Archive: Issue No. 122, October 2007

09.10.07 Johannes Phokela at KZNSA Gallery
07.10.07 Andries Botha at the Bank Gallery
07.10.07 Sharlene Khan at the KZNSA Gallery
07.10.07 Sharlene Khan at the BAT Centre
07.10.07 'No Longer at this Address' at the Durban Art Gallery
07.10.07 John Roome at artSPACE durban
07.10.07 Hannah Lurie at the KZNSA Gallery
07.10.07 Botanical Arts Association of Southern Africa at the KZNSA Gallery
07.10.07 Mduduzi Xakaza at the African Art Centre
07.10.07 Nirmi Ziegler at artSPACE durban
07.10.07 Carey May at artSPACE durban
07.10.07 Final Year Photography Students at Durban University of Technology

07.09.07 Santu Mofokeng at the Durban Art Gallery
24.09.07 'Earth, Light and Spirit' at artSPACE durban

This is the first time that Durban will get to see the work of this internationally celebrated artist born in Soweto and who now lives and works in London. The exhibition, presented in association with Gallery Momo, demonstrates why Phokela has received the John Moores painting prize, the BP Portrait Award and the highly prestigious Decibel Artist's Award, and why he is also one of the key artists at the Institute of International Visual Arts.

Opens: October 23
Closes: November 11

The new Bank Gallery on Florida Road, Durban will be marking its official launch with an exhibition of work by celebrated artist Andries Botha. The gallery occupies a totally transformed art space in a former bank. Curator Henrietta Hamilton said it was the gallery's aim to give the public an opportunity to see work, such as Botha's, that is not often available to them in Durban.

Botha's show entitled '(dis)Appearance(s)' promises to be an intriguing and disquieting look at things forgotten. Botha looks at how we erect symbolic markers in the landscape and then ignore them. He focuses on the ordinary everyday objects that we pass by and brings them into our view in a subtle, yet intense way. Through a variety of media he pays attention to the consequences of the presence and absence of masculinity within an emotional and historical narrative.

Some of the works explore the tenderness of relationships whilst others note the conflictive nature of a society at war with itself.

Botha's show will have a structured education component that acknowledges the artwork as a creative cultural object located in a particular social and political framework. Secondary schools and tertiary institutions have been invited to participate in a structured learning experience led by two trained educational officers. An educational booklet has been prepared by the artist and contributed to by Professor Mike Chapman, Professor Pitika Ntuli, Dr. Johan Wasserman and Ms. Valerie Leigh. Anyone interested in registering for these educational tours contact Janine at jzagel@worldonline.co.za or 083 235 0048.

Bank Gallery continues its programme with London-based video artist Matthew Coombes in November, a group show in January entitled 'Light Show' followed by exhibitions by Paul Edmunds and Greg Streak.

Opens: 6pm, October 25
Closes: November 22

Sharlene Khan's '(B)lack' is an exhibition of mixed media works that play on various words and terms used in relation to street trade in South African city centres. In particular, her focus is on the inner city of Johannesburg. Phrases such as 'informal economy', 'previously disadvantaged', 'high risk areas', 'criminal', 'black' and 'African' do more than simply define a location. These terms have come to classify, sometimes incorrectly, the people who live and work in these urban metropolitan centres. Many of these phrases inevitably end up creating a harmful image of already marginalised, peripheral citizens.

'(B)lack' questions attitudes towards street traders through ink drawings and embroidered images and the visual play of positive and negative terms that have become definitive of the inner-city. These works aim to raise awareness of how words that are used about 'others' can easily perpetuate existing racial and xenophobic stereotypes, which continue to stigmatize an economically struggling sector of society.

Khan was born in Durban in 1977, completed her first MA in Fine Arts at the University of Durban-Westville, and her second MA in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has exhibited extensively internationally in both group and solo shows. Khan was one of the finalists in the 2005 MTN New Contemporaries Award.

A complementary exhibition will be held concurrently at the BAT Centre, Durban and a catalogue will be available for purchase at the KZNSA.

