - 27 November 2010

'As Terras do Fim do Mundo'

Jo Ractliffe at Walther Collection - Project Space NY

The first U.S. solo exhibition of South African photographer Jo Ractliffe, 'As Terras do Fim do Mundo' (The Lands of the End of the World) showcases nearly 60 of the artist's evocative black and white landscapes, presenting haunting images that reflect past tragedies in the sweeping landscapes of present day Angola.

Featuring a portfolio of platinum prints produced exclusively for the Walther Collection (based in Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Germany), the exhibition in the New York Project Space brings together images from Ractliffe's journeys through the war-torn remains of Angola in 2009 and 2010. Guided by a group of former South African Defence Force soldiers, on their first trip back to the Angolan countryside since the 1988 ceasefire at Cuito Cuanavale, Ractliffe documents what she terms as the 'landscape of leftovers' from the country's devastating 27-year civil war. Noted for their forensic and symbolic significance, these images capture eerily quiet countryside vistas, which, upon further inspection, reveal themselves to be unidentified memorials, unmarked mass graves, and minefields.

15 April 2011 - 15 July 2011

'Appropriated Landscapes'

Jo Ractliffe, Guy Tillim, Jane Alexander, David Goldblatt, Penny Siopis, Santu Mofokeng, Angela Ferreira, Sabelo Mlangeni, Zanele Muholi and Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse at The Walther Collection

'Appropriated Landscapes' explores landscape typologies in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique, and presents works by fourteen artists, including Jane Alexander, Ângela Ferreira, David Goldblatt, Sabelo Mlangeni, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Penny Siopis, Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse and Guy Tillim.

Many of the artists presented in 'Appropriated Landscapes' have created images through topographical studies, explorations of nomadic peripheries and in-between spaces, or chronicles of social geography altered by divisive spatial planning and modern architecture. The concept of landscape here is not linked to historical notions of the picturesque and the sublime. Instead, the exhibition considers landscape as a prism of experience, a reflection of ideology, and a stage for the performance and perception of identity. Whether sweeping views, architectural compositions, or portraits, the varied works in the exhibition remind us of the density and richness of the notion of landscape, the complexity and subjectivity of its depiction - and ultimately, of our own spiritual, emotional, personal, and political relationship to it.

16 June 2011 - 13 May 2012

'Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity'

Jo Ractliffe, Guy Tillim, Kay Hassan, Berni Searle, David Goldblatt, Santu Mofokeng, Hentie van der Merwe, Pieter Hugo, Zanele Muholi, Candice Breitz, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at The Walther Collection

The Walther Collection opens to the public on June 17, 2010 with 'Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity', introducing works from its African collection. Under the curatorial direction of Okwui Enwezor, the exhibition comprises a series of four projects filling all nine galleries in the three buildings of the new exhibition space in Burlafingen near Ulm, Southern Germany. The exhibition integrates the work of three generations of African artists and photographers with that of modern and contemporary German photography. This combination of African and German works will serve as a model for the kind of curatorial process that animates the character of the collecting program.

Works in the collection include those by Berni Searle, Candice Brietz, Nontsikelelo Veleko, Zanele Muholi, Hentie van der Merwe, David Goldblatt, Kay Hassan, Pieter Hugo, Guy Tillim, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Santu Mofokeng and Jo Ractliffe.

17 June 2010 - 17 October 2010

'For a Sustainable World': Recontres de Bamako 2011

Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha, Brent Meistre, David Goldblatt, Hasan and Husain Essop, Daniel Naude, Pieter Hugo, Sabelo Mlangeni and Tracey Rose at Bamako Photography Biennial

In 2010, many African countries celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. For many, this event was the time to take stock of national achievements and to look critically at political and social structures, as well as the distribution of wealth. For these 'Rencontres', we invited photographers and videographers to witness, to denounce, but also to identify areas for action, evidence of resistance or prevention, and the possibilities for the construction of a sustainable world. The variety of themes and languages ??chosen by the artists provides a survey of the diverse artistic production today on the continent and in the diaspora.

The Pan-African Exhibit, in the temporary exhibition rooms of the National Museum of Mali, brings together 45 photographers and 10 videographers from 27 countries, including a number from South Africa. Other South African artists, including Tracey Rose, appear in 'A World Beyond the World': The Sindika Dokolo Collection, and there is also a 'Monograph' exhibition of David Goldblatt's work.

01 November 2011 - 01 January 2012