Archive: Issue No. 36, August 2000

Jill Addleson curates an exhibition by the Everard Group, a formidable posse of women painters who also dabbled in horseracing and flying Spitfire planes. They focussed predominantly on landscapes, especially around what is now Mpumalanga. The show hopes to insert the work of these women into the annals of South African art history as despite much research, and representation of many of their works in major public collections, there has never been a retrospective show dedicated to them. Showing simultaneously in the downstairs space is an exhibition of ceramics by Yvette McGee, who despite having been awarded numerous major commissions, has never shown before in a public space. The work will be shown alongside objects, gleaned from her studio environment, which inform her designs.

August 22 to September 30

Trawling through the commercial galleries in Sandton Square often yields some astonishing surprises, from original Warhols, Lichtensteins and Rosenquists to this show. Etchings, lithographs, sculptures and ceramics by Marc Chagall, Jim Dine, David Hockney, Lynn Chadwick, Marino Marini, Joan Miro, Henry Moore, Victor Pasmore, Pablo Picasso, and Frank Stella form part of the gallery's impressive new acquisitions for the serious buyers out there.

August 12 to September 8

Now this is an exhibition I've been anticipating since receiving the Goodman's exhibition schedule at the beginning of the year. Rose is a young artist with significant international kudos and work that is capable of leaving one breathless. Of the new work she plans to show at the Goodman, the video TKO, produced during a residency at ArtPace in San Antonio, Texas earlier this year, has been highly praised for its unnerving take on gender, race, violence and aggression. In addition to video, Rose will also show photographic and silkscreen prints. And the pale (rose) pink invitation with the artist's name in an elegant cursive script, reminiscent of a Victorian lady's calling card, is suitably and perversely incongruent.

On the day of the opening, the extended gallery hours are from 9.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

August 12 - September 2

Camouflage steps down from a high-brow postcolonial niche to integrate and explore the impact of pop culture on art forms. Taking their cue from Andy Warhol and his embracing of mass media in the production of 'fine art', the exhibition offers an overview of disciplines like fashion and industrial design, film, music and advertising. The opening event features 'Fashion Deconstruction' by SB PROTECTION, graffiti art by Themba Malaza, afro-house and kwaito by DJ TS and a chill out space showing popular films. 'The Things I/We Need', an exhibition looking at popular design icons curated by Vincent Dawson, opens on August 3 and selected material from Bailey's African History Archive opens on August 23. A discussion/workshop on graffiti art in partnership with the MTN Art Institute, and selected Andy Warhol films are also scheduled to take place in this exhibition which will constantly change form to accommodate the spirit of this curatorial laboratory.

July 31 - September 3

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Continuing the urban focus of the gallery's recent shows, Mark Dunlop states "I am interested in the textures of a city in a state of flux and my video and photographic pieces are mediums that best express this." Johannesburg's inner city has seen the influx of a new population since the apartheid period. Its previous inhabitants have, for the most part, moved to the periphery of middle-class suburbia. As such, the assumed power and voyeurism of the affluent citizens of Johannesburg perpetuates. Dunlop explores how people invest themselves in and identify themselves with the inner city, looking at a perceived ideological paradox between the urbanscape of Johannesburg and their physical interaction with it, through video monitor and site-specific text installations and sound and photographic works.

The exhibition opens at 6.00 p.m. on Sunday August 6.

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August 6 - September 2

It's Martienssen Prize time again, where a student from the Fine Art Department of Wits University is awarded a prize for a work made independently of lecturing staff and formalised classes. Newly-appointed Chair of Art History, Professor David Bunn, will open the exhibition considered to be some sort of 'barometer' of future trends and promising artists.

The exhibition opens at 6.00 p.m. on Wednesday August 2.

August 2 - August 25

To coincide with National Women's Day on August 9, artist Minnette Vari has curated an exhibition of works by both male and female artists that explore various aspects of the feminine. The show (thankfully) has been carefully constructed to avoid being pigeonholed as a 'theme' show. In the works chosen however, there is a definite emphasis on women's experience of a new era in history and her position in and relation to an ever-changing world. Artists exhibiting include Italian artist Daniel Buetti, Swiss video artist Mo Diener, Noritoshi Hirakawa from Korea, Zimbabwe's Yvonne Vera and South Africans Jan van der Merwe, Tracey Rose & Kathryn Smith. Again, the MTN Art Institute has put its money where its mouth is by supporting the show.

The exhibition opens at 6.00 p.m. on Tuesday August 8.

August 8 - August 30

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Colbert Mashile, Natasha Christopher and Joni Brenner, three of the merit award winners, and Brad Hammond, the overall winner, will be available on August 3 from 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. to speak about their works and field questions. Bookings for the tour can be made with Taryn or Michelle at the ABSA Gallery on (011) 350 5139.

Although the artists will only be available for guided tours on 3 August, the exhibition is currently open to the public until August 14. Schools, technikons, colleges, universities and other interested parties are welcome.

For further information contact Taryn Millar on (011) 350 5139 or Cecile Loedolff on (011) 350 5793.

This much-anticipated and sought after prize was won by Terry Kurgan. Nominated artists Hentie van der Merwe, Berni Searle, Terry Kurgan, and Claudette Schreuders present their entries at what is one of the finest Vita shows to date.

July 18 - September 2

     See July News and Reviews

Jan van der Merwe has gained increasing prominence on the local art scene since being included on the Portuguese leg of Fernando Alvim's 'Memorias Intimas Marcas'. He produces sculptures from found objects and materials, covering them in rusted tin and bitumen and incorporating video or computer technology as a series of anachronistic tableaux that are at once archeological and high tech. Other works recontextualise found objects through tar, lead, sand, sawdust and cement, referencing alchemical processes, and the importance of labour and process to transform. The exhibition will be opened by Willem Boshoff at 7.00 p.m. on Tuesday August 22.

August 22 - September 13

Twelve visual artists from the Eastern Cape present work engaging with a rarely-considered, but historically resonant geographical region in South Africa. The exhibition attempts to address the unspoken locations of physicality, psychological space, conceptual and spiritual realms. Ethna Frankenfeld confronts 'sin' and 'virtue' and the veils which conceal and reveal these in intaglio prints with low-relief elements. Amanda de Wet explores art as a mediation between conflict and resolution. Other exhibiting artists include Trevor Melville, Cleone Cull, David Jones, Jennifer Ord, Mark Wilby, Donald Woodhead, Graham Jones, James Reed, Andrietta Wentzel and Simone von den Bussche. Issues of otherness, validation, absence, mass media excess and rites of passage are explored in an exhibition that purports to give the viewer ' a momentary slice of the Eastern Cape's multi-layered cultural cake'.

August 14 to 31

'Specimens' is a multimedia exhibition combining painting, video and graphics, presented as a cabinet of curiosities encountering a portrait gallery on a restoration bench. With what seems like a combination of forensic and archeological methods, Eksteen explores alternative ways of viewing and revealing hidden aspects of paintings. If nothing else, his technique will blow you away. Eksteen is a past prize winner at both the Kempton Park Tembisa and Sasol New Signatures art competitions.