Tuesday, February 22

‘The best moment in making a film’ said an actor, intercepted on his way up the red carpet to the 2011 BAFTA award show, ‘is the two weeks before filming actually starts. One believes then that it’s all going to be brilliant. Two days after the start of filming, you’ve already made some mistakes, and you know that it isn’t.”

The parallel is not quite the same, but for me, the best part of an exhibition is the hours before the opening, when the work is at last all up on the freshly painted walls, straight, lit to its best advantage, and one is able to see for the first time how each piece works with the next. And also, whether each piece is strong enough to stand up for itself, as well as being part of a larger body of work.

In the empty gallery, no critic has yet weighed in with comments pointing out flaws, and one has not had to wonder if the compliments of friends are sincere or just well meaning and tactful.

Last Saturday, my show ‘Voices’ opened at the Goodman Cape, to my mind, the most beautiful commercial gallery space in the country. This Saturday, the 26th, I will be giving a walkabout at 11 a.m.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

It’s not often one can buy an artwork for R5.20. And get all the news about what is happening in Cairo at the same time.

On Wednesday, I received an email from Christian Nerf which read ‘Howzit Sue. I placed an ad in the Argus death announcements (today and tomorrow)... Thought you may want to acquire one’. In that sentence, ‘acquire’ is the key word.

An image of the ad was attached … a composite photo of the artistic duo Christian Nerf (balding, black rimmed glasses) and Doug Gimberg (deprecating closed eye smile, copious fiery locks).

21/04/1977 – 24/01/2011 Our friend, you have fallen silent in the prime of your life ……. ni dieu ni maitre.

The death announcement

So on Thursday I did buy The Argus and there on the front page of the Classified was Nerf Gimberg, pinkly smiling up from an announcement placed between the death notices of Martine Ward and Brenda Okun (born Kasimov).

So does this mean the two have given up their collaborative work? Are we to take this seriously ? Or is it one of those announcements, like the one Barend de Wet made years ago when he said he had given up being an artist once he produced a son?