Archive: Issue No. 38, October 2000
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Johannesburg 24.10.00 'Track' by Christine Dixie at the Market Theatre Gallery 24.10.00 Amos Letsoalo and Colbert Mashile 17.10.00 'New Blood' at Spark! 10.10.00 Marc Chagall at the Standard Bank 10.10.00 Terry Kurgan at the Gertrude Posel Gallery 03.10.00 Clive van den Berg at the Goodman 26.09.00 'Killing Time': A non-heroic show at the Johannesburg Civic Gallery Pretoria 17.10.00 Janet Wilson at the African Window 17.10.00 'Fine' students at the Pretoria Art Museum 12.09.00 'Trapped Reflections' at the African Window
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Christine Dixie
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'Track' by Christine Dixie at the Market Theatre Gallery
Christine Dixie's new solo show is an exploration of the abandoned train tracks that traverse the Karoo, representative of economic and colonial endeavour, but also sites of experiences and memories. 'Track' refers to a trace, pursuit, the course of a wound, a sequence of thoughts and most obviously, train tracks, which have become the primary 'real' reference here. Through rubbings taken from abandoned carriages and collecting debris that had been swept away from the carriages by the elements, Dixie attempts to document the personal, both of the imagined people who travelled these tracks, as well as her own experiences. In speaking of the repetitive springbok motif on train windows which 'filters' both our personal memories and vision of landscape, she says, " looking out through the glass of a train window, one can only see the landscape darkly."
October 15 - November 11
The Market Theatre Gallery, Market Theatre Complex, Wolhunter Street,Newtown
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Amos Letsoalo
Colbert Mashile
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Amos Letsoalo and Colbert Mashile double bill at the Bill Ainslie
Alan Crump opens an exhibition by two young very up-and-coming artists that the late Bill Ainslie would have been proud to host at his eponymously named gallery. Mashile is rapidly making a name for himself on the local art scene, having recently graduated from Wits University. And this show should prove a timeous opportunity to showcase their work after several appearances on group exhibitions.
November 1 - December 6
Bill Ainslie Gallery, 6 Eastworld Way, Saxonworld
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New Blood
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'New Blood' at Spark!
Ilse Pahl and Stacey Haajem present an exhibition of "young and emerging" Gauteng-based artists who are, the curators believe, "future big names in art". Included are Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Stephan Erasmus, Amichai Tahor, Craig Jonssonn and Lene Smit. The exhibition is sponsored by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, and opens at 6.30 p.m on Wednesday October 18.
October 18 - 30
Spark!, 10 Louis Road, Orchards
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Melville Mardis Gras Arts Festival
This year, the Melville Mardis Gras will include an Arts Festival, co-ordinated by Melville-based arts collective, Rebel Angels. In addition to an extensive theatre and music line-up featuring many of Johannesburg's bright-young-things, two separate wings in Melville's newest restaurant and retail development The Court, have been set aside for young contemporary art, including installation, film, photography and other visual media. The visual programme to the Mardi Gras proclaims to feature some of the best young South African talent across the board. Should you wish to submit works to the exhibition, please do so no later than the morning of Wednesday October 11, to the Graphiti Gallery, 78 4th Ave, Melville. Rebel Angels will take a 15% commission of sales to cover sundry expenses and to be put towards similar projects in the future. Twenty-four hour security has been organised for the duration of the exhibition. Participating artists are welcome to a complimentary ticket, so please call Alastair McLachlan on (011) 726 1738 (h) or (011) 726 6058 (w) if you are interested.
October 12 - 14
The programme is as follows:
Thursday, October 12 - A night's festival of top one-woman shows:
Friday, October 13:
Saturday, October 14:
Melville Mardi Gras 2000, The Court, 74 4th Avenue (above the Mug & Bean / opposite Chaplins)
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Marc Chagall
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Marc Chagall at the Standard Bank
The two-city Marc Chagall exhibition comes to town on Tuesday October 17. Hype is slowly building up around the show, which promises to be an all-original-no-facsimile fiesta of the painting and graphic work of this celebrated French artist. Heavily supported by the French Embassy in conjunction with IFAS, SANG and the Standard Bank, the exhibition is designed to celebrate the cultural heritage of France through a retrospective of a major twentieth century artist. While Chagall's talent cannot be questioned, and his Jewish heritage and mysticism lends an interesting inflection to the choice, I can't help thinking that someone like Christian Boltanski would have made more sense in terms of contemporary practice and concerns. Lunch hour lectures will be held each Wednesday and Friday. Please call the gallery for further information. October 17 - November 25
Standard Bank Gallery, corner Simmonds and Fredericks streets
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Terry Kurgan
View a Quicktime walkthrough of the show [1.4MB]
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Terry Kurgan at the Gertrude Posel Gallery
The Gertrude Posel Gallery presents this year's FNB Vita Art Prize winner Terry Kurgan's 'Family Affairs' exhibition. This is the body of work for which she was nominated for the Vita awards, and was originally shown at the Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet in Cape Town in September of 1999. The exhibition comprises of old, found family photographs, a correspondence, the artist's large scale photographs of her two children, and their photographs of their mother. The exhibition becomes a conversation of sorts, about family affairs, love affairs, photographic meaning, and the power and deception of family photographs and their meanings.
Opens October 10 at 6 p.m.
Gertrude Posel Gallery, University of Witwatersrand, Braamfontein
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'Seen' at Spark!
