Archive: Issue No. 38, October 2000
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A Webcam image of Bronwen Findlay's studio
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www.mweb.co.za/events/signatures/default.asp
Signatures provides a peek into the lives of artists in their studios. Four South African artists have been approached to allow Signatures to install a webcam in their studio so that the creation of their work can be seen in an environment where few people are allowed.
During September, these four artists will each start and complete a new work. Peter Binsbergen, Bronwen Findlay, Ben Botma and Clare Menck have been chosen. Images of their activities in the studio and their progress on the canvas will be available on the site at certain times each day. After completion, their work will be on exhibition at the gallery of the Bellville Arts Association and auctioned online by The Lot.
New Signatures, new artists who have never exhibited solo before, will soon be exhibited on the site. Their work will be photographed and added to the site and will also be on exhibition at the Bellville Arts Association. The best work will be selected and the overall winner will receive the M-Web New Signatures Award.
To enter the New Signatures competition contact Debbie or Giselle at (021)918-2301 or e-mail them.
Although the idea of Signatures is unique in this country, the site has a very conservative and dull appearance. It needs more graphics and visual material to keep the viewer's interest. And be prepared to squint as you read through.
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SOUTH AFRICA
MTN Art Institute
The institute's vision is to nurture heritage and cultural processes, and in so doing support the mechanisms through which society may be examined and restored. Although the site looks really good there are still problems with some pages. After clicking on some icons an error appears. This especially happens on the map that lists all types of art - metal, wood, mixed media, drawing, painting and all the rest.
INTERNATIONAL
Queer Arts Resource
This site operates as an interactive website which functions as a virtual museum. Under archive check out 'AIDS: Making Art and Raising Hell'. This exhibition gives a history and thorough information on AIDS related art works. Another perspective is also given as commentary focuses on how the AIDS crisis has effected the art community.
Art Crimes: The Writing on the Wall
Main goals are to provide cultural information and resources and document the constantly disappearing paintings. The work on the site has been created by artists who call themselves "writers", their works are their writings. Art Crimes also dispels the negative stereotypes about people who produce graffiti art and their affiliation with gangs.
There are many featured artists from all over the world along with examples of their work. Art Crimes is huge containing hundreds of featured artists and thousands of works as well as links to artists' sites. There are links to HipHop sites, art sites, media and other graffiti sites. Interviews and articles are also included and a catalogue can be bought.
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SOUTH AFRICA
Museums Online: South Africa presents all the current activities and exhibitions of local museums. The site includes an events section enabling anyone in the museum of related community to announce relevant activities on the internet, and a by-subscription mailing list which will allow one to be e-mailed regularly on museum activities. Discussion forums also give one the opportunity to voice an opinion on a variety of arts issues.
This is the website of the King George VI Art Gallery in Port Elizabeth, with news of current exhibitions and activities and a virtual tour of some of the gallery's highlights. The museum serves the public through programmes of art research, conservation, publications, educational and recreational events and exhibitions.
This site provides information on the monthly 'Red Eye' art-for-all event at the Durban Art Gallery, described here as a "kick in the pants art initiative". A sharp design in black and red characterises the site, with some nifty flash animations and sound effects. The site gives the philosophy of 'Red Eye', a history of the multi media event, galleries of past highlights, and tells you how to send in a proposal for a future 'Red Eye'.
INTERNATIONAL
http://alternativemuseum.org/tam_monitor
The Alternative Museum provides a global forum where all nations celebrate and embrace their artistic and cultural differences. This site gives artists opportunities to sharpen their creative imagination while transforming art into new and preciously unimaginable forms. Curators from around the world decide what will be exhibited in the e-museum, which consists of artists working in all types of media, commenting on a variety of social issues. TAM succeeds in its mission to initiate, support, present and preserve interdisciplinary arts and criticism. The alternative edge is refreshing, the design is clean and it's easy to navigate one's way through.
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SOUTH AFRICA
The McCabe Gallery was founded in 1997 to promote contemporary South African art. The gallery provides a range of services to private, corporate and museum collectors.This site has a featured book and artist and updates on artists exhibiting in the future. The design is pretty simple, very easy to navigate through.
