Archive: Issue No. 37, September 2000

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.

Certainly the highlight of this year's Arts Alive Festival - and the only event which highlights visual art as a primary focus. Described as an 'urban opera', artist Rodney Place has conceived of an event which is likely to leave you stunned and seduced. A brass band of which the members are ex-street kids and criminals will lead a series of tanks, supplied by Stallion security and armed response; taxis, souped-up tow trucks, a municipal bus and festival goers to an abandoned car park in the inner city. Once in the car park, visitors will be treated to video installations by Brett Murray, Jane Alexander, Robyn Orlin, Stephen Hobbs, William Kentridge and Rodney Place, on eight floors on the parkade, and performances by Sylvain Strike's Gauloises Blondes, BOO!, TKZee, Mista Bigga, SPEXTATAH, pantsula and breakdancers will start at 9pm. Designed as a re-migration into a centre that many are leaving, or have already left, 'RETREKS: unSUNg CITY' will bring together - and send up - all the elements that turn the city centre into a suburban-dweller's nightmare.

The action begins at 7 p.m. at Market Square. The parade route runs along Bree Street towards Eloff Street, ending up half an hour later at Kings City Parkade at the corner of Bree and Eloff. The bus will shuttle patrons back and forth until 2 a.m..

September 30

Titled 'Withdrawn', Erika Hibbert has opted to show her new collection of drawings from her home. Invested in the exploration of personal experience and relationships, she has achieved a simplicity and integrity in her work, complemented by a dextrous style.

The exhibition opens at 6 p.m. on September 30. Thereafter, viewing is by appointment.

It's always nice to hear of a new art prize doing the rounds, especially one with as much international kudos as this one. Senior and postgraduate students from prestigious art schools in South Africa, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the USA, selected by UBS Bank, were invited earlier this year to submit one painting for consideration. Three works will be selected from each national round of competition, which will then be sent to London for exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. First prize is 30 000 Swiss Francs, and each of the other nine national winners will receive 10 000 Swiss francs. A token amount (still not to be sneezed at) of 2 000 Swiss francs will be awarded to the remaining twenty finalists. South Africa's national exhibition opens at Camouflage at 3 p.m. on Saturday, September 30.

September 30 - October 7

As part of the Market Theatre Photography Workshop's Outreach programme, the CWCI funds an exhibition of photographs taken by various communities. It's about time such work got shown in Pretoria- let's hope it's the beginning of an ongoing and fruitful exchange.

September 27 - October 2

Due to the cancellation of a solo show by Kendell Geers, the Goodman have opted to show a series of small bronzes by William Kentridge that had New Yorkers frantically grappling for their cheque books earlier this year when similar work was shown at the Marian Goodman Gallery. The processional figures, many of which are recognisable from earlier drawings and animations, bespeak the ambivalence of progress versus retrogression - while they appear to move forward, they could also be fleeing. The exhibition is a short one, so be sure not to let it pass you by.

September 16 - 23

The Market Theatre Galleries present 'Hair Renaissance' by Della Kempthorne. There will be walkabouts by the artist on Tuesday September 12 at 10am and Tuesday September 19 at 10 a.m.

Opening: September 10, 6pm

'Living in Public (oh... ah, yes... ah, that's available too!)' is the immediately arresting title of Robin Rhode's debut solo exhibition. Something of a trailblazer, Rhode's provocative drawing performances and video documentation of these have caught the attention of art watchers from Johannesburg to Cape Town and beyond. Rhode was also instrumental in the recent Levi's Vintage campaign that had artists intervening into store front displays. His command of the colloquial, reading like a piece of concrete poetry, comes through in his artist's statement: "So the mission is conception and I take this position. My interventions can be seen as formal, but that is debatable, remaining visual and structural. Like a report remaining critical to its support. Depicting the way objects function as signs before 'beings' see them as material things. The absence of economical, intellectual and moral support assists my task since that has been my survival 'strategy' to recycle through objects, images and 'ideology '. Money! A 'disability' creating another, 'possibly'? We have to integrate to create languages, 'codes', this can be established through my different 'modes'."

He is living proof that art in public is not only available, but essential...and thoroughly entertaining, too. The exhibition opens at 6.00 p.m. on Sunday September 10.

