APRIL 2020 SCULPTURE EDITION ARTTIMES.CO.ZA
INVITING CONSIGNMENTS FOR OUR UPCOMING AUCTIONS
Modern & Contemporary Art
ENQUIRIES & ART VALUATIONS JOHANNESBURG +27 11 243 5243 | +27 71 675 2991 | enquiries@aspireart.net CAPE TOWN +27 21 418 0765 | +27 83 283 7427 | ct@aspireart.net
www.aspireart.net
Nicholas Hlobo, Untitled, 2005
Dealers in100 years of SA Fine Art Prints www.printgallery.co.za Woodstock, Cape Town
Cape of Good Ink The SA Print Gallery presents: ‘Cape of Good Ink, a view of the Cape from an artist’s perspective from the last 100 years’. Artist’s include: De Jong, Pemberton, Spilhaus, Skotness, Soha, Goldin, Clark-Brown, Woodbourne, Miles and many more. View the show online at www.printgallery.co.za
Daily Online Art Thrill Catalogues, Clips & Fun www.artgo.co.za
ART TIMES APRIL EDITION 2020
CONTENTS Cover: Maureen Quin, Rescue, 2003, Bronze, H685mm x W225mm x L550mm
12 M.O.L 7 - WINDOW SHOPPING IN THE CAPE TOWN CBD Ashraf Jamal Column
18 ART IN A TIME OF VIRAL VULNERABILITY
Reflections on the inaugural Social Impact Arts Prize 2020
24 CALLING ALL SCULPTORS SculptX 2020
32 THE EMPIRE OF MAUREEN QUIN Written by Briony Haynes
48 HIRAETH
RUHAN JANSE VAN VUUREN @Tokara
52 KOBUS LA GRANGE
The Timelessness of a Tempest
62 COBUS HAUPT
Confronting questions of balance, physicality and space
64 PALIMPSEST - Marelise Van Wyk
A reconsidering of the objects and histories washed ashore
70 ANDREW SUTHERLAND’S FIELD NOTES Crafting a wistful portrait of the adventurer-explorer
80 DRAWN IN
A group exhibition of drawings
92 ROBERT HODGINS ESQUIRE, ART CRITIC By Sean O’Toole
100 BUSINESS ART
Upcoming Fune Art Auction and result highlights
114 ARTGO
Art exhibition highlights nationally
Stanislaw Trzebinski, Stalagmite Bust, Bronze, 2019, 91x32x29, Ebony/Curated
From the Editor
SOUTH AFRICA’S LEADING VISUAL ARTS PUBLICATION
CONTACT ART TIMES Tel: +27 21 300 5888 109 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town EDITOR Gabriel Clark-Brown editor@arttimes.co.za ADVERTISING & MARKETING Eugene Fisher sales@arttimes.co.za Anton Smit, Die Verlange
F
or most, this is the first time in our lives where globally we are all interconnected against the same COVID-19 threat to our lives and communities. The individual, social and financial consequences are dire, where the lives of loved ones are at risk, the ability to access resources and businesses are severely tested - especially in the current economic downturn. Even if one is optimistic, many businesses and livelihoods and skills may well be lost.
On the upside, most Art Fairs, Events, Galleries, artists and art businesses will be spending more effort to go online. This might well be painful now and the gallery experience is not always the same as online, but should see their rewards after time. In addition new local innovations might well develop, especially in light of the huge cost of accessing global markets through Dollar based sales platforms. With this month’s beautiful features we focus on SA Sculpture. It’s one of my favorite editions, as we showcase the most amazing talent of Stanislaw Trzebinski, Anton Smit, Ruhan Janse van Vuuren, Kobus la Grange and Cobus Hauptand - and to have the pleasure of Maureen Quin’s timeless work entitled “Rescue” on our cover. Furthermore I would like to mention that we have the privilege to publish works by two of SA’s great art writers Sean O’Toole and Ashraf Jamal. Enjoy these 3 weeks of lockdown, you are not alonewe are here and let’s make the best of it, keep safe and keep creating! Gabriel Clark-Brown
DIGITAL MEDIA & EXHIBITION LISTINGS Jan Croft subs@arttimes.co.za ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Brendan Body ARTGO CONTENT info@artgo.co.za RIGHTS: THE ART TIMES MAGAZINE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REJECT ANY MATERIAL THAT COULD BE FOUND OFFENSIVE BY ITS READERS. OPINIONS AND VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THE SA ART TIMES DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE OFFICIAL VIEWPOINT OF THE EDITOR, STAFF OR PUBLISHER, WHILE INCLUSION OF ADVERTISING FEATURES DOES NOT IMPLY THE NEWSPAPER’S ENDORSEMENT OF ANY BUSINESS, PRODUCT OR SERVICE. COPYRIGHT OF THE ENCLOSED MATERIAL IN THIS PUBLICATION IS RESERVED.
@ARTTIMES.CO.ZA
10
ANDREW SUTHERLAND 01 APRIL - 02 MAY 2020
91 KLOOF STREET. GARDENS CAPE TOWN. SOUTH AFRICA
WWW.SALON91.CO.ZA INFO@SALON91.CO.ZA
+27 21 424 6930 +27 82 679 3906
M.O.L 7
WINDOW SHOPPING IN THE CAPE TOWN CBD Story & Photos Ashraf Jamal
W
hen I suggest this title for a Taschen book – WINDOW SHOPPING: LOOKING AT AFRICAN ART – Frank Schönau, the director of THK Gallery and the Southern African distributor for Taschen, looks at me perplexedly. Window shopping, I realise, is not a generic phrase but peculiarly South African. I recall as a little boy being bundled into my dad’s chocolate and gold Beaumont for an evening jaunt to the drive-in, a roadhouse for a meal in the car, or to Adderley Street to see the Christmas lights and stroll from shop window to shop window to gawk at gadgets, clothes, furniture. Before any thought of becoming an astronaut – Neil Armstrong had landed on the moon and made his grand stride for Mankind – I wanted to be a window dresser.
