Wednesday March 21, 2012

Last year, American artist Christian Marclay won the Golden Lion at Venice for his 24 hour video played in real time. ‘The Clock’ was an edit of thousands of cinematic clips which involved clocks or watches, and the magical part was that If, for instance, one was looking at Harold Lloyd hanging perilously from a clock above a New York street, one knew the exact time in real life was, in fact, 6.30.

For those who are interested in the process that lay behind this masterpiece, the latest New Yorker has an extended piece on Marclay and the three year marathon making of the ‘The Clock’

Here is a trailer, one of several available on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp4EUryS6ac

But what really caught my attention was this. Last week, I talked about Mark Dion’s comment that an artist’s particular methodology should be able to be adapted to any context. Marclay started as a DJ, playing scratched and broken records, and then made works using broken records. An artwork involving a collage of cracked vinyl pieces may seem a long way from ‘The Clock’, but the impulse to edit existing material is the same.

Much as we all adore Athi Patra Ruga, one might have wished that a stronger desire for a rigorous edit had arisen in his breast as one sat through a somewhat tortuous performance of his rite of passage piece, ‘Ilulwane’, at the Long Street Baths last week.

The red lighting on the water was gorgeous. The synchronized swimmers looked good for the first fifteen minutes, after which they did not seem to be particularly energized, or in time. They were probably cold by then, poor things.

The video projection stuttered through images of piers off the west side of lower Manhattan (I think), a ceremony of robed figures, and a herd of goats, and eventually against this backdrop, the floating artist was hauled from the water and suspended above the pool, high heels casting a dramatic shadow on the wall. By then, though, the videos had become repetitious and had gone on too long.

The ability of the artist to endure has to be balanced against the desire of the audience to reach closure.

Cape Town has another new art space. For a gallery located inside a hotel, the Upper Eastside in Woodstock, it has an odd name: The Museum Gallery. This week, first time exhibitor Sally Berg opened her introspective painting show ‘In the flesh’ in the lower part of the gallery. Visit on Saturdays until March 31.

Rebecca Kotane

For the first time in my life, a few Sundays ago, I was in the presence of a person who was a hundred years old. it was the 100th birthday of the redoubtable Rebecca Kotane, widow of struggle hero Moses Kotane, and the celebration lunch was being held in the Walter Sisulu Hall in Soweto. Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe was there, and Frank Chikane, and I was accompanying Amina Cachalia, who had also been invited to speak.

The centenarian looked fully composed and sensible of her remarkable achievement in reaching such an advanced age. When her husband went into exile in the apartheid years, she remained at home, becoming a symbol of all the women who had to hold their lives together with little support from their absent husbands.

Rebecca Kotane cuts the cake, flanked by DP Kgalema Motlanthe

Her primrose yellow silk dress with a matching hat ensured that she stood out amongst all the other darker hued finery worn in her honour, and a silk flower on her dress in deepest violet was matched by a pair of satin gloves.

My new work involves an inter-generational investigation, in listening to the stories and values of the powerful women of the Mandela era, and listening also to the challenges thrown up by the new generation, the born frees, their granddaughters. I’m not yet sure quite where it’s all going, but that is the interesting thing about starting new work.

You make a start somewhere, and flounder along for a while until gradually the murk clears and a structure begins to emerge. You just have to have faith that with time and energy, the process will impose its own sense.

Mark Dion

Back in Cape Town, I went to a lecture given at Michaelis by Documenta artist Mark Dion. I was struck particularly by the truth of one thing he said. When students show him work insisting that the methodology and the context are indivisible, he tells them to forget about the context next time, and take the methodology and apply it elsewhere.

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Design Indaba finished last week, bringing with it one of the most highly regarded curators in the world, Hans Ulrich Obrist, as a guest speaker. As a day ticket to hear him speak would have cost R2 600, I did not hear his presentation, but later that day, Obrist came round to the Goodman Gallery to meet artists in a series of short speed dates. ‘Hello … nice to meet you again …yes, I am enjoying Cape Town … now tell me about your work’.

Obrist is on record as saying he loves talking to artists and exchanging ideas, so it was a pleasure to renew an acquaintance first made over breakfast in Dakar a few years ago. A slightly nerve racking pleasure.

Lisa Brice at the Goodman Gallery

In town this week is Lisa Brice, here from London for the opening of her show at the Goodman. It’s on Saturday, and the paintings that have gone up are her strongest yet. Brice was included in one of the latest Phaidon books, Vitamin P2; New perspectives in painting. A real achievement.