Mikhael Subotzky

Current Review(s)

'Two Projects'

Mikhael Subotzky at Goodman Gallery

Few buildings in Johannesburg, when seen from a distance, give one the feeling of being in Johannesburg quite like Ponte City does. Crowned with Vodacom’s flashing green and blue neon and sprouting from a rocky slope on the southern side of the Witwatersrand Ridge, it is visible from almost anywhere in the city. It is a landmark which from far directs one home, and from close warns one to stay away from Johannesburg’s most notorious neighbourhood: Hillbrow.

But Ponte is not only an icon of the city; since it was built in 1975 it has been the receptacle for so many Johannesburg dreams. Full wallets, success, urban sophistication, cosmopolitanism, and even love, have wafted through the building’s gaping core like spectres, luring tenants there for years.

In this light, it is easy to see why Ponte, particularly after its deterioration into a slum, has attracted the gaze of artists. In 1999 Stephen Hobbs dropped a digital video camera attached to a parachute down Ponte’s core for a video work titled 54 Stories. This work simulated one of the many suicides that took place in Ponte in the 1990s. In 2005, Guy Tillim painted a gloomy, de-saturated picture of Ponte in his photographic series ‘Joburg’, a project that now sits in book form on many a northern-suburbs coffee table.

29 October 2009 - 21 November 2009

Listings(s)

Editions for ArtThrob Print Exhibition

Guy Tillim, Jane Alexander, Lisa Brice, Peet Pienaar, David Goldblatt, Penny Siopis, Hentie van der Merwe, Robert Hodgins, Tracey Rose, Mikhael Subotzky, William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at South African Print Gallery

Editions for ArtThrob is pleased to announce an exhibition of all artist prints in our collection at the South African Print Gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town. You are cordially invited to attend the opening finger lunch at 11:30am on Saturday the 29th of August, where all available prints will be for sale.

Editions for ArtThrob, in collaboration with South Africa’s leading artists, has developed a series of specially-commissioned prints; these are sold to cover the running costs of the ArtThrob website. ArtThrob is South Africa’s leading website on contemporary art, and is an important point of reference worldwide for curators, dealers and those interested in South African art.

Artists who have participated in the in the print program include William Kentridge, Penny Siopis, Robert Hodgins, Jane Alexander, Willem Boshoff, Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko, David Goldblatt, Guy Tillim, Lisa Brice, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Mikhael Subotzky, Peet Pienaar, Hentie van der Merwe and Tracey Rose.

In addition, we will be launching a brand new print by Robert Hodgins. Hot off the presses at Mark Attwood’s studio, the image will be available for preview the at exhibition opening. 

Please contact Natasha Norman from ArtThrob for online orders or Gabriel Clark-Brown at the SA Print Gallery for more information.

29 August 2009 - 28 September 2009

'Two Projects'

Mikhael Subotzky at Goodman Gallery

Having recently moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Mikhael Subotzky explores his new stomping ground in two distinct bodies of work. The largest, which is on show at the Goodman Gallery's Parkwood Space, is a collection of photographic and textual traces of a prolonged exploration of Ponte, arguably Johannesburg's most mythologised building. The second, at the Goodman's Arts On Main project room, is a collection of photographs that look at conspicuous security and paranoia in Johannesburg.

29 October 2009 - 21 November 2009

'Breaking News: Contemporary Photography from the Middle East and Africa'

Bob Gosani , Guy Tillim, David Goldblatt, Jodie Bieber, Daniel Naude, Pieter Hugo and Mikhael Subotzky at Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena

'Breaking News' presents the third group of acquisitions for the international contemporary photography, art film and video collection of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena. Curated by Filippo Maggia, this major survey features 21 artists from 12 countries. 'As the title suggests,' says Maggia, 'the idea for this exhibition is to use a selection of emblematic works that recently became part of the Fondazione di Modena collection to shed light on a part of the world that only makes the news with conflicts and bloody events. "Breaking News" is the journalism launch - typical of TV news - that announces the latest news'. Dominated for more than a century by the views induced by colonialism, Africa now expresses a variety of creative voices investigating not only the legacies of the past but also the complexities of the present.

28 November 2010 - 13 March 2011

'Beaufort West'

Mikhael Subotzky at Magnum Gallery

For some two or three kilometres, the N1, the great highway that traces South Africa’s north/south axis, becomes Beaufort’s West’s main street. About a million people pass through each year, and in the evenings, an assortment of the town’s 37 000 residents come out to meet them. They offer all the commodities a night traveller might want: food, drink and petrol, a place to stay, an hour’s worth of sex.

In exchange for their wares, Beaufort West’s people are preserving a frail connection with the world. Without its national road, this town, some three-quarters of its residents unemployed, would surely be lost unto itself. Like many small South Africa towns, Beaufort West is still highly segregated. The quiet streets of the town itself are clustered around the main road and still house an almost exclusively white population. They go their daily lives largely unaware of what goes on in the outlying townships where the majority of the population live.

The local jail, too, is on the main road, and it is what caught Mikhael Subotzky’s attention: ‘I was drawn to Beaufort West because its prison is bizarrely situated in a traffic circle in the centre of the town in the middle of the N1 highway’, Subotzky says. ‘Most South African prisons are hidden from view on the outskirts of our towns and cities. I was interested in this image of the prison at the centre of the town’.

Excerpt of text by Johnny Steinberg

03 November 2011 - 10 December 2011

'Out of Focus: Photography'

Mohau Modisakeng, Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg and Mikhael Subotzky at Saatchi Gallery

The Saatchi Gallery's first major photographic exhibition since 2001's ‘I Am A Camera', ‘Out of Focus' is a wide-ranging exploration of photography at a time when the medium is in the midst of a complicated but rich moment in its history and old assumptions are being challenged. The exhibits range from classic documentary to collaborative set pieces, with featured artists offering an international perspective on recent trends in photography.  

25 April 2012 - 22 July 2012

Paris Photo

Jodi Bieber, Joel Andrianomearisoa, Billy Monk, David Goldblatt, Santu Mofokeng, Andrew Tshabangu, Cedric Nunn, Pieter Hugo, Mikhael Subotzky, Viviane Sassen, Moshekwa Langa, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at Grand Palais

The annual Paris Photo will celebrate its 15th anniversary at the Grand Palais, featuring 117 galleries from some 23 countries presenting the best of 19th century, modern and contemporary photography in the heart of the French capital. This year's special focus is on African photography from Bamako to Cape Town, with several South African artists in the spotlight in the main venue as well as on other shows around the city (such as the skyroof of the Gare du Nord station). South African galleries  STEVENSON, Goodman Gallery, Bailey Seippel, and Gallery MOMO will be exhibiting.

10 November 2011 - 13 November 2011