Looking through shop windows at night was a commonplace pleasure once upon a time. Things seemed more magical when bathed in a choreographed lighting design. Commodities were artworks. Even in the throes of a boycott there was plenty to see. Looking through windows under a balmy starry night proved more thrilling than a spaghetti western or a bunny-chow. Art galleries, in the 1970s, were not a thing – certainly not for a family from Athlone. The closest we came to art was beaten brass and copper from Gujarat, or a Trechikoff print of a dying swan or weeping rose, purchased from Garlicks. Refused entry to the AVA – then controlled by Irma Stern’s beady exclusionary eye – Tretchikoff figured out a new market. In fact, he pioneered the sale of photo-lithographic prints in chain stores. His cheap quality prints framed in burnished Rembrandt gold were prized exhibits in homes across South Africa. Andrew Lamprecht’s curatorial masterclass, shown at the Iziko National Gallery decades later, is testimony to the White Russian’s enduring popularity. More people from very different walks of life strode into the national
12
museum to look at the largest collection of original Tretchikoff paintings than at any time before or since. Irma Stern, I’m sure, would not be amused. But then as Tretchikoff wisely pointed out, the art scene – then as now – was ‘riddled with bitchiness like a gorgonzola with penicillin.’ Looking at art – even when not sheathed in glass – is a kind of window shopping. The pleasure lies in the looking, even though one might have an acquisitive eye. While unaffordable to most, the pleasures art affords – like the pleasure of looking at an elegantly dressed mannequin, a sleek toaster, a plump clawed sofa – are irresistible. We need things, or rather, want them. They provide our lives with body and drama. Covetousness is not only a private pleasure but a public one. We expect visitors to our homes to ooh-and-ah. Our memories are the sum – in vital part – of the things we acquire. It is those long-ago pleasures derived by looking at things through windows as a child that now race pell-mell to the forefront. Generally, at peace pottering about my personal stomping ground – Observatory – it is always a delight when thrust outwards into the greater world. Visiting Cape Town’s CBD has its peculiar pleasures. At its heart lies Greenmarket Square, the tourist emporia for Africa’s panoply of graven wooden sculptures, wirework, and bolts of sumptuous and earthen cloths. A one-stop shop en route back to the Americas, Europe, the East, the square is wrapped in a glittering band of bracelets – coffee shops, eateries, art galleries. Adjacent Church Street is a mini Montmartre. It was there that I found myself in conversation with Charl Bezuidenhout, the owner of WorldArt. Over the years I have been a regular visitor to his art dealership. Perhaps it was my love for Tretchikoff, for good or ill, that sedimented my affection? Bezuidenhout is a canny broker in Pop Art. As I stopped to talk to him at the recently concluded Cape Town Art Fair, new works, plucked from the walls of a restaurant the night before, were being hung. They were by Norman O’Flynn, the local guru of atomic pop, who, Bezuidenhout informed me, were sold out. O’Flynn has this way with
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Norman O’Flynn, Timekeeper, 150x100cm, acrylic on acrylic glass, 2019, WORLDART
certain loyal consumers and brand-new ones. His glittering gaudy post-punk vistas of our 21st century hell possess an irresistible appeal. The new works too were promptly sold. As I entered World Art on Church, there they were, again, primed to be scooped up and bubble-wrapped for a flight to Brussels. Pop sells. Tretchikoff, despite his many detractors, proved this. If O’Flynn’s paintings matter, it is because they access a yearning for the squeakily bright grotesque. His paintings make us laugh, make us wince – they are strychnine. And all the better for being so. Across the cobbled pedestrian street, bedecked with umbrellas and wrought-iron tables and chairs containing jolly tourists sipping coffee, was the once notorious AVA. It now sported a fire-engine red door and a white Cape-Dutch façade popping with Arabic calligraphy. There was nothing peculiar about this juxtaposition of the Arab and Western world. Samuel P. Huntington’s book – The Clash of Civilisations? – was not the question uppermost in the collective caffeinated mind on that balmy summer’s morn. Disinclined to enter the AVA, for now, I veered upwards to peer into the window of SMITH, another favourite with a very different ethos. It was there – excitedly pressing the buzzer – that I came across the drawings of Stephen Allwright, a recluse who lives in an artist’s colony outside Barrydale, a quiet arty town three hours away from the hubbub of Cape Town. One could not imagine a starker contrast to the dark gaudy pleasure of a painting by Norman O’Flynn. The body of work was titled ‘Broken Face Soliloquies’. These were intimate works. Expressed with exquisite tenderness, they tugged at the small and nagging anxieties we all feel. Rarely have I come across such honesty in art. I was reminded of David Salle. Speaking with Janet Malcolm – the conversation is related in Malcolm’s titular essay ‘Forty-one false starts’ – Salle remarked that ‘the only thing that really matters in art and in life is to go against the tidal wave of literalism and literal-mindedness – to insist on and live the life of the imagination. A painting has to be the experience, instead of pointing to it. I want to have and to give access to feeling. That is the riskiest and only important way to connect to the world – to make it alive. Everything else is just current events.’ If you haven’t already read Janet Malcolm, do so for your own good. Her essay, ‘A girl of the zeitgeist,’ on the South African born editor of Artforum, Ingrid Sischy, is one of the most unerringly brilliant studies of the art world I have ever read. Now, however, it was Salle’s words that stayed with me, because when looking at Allwright’s drawings of men – solemn, semi-naked, caught in the banality of everyday life – I was profoundly touched. In those fuzzily hairy
14
men – gentler echoes of Egon Schiele, without the mannered self-awareness of Gustav Klimt – I saw life weaned of all self-importance, unmoved by life’s noisy hysteria. Becalmed, fortified, I ventured on to THK on Waterkant Street. Early for my lunch appointment with Frank Schönau, I resumed my window shopping. The works on display were photographs by Johno Mellish. He is in his twenties, and his images possessed none of the quiet desperation exhibited in Allwright’s drawings. Situational, rather than moody, distanced rather than engaged, they nevertheless possessed their own peculiar attraction. Perhaps it lay in the unearthly glow his images emitted. Perhaps their magnetism lay in the photographer’s cool setting up of the scene. A photograph of a house shot at night emits a bilious green-yellow glow. Another – the scene of an accident, the skateboarder having fallen on his arse – occurs alongside a fairground drenched in pastel. Even a Laura Ashleigh palette assumes a nuclear intensity. Everything is irradiated. Including my favourite photograph of two young men, one standing beside a grubby mop, the other slumped on the floor, his back against a bare mattress. The scene is indecipherable, yet compelling. We are caught in the middle of something devoid of mystery or portent. This is Mellish’s hovering weirdly immune world – electrified, yet devoid of affect. If the artist has nothing to say, it is because there is nothing to say. Or, if he does have something to say, then it is that we’ve got it wrong – nature does not abhor a vacuum. After hugging two old friends who run a framing shop, swapping photos of our children, I trudged up to Deepest Darkest – surely the best moniker for something, whatever, I’ve come across in a while. My other favourite baptisms in the art world are Kalashnikovv, Blank, and WhatIfTheWorld. I’m heading up to see the photographs of Kevin Mackintosh and to meet the gallery’s director, Deon Redman. He – Redman – is overseeing the installation of a staircase in his home. Mackintosh’s photographs, however, are obligingly present. I imagine Irma Stern – or our contemporary cognoscenti – feeling pompously irked. This is not art, they might say, but design. But as I pointed out at the outset of this rumination, art and design have been bedfellows since the 60s. That the two have become indistinguishable in the 21st century is unsurprising – despite what the purists might have to say. On entering Deepest Darkest one was immediately presented with a rash of red dots – SOLD! The exhibition had only opened two days prior – but there were barely any pickings left, let alone slim ones. If Mellish’s images seemed as though they
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
SMITH, Stephen Allwright, Broken Face Soliloquies
THK Gallery, Johno Mellish, A family of strangers, 2019, 100 x 125cm
were produced in a nuclear reactor, Mackintosh’s photographs possessed a cool knowingness. A seasoned fashion photographer who pirouettes between London and New York, he also has a passion for Africa – as a place, a fantasy, a fetish. The landscapes that form the backdrop for his images are shot in situ, then transferred to a studio in which they assume a scrim-like presence for his models. The mise-en-scene and styling is everything. We are in the masterful grasp of a great window dresser, an artist who powerful understands the synthetic. These are not artworks that make an essential or pure claim upon a continent. What matters is the photographer’s imagination. Here we are as far removed as is possible from documentary realism or ‘current affairs.’ Rather, style is everything, and, dare I say it – beauty. Mackintosh’s shimmering black bodies are iconic extensions of the image’s unapologetic style. Commerce is its fold, as is desire, which is the bedrock of commerce. Here, I am once again reminded of Tretchikoff, and returned to those summer nights long ago when my father drove us from the dereliction of the Cape Flats to Cape Town’s glittering consumerist
16
Mecca. When Deon Redman arrives, we jointly marvel at the well-oiled elegance of Mackintosh’s photographs. A beauty for its own sake? Or a reminder that nothing can survive without it? While these are sumptuously elegant tableau, they nevertheless possess a grit. It is not literalness one encounters but desire’s hook. One would be churlish to dismiss this window of opportunity, and the secret pleasures it affords. As I patiently await the Excite taxi that will take me home to Observatory – a suburb far removed from this oil well with its rash of red dots – Redman informs me that the Dutch actress Famke Janssen was at the opening two nights before. Regrets I’d have a view, Frank Sinatra opined. In the taxi, chatting to Mr Repipi, a driver I’ve known for years, I could not stop thinking of Famke Janssen, the uber Bond girl in Golden Eye, with her lascivious tongue, demented eyes, and thighs that could strangle the life out of a boa constrictor. Ooh! … Ah! … the exquisite pleasures of looking … recalling what one has seen … and what one has missed!