Spark! wastes no time in securing its spot on the Johannesburg cultural circuit with its second exhibition called 'Seen', featuring work by students of the Market Theatre Photography Workshop. The photo workshop is also doing its fair share of self-promotion, with a concurrent show at the Open Window, and it's about time that some serious attention is being paid to the products and instructors at this invaluable resource. Please note that the show is open for viewing before the official opening event. The exhibition launches officially at 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday October 4. Closes October 15.
Spark!, 10 Louis Road, Orchards
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Clive van den Berg
Exhibits 'Memorials Without Facts' at the Goodman Gallery
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Clive van den Berg at the Goodman
Clive van den Berg breaks Goodman opening tradition of 'drinks at noon' with an evening event on Saturday October 7 at 6 p.m. He presents new work, including large sculptural constructions in which light plays a major role. Van den Berg is one of South Africa's most respected practitioners and advisors to the visual arts, and it's been awhile since we've been treated to a solo show. Currently working in video and mixed media, much of his recent work is part of a large series called 'Memorials Without Facts', exploring aspects of the nation's memory that have been omitted from both historical and contemporary official accounts. October 7 - 28
Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood
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The invitation for 'Killing Time'
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'Killing Time': A non-heroic show at the Johannesburg Civic Gallery
Opening next week, the Johannesburg Civic Gallery will host 'Killing Time', an exhibition curated by Marc Edwards. The title 'Killing Time' becomes a metaphor for the way in which we try and deal with technology overload and the speed of technological development. Our brains still operate in a pre-industrial speed that is often bewildered at the advances that technology has reached. In response we try find ways to kill time or slow down the pace. The works on exhibition hint at this downshifting of speed & pace. The works on show embrace the advances in technology while hinting at the anxiety prevalent in the speed and constant acceleration of our contemporary lifestyle. October 4 - November 1 Opens Wednesday October 4 at 6 p.m.
For further information contact Justine Lipson
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Janet Wilson
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Janet Wilson's 'Icon and Index' at the African Window
As part of her MA(FA) degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, Janet Wilson exhibits screenprints focusing solely on the image of Nelson Mandela. This focus establishes particular references to political transition, and the artist's personal response to this. Her choice of medium is strategic both in terms of its connection to commercial printing and its use in the production of political posters. While the process is a mechanical one, Wilson has managed to imbue it with an extraordinary organic quality, creating translucent, layered blocks of colour that speak of the pursuit of the intangible. She deconstructs the image of Mandela into a series of amorphous, painterly shapes that attempt to give material form to an image we know so well, but the reality of which remains beyond our grasp. Many of the works are monumental in scale, created from individually abstract prints placed in a grid to form the portrait.
October 12 - 29
African Window, Visagie Street
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Fine
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'Fine' students at the Pretoria Art Museum
Final-year students from the University of Pretoria showcase their work at the Pretoria Art Museum, which seems to be aggressively promoting youth culture. On show throughout October is 'Stanley Saitowitz: Architect', which acknowledges the contribution made by this South African-born, US-based academic and designer. 'International Printmaking' features graphic art by such luminaries as Salvador Dali, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Paul Gauguin, Ronald Kitaj and Frank Stella. Also on view is an exhibition of post-war South African art, entitled 'Towards "Modern" Art', as well as favourites from the museum's collection. The latter shows run until December.
October 18 - 29
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Zach Taljaard
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PPC Young Sculptors Award Exhibition
For artists 'young in the art of sculpting', and who lean toward concrete or cement as a medium, this is one for you. The quality of work on the exhibition is uneven, but unlike the Atelier, it's not edited for the show. What you see is what was submitted, and while it remains Pretoria-dominated, it's a good litmus test to gauge levels of sculptural sophistication in both technical and conceptual arenas. You often get the feeling that artists who have submitted work aren't comfortable with concrete as a medium, but have entered because there's some cash up for grabs. Olaff Bischoff and Berno Wellman scored top points for an elegant installation entitled Love Affair/20h30; Zach Taljaard won second prize for his piece entitled What Goes Up, an exercise in technical virtuosity if there ever was one; and Retha Erasmus earned third place for her Vessel. Two merits were also awarded, one to Ferdie Hartzenberg for Riven... Ribbon, a well-considered and subtle take on the AIDS pandemic; and to Simon Moshapo for Penny Whistler, for an expressive and unexpected treatment of an otherwise tried-and-tested subject.
October 2 - October 12
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Invitation image for 'Karooscapes'
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'Karooscapes' at the Open Window
Sarah Ballam, Jacobus Kloppers, Hermann Niebuhr and Albert Redelinghuys present an exhibition largely comprised of paintings dealing with each artist's experience and relationship with the landscape and emotional spaces of the Karoo. All four artists have lived in the area and exhibit a technical command of their visual language. A line in the press release reads: "Preoccupations with theory are more often than not displaced by thoughts of rain on the road". As such, I don't think this exhibition will do much to 'revisit' the Karoo as a site for anything other than personal observation through the unchallenging, aesthetic application of paint, but I have no doubts that it'll be a crowd-pleaser.
October 4 - 23
Open Window Art Academy, 10 Rigel Avenue, Erasmusrand
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'Trapped', showing at the African Window, September 12 - October 29
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'Trapped Reflections' at the African Window
Artists including Guy du Toit, Chris Gous, Henriette Ngako, Walter Oltmann, Jan van der Merwe, Minnette Vari and Diane Victor have been curated by Koos van der Watt in an exhibition exploring functional structures created by inhabitants of the Kosi Bay lake area of the north coast of Natal. The structures themselves are not dissimilar to the work of the land artists of the 1970's, and the contemporary readings of these structures by some well-known and less established artists could make for an interesting exercise. September 12 - October 29
African Window, Visagie Street
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