Wednesday, April 18, 2012

In many cities around the world - Manhattan, London and Stockholm, to name just three - art commissioned from local artists enlivens the subway stations, making the daily process of getting from one place to another much more fun. So it’s great to see the city of Cape Town applying the same process to the network of MyCiti bus stations spreading virally through the city. In 2010, I did a 19 panel design at the bus station at the airport, involving clouds and mountains and calligraphic quotes. A few weeks ago, curator Roger van Wyk invited me and four other artists to propose a design for the station opposite Thibault Square. The brief was to honour three early architects of Cape Town, including Louis Michel Thibault, designer of the historic Koopmans de Wet house, now a museum in Strand Street.

This week, we heard that the gig went to Julia Anastasapoulos, with one of the best designs for a bus station I’ve yet seen. Thibault used the classic golden mean system of proportions in making his designs, and Julia took the circles which had determined his structure and dropped in areas of transparent colour. A beautiful solution to honouring the architect, fully utilizing the glass panels of the bus station, and at the same time enriching the passengers’ experience of waiting for the bus to come.

It reminds me a bit of an old David Kramer song, where he talks about growing up in Worcester, and how the most exciting part of Sunday was standing at the front door looking at the cars going by outside, first through the green glass panel and then through the red.

Good Friday, April 6 2012

When a sense of loss is unbearable, can an acoustic envelope of music provide a way to alleviate pain? This is one of the questions introduced to her Cape Town  audience by the brilliant international academic, Griselda Pollock this week. Talking luminously about the little known German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon, who died in Auschwitz in 1943, Pollock showed images of the vibrant small paintings Salomon left behind. These chronicle a fictional account of her tragic life, complete with transparent overlays referencing the music to be listened to, or hummed, while looking at that image.  The artist’s self portrait is on the right above, next to the photo of Griselda, taken during her Michaelis talk.

More about the artist at http://www.jhm.nl/collection/themes/charlotte-salomon. Griselda Pollock can be referenced all over the web.

Chad Rossouw: Cape Town Overnight

Chad Rossouw’s ‘A History of Failure’  is on view at Brundyn & Gonsalves and is a dense imaginary of a scientific and engineering South African past … his elegant poster of a Zeppelin flying over the art deco Old Mutual building promises CAPE TOWN OVERNIGHT.

Stan Douglas: Malabar People: Owner/Bartender 1951

Was the 2^nd Johanneburg Biennale a failure? Only in that it was closed early by the main funders, the City of Johannesburg, and has never happened again. To the overseas critics who came to look and to those of use who were lucky enough to participate or to be there, it was a triumph. Curated by Okwui Enwezor, it was called “Trade Routes and Geography”

Penny Siopis: The Master is Drowning

In what may turn out to be the exhibition of the year, Joost Bosland has recalled those brilliant weeks which brought some of the top artists of the world to this country with an exhibition at the Stevenson entitled ‘Trade Routes Over Time’, The show  features work by a few of the many artists who took part, including Stan Douglas, Yinka Shonibare, Olafur Eliasson, Pierre Huyghe and South African artists Jo Ractliffe and Penny Siopis. 

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.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Artists, friends, and the glamorous stars of Generations mingled at the after party following the opening of Candice Breitz’s ‘Extra!’ at the Standard Bank Galleries in Johannesburg this week. Breitz, in a polka dotted Gianni Versace top, was clearly delighted to be back in her home country for this most brilliant of occasions.

‘Extra!’ was commissioned by the Standard Bank especially for this exhibition. In trying to decide what to make for the show, Breitz came up with the idea of asking Mfundi Vundla, who conceived the idea of Generations, now Africa’s biggest soap opera, if she could act as a white extra in scenes, totally ignored by the actors. Vundla agreed.

The resulting 35 minute video is a treat to watch. Sometimes wonderfully absurd, as at moments such as the one where Breitz’s white feet are centre camera and the caption reads: ‘There’s no bigger blessing than watching your child grow up’. Often provocative. What is that white woman doing there, hovering around?

It’s been a busy week in Johannesburg, with a great opening at the Goodman Gallery of their show ADVANCE last Thursday week. My piece is in the window facing Jan Smuts Avenue., and other artists include Mikhael Subotzky, Marina Abramovic, Moshekwa Langa, Alfredo Jaar and Candice Breitz.

I am also trying to start a new series of work, but more about that another time ...

I left Cape Town at noon on the day of the Goodman opening last week, but not before a quick dash into town at the invitation of artist/jewellery maker Gordon Radowsky to view the annual collection of beads brought to town by the bead man, Mr Sillah. The extraordinary beads, from all over Africa, covered an entire floor of a rented office space.

OMG. So beautiful. Just as well I had a plane to catch and couldn’t spend more than 45 minutes …

Thursday, January 26, 2012

As January hits the third week of the month, the city’s art galleries take down the group shows directed at the summer visitors, and get serious again. Or, relatively serious.

At blank projects last week, Avant Car Guard and friends were staging a finissage. The text on one of their banner pieces read, IF YOU DIE, CAN I HAVE YOUR CELL PHONE ? Perhaps only in South Africa could this statement seem like a reasonable request.

Across the road from blank, at the Stevenson, Viviane Sassen’s seductive, off kilter images are a complete antidote to the perfectly lit, carefully placed subjects one has grown accustomed to encountering on gallery walls.

Viviane Sassen’s Kapijmpange

In this portrait of a young girl, the focus of Sassen’s attention is the fragile, rose printed voile of her dress. In order to concentrate on this gentle texture, the girl’s features have been lost in a soft dark pool. Conversely, this makes her more magnetic than if we had been able to discern every eyelash.

Stuart Bird’s Blood Knot

Round the corner at the Goodman, Stuart Bird has mounted his first solo show, and displays a dazzling virtuosity in his handling of materials. Blood Knot is the title of a searing Athol Fugard play about two half brothers, one black, one half white. it is also the title of Bird’s intertwined knotted sculpture, made not of rope, but carved, meticulously and sinuously, from wood.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A performance detail from Athi-Patra Ruga’s Ilulwane

It’s really too hot to work today. Come on, it’s a baking 34°C, or 93.2° F. Of course, there’s no air con in the studio. And if you open the windows more than a crack or turn up the fan, papers blow everywhere.

So I’m trying to keep cool by writing about Athi Patra Ruga’s watery Ilulwane at the RoseLee Goldberg-directed Performa Biennial of performance in New York last November.

Ruga drew part of his inspiration from the 1970s and 80s photographs of Alvin Baltrop, a photographer who struggled for recognition for his photos of queer life on the West side piers of Manhattan. Baltrop died in 2004, and it is only now that his work is beginning to be exhibited in mainstream galleries. Working with Baltrop’s evocative visual references, Ruga added elements from his own Xhosa culture, on initiation ceremonies, and also reflected on the AIDS crisis to build up his 45 minute synchronized swimming performance.

A performance detail from Athi-Patra Ruga’s Ilulwane

Synchronized swimming? This is a sport I have always associated with ruched floral bathing suits and colour coordinated rubber caps. I believe Ilulwane will be performed in South Africa later this year. I can’t wait to see how Ruga pulled all these diverse elements together.