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Thinking of selling your art? Whether you are thinking of selling part of your collection or in need of a valution, we are here to help. We are consigning for our forthcoming auctions in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Abraham Storck | WARSHIP TAKING ON SUPPLIES | Estimate R 30 000 - R 50 000 | Sold R 696 600
Contact your nearest branch for more information and to schedule your valuation with our specialists.
Johannesburg | 011 880 3125 | jhb@swelco.co.za Cape Town | 021 794 6461 | ct@swelco.co.za www.swelco.co.za
Downlo ad o ur f ree o nline bidding App
ART IN A TIME OF VIRAL VULNERABILITY
Reflections on the inaugural Social Impact Arts Prize 2020 Nqweba Dam at Sunrise, Graaff-Reinet 2020, by Noncedo Gxekwa
They say just one metre makes all the difference between life and death. One metre away from any other human being. No touching! No kissing! No coughing! No touching your face, or any other face, for that matter. Self-quarantine, isolation, and social disconnection results. Work from home. Learn from home. Home school, but not by choice. These are the characteristics of negative social cohesion which is now keeping us apart; broken social relations, remote work relations, community cohesion unity under pressure, now measured in approximate onemeter distances exacerbated by negative emotion and depression. While panic ensues, creative thinkers and problem-solvers are already thinking; how can an arts-based practice address a pressing social challenge, creatively? If the coronavirus, or the Wuhan-flu, Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus or the 2019-nCoV virus was in unpopular existence at the time when the Rupert Art Foundation and the Rupert Museum launched the Social Impact Arts Prize 2020, then maybe one of the one hundred-and-twenty-three submissions, would have tackled the virus and proposed a way towards taking it down, in some spectacular, yet creative fashion. Social impact arts practices are marked by participation. Primarily, participation of the artists in the life-worlds of the communities in which, with whom, and for whom, they imagine their art projects. Participation by members of said community, not only measurable in small and large numbers, but also in the intensity of their participation; the time spent and the knowledge gained, the skills learned and the inspiration manifested, and without conditions. The six finalist projects were scored by a panel of judges representative not only across race, gender and sexuality, but also originated from geographies under contemporary capitalist pressures of globalisation, defiant populist cultures or suffering from the disruptions of climate change. All the artists of the finalist projects attended an arts residency in the town of Graaff-Reinet, the site of the first awarded projects, getting under the proverbial skin of the Karoo town, and into the hearts of the people who make this town human.
20
Untitled 007 Graaff-Reinet by Noncedo Gxekwa, 2020
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
PLANTed by Nassimbeni, Lundie and Brose
Untitled 005 Graaff-Reinet by Noncedo Gxekwa, 2020
Untitled 004 Graaff-Reinet by Noncedo Gxekwa, 2020
Tears Become Rain by Brits and Hansmann.
The photographs accompanying this article were inspired by Theaster Gates who simply wants artists to find ‘Where Beauty Lives’. The resultant photo essay is by Noncedo Gxekwa, resident documentarian of the Social Impact Arts Prize 2020. Finally, following a rigorous and inspiring assessment of the submissions by an international panel of judges, WOLK, Tears become Rain and PLANTed were announced as the awarded projects:
thousand year water crisis. The creation of this choir aims to instil hope and unite a diverse community representing the town as a whole.
WOLK by studioMAS and Gustav Praekelt, is a water-scarcity focused project that begins as an artwork, provides a certain amount of water, whilst also connecting to the community digitally. The artwork will be built in the image of a rain cloud that collects water from the atmosphere which can be used to water a garden beneath the cloud structure. The cloud will also operate as a symbol of the digital cloud – offering free community WI-FI and as a hub for community-based information. Young women living in the town will be taught to code, and update the cloud with Health, Education and Literacy content, as well as information the community feels, is needed. TEARS BECOME RAIN, by David Brits & Raiven Hansmann, with Fiona du Plooy, is a mass choir project - singing for rain - in response to the
Drawing on the rich choral history of the greater region, this project uses song as a tool to educate people about our precious water resources – whilst uniting people in their shared predicament. The narrative is a story that follows the journey of a young San boy in a time of great drought. Crying, his tears of grief turn into rain and restore abundance to the world. Connecting contemporary lives to a story from our shared pasts is intended as an inspirational act. PLANTed, by Lorenzo Nassimbeni, Andrew Brose & Casper Lundie, is a public space project which gives visibility to the demise of the transfer of knowledge of medicinal plants, and recognising the under-represented disciplines of craft, tech know-how, local food culture, architecture and indigenous languages. This project will celebrate the indigenous plant life of Graaff-Reinet, whilst engaging local experts in the production and presentation of a central built shelter for artists, designers and the local community to explore plant knowledge and bring to light this overlooked archive of local knowledge. Opposite Page: WOLK by Swanepoel and Praekelt
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
23
CALLING ALL SCULPTORS SculptX 2020 at The Melrose Gallery themelrosegallery.com
66 Artist Willie Bester, image Clint Strydom
A
ll sculptors are invited to submit applications and proposals to participate in the fourth installment of SculptX, the largest annual sculpture fair in South Africa.
