SunStar and Sunglasses

Okay. Stop right there. I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking that I am a turd on a canvas. But you are wrong. I’m 1.648 Untitled. I’m a Zander Blom, made by his own hand. Step a little closer. You see this weave. This is Belgian linen. I b

Public art in South Africa is a contested notion. It is, of course, contested everywhere to a greater or lesser extent. In some countries, policy frameworks have been established – the same cannot be said of South Africa since the end of aparth

The black and white poster for Brett Murray’s first solo exhibition ‘Satirical Sculptures’ in Johannesburg, held at the Market Theatre Gallery in 1989 and long a fixture on my bedroom walls afterwards: presented a sculpture of a pol

Michael Taylor also does paintings and also Dana Schutz does paintings as well. These are them. 

Born in Tzaneen, schooled in Dusseldorf, Gerda Scheepers now lives and works between Cape Town and Berlin. Her next exhibition will be at blank projects opening on the 30 October 2014.

To my mind Georgina Gratrix and Paul Housley are two of the best and most entertaining painters working today. Their work contains some stark similarities with their multi-ocular figures - which seem to intimate at a visually obsessed society - and t

Urs Fischer and Jared Ginsburg are distortionists, enlarging, twisting and severing out of shape the human form. Although working in their own distinctive media their interests and modes have at times a interesting cross-over. Whimsically grotesque

In an era when many artists project a posture of insouciance and self-absorption, and where monitoring market share trumps critical engagement with social issues, a creative soul who is tightly integrated into his community and actively wrestles with

Chad Rossouw and Matthew Benedict's work operate on very similar aesthetic and intellectual levels. Both artists are interested in the representation of history and how its aesthetics both inform and rub against contemporary visual culture. Benedict'

At the Global Black Consciousness conference in the Hotel Soukhamon, Dakar, the philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne concluded his paper by quoting poet Aimé Césaire: 'at the end of individual singularity…' he suggested, 'at the end of difference, is

The gallery scene is in a constant state of flux, especially in Johannesburg, where the savvy curators and ‘ideas-people’ seek to capitalise on the growing appetite for contemporary art. I spoke to two gallerists at different points on their career t

'Jacob Zuma is not to be trifled with. He is wily, strategic, scheming and, most importantly, he is acutely aware that he must preserve and protect himself at all times.' This was Justice Malala’s verdict on why Kgalema Motlanthe failed in his attemp

  Pam Warne made a remarkable contribution to arts and culture in South Africa and more specifically to her chosen field of photography and new media. Over 36 years in the museum profession, she participated actively in the transformation of local m

Dan Halter is a Cape Town-based artist with a studio in the city bowl. Hailing from Zimbabwe his work is deeply influenced by notions of displacement. His use of the 'Zimbabwe' or 'refugee' bag in his work is a recurring motif.  Next up for Halter is

The huge international reputation of British designer Thomas Heatherwick lent a particular edge of excitement to the recent unveiling of his architectural plans for the new Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfro

Our editor Matthew Blackman, in the week of the Cape Town Art Fair, catches up with curator and academic Andrew Lamprecht.  Lamprecht, who amongst many other things is a lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, is the curator of this year's

World-renowned curator Okwui Enwezor talks to our editor about the exhibition he curated with Rory Bester, ‘Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life’, which is now showing at Museum Africa in Newtown Johannesburg.

The image of Nelson Mandela is arguably one of the most reproduced, painted, muralled and t-shirted in the world. As numerous commentators have said recently in the wake of his illness and death, in an increasingly secular local society, Mandela has

ArtThrob's staff have been asked to reflect on the most interesting event of 2013. This is the deputy editor Chad Rossouw's choice: Photography is good at recording traces, but it is more tricky to imbue those traces with a sense of their origin, h

ArtThrob's staff have been asked to reflect on the most interesting event of 2013.  This is the managing editor Matthew Blackman's choice: The novelist Damon Galgut, in an essay on Cape Town, imagined the city without the mountain. It would be a ci

It's common practice at the turn of the year to contemplate the past 12 months in review, and having spent last Sunday afternoon at the memorial for Unathi Sigenu, I found myself reflecting on those who have left us in this time - and on what it mean

ArtThrob's staff have been asked to reflect on the most interesting event of 2013.  These are founding editor Sue Williamson's choices:

ArtThrob's staff have been asked to reflect on the most interesting event of 2013.  This is copy editor Amy Halliday's choice: When Tretchikoff’s Chinese Girl went on exhibition at Bonhams in London prior to auction, a cabaret singer and u

An edited version of the article was originally published in the Weekend Argus Making predictions is a fruitless exercise; even economists who are paid to do it are, rather predictably, bad at it. But after walking through the Michaelis School of Fi

Rowan Smith is a Cape Town-based artist with a studio in the light industrial area of Paarden Eiland, just outside the city. Smith has recently returned from doing a Masters at CalArts in the States. Look out for his show early next year at Whatifthe

Is it even worth talking about KwaZulu-Natal’s ANC Provincial spokesperson Senzo Mkhize’s idiotic pronouncements on the occasion of Westville Boys’ High art students exhibiting satirical, culture-jamming-style t-shirts at a market i

Here I am trying to reply to the plastic sword duel between Gerhard Schoeman’s 'The Concept of Criticism at Twilight' and Chad Rossouw’s 'The Concept of Criticism at Breaking Dawn'. In our era of lamentable sexual freedoms, what could go

Jake Aikman is a Cape Town based artist with a studio on the outskirts of the city center. His most recent exhibition, At the Quiet Limit, took place at SMAC Gallery in 2013. Art Throb: When did you move into your studio? Jake Aikman: 3 years ago. A

Arthur C. Danto, perhaps the most important philosopher of art of the last fifty years, died on Friday at the age of 89.  Danto was for many years a professor of philosophy at Columbia University in New York and an art critic for The Nation. His

An edited version of this article originally appeared in the Weekend Argus.During the Cuban missile crisis President Kennedy was sent two contradictory telegrams from Moscow.  One stated that a solution could be negotiated, the other that, if Kennedy