Tuesday, June 11

When struggle veteran Amina Cachalia died suddenly on the last day of January this year, South Africa lost one of the most charismatic and glamorous members of the struggle generation. It was all the more sad and upsetting because Amina had b

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Two weeks ago, I flew from blisteringly hot Johannesburg, where I had been shooting in Soweto for a new video installation piece with a film crew from Monkey Films to snowy Switzerland.I didn’t have a camera in Switzerland, so I used my old N

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SEE MORE AT Sue Williamson's Diary

It can be a mistake to take biographical information which appears on the internet as accurate.  I recently visited struggle veteran Vesta Smith (above) in her Noordgesig, Soweto home. On her wall, was a powerful and moving poem especial

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Joost Bosland sent me this pic of Penny Siopis’ name up in lights at the Prince Charles Cinema in London’s Leicester Square. As part of the events around mega art fair Frieze, where the Stevenson Gallery was showing for the first time, Penny was invi

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An army of tiny men are scaling Lady Gaga's naked body in a black and white poster for her new perfume looming above Times Square. It is mid September in New York, and I have just left the press conference for 'The Rise and Fall of Apartheid:

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  I am chugging through the German countryside south of Munich, white and brown cows in green fields to my left, an ancient red roofed village to my right. The train is headed for Rome, and up to now, my grand European tour by train

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”On or about December 1910 human character changed,” Virginia Woolf observed. If this was true of 1910 then it was certainly true too of 1960 and in particular of South Africa’s character.  Before that year apartheid was drifting towards something ir

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As every artist knows, raising funding for the production of a new art piece, an exhibition, or a catalogue is one of the most difficult tasks around. There is not a lot of money available for art projects, and everyone wants a piece of the pie, so w

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Earlier this year, in March, I made good an undertaking to do a project for Lalela, an organization headed up by Andrea Kerzner. Lalela has done educational art projects all over Africa, designed to give kids access to the creative process not availa

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  The annual Encounters Documentary Film Festival is one event which seems to have the power to winkle Cape Town artists out of their warm winter cocoons or cozy bars and into the cinemas and master classes. Film maker Tiffany Shlain, (above) di

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So now no one can look at the representation of President Zuma’s genitalia on the Brett Murray’s painting in the Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, any more.  This morning, two men walked into the gallery, and after one man painted a red X over the

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WAM curator Fiona Rankin-SmithJohannesburg was the place to be last week, with the opening of the gorgeous new Wits Art Museum attracting the entire local art world.  Serendipitously acronyming to WAM, the new multi level space offers unique exh

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Twins, their outward similarities belying their inner differences, are the subject of Candice Breitz’s Factum series, which opened as part of ‘Extra!’ at the National Gallery last week. And right on cue, there were two of her subjects, who had flown

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In many cities around the world - Manhattan, London and Stockholm, to name just three - art commissioned from local artists enlivens the subway stations, making the daily process of getting from one place to another much more fun. So it’s great to s

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When a sense of loss is unbearable, can an acoustic envelope of music provide a way to alleviate pain? This is one of the questions introduced to her Cape Town  audience by the brilliant international academic, Griselda Pollock this week. Talkin

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Last year, American artist Christian Marclay won the Golden Lion at Venice for his 24 hour video played in real time. ‘The Clock’ was an edit of thousands of cinematic clips which involved clocks or watches, and the magical part was that If, for inst

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Rebecca KotaneFor the first time in my life, a few Sundays ago, I was in the presence of a person who was a hundred years old. it was the 100th birthday of the redoubtable Rebecca Kotane, widow of struggle hero Moses Kotane, and the celebration lun

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Artists, friends, and the glamorous stars of Generations mingled at the after party following the opening of Candice Breitz’s ‘Extra!’ at the Standard Bank Galleries in Johannesburg this week. Breitz, in a polka dotted Gianni Versace top, was clearly

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As January hits the third week of the month, the city’s art galleries take down the group shows directed at the summer visitors, and get serious again. Or, relatively serious. At blank projects last week, Avant Car Guard and friends were staging a f

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A performance detail from Athi-Patra Ruga’s IlulwaneIt’s really too hot to work today. Come on, it’s a baking 34°C, or 93.2° F. Of course, there’s no air con in the studio. And if you open the windows more than a crack or turn up the fan, papers blow

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Storm Janse van Rensburg and Claire van BlerckOne of the best things about the New Year is the opportunity given to wipe last year’s messy slate clean again. Emails one should have – but did not – respond to ages ago can now be sent out with Happy Ne

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Last time I saw Okwui Enwezor was in Venice in June, at one of the Goodman Gallery Biennale bashes. It was great to meet up. Okwui was, of course, the director of the legendary 2nd Johannesburg Biennale in 1997, and is now the director of the Munich

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As a child of 7, I stood at our living room window in Florida, just outside Johannesburg, and watched two curved dark tunnel shapes spiraling powerfully across the horizon. The tornado hit Roodepoort, five miles away, and next day I learned th

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No pictures today. I need all the space for writing. A few weeks ago, the diary featured David Goldblatt’s remarkable photograph of jubilant parliamentarians celebrating the signing of the new constitution in front of the House of Assembly. You can

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At 7 a.m. on November 12, the sun is already high in the Johannesburg sky. The rooftop bar of the 12 Decades Hotel is deserted, and looking down from there, the red roofs of the Arts on Main complex lie dead ahead.All the rooms in the hotel are deco

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