We expect an even larger response to this year’s fair off the back of the overwhelming response in previous years. SculptX 2019 showcased 90 artists and over 300 artworks in The Melrose Gallery and public spaces throughout the urban precinct. It is unusual to see so many sculptures exhibited in the same space and visitors each year are captivated by the scintillating energy that they create whilst in dialogue with each other. The Fair takes place throughout the month of September and makes an exciting addition to the plethora of arts and culture related fairs, exhibitions and activations taking place throughout the city. Artists from all over South Africa and some invited guests from the Continent of Africa submit sculptures across mediums ranging from crystal, plastic, carbon fibre and wood, to bronze, bone, stone, found objects, virtual reality and others. Over 500 works were submitted to the curators for consideration last year.
Artist, Anton Smit
26
Above: Sarah Ruchards. Opposite Page: Adejoke Tugbiyele
The Fair was conceptualised in order to provide a valuable platform for the promotion of sculptors and sculpture. It therefore allows the curator to take liberties in terms of the inclusion of both respected established sculptors alongside emerging artists which is not typically the case. Previous years have included the likes of Noria Mabasa, Willie Bester, Pitika Ntuli, Pat Mautloa, Wilma Cruise, Adejoke Tugbiyele, Paul du Toit, Gordon Froud, Anton Smit, Carl Roberts, Philiswa Lila, Keith Calder, Andre Stead, Strijdom van der Merwe and numerous others. The established artists attract serious collectors and the media who in turn discover new emerging talents. Exhibiting alongside some of South Africa’s most respected artists also has motivational, educational and economic benefits. Every year new artists are discovered and are given the ability to generate revenue as
28
sales to art collectors, corporates and museums are typically brisk. Many sculpture enthusiasts wait until SculptX to make their annual acquisitions as they are able to view so many works in one space and are able to consider works that would typically not be shown alongside those of established artists. SculptX 2020 is to be curated by Ruzy Rusike and she intends building on previous years focus on promoting and attracting more female artists to what has traditionally been a male dominated genre. The Fair takes place in The Melrose Gallery and flows out into public spaces and other suitable venues throughout the Melrose Arch urban precinct. Some of the larger outdoor works then remain on display for longer periods on agreement with the artists and this creates a permanent urban sculpture park for the benefit of those who live, work and play in the precinct.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Artist, Pitika Ntuli
“The Fair takes place in The Melrose Gallery and flows out into public spaces and other suitable venues throughout the Melrose Arch urban precinct.� The Melrose Gallery is to be refurbished and the new 700 sq m space will provide the perfect vessel to display sculptural work and exciting installations. Melrose Arch has once again agreed to the display of larger outdoor works in public spaces and various other venues have been identified for SculptX 2020. Parties interested in participating will need to confirm their interest by emailing their profile and some images of their works to sculptx@ themelrosegallery.com by Monday 4 May 2020. Artworks will need to be delivered in the week of 10 August, larger outdoor works will be installed
30
in the week of the 21st August and SculptX will run from 30 August to 25 October 2020. The opening of SculptX each year is always exceptionally well attended and has become a highlight of the Johannesburg art calendar and this will take place on 29 August at 6:30pm. The curator will be planning various walkabouts and other sculpture related activations throughout the month. For more information please visit: www.themelrosegallery.com or visit and follow our Facebook and Instagram platforms.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
April 2020
Relearn, my soul Asanda Kupa
+27214224145 | 69 Burg Street,Cape Town i n f o @ e c l e c t i c a c o n t e m p o r a r y. c o . z a | w w w. e c l e c t i c a c o n t e m p o r a r y. c o . z a
THE EMPIRE OF MAUREEN QUIN Written by Briony Haynes Curated by Nadine Froneman
T
here will never be another Maureen Quin in South African art history. She undoubtedly is one of our most treasured female sculptors. After obtaining her diploma in fine arts with distinction in 1934 and furthering her studies at Goldsmiths in London 1956, her love and passion for remaining true to creating has resulted in a lengthy list of local and international exhibitions, bursaries and awards. ‘My art is my life, and to evoke a response from the viewer is to share part of my life’. Maureen Quin still is creating after a lifetime dedicated to art making at a proud 86 years of age! On the 14th February 2020 Quin embarked on a new adventure leaving her supporters blown away while watching a lifetime of sculptural genius at work. Quin effortlessly created a bust in ball clay from a live model over three days for the annual exhibition So Much Talent In Our Country at Art@Africa. Quin started her quest by anatomically analysing her model with a quick sketch followed by jumping straight into building up her signature clay application. Quin blew away intrigued onlookers and stunned social media followers with how effortlessly she played with the clay in her hands into a life-like sculpture of the model. It was a surreal experience for those who live to tell the tale. Quin’s sculpture is on exhibit at Art@Africa’s permanent display. If one desires further visual enlightenment, Post Paris 1988 and Interaction 2003 is a selection of Quin’s sculptural mastery on permanent display at Art@Africa. In 1987 Quin travelled to Paris in the hope of becoming inspired by contemporary movements, despite her disappointment, the trip ignited a rediscovery
Opposite Page: Liberation, 2003, Bronze, H1020mm x W310mm x L230mm
of the African energy she missed. With this body of sculptures Quin aims to create an overview of her feelings towards the positive African spirit, culture, inspiration and the hope for an improved society. In a country that has been continually torn apart, Quin seeks to present the desires of the people to heal the wounds of the past and overcome suffering. Post Paris signifies the moment her works emotively explore and morph human and animal iconography to depict South African identity. By displaying both muscular bodies and skeletal bone structure in combination with animal horns and human bodies she creates a captivating body of bronzes. The sculptures are surrealistic and resonate an
“Post Paris signifies the moment her works emotively explore and morph human and animal iconography to depict South African identity.” 32
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Liberation, 2003, Bronze, H1020mm x W310mm x L230mm Opposite Page: Culprit, 2010
Rising Figure, 1990, Bronze, H270 x W270 x L190mm Edition 6
Compassion II, 2003, Bronze, H459 x W120 x L205mm
Celebration, 2003, Bronze, H500mm x W250mm x L180mm
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
35
Maureen with artist model. Opposite Page: Compassion II, 2003 Bronze H459 x W120 x L205mm
internal emotive process where Quin starts by drawing ‘until ‘she’ gets under the skin of ‘her’ subject, till ‘she’ can feel that sculpture in ‘her’’. She is inspired by emotion and works with her subconscious presence to reflect her inner thoughts. Quin is inspired by Henry Moore and strongly driven to capture emotion. Quin stated in 2005 that ‘In many of my studies I endeavour to capture the rapport between humans and the animal kingdom by combining the two to create sculptures that are uniquely my own abstract approach.’ This animal form began to emerge as she decided to include horns in her Post Paris works due to the desire to balance the compositional aspect of her changing style. This addition did more than just balance a composition, it gave her art a new character. The use of horns became her African icon and an allegorical illustration with integral meaning. This artistic shift is one of the iconic signatures along with extended outstretched necks which transcend emotion.
much attention in the media’. Inspired by this she desired to sculpt people recognisable for their nobility rather than their faults. This series is sculpted with distorted bodies and bone, which with their calculated compositions and interaction with one another echo the empathy, suffering and passion of South Africans.