Opens: 6pm, October 2
Closes: October 21

Sharlene Khan's work over the last six years has focused on street life and street trade in the various South African cities. Her subjects are the people who live, work and walk on the streets of South Africa's major city centres. Khan tries to depict the sense of humour, colour, vibrancy, chaos, diversity and uniqueness that the street vendors bring, but also to subvert stereotypes of street people as beggars and misfits. Although Khan produces predominantly oil paintings and mixed media work, she has combined various techniques to form her installation and site-specific work, always in an attempt to push the boundaries of painting.

'Walking The Line' is another such attempt - this time though, Khan incorporates her paintings and drawings of street life into the high-profile arena of fashion. Garments are sewn with oil paintings and ink drawings and various street objects to create beautiful functional art objects. Khan wants the clothing to reflect the 'real' streets of our city centres, not 'Americanised' notions of it, but instead objects sold on the streets like steel-wool, kitchen scourers, key rings, sweets, etc. Placed within the seemingly contradictory high exposure world of fashion, Khan's subjects seem to glare out at the viewer asking, 'What will it take for you to notice me?''

Opens: October 5
Closes: October 27

Amidst some controversy in Ethekwini (Durban), a number of street name changes have been proposed and put into action. 'No Longer at this Address' examines the history of the older colonial names and investigates the people and events behind the new names.

In the foyer, Peter Machen presents his archival research findings on the names, looking at the early forefathers of Durban and the stamping of their brand of history upon the city streets, as well as the 'new' histories represented by the new names. The research is installed as a highly graphic visual montage, and wraps around the foyer in a continuous band that encircles the visitor in history.

The contemporary research, curated by Brenton Maart, occupies the round gallery, and is composed of a number of radically different and exciting components. The key body of work is generated by the Imvunge Street Photographers, whose sensitive visual analysis demonstrates that architecture is not only about buildings, but also about people. Gone is the importance of structure and form that defined modernist architecture. Emerging in the Imvunge Street Photography visual research project is the fact that 'social architecture' is a more accurate description, a field where form and function merge with societies, giving rise to even further layers. This phenomenon is especially evident in big cities in developing countries, where a more authentic and real Africanism is layered upon the colonial history of the past.

Also in the round gallery, local graffiti artists strut their stuff, and their edgy, street-wise spray-paint installation joins forces with chalkboards to allow visitors to the exhibition to make their voices heard.

The Nivea Gallery at the KZNSA is being used, for the weeks leading up to the DAG exhibition, as a project space within which the Imvunge Street Photographers develop their visual research project and analyse their photographic findings.

Opens: 6pm, September 28
Closes: November

In 'Press Delete and Start Again' Durban artist John Roome exhibits woodcut panels and digital projections.

Roome has recently begun to experiment with using the computer as a drawing instrument. Working with very rudimentary programmes, he discovered that he could translate digital drawings into short animated sequences. His attitude to drawing on the computer is very playful and certainly not precious. This has a lot to do with the virtual nature of these drawings and the fact that one can copy them with the click of a mouse and make changes as one goes along. As he says, 'If you are not satisfied with the result, you simply press delete and start again.'

Opens: October 15
Closes: November 3

Architecture has always fascinated sculptor Hannah Lurie, with entrances, doors and historical buildings firing her imagination. 'After all,' writes Lurie, 'What is life but entrances and exits... from the womb to the tomb?'

The works on exhibition are small and intimate reliefs. On view is her rendition of the Cantonese Club (Market Street, Johannesburg), the node of passive resistance regarded by Gandhi as a model community centre, a derelict house in Chatsworth, Gaudi's Familia Sagrada and Christo's curtain in Central Park, New York. There is a hair salon in Paris and the tomb of Princess Noilles Bibesco in the cemetery at Pere Lachaise, Paris. There is the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, an old Synagogue in Port Elizabeth and a section of the Grey Street Mosque in Durban.

Also on show are bronze 'head-scratchers', three glass sculptures inspired by the rooftops and chimneys of Paris (treated in a Postmodern fashion with the cut of scent bottles) and a series of stainless steel sculptures.

Lurie's anthology of poetry is about to be published by Natal University Press, and the artist is well known for her monumental social sculptures (including her Xhosa initiates in Johannesburg and a water sculpture at the Blue Waters Hotel, Durban).

The exhibition will be opened by Prof Pieter Scholtz and a walkabout will be given on Saturday, October 6 at 11.15am.

