Listings(s)
Better Lives
Sue Williamson at YOUNGBLACKMANThe opening of Sue Williamson’s 'Better Lives' – a presentation of series of six video portraits from 2003 – will also launch the YOUNGBLACKMAN gallery, an initiative by artist Ed Young and writer Matthew Blackman on Roeland Street. In Williamson’s series, migrants, exiles and refugees listen to a previously recorded version of their life story for the first time. The subjects portray, in their facial expressions and poses, the seriousness and pathos of their stories.
The largescale video projections will be on view from the street only after dark daily - the video projection at the back of the space picks up too much light during daytime hours, though the recorded voices can be heard at all times.
29 September 2009 - 28 October 2009
Other Voices, Other Cities
Sue Williamson at Goodman GalleryInternationally-acclaimed artist Sue Willisamson presents a show of new work at the Goodman Gallery, under the title 'Other Voices, Other Cities'. With this body of work Williamson asks what message the inhabitants of one particulat place would send out to the world in an age of global interconnectedness.
27 August 2009 - 23 September 2009
'Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950'
Sue Williamson, David Goldblatt, Roger Ballen, Santu Mofokeng, Jurgen Schadeberg, Tracey Rose, William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa and Nontsikelelo Veleko at Virginia Museum of Fine ArtsAn exhibition that considers photography’s role in South Africa’s composite transformation, Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950 includes 18 artists who span four generations, including Jürgen Schadeberg, Santu Mofokeng, Andrew Tshabangu, David Goldblatt, Sue Williamson, Thando Mama, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Nontsikelelo Veleko and William Kentridge.
The exhibition's eight sections highlight the ways that these artists have addressed South African culture from various perspectives, and their increased presence in the global art world since 1994. 'The social and political transformation of South Africa is one of the most remarkable stories of the second half of the twentieth century,' says Alex Nyerges, director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. 'To engage with it directly through the eyes of those who experienced and documented the anguish, turmoil and elation of the period is both uplifting and thought-provoking.'
21 August 2010 - 24 October 2010
'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 MoMADuring 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
'Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life'
Jo Ractliffe, Guy Tillim, Sue Williamson, Jane Alexander, Omar Badsha, David Goldblatt, Peter Magubane, Santu Mofokeng, Ernest Cole, Jurgen Schadeberg and William Kentridge at Haus der Kunst'Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life' is a photographic exhibition examining the legacy of the apartheid system and how it penetrated even the most mundane aspects of social existence in South Africa, from housing, public amenities, and transportation to education, tourism, religion, and businesses. Complex, vivid, evocative, and dramatic, it includes nearly 500 photographs, films, books, magazines, newspapers, and assorted archival documents and covers more than 60 years of powerful photographic and visual production that forms part of the historical record of South Africa. Several photographic strategies, from documentary to reportage, social documentary to the photo essay, were each adopted to examine the effects and after-effects of apartheid's political, social, economic, and cultural legacy.
Curated by Okwui Enwezor with Rory Bester, the exhibition proposes a complex understanding of photography and the aesthetic power of the documentary form and honors the exceptional achievement of South African photographers.
From the work of members Drum Magazine in the 1950s to the Afrapix Collective in the 1980s to the reportage of the so-called Bang Bang Club, included in the exhibition are the exceptional works of pioneering South African photographers including Leon Levson, Eli Weinberg, David Goldblatt, Peter Magubane, Alf Khumalo, Jürgen Schadeberg, Sam Nzima, Ernest Cole, George Hallet, Omar Badsha, Gideon Mendel, Paul Weinberg, Kevin Carter, Joao Silva, and Greg Marinovich, and the responses of contemporary artists such as Adrian Piper, Sue Williamson, Jo Ractliffe, Jane Alexander, Santu Mofokeng, Guy Tillim, Hans Haacke, and William Kentridge. In addition, the exhibition will feature the works of a new generation of South African photographers such as Sabelo Mlangeni and Thabiso Sekgale, who explore the impact of apartheid as it continues to resonate today.
15 February 2013 - 26 May 2013