September 10 - October 7

Rumours about a new arts and crafts hub on the Norwood/Orange Grove border have been circulating for at least eighteen months, with some tangible results at last. Spark!, the headquarters and cultural fulcrum of a new section 21 company, The Orchards Project, launches with a very suitable exhibition - Brett Murray and Conrad Botes' 'Boogie Lights'. The space is selling itself as an intersection between the experimental and the functional; the entrepreneurial and the established; and the debut exhibition of wild wall lamps elegantly echoes the space's history as an decommissioned power station. And the poetic spirit seems to be in the air with a very cute rhyme, attributed to Karl Marx (surely not the Karl Marx) on the invitation: "Shop until you drop, Suip until you swing, Join us for a dop, Where cash is always king". 'Nuff said.

September 1 - 11

Art and web interaction comes under the spotlight on Friday, September 8 in a symposium which is the first of its kind in South Africa. Presented by the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) 's Department of Information Studies in collaboration with Marcus Neustetter, the issues raised at the symposium could be of interest to fine artists, graphic designers, web developers, students, educators and art institutes/organizations and galleries. The format of the symposium will be an introductory presentation, an online performance, a discussion and a hands-on exploration.

The aim of the symposium's informal panel discussion will be to address possibilities and shortcomings for the development of a more interactive local art intervention in this medium within South Africa. It will also start to initiate a direction for experimentation and an exploration of the web and develop a critical language for engaging with it. As the first of its kind, this event hopes to act as an introduction and lead into the next phase of implementing ideas and projects. Professor Rory Doepel, Mark Edwards, Marcus Neustetter, Michele Sohn, Damian Stephens and Sue Williamson will be part of the discussion and/or also deliver a short presentation. Adriene Jenik, (artist and assistant professor at the University of California) will be introducing and presenting her Desktop Theatre, a collaborative web project with Lisa Brenneis, via a live web link set in a visual chatroom. (More information on desk top theatre can be accessed via www.desktoptheater.org.)

To allow visitors to interact and experience the websites spoken about, there will be computer facilities linked to the web in the adjacent computer lab with instructions and assistance. "With advancing technological development making computers more readily available to homes and work places, there has been an explosion of interest in the internet and its communication opportunities, interactive culture and information highway," says Marcus Neustetter.

The symposium will follow the main body of the 2nd Annual Conference on World-Wide-Web held on the 6 and 7 September 2000 at RAU. Any interested person is welcome to attend. Students and scholars may enter free of charge, adults and professionals - R15 . For more information, check www.rau.ac.za/conf/www2000 or contact the convenor of the symposium, Marcus Neustetter: m_n@mweb.co.za.

Friday, September 8

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 - September 30

'Artichoke' instigator Jeannette Ginslov, who is much better known as a critically-acclaimed choreographer, joins forces once again with creatives from various discplines to produce a multi-media performance event entitled 'Clinical Capsule'. Interactive video and web artist, Marcus Neustetter and composer Poisondwarf (Andre van Rensburg) collaborate with Ginslov in a dance work/installation that incorporates dance, set, music, video, drawing and slide projections. Filmmaker Kathryn Flatau also presents New Film. The event is part of Arts Alive 2000.

September 13 and 14 at 8.00 p.m.

Dance Factory, Newtown, Johannesburg

Secure parking available, tickets cost R25

Daimler Chrysler Art Award winner for 1999, Kay Hassan, presents a solo exhibition in the rather staid art museum in the Jacaranda City. It's seldom that our most celebrated exports show substantial bodies of work here at home, but the fact that no press release has been received to date is somewhat worrying. Also on at the museum is an exhibition of international graphic art, including prints by Salvador Dali, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Paul Gauguin, Ronald Kitaj and Frank Stella, amongst others.

Ends September 20

This is not the kind of show that would normally find its way onto the pages of ArtThrob. Having said that, and being admittedly confused about the conceptual merits of this exhibition, the work is strangely intriguing, not least for the artist's anachronistic handling of oil paint. Described by gallery manager as "daunting", this is an understatement. Riding presents well-known characters and figures from art history in a variety of period costumes, cut out and mounted in boxes, or isolated against starkly blank backgrounds. The overall effect is haunting, and worth a visit, if only to experience a contemporary painter working in such a way. The exhibition opens at 7.00 p.m. with guest speaker Nataniel.

September 6 - 26