Cape Town's Association for the Visual Arts is one of the oldest galleries in the city, and under the directorship of Estelle Jacobs, provides space for a continuous round of exhibitions decided upon by a Committee. The AVA also serves as a clearing house for art information and has an outreach programme which benefits less privileged artists. Their website carries news of current shows, and information on previous exhibits.
INTERNATIONAL
This New York based site exhibits work of artists showing at the contemporary art gallery, Agora, located in Soho, among a hub of galleries and museums. Many advantages for artists and clients are available as Agora offers gallery representation for artists and consultation services for buyers. There is a featured artist each month, a calendar of exhibitions and information for collectors. A list of artists, brief bios and examples of their work that enlarge to a good size are also available.
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SOUTH AFRICAN
Kendell Geers - the black hole in the rainbow nation in a fucked up world.
As with all Alborough's work, the site avoids all non-essentials. Alborough is the Standard Bank Young Artist 2000, an award which carries a modest fee for a catalogue. That fee was used to design the website instead, and was launched to coincide with the opening of his award show in Grahamstown. As the show moves from place to place, the website will be expanded, so if you like Alborough's work, put this one on your favourites list.
During the Grahamstown Festival, well-known performance photographer John Hodgkiss showed a collection of evocative and visceral images under the title 'Negative' at the Dakawa Art and Craft Community Centre, where he shares the space with Mark Hipper. The title describes the process, whereby the images, be they X rays, colour prints or black and white photographs are printed as negatives. Subjects are skulls which turn black, x rays in which the human form becomes more tangible, and cuts of meat in eerie blue tones. The site features Hodgkiss' own work, with photo-related literature. Contributing artists are also included.
INTERNATIONAL
http://web.tiscalinet.it/ladiesweapons/
Ladies Weapons exhibits the work of Antonio Riello, an artist who photographs weapons and transforms them into high fashion accessories for sophisticated ladies. Weapons used are assault rifles, pistols, machine guns, carbines, sub-machine guns, hand grenades, rocket launchers and military guns. Also used to complete the pieces, leopard skins, brightly lacquered colours, jewels, furs, trendy fabrics and special technological appliances. These materials play along the thin line between fashion and trash. Each photograph is named after a woman.
This artist's website is that of Rob Moonen, a Dutch conceptual artist known to many South Africans after he participated in a Cape Town workshop in 1996. He is currently working with Kevin Brand on a collaborative textile piece to be made up at the Textile Museum in Tilburg, Holland. But his website is listed here because of its good design and the insight given into the artist's fine work.
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SOUTH AFRICAN
BLAConline is a South African arts and culture website dedicated to providing a space where diverse opinions about blackness can be expressed, experiences and perspectives shared. Including listings on visiting artists, dance, entries, events, exhibits and workshops, BLAConline acts as a networking site for black artists in all fields, emerging and established, black academics and professionals. The site runs out of the Black Artists Collective (BLAC).
This independently funded directory of South African art, galleries and artists was sparked by the evident lack of marketing and publicity opportunities and techniques for artists and galleries in the region. The initiators of South African Artists claim that they are the leading source of info for anyone interested in South African art but there is little commentary on art. The site was specifically created to sell art.
A book choice and featured gallery or artist are also published.
This is the website of Cape Town's South African Centre for Photography, and gives images and information about current photographic events. The Centre "endeavours to promote a broader understanding of the medium of photography in all its forms, and to foster the development of its practice, teaching, scholarship and criticism through the establishment of sustainable ongoing programmes".
Every artist deserves a business card on the net, the Artslink webmaster TJ de Klerk believes. And galleries can have a whole page, free. This local site becomes more and more useful, with its e-mailing of arts-related press releases available to anyone through its Acemail programme. Won the Arts and Culture award for best art site in the country in 1998.
INTERNATIONAL
The Thami Mnyele studio in Amsterdam, established in 1993, is a home from home for two visiting artists a year, providing an air ticket and living and working space. The foundation is also considering artists from other African countries. The website tells how to apply for a fellowship and the conditions.
Stroom is an organisation in Holland which not only has its own gallery but also sponsors numerous public art projects by such artists as Vito Acconci. Their site lists and shows many such projects. At present, the site is in Dutch only, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem for South Africans.
