Archive: Issue No. 60, August 2002

19.08.02 'Outpost ll' - a show of contemporary KZN art at the NSA
19.08.02 State Of Grace, Directed by Jay Pather with the Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre
19.08.02 'Clay and Fiber' - annual ceramic exhibition at the NSA
19.08.02 'IziKhwepha Zethu: Our Strength' at the Durban Art Gallery
01.08.02 'Kaganof, Janssen, Henegan and Deane - 'Virgins' at the NSA
01.08.02 Rodney Blumenfeld and Clive Sithole at the African Art Centre
01.07.02 'Baggage' at the Alliance Française

The NSA is hosting a follow-up to 'Outpost',- a travelling show that took contemporary work from KwaZulu Natal to Pretoria two years ago. 'Outpost II', the sequel, will also be travelling later in the year, this time to Stellenbosch. Both shows have been curated in response to the historically held idea that KZN is the last bastion of British colonialism in a far-flung and remote part of Africa and as a consequence work produced here will be conservative and reactionary. 'Outpost II', however, rather than being a beleaguered camp under siege in the badlands, is a place that marks necessary forays into the terrain of uncertainty. Questions rather than assertions might indicate such tentative sorties into the unknown and the works on this exhibition engage with erosion of certitude, lack of identifiability, ambiguity, intertextuality and a dissolution of the expected boundaries between public and private.

In a world subsumed by large monopolies and a globalisation that purports to embrace difference, but rarely does, KZN might represent the smaller, idiosyncratic voice of the individual, which is often lost. This exhibition engages geographies of identity within the South African context. It embraces the personal whilst at the same time acknowledging the broader politics of place.

Curated by Virginia MacKenny and Storm van Rensburg it includes established and newer names. Included artists are Andries Botha, Carol-Anne Gainer, Clive Hardwick, Langa Magwa, Thando Mama, Isabella Quattrocchi, Greg Streak and Ingrid Winterbach.

The NSA exhibition is a selected preview of the larger show which will travel to Stellenbosch.

NSA
Opening: August 21
Closing: September 7

NSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood
Tel: 031 202 3686
Fax: 031 202 3744
Email: iartnsa@mweb.co.za
Website: www.nsagallery.co.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 4pm, Sun 11am - 3pm

University of Stellenbosch Gallery
Opening: October 10
Closing: November 6

US Art Gallery, corner Dorp and Bird Streets, Stellenbosch
Tel: (021) 808 3524
Email: usmuseum@maties.sun.ac.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 9am - 1pm

After presenting the highly acclaimed CityScapes at several locations in and around Durban, Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre presents a work custom-made for the NSA Gallery. Commissioned by the Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience, the company will present State of Grace a new work conceived and directed by Artistic Director, Jay Pather.

State of Grace has been especially designed to take place in several locations at the gallery, combining intimate performance and the spectacular with the interiors and exteriors of the building. The work is a full-length piece dealing with notions of time and layers of presence and absence in contemporary South Africa. Moving from space to space, audiences will witness classical African and Indian Dance melding with contemporary performance and video installations to provide visual and aural stories.

Funded by the Centre for Creative Arts and the National Arts Council, State of Grace runs as part of the Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience.

Sunday August 25 and Monday August 26 at 7:00pm
Tickets available from the NSA Shop, R20, R10 students

For more information contact
Centre for Creative Arts: (031) 260-2506
Or Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre: Jay Pather
(031) 306-3827, 083-290-2910, email: jaypath@mweb.co.za

The KwaZulu Natal region of APSA is holding their annual ceramic exhibition at the NSA Gallery. A regular showcase for the leading ceramic artists in the province this year guest artist Henny Meier was invited to showcase his famous colourful teapots, which have become collectors' items.

An important component to the exhibition is the creation of a platform for first-time exhibitors, made possible through a yearlong training programme sponsored by Old Mutual.

In addition, alongside the ceramics, textile works will be exhibited by Jeannette Gilks, Annette McMaster, Sally Scott and Jutta Faulds.

Opening: Wednesday 28 August 28 at 6:00pm
Closing: September 15

NSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood
Tel: 031 202 3686
Fax: 031 202 3744
Email: iartnsa@mweb.co.za
Website: www.nsagallery.co.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 4pm, Sun 11am - 3pm

Now in its fourth year of existence 'IziKhwepha Zethu: Our Strength', the exhibition inspired annually by Women's Day, recently opened at the DAG. This year's theme is 'Raise your Voice on Women's Issues'. Founded and organised by Phumzile Dlamini, the Durban Gallery Outreach Officer, its ultimate aim is to help KZN communities to extend their skills and to further engage with other communities in other provinces.

