kzn reviews

Situated on Florida Road, above a popular restaurant, and next to landmark booksellers Ike’s, The Collective is in a prime location. The building is a Victorian-era monolith, complete with asbestos walls and high ceilings. In its current incarnation, the space is intended not only for exhibitions, but as a base for artists to network, with an artist's agent as part of their offering. With a coffee bar and Wi-Fi, the space is anticipated to be (quoting the curator) ‘a place for interactivity and interaction’. When I chatted to Amy-Jo Windt about the vision for the gallery, she stated that it’s primarily a place for young artists.  They have set an age limit for exhibitors (35), and intend to put a focus on art making that is usually not given a platform, such as Street Art and Graffiti. While this focus raises a number of difficult questions (like the proverbial 'does Street Art need a gallery space?') the gallery is at least brave enough to have a clear vision.

On show at the moment is a sort of ‘overview’ of possibilities. Installations by two international artists, photographic prints by the collective ‘our.’, a group of spray painting ‘live’ artists (including Ewok, Warren Raysdorf, Skull boy and Dain Knudson), and one of the artSPACE staples sneaked in there too, in the form of paintings by Claude Chandler.

The two installation pieces were particularly interesting within the context of the space. Belgian Riaan van Jaarsveld dismantled the rickety cornicing in the gallery to create a ‘frame’ on the gallery wall. He then scratched the words ‘here now’ into the framed paintwork. Building something into the space, out of parts of the space, van Jaarsveld wittily pointed out the cornicing ‘was there, it's here now’. He states that the work is in part a tongue-in-cheek comment on his recent return from Belgium – ‘he was there, he is here now’. While, according to the artist, Here Now is one of his more literal works, the piece was interesting in an almost Cluedo-esque way. Spotting the unpainted gaps where he had dismantled the woodwork, and then trying to figure out which-part-went-where in the remantled ‘frame’ was witty and engaging.

Mexican artist Javier Hinojosa’s Ephemeral Traps Permanent Consequences was similarly successful in its creation of interactivity. Taking as a point of departure the mishaps and consequences around public works (Mexico and South Africa seem to have similar ‘pot-hole’ issues) Hinojosa set up a framework at the base of the gallery door. Concrete was then poured into the frame an hour before the opening, leaving it suitably wet and sticky. As the work was over 1m x 1m, the audience was forced to walk through the concrete to get through the door. The work (whether deliberate or not) resulted in a series of slapstick events with the audience alternately trying to jump and circumnavigate the work. Being below eye level, a number of people tripped over the frame and planted a foot directly into the wet concrete, looking shamefacedly around to see if they’d just ruined something they shouldn’t. By the end of the evening, however, concrete footprints were left all over the floor, people had left hand-prints and messages in the concrete (normally a covert night time prank); the work being a truly interactive enterprise.

It will be interesting and exciting to see where The Collective goes, what they show next, and how it is going to impact on the Durban art scene. More than anything, I reiterate again 'Thank goodness there is something new happening in Durban!' Hats off to The Collective for the new initiative.