E-flux bills itself as the "the first electronic mailing company devoted exclusively to serving the international art world." Working from a data base of cutting edge critics, collectors, consultants, galleries and museums, e-flux will email information about exhibitions to its subscribers at "a small fraction of the usual mailing costs". Logging on to the site will provide information about a wide range of current exhibitions in the States and Europe. The curators of "Translation/Seduction/Displacement", the show of South African artists at the White Box earlier this year used e-flux to send out pix and info on the show.
ShanghART displays works by internationally acclaimed Chinese artists, as well as new and coming young artists from Shanghai and all over China. Since its establishment one year ago, ShanghART has featured some of the most interesting young artists who live in China today. It has become a unique centre for contemporary art in a country with a fast developing art scene. Through exhibitions this site contributes to the development, appreciation and collection of contemporary Chinese art.
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INTERNATIONAL
www.akka.nl/hsal/docs/index_artists.html
To increase the artistic and cultural contact between South African and Dutch artists, a South African living in the Netherlands, Andrea Rolfes and a Dutch art project manager, Arend-Jan Weysters of Stichting AKKA, designed the Holland South Africa Line project (HSAL). This exhibition showed in Amsterdam in September, 2000. This project was designed specifically to have "dialogue" and "communication" between seven Dutch and seven South African artists as its primary basis and objective. Information on the exhibition, and examples of work by the artists involved, are also included on the site.
Continental Shift shows art to be an experimental forum for the co-existence of world cultures. This exhibition focuses on art as a blueprint for co-operation between diverse cultures. The exhibition has taken place from May 21 to September 10, 2000, in four different venues, the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen, the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the Stadsgalerij in Heerlen and the Mus�e d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain in Li�ge. It features a number of artists from Africa and aims to create an image of the artistic relationships between Europe and other continents. Click on an artist's name to bring up samples of the artist's work, then mouse over each picture to reach other related information. This is a website of excellent design.
Isn't it a little strange to plan an exhibition of internet art and place it in a museum space instead of cyberspace? Well, that is what renowned curator Peter Weibel did, and you can see it on the net anyway. Check out net-condition on the very elegantly designed ZKM Online.
One of the better exhibition websites around is this one, which shows a number of works by each of artists on New York's Museum for African Art show, 'Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa'. It's a good place to go for all those matric essayists constantly seeking information on local artists. It presents paintings, sculptures and installations created between 1994, the end of the apartheid era and 1999.
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Sensorium
Sensorium is a site of truly wondrous projects. Breathing Earth, for instance, is a visualisation of earthquakes that have happened worldwide in the past 14 days. A globe with a map of the world comes into view, and on each of the 14 dates, swellings bubble up indicating the location of the seismic activities. Other projects involve the number of kilometres the world has swung round the sun while you have been busy on the website, and the sounds of the web itself.
Plexus is one of the best - great artist projects, articles, news.
Stadium Web includes intriguing initiatives especially designed for the web from a variety of artists. All of them are worth checking out.
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SOUTH AFRICAN
ZA@Play is a good daily read for anyone who wishes to keep up with the best of local cultural happenings. The site also features lively interviews and reviews taken from the Mail & Guardian.
INTERNATIONAL
Artnet.com is a New York-based website which is one of the best and the biggest, constantly updating current information on exhibitions, and offering excellent reviews and magazine coverage.
Published biannually in India, International Gallerie is the gorgeous online version of a global ideas magazine. Five issues old, it has won seven national and international awards for excellence addressing issues that are of universal concern through the arts, performing arts, essays, poetry, photo-essays, socio-political stories of communities and people.
Chinese artists are attracting more and more notice on the world art scene - check out this well designed site for a look at what's contemporary or traditional in the world of Chinese art. One can order magazines, books, there is an artist of the week and a calendar of events.
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame/index.htm
If you're up to grappling with questions of 'critical thought around the whole subject of how culture and technology are interweaving at the end of this century', you could click on the Frame site to read essays by contributors from around the world. Frame is an e-zine emanating from the UK. It's edited by Sue Thomas and Simon Mills.
New York artist Joy Garnett has started a website of interest to artists. Newsgrist,"where spin is art" has images and prose and poetry and articles. Not all that much there yet, but worth checking out.
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