Quin further investigates African identity in Interaction. The series is Quin’s response to the negativity which relics and ‘enjoys so
Contact: Dirk Durnez, 082 774 1078 dirk@artatafrica.art
36
Maureen Quin is an artist who expresses a unique sensitivity to form as well as energy for life through her sculptures. Quin works to represent a balance in her figures by sculpting recognisable Afrocentric identities to show both struggle and optimism in their appearance. Each work is a new personal journey and are not conceptually inspired but rather emotive responses. There is a dialogue created between the tension of positive and negative forms of each sculpture thereby allowing the works to ‘acquire a spirit and a personality’. Quin’s art is a national treasure as she most certainly has left an African imprint.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
PANTHEISM A Solo Exhibition
By Stanislaw Trzebinski Ebony/Curated, Cape Town until 2nd May 2020 ebonycurated.com
S
tanislaw Trzebinski is a Kenyan born artist currently living in Cape Town. In this, his 5th solo exhibition in South Africa, the artist explores his own complex relationship with the earth through his use of precious materials and the widening gap that mankind has with the natural world.
Trzebinski’s striking sculptures and installations are inspired by crystalline forms, minerals and gems creating almost superhuman visual beings who transcend the ordinary. Cementing his status as one of the continents most exciting young talents this new body of work allows the viewer access to the artists inner thoughts and search for belonging.
38
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Calcite Woman I), Bronze, 2019, 72x29x24
Divisam, Imago Hominis, Bronze On Carara Marble, 2018, 69x42x30
Opposite Page: Hide IV, Bronze, 2019, 101x44x44
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
41
GREAT MINDS, ART ALIKE
Benguela Cove & Anton Smit Article written by Samarie Smith Photos by: Erwalt De Beer
A
rt is a business and doing business is an art. This should be the motto when an awarded business entrepreneur and world-renowned artist joins forces to establish something they love. The South African landscape is a spectacle of beautiful and innovative spaces and wine farms are instrumental in bringing different art forms together. Benguela Cove Lagoon Wine Estate is no stranger to this creative realm, poised on the righthand side of the R43 en route to Hermanus, colloquially referred to as the gateway to the Walker Bay. This estate itself has become a landmark for wine tourism and supporting local artists with regular events that feature the kingship between art, food and wine as an extension of this objective. While wine remains the centrepiece of this estate, the larger than life sculptures by world-renown sculptor Anton Smit, create an awe-inspiring rippling effect of the estate’s philosophy that life should be celebrated and embraced. Benguela Cove’s Sculpture Park and Gallery opened on 1 October last year with its second chapter due to open in the United Kingdom later this year. Greeted by an impressive piece called Kungwini’s head at the entrance to Benguela Cove, sets the bar for a creative experience. Once inside the estate, the sculpture called Oblivion of the Waves is placed like their patron saint on a hill, guarding a heave of activities below. It is when visitors approach the front door under the gaze of three largescale multi-coloured faces called Agapé Effervescent that the collaboration between Smit and the owner Penny Streeter OBE, invites more introspection. Colossal Youth, Benguela Cove, Image by Samrie Smith
42
50
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Above: Toiva Ya Toiva Series and Faith 3M. Opposite Page: Die Verlange
With a prolific background as a sculptor, Smit’s work graces the premises of many wineries, but Benguela Cove is home to the largest collection framed by the unique location on the Bot River Lagoon. The amalgamation of his art with both large open spaces and intimate corners, evoke conversation as one browse his work, strategically placed in the tasting room, courtyard, gardens, restaurant and in the gallery. While smaller pieces indoors, like curled up bronze figurines, echoes something about vulnerability, majestic pieces outside like Agapé, Reflect and Colossal Youth embrace the vast spaces representative of ideas beyond the extraordinary. A variety of Smit’s work is housed inside the gallery where guests often sit down with a glass of wine to simply enjoy being surrounded by the genius of this artist. But it takes two progressive personalities to realise a space like this, curated to evoke meaning, emotion, understanding and enjoyment.
A visionary and keen art collector, owner Penny Streeter, was awarded her OBE title for service to the enterprise. This is evident in all her undertakings and investing in local art has been a key driver from the start. “Benguela Cove leans itself to merge food, wine and art on a collective platform. I want to celebrate the importance of art in the South African hospitality industry. These artforms embrace the rich heritage, natural produce and talent in South Africa. The terroir is celebrated through exceptional wine, local produce is honoured with delicious food and now the art of a master South African sculptor is gracing our premises.” For Smit, the open spaces at Benguela Cove create a tapestry of natural and modern platforms in which his art can come alive. “As big and confronting as some of these works can be, they also communicate something vulnerable, Smit explains. Oblivion
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
45
Black Head With Glasses
of the Waves celebrates this unique location so close to the Atlantic Ocean while it also investigates the landscape of the soul.”
“Looking at the vast spaces and the spectacle of colour, I could envision the grounds being graced with similarly powerful works of art.”
Each work is accompanied by a poem or excerpt of a poem that reaches into Smit’s heart. “My work is driven by faith; the spiritual essence of every piece is an answer to that inner call.”
The estate’s vast offering as part of the annual Hermanus FynArts festival has also been commended with another exciting program to be hosted between 5 and 16 June 2020. This will include Smit’s permanent collection as well as a collaboration with the Red Hot Glass Studio.
Smit’s journey is reminiscent of what Streeter faced as a young woman, driven by self-belief regardless of setbacks to make a dream c ome true. This exhibition is the first chapter of what is planned to become a world-renowned art and sculpture park at Benguela Cove’s sister property in the UK, Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens.
46
Visit www.benguelacove.co.za or contact the estate for more information: +27 (0) 87 357 0637 or 021 091 0032 Email: info@benguelacove.co.za R43 Botrivier Lagoon, Hermanus, WC
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
The New Breed Series, bronze and Namibian marble
HIRAETH RUHAN JANSE VAN VUUREN Exhibition @Tokara Curated by Ilse Schemers By Johan Myburg
I
f it is smoothly polished pieces pretending to emanate an inner beauty you are hoping to find in sculptor Ruhan Janse van Vuuren’s studio, you might be disappointed. Instead the visitor is met by a dozen half sized figures printed in 3D in an inferior quality polypropylene, silently waiting on the artist’s hand. Some of these figures wait without arms, some of the arms are wilfully broken off by Janse van Vuuren. You might come across busts sculpted in a black wax, wilting in the afternoon sun pouring into the studio; the wax starting to run. Patiently Janse van Vuuren is waiting for these figures and portraits to lose their accuracy, their actual resemblance. Only then he will continue working, finishing these sculptures.
