Listing(s)

'Land of Cockaigne'

Deborah Poynton at Stevenson in Johannesburg

Deborah Poynton's latest exhibition, her first at Stevenson's Johannesburg space, is titled 'Land of Cockaigne'.

The Land of Cockaigne was the medieval idea of a paradise of plenty. For Poynton, the act of painting is an attempt to enter this fantastical world - but in an unexpected way. As the artist writes:

'In the Land of Cockaigne every wish was granted. I have used this title not because I wanted to illustrate paradise, but because painting itself is that land of never-realised fulfillment. Every painting I do comes from the same need to inhabit this land, to create a sense of engulfment, of complete enclosure, to blind and deafen and numb myself through the senses in order to find some peace. I persist with the image until no uncertainty remains within it, and I am thus provided with the illusion of certainty.'

This exhibition consists of seven large paintings, each presenting a discrete world made up of different elements - figures, fabric, plants, objects. In each of the paintings, there is no horizon, no means of escaping the sensual detail which seems to engulf the onlooker.

04 April 2012 - 12 May 2012

'Black Men in Dress' and 'Iimbali'

Sabelo Mlangeni at Stevenson in Johannesburg

This show brings together two bodies of work by artist Sabelo Mlangeni. The first, 'Black Men in Dress', comprises a series of portraits photographed at the Johannesburg and Soweto Pride, a yearly event for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) community. These portraits remind Mlangeni of a childhood where, as he describes:

'[M]ost communities had what we call "uSis'bhuti". This is a term used to describe a boy who behaves like a girl. Why then do we hate these boys when they have grown up to be men who dress as women? Why do we turn and call them names, pretending that we've never seen it? These are some of the issues I try to bring to the fore in this series'.

The second body of work, the 'Iimbali' series, was photographed at reed dances in Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal.

19 January 2012 - 24 February 2012

'New Paintings'

Zander Blom at Stevenson in Johannesburg

In the wake of his surprising show of gestural oil paintings at Stevenson in Cape Town in 2010, Zander Blom presents a fresh body of work titled ‘New Paintings’. The works continue his trend of using painting conceptually, and referencing Modernist idealism. Expect thick, guttural slashes of paint, many on unprimed Belgian linen, and the heavy smell of linseed oil.

27 October 2011 - 09 December 2011

lesobana lesobana lesobana le bulegile lesobana lesobana lesobana go phunyegile

Dineo Seshee Bopape at Stevenson in Johannesburg

Never one to simplify things, Bopape's latest exhibition, her first solo in Johannesburg, has possibly the longest title you've read since you stopped buying Smiths albums. The show consists of four video installations, one of which makes its debut at this exhibition; all interrogate the notion of the 'space' within video, its nature and extent. Word on the street is that this show is all over the shop. Judge for yourself whether Bopape's statement on the exhibition illuminates in any way:

there is nothing, only effect and affectation...
there is nothing and 'the nothing' (the immaterial thing that exists but can not be named or even pointed at) that exists in the actual ....a disco of effects/affect
...an 'echo immersed in the sieve'

11 August 2011 - 16 September 2011

'Faces and Phases'

Zanele Muholi at Stevenson in Johannesburg

Zanele Muholi shows 66 new portraits in this ongoing series which offers an insider's perspective on the lives of the black lesbians and transmen she has met on her journeys as an activist. Collectively, the portraits are at once a visual statement and an archive: marking, mapping and preserving an often invisible community for posterity.

Muholi writes: 'In the face of all the challenges our community encounters daily, I embarked on a journey of visual activism to ensure that there is black queer visibility. "Faces and Phases" is about our histories and the struggles that we face. "Faces" express the person, and "Phases" signify the transition from one stage of sexuality or gender expression and experience to another.'

07 July 2011 - 05 August 2011