Opens: 6pm, October 2
Closes: October 21

The Botanical Arts Association of Southern Africa (BAASA) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting public awareness of botanical art. BAASA is open to all botanical artists, ranging from scientific illustrators to realistic flower painters, as well as collectors and those interested in furthering the tradition of botanical art. The KZN Branch of BAASA was formed in 1999, and its first president was Elsa Pooley, a botanical artist and author of the best-selling field guides Trees of Natal, Zululand and Transkei and Wild Flowers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Region.

The collection of work on show is a travelling exhibition that has already been to the Jack Heath Gallery in Pietermaritzburg and the Empangeni Historical Cultural and Art Museum. The work comprises scientific illustrations, botanical art (i.e. botanical portraits) and also experimental works in different media.

The exhibition will be opened by Chris Dalzell, Curator of the Durban Botanic Gardens and an exhibition walkabout and lecture held on Saturday, October 6 at 3pm on 'The Future of Botanical Art', led by Elsa Pooley.

Opens: 6pm, Tuesday October 2
Closes: October 21

Mduduzi Xakaza's paintings are based on his personal awareness and appreciation of the compelling aesthetic qualities of nature. His work is also a reflection of childhood memories at Maphumulo and neighbouring districts in KwaZulu-Natal.

On an intellectual level, Xakaza is drawn to various spaces where he finds himself interrogating the essence of our existence and responsibilities towards the divine force that has presumably given rise to all these natural wonders.

The exhibition is to be opened by Jill Addleson, former curator of Durban Art Gallery.

Opens: 5.30pm, October 10
Opens: October 27

An exhibition of paper art by Nirmi Ziegler entitled 'Not Made in China' opens at artSPACE durban on October 15.

Even though the first paper was made in AD 105 by Cai Lun in China, and kept a secret there for 500 years, this paper is made in Durban, corresponding to, and using its subtropical vegetation. Ziegler reconnects with the pre-industrial roots of papermaking that respect the environment and she explores the essential nature of the plants which she uses to make her work.

Not forgetting the art of experimentation, Ziegler investigates the relationship between art and craft, art and science, and imbedded concepts.

Opens: October 15
Closes: November 3

In a solo exhibition of paintings titled 'Loudly Standing', Carey May considers the era of global communication and the onslaught of noise that has reduced our ability to listen.

'Loudly Standing' explores the balance between understanding a message and hearing only sound-bytes. The images of loudspeakers and water towers speak to the listener of the spaces in between sound where vital information can be retrieved. The water tower is a metaphor for the concentrated power of resources, and the loudspeaker asked ambivalently: 'What are you listening to, noise or information?' The portraits represent those who must resolve this tension.

These metaphors are also directly pointing to the need to re-configure our knowledge of the environment: who controls it and for whose benefit? Sending out messages to transform our inner environment is one reason why this exhibition focuses on loudly protecting our resources.

Opens: October 15
Closes: November 3

The Durban University of Technology Art Gallery invites you to the opening of their photographic department end of year exhibition.

As part of their studies, third year students are afforded the opportunity to interact with the larger photographic industry. This is done by inviting stakeholders in the industry to view their end of year portfolios. This opportunity affords the students immediate feedback from people who are already in the industry. By the same token the exhibition also affords the industry a chance to see upcoming photographers.

Opens: October 15
Closes: November 1

'Invoice' is a survey show of the work of one of South Africa's foremost photographers, Santu Mofokeng. The exhibition includes photographs from virtually all of his major bodies of work produced in the period between 1982 and 2006, and is a landmark event that was conceived to coincide with the photographer's 50th year. The exhibition has been shown at both the JAG and the SANG so far.

Opens: September 7
Closes: November 6

'Earth, Light and Spirit' is an exhibition of works by Durban-based artists Maggie Strachan, Lara Mellon and Roz Cryer.

Strachan's work explores the ambiguous relationship between that which appears structured and that which seems shrouded in shadow. Mellon's paintings are inspired by the search for the essence of things, the spirit of a place or a person, and are characterised by a spirituality expressed in marks of movement and light that reveal the image. Cryer's paintings capture moments in nature where light and shadow are the primary focus. On another level, the paintings aim to evoke the deep and healing relationship between humanity and wilderness.

Opens: 6.30pm, September 24
Closes: October 13