Sometimes it so happens that a wax model will spend months outside, exposed to the elements, before he will attempt to cast it in bronze. In the wax phase Portrait A spent a year outside in the garden, exposed to the sun, the wax cracking and well on its way to disintegration. Cast in bronze the signs of decay become evident in a texture formed by time, achieved by careful neglect. In addition to capturing a specific likeness in his work, however deformed, Janse van Vuuren’s aim is to give expression to time, the course of time and inevitable decay achieved over time. Nothing lasts for ever. A statue of a triumphant statesman can be pulled down from his pedestal in the wink of and eye, ending up as scrap metal. A sculptural work in itself does not warrant perpetuity. Equally so, Janse van Vuuren argues, nothing is unique. Therefore, he will refrain from chipping and
grinding to remove the rough metal remaining on a casting after the gates and risers have been removed, leaving impurities to thwart any sign of false pretence. He calls on Michelangelo to back his view that visual success overrides perfect human form and anatomy. ‘Not even Michelangelo’s sculptures are anatomically correct. His females are nothing more than men with breasts. If Michelangelo, with knowledge and acumen to his disposal chooses to break the anatomical rules, he must have had good reason to do this.’
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
49
Mithridate part II, bronze and Namibian marble
Ode to Joseph Buys’ marble with steel. Opposite Page: Deus Ex Machina Series, bronze and Namibian marble
‘What I try to avoid is the notion of the “ideal” male or “ideal” female form. You know,’ he chuckles, ‘something that would look good in the garden. That is something I don’t want to make.’ Hope for an idealised form of beauty has been abandoned and in its place he introduces a coincidental form of beauty, a form of furtive beauty contrasting with deformity (voluntary as well as involuntary), with decay, coincidence and manipulated coincidence. The “scrap” on his workbench becomes part of the base of a sculpture (#020216) and elements from previous work are constantly being incorporated into new work (#032882). Janse van Vuuren’s inclusion of these ‘Fremdkörper’ serves on the one hand as an ingenious device to draw the viewer in, closer, but at the same results in a double take: What is going on here? As with his predecessors’ (androgynous) nudes in the time of the Renaissance Janse van Vuuren is not intrigued or seduced by realism, and in the process he compels his viewer to abandon expectations of realistic representation. What
50
he encourages is a re-examination of perceived perceptions of realism and beauty. As he does in Hiraeth, his latest collection of work. The Welsh word ‘hiraeth’, a word mother tongue speakers of the language claim untranslatable, means something like homesickness or the desire for a home, a place, an era or perhaps a person. The German equivalent ‘Sehnsucht’ is used in psychology to denote thoughts and feelings about all facets of life that are unfinished or imperfect, paired with a yearning for ideal alternative experiences. The uncompleted, the incomplete and the longing for alternative experiences find an eloquent voice in Janse van Vuuren’s Hiraeth.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
KOBUS LA GRANGE The Timelessness of a Tempest isart.co.za By H. F. Theron
T
here is something about the medium of sculpture as an artistic expression that resonates inherently with the South African spirit. It resonates on a level of resilience, timelessness, tradition and beauty that defies its origin. Unsurprisingly then, South African sculpture has in a whirlwind-fashion become iconic, not only within the four corners of our heartland, but also as a blistering export-commodity. It follows that great sculpture has an essence of being both traditional and contemporary at the same time, defying contradiction and singular appeal. With this in mind, there are few artists that embody this spirit of timelessness and tradition more so than Kobus La Grange. Whilst being equally prolific in bronze sculpture, Kobus’ true love affair is with the somewhat forlorn art of wood carving. Indeed, considering the proliferation and widespread acclaim for his wood sculpture, it is no surprise that it is where Kobus truly finds his solace and has become rightfully archetypal. Notwithstanding, both Kobus’ expressions through wood and bronze have a romantic engagement with the human form and in particular the body’s ability to carry a narrative and become theatre in and of itself. His work manifests as poetry through physiology; from the delicate and over-burdened female form, to overtly intimate childhood innocence – Kobus unearths character sketches from ancient and resonant materials. Kobus focusses his work on forwarding a conversation led by way of body language – his sculptures, whilst whimsical, each carry a calculated and characteristic demeanour
Above: Remnant Girl, 2019, wood. Opposite Page: Friends, 2019, wood and bronze
His work brings forth remnants of folktales and campfire melodies, bushveld laughter and an artistic expression as old as time itself – it not being far flung to envisage his figures themselves being conceived and carved in the throes of this milieu. In a modern age where everything is fleeting and impermanent, with interpersonal interaction and authenticity on the decline, Kobus’ work stands a beacon to a lost art and expressiveness in its most basic form – the human body. Kobus’ work is raw, chaotic and tumultuous – his carvings proudly portraying the cuts, slashes and textures rendered in their formation. Wood, in whichever form Kobus finds it, is unforgiving
“Whilst being equally prolific in bronze sculpture, Kobus’ true love affair is with the somewhat forlorn art of wood carving” 52
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Above: Remnant Boy, 2019, wood. Opposite Page: The Writer, 2011, wood
as a medium and requires decisive and deliberate action. His sculpture is unfiltered and torn from the old world, not conforming to the ease of artistic expression that has become somewhat commonplace in recent years. It is no haphazard manifestation nor flash in the pan that Kobus’ current body of work, arguably being the apogee of his craft, follows an immense culmination of formal training intertwined with lived experiences and underlying familial inspiration. He recalls his love for wood carving being kindled by the presence of wood-carved totems in his family home as a child, being subconsciously entranced with the interplay between their inanimate yet lifelike character – the Pinocchio Paradox. This formative influence further being bolstered by a BA in Fine and Applied Arts and a B-tech majoring in Sculpture and Ceramic Design. This mastery of three-dimensional expression not only forms the root of his own
54
exemplary sculpture, but also led to his unique partnership with bronze sculpture royalty, Egon Tania, in their establishment of the highly acclaimed 4G8 Foundry. The relationship between Kobus and IS Art in itself is deeply rooted, with continuous collaborations and exhibitions for more than a decade, both at IS Art’s various gallery spaces as well as the celebrated Tokara Sculpture Garden. For more information contact: gallery@isart.co.za / Tel: (021) 876 2071 11 Huguenot Road, Franschhoek, Western Cape | 29b Church Street, Stellenbosch, Western Cape | Tokara Wine Estate, Helshoogte Road, Stellenbosch, Western Cape.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
STELLENBOSCH TRIENNALE 2020 Tomorrow There Will Be More of Us Story: Petra Mason Photos.Thekiso Mokhele @obscure_studio
T
he Stellenbosch Triennale -- the first of its kind for the Cape -- staged a two and a half month take-over of the historic town opening to the public on February 11th and ending April 30th. While the pan-African arts festival showcases a myriad of mediums sculpture takes center stage. Described by chief curator Khanyisile Mbongwa as a ‘intergenerational conversation’ set in an intersectional, ancestral time-zone’ the aptly titled ‘Tomorrow there will be more of us” features, as described by Mbongwa ‘The Curator’s Exhibition’ talks from the present time zone, ‘On the Cusp’ talks to the future and ‘From the Vault’ talks to the past‘. Selecting from ‘The Curators Exhibition’ (curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa and Dr. Bernard Akoi-Jackson) Mbongwa includes Ghanain art star Ibrahim Mahama ‘Strangers to Lines II’ --- giant coffins that lean ominously along the pavilion walls made out of locally sourced reclaimed wood. Congolese artist Patrick Bongoy’s skillfully woven construction ‘Rubber Man’ and Mozambique born Euridice Getulio Kala’s outdoor piece titled: ‘Untitled: Still we are ... ancestral people’ through which the artist honours how nomadic peoples occupy space -- round in shape, with democratic points of view. Curator of ‘From the Vault’ Mike Tigere Mavura observes its functionality: ‘Euridice’s sculpture is meant to be used, It can be a church, I have used it for a lecture, it fits more people than you expect, it tracks time using the sun and is cooler inside than outside. Inside you ‘feel’ something” further expounding “Public space allows for sculptural works of scale and in public space sculpture often has a “presence” that requires if not demands some form of engagement from the public; you either have to enter or walk around, look up, smell, touch or just question “what is that?” as you walk past sculpture in public spaces. It grabs your attention somehow. Most of the sculpture at the Triennale is interactive and multi-sensory.’