This year the exhibition engages with women's issues in art, craft and textiles focusing on women's resistance in the past, violence against women, poverty and HIV/AIDS. It looks at the therapeutic possibilities of art as well as art's potential to generate funds to help in the fight against poverty.

For more information contact
Phumzile Dlamini or Pat Khoza on (031) 311 2274/75
or Odette Tolksdorf on (031) 266 2978

Durban Art Gallery, 2nd floor, City Hall, Smith Street
Tel: 031 311 2262
Fax: 031 311 2273
Website: www.durban.gov.za/museums/artgallery
Hours: Mon - Sat 8.30am - 4pm, Sun 11am - 4pm

Setting up camp in the NSA Gallery for a three-week period, artist/filmmaker Aryan Kaganof (previously known as Ian Kerkhoff) will be presenting a multimedia, collaborative, interactive exhibition, consisting of film screenings, discussions, performances and ever-changing digital artworks. Kaganof will live (and be on display) in the NSA for the whole duration of the show with a digital editing suite, allowing the artist to process 'input' by visitors to the gallery complex overnight. The results will be presented as printouts, screenings and projections, resulting in a constantly evolving exhibition.

Kaganof invited Durban based artist/DJ Helge Janssen, artist/filmmaker Catherine Henegan (currently based in Amsterdam) and performance artist Nicola Deane to join the fray. The results of the collaborations and individual works will be presented as part of the exhibition, and included in a programme of three evenings of presentations, music and performance.

Films from Kaganof's oeuvre will be screened continuously in the gallery for the duration of the exhibition (see schedule below), allowing visitors a unique opportunity to witness the work of this renowned filmmaker, including the South African premiere of Western 4.33 (2002), winner of first prize at the 12th African Film Festival, Milan.

At the opening there will be a special performance by Helge Janssen and the screening of The Seven Last Words Of Jesus Christ and Western 4.33 . There will also be a special event on Saturday August 10 at 8:00 pm with a poetry reading by Leo Janssen, Home Economics - a performance by Nicola Deane, the SA premiere of Toto by Catherine Henegan and the world premiere performance of The Gospel According To Kaganof: A Multimedia Performance Piece For Sheets, Pulpit, And Commode.

At the closing of the show Saturday August 17 8:00 pm there will be a final party with a world premiere screening of Casbah And Back, a fashion show and performance by Helge Janssen and fresh from their tour of Mpumalanga, Bud Manara and Terrence Obara will present their latest CD release Monumental Olfactory Windbreak. In addition a performance by 'Die Kaksusters' and one by the 'Virgins' (South Africa's premiere "noise" outfit consisting of Terrence Obara and Bud Manara who have recorded more than thirty albums of unbearable noise. Their single Mbeki's Warm Jets did not sell any copies. These guys can't even give their music away!!! Bring earplugs). The party will continue until dawn under the careful ministrations of DJ Helge Janssen.

Throughout the exhibition DVD screenings will be held continuously from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm every day. Programme will begin again every hour on the hour.

>> Click through for the complete screening schedule

Opening: July 30 at 8:00 pm
Closing: August 17

NSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood
Tel: 031 202 3686
Fax: 031 202 3744
Email: iartnsa@mweb.co.za
Website: www.nsagallery.co.za
Hours: Tues - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 4pm, Sun 11am - 3pm

Currently on at the African Art Centre is a ceramic exhibition of the work of Rodney Blumenfeld and Clive Sithole. Durban-born Blumenfeld is an architect who has expanded his interest in the structural issues of space through ceramics. Specialising in large, free-standing vessels, sculptures and platters he textures and decorates them with abstract symbology inspired by Zulu earplugs and traditional beadwork. Sithole, Sowetan-born, handbuilds his singular pots and sawdust-fires them. Finely decorated with applied and scraffito designs his highly burnished pots are based on the traditional Zulu beer pots and headrests which Sithole has subtly extended with alterations of conventional scale and shape.

Both artists have an international profile and have their works in public and private collections.

'Baggage', an exhibition of 38 lithographs by a range of South African artists on the theme of baggage, will be on show at the Alliance Française in Durban. Rich in its literal evocation of travel as well as loaded in its symbolic and psychological meaning, the show promises to be interesting.

Opening: July 10 at 5.30pm

Alliance Française
Tel: 031 312 9582 (Fern)