Patrick’s Bongoy Rubber Man
58
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Aaron Samuel Mulenga, Amaka, ‘Asafo Black Collective’
Aaron Samuel Mulenga, On the Cusp
Euridice Getulio Kala’s outdoor piece titled: ‘Untitled. The Curators’ Exhibition.
This ‘interactivity’ reflected in Patrick’s Bongoy’s ‘Across The Currents’ as Mavura points out: ‘You have to ‘walk’ into Patrick Bongoy’s sculpture, you ‘listen’ to Franco and T.P.O.K Jazz band’s “Likambo Ya Ngana”, you ‘smell’ the rubber, you ‘read’ the words flapping in the wind.’ Dr. Bernard Akoi-Jackson curated the transgressive ‘On the Cusp’ -- an exhibition representing eight African countries including ‘Asafo Black Collective’ with a sculpture by artist Aaron Samuel Mulenga that greets you as you enter - multiple black featured faces cast in white with fists emerging from dark African soil. Mavura believes ‘Sculpture in public spaces matters because often such sculpture is made to a scale that allows us to interact and experience new ideas or to upend the ways in which we perceive the things we think we know. Public sculpture gives concrete form in public to ideas that either compliment or
challenge the ones we have about various subject matter’. Over at the recently opened ‘From the Vault’ exhibition (co-curated by Mavuma and Gcotyelwa Mashiqa) -- the exhibit offers a dialogue between contrasting archives buried deep in museum collections from Stellenbosch and Fort Hare that include a rare Helen Sebidi sculpture and a powerful Sidney Khumalo. The works on display at ‘From the Vault’ Mavura believes give concrete form to memory, nostalgia, myths, totems, rituals and animals of cultural significance which can be experienced particularly in the “From the Vault” exhibition at the Stellenbosch Museum.”
60
A non-commercial arts festival of this kind in today’s hyper commercial art world offers an intergenerational conversation that speaks clearly and hopefully about the future.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Congratulations to
the Social Impact Arts Prize 2020 Awarded Projects
socialimpactartsprize.org
COBUS HAUPT Eclectica Contemporary eclecticacontemporary.co.za
C
obus Haupt is a South African sculptor, who has been an exhibiting artist since 2006. Confronting questions of balance, physicality and space, Haupt’s pieces puzzle together the unpredictable, the playful and the bizarre. By integrating tropes, with observational detailing and humourous possibilities, the sculptures take on a presence within the gallery space that breaks down the detached or disconnect convention of engaging with art objects. Cobus Haupt favours bronze casting as his material, sculpture as his medium to articulate and illustrate his playful and imaginative practice. Haupt draws from popular media, iconography from different cultures and the remarkable/unremarkable human fragilities. As kinetic objects that can be moved, turned, and twisted, his assemblage-like creations demonstrate a mode of integrated interaction and the witnessing of different moving parts as they fit together. Working from live models and found objects, Haupt’s figurative sculptures reveal the expressive possibilities of dimensional processes. Additionally, the juxtapositions and mechanisations that recur through his works allow for different a interaction and bodily relation with the moving parts and the surrounding, corresponding spaces. Having recently joined the stable of artists associated with the Ecletica Galleries, Haupt’s composing of eclectic forms, narratives and physicality fits right in. Through his skilful understanding of dimensionality and the relaxed yet meticulous grasp of his materials, Haupt is a creator who extends his technical practice while embracing a conceptual interplay of narratives.
Top: Fortune Cat III (1/5), 2017, Bronze Steel Cement (kinetic sculpture), 157 x 47 x 31 cm. Bottom: Fortune Cat II (1/5), 2017, Bronze Steel Cement (kinetic sculpture), 152 x 47 x 31 cm. Opposite Page: Fortune Cat I (2/5) 2018, Bronze Steel Cement (kinetic sculpture),152 x 47 x 31 cm
62
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
PALIMPSEST
Marelise Van Wyk, solo exhibition at Eclectica Print Gallery Eclectica Contemporary eclecticacontemporary.co.za
The sea, from the creatures and particles it holds to the ships it carries, has impacted the lives of people on the shores of the Cape for generations. In Palimpsest, Marelise Van Wyk invites a reconsidering of the objects and histories washed ashore, as a palimpsest that contains the traces of different and varied narratives. Although the histories of South Africa may have been rephrased, overlooked, denied and re-interpreted many times, objects and artefacts witness and bear the marks of times passing. Through the layers of impact and interaction a palimpsest is created. “A piece of a shipwreck that I came across about 15 years ago on Long Beach, was the initial driver for this exhibition. A corroded copper plate and handmade nails were retrieved from this piece of wreckage and now forms the basis for some of the prints and the exhibition overall”, describes printmaker and teacher, Marelise Van Wyk. The origin of the plate and nails is most likely from the ship, The Staaten Generaal, later renamed Bato1. As a Cape Town based artist, Van Wyk explains, “I am inspired by textures that are formed by erosion, corrosion and disintegration in nature as a result of the passing of time. In my artworks therefore, there are references to erosion, destruction, excavation. Through the use of imagery referring to historical structures, fossils, organic materials and strata, I attempt to relate to the paradox of expanding into the past”. Her solo exhibition Palimpsest will show at Eclectica Print Gallery for the month of April and will include a print workshop and artist walkabout to unpack some of the key questions and inspirations of the exhibition. Marelise van Wyk is the winner of Eclectica Print Gallery’s printmakers competition which was held in 2019.
Into the woods, 2020, Print collage. Dry point on tetra-pack plate, 1of1, 71 x 99.5 cm
64
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
South African history is marked with layers upon layers, lingering and visible across the eras. Although the histories of South Africa may have been rephrased, overlooked, denied and re-interpreted many times, objects and artefacts can and will provide us with evidence of what has been, with traces of the previous and the layers of time that have followed. In this exhibition, the word palimpsest is used as a vehicle to understand the multi-layered nature of South African history and culture. Van Wyk engages with the recurring and cyclical rewriting of South African history and culture through available artefacts and the layers of interpretation they present. Through this mode, it becomes evident that voices from the past can form a combined melody when history is interpreted with patience and interconnected sensitivity. This exhibition explores both a collective memory of history and also queries the interaction of individual perspectives and interpretations of events, symbols and spaces. Playing off the stark masculine associations to nails, screws and even shipwrecks, Van Wyk juxtaposes the feather duster as a representation of a feminine presence. The feather duster is also often seen as a symbol of servitude, slavery and colonialism. By presenting understood symbols and common associations, Van Wyk introduces a kind of collective memory alongside the works. This collective memory creates an interconnectivity that can allow new and ongoing interactions, which Van Wyk draws on in this exhibition.
Frail, 2019, Mixed print collage, Collagraph print with etching on dried (silkweed) algae, 1of1 70.5 x 49.5 cm
66
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Scorched 2, 2019 Mixed print collage. Monotype (gelprint) with etching on Chinese tissue and collagraph plates, 1of1 35.5 x 44.5 cm
Oversee 2, 2020, Mixed print collage, Collagraph prints, 1of1 20 x 20 cm
By using eroded plates and objects weathered by nature, she incorporates the idea of the palimpsest and metaphor directly into her work. The found nails – a critical part of constructing a ship’s hull – are interpreted as metaphor for history as constraining, captivating and fragile. As the nails were forced apart through the impact of time, so too can our understandings of history be broken down, eroded and reconstructed. The prints from sourced plates have become imprints of history; they are images lifted from the remains of an artefact – a part of history. Through the use of organic matter and found source materials, Van Wyk attempts to loosen a traditionally very tight medium. Reconsidering layout, format and surface, she prints from non-traditional plates (collagraph, tetra pack, found plates). Additionally, each work is unique, rather than part of an edition
68
or series, denying the multiple – which is often a key characteristic of printmaking. Rather, the body of work is fragmented into a series of individual presentations, coming together to represent the whole. In this way Van Wyk activates our relationship to memories which, singularly, can never be the complete story but as part of the collective come alive. By challenging the medium of printmaking Van Wyk extends her questions of history: what is laid down in print, what is lifted or interpreted and what the source information is drawn from. Referring back to the palimpsest, where the recurring process of new layers are deposited through time, Van Wyk leaves her marks amongst the historical residue she interacts with – physically, mentally and psychologically.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
The Sanlam Art Gallery will be closed from 6 April 20 April 2020
Marjorie Wallace (1925 – 2005), The Sunny Studio, 1979, oil on canvas, Sanlam Art Collection.
Significant Images A selection from the Sanlam Art Collection
Sanlam Art Gallery
Sanlam Head Office, 2 Strand Road, Bellville
21 April – 19 June 2020 Mon – Friday 09:00 – 16:30
Nerine Desmond (1908 - 1993), Cats, 1966, oil on board, Sanlam Art Collection.
Landscapes made Modern Transforming visions of the landscapes from the Sanlam Art Collection
Sanlam Art Lounge Sanlam, 11 Alice Lane, Sandton
Until June 2020 Mon – Friday 12:00 – 16:00
Contact Tel: 021 947 3359 / 083 457 2699 Email: sanlamart@sanlam.co.za Web: https://blog.sanlam.co.za/artcollection/
ANDREW SUTHERLAND FIELD NOTES Salon Ninety One Until 01 April - 02 May 2020 salon91.co.za @salon91art
S
utherland has been an avid adventurer and armchair traveller since he was a child. His capacity to plunge into a meaningful imaginative journey through images is at times as visceral an experience as his actual trips through Taiwan, Vietnam and South Africa. He is an avid collector of picture books, relishing the curious scenes of landscapes, animals and plants that historic explorers have published, whether in pursuit of vague scientific credence or nostalgic reflection. For his latest solo exhibition at Salon Ninety One titled Field Notes, Sutherland has embodied the position of the explorer and amassed an amazing collection of drawings, paintings and prints of his imaginative adventures through images. He is contently seduced by the faded colour palettes of old books or early photographs and finds innovative expression for this passion in new techniques featured on Field Notes for the first time. These include his first risographs – a form of digital printing that uses colour separations – and impasto oil paintings on primed paper. In Field Notes Sutherland crafts a wistful portrait of the adventurer-explorer from yesteryear. His saturation in experiences mediated by book, film or documentary has led him to exploit a variety of artistic surfaces and painted marks in the exhibition. Through digital print, oil paint, acrylic and drawings, Sutherland invites viewers to immerse themselves in an imaginative journey through picture places of wonder. Field Notes opens at Salon Ninety One Gallery on 01 April 2020. For more information please contact the gallery on enquiries@salon91.co.za or 021 424 6930. Distant rendezvous, 2020, Mixed media on canvas, 1625x1625mm
70
Impression (i), 2020, Oil on paper, 297 x 420mm
Field Notes 5, 2020, Ink on paper, 297 x 210mm
Above: Field Glasses I, 2020, Risograph on paper, Edition of 15, 420 x 297mm. Opposite Page: Lost, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 1225 x 925mm
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
73
(Detail) On foot from here, 2020. Mixed media on canvas.
//THREAD THK Gallery thkgallery.com By Linda Pyke
//thread //a filament, a group of filaments twisted together //a line of reasoning or train of thought that connects the parts in a sequence (as of ideas or events) //a slender stream (as of water) //a continuing element //a series of electronic messages following a single topic or in response to a single message Thread is a flexible word. A signifier in a complicated tangle of signified. Straddling definitions like “a filament, a group of filaments twisted together”, it neatly side-steps into “a continuing element”, and leaps boldly through time and space to form “a series of electronic messages following a single topic or in response to a single message.” Flexible and limber, this etymological mashup spans both the material and immaterial and has at its core the idea of connection: a restless search, the ever-wandering line. The artists in ‘//thread’ are conceptually and formally connected by this wandering line. From connections woven through society to experimental fabric use, they bring objects and concepts into dialogue: forging connections through a layering of concepts, materials and references. Pierre Henri le Riche is a conceptual artist with a practice spanning many mediums and techniques, and widely recognised for his dynamic use of string and textiles.
Amanda Shingirai Mushate, Inkanyezi (Star), 2020, Oil on canvas, 185 x 170 cm, Courtesy of First Floor Gallery, Harare
76
49
Artist Pierre le Riche. Below: Mapping the Now, Part 5, 2020, Molten plastic and wire mesh, 220 x 200 x 3 cm, Courtesy of First Floor Gallery, Harare
He uses thread as structural element – both a connection point, an unravelling, and a space demarcation – and evokes a complex set of ready-made associations through material and colour use: exploring permeable gender roles and liminal identities. Weaving a complex set of associations, the threads running through his practice tap into a rich seam of metaphor and ambiguity. Situating a personal search for meaning against a complex web of societal connections and relationships, Amanda Shingirai Mushate’s practice is rooted in identity. Deftly employing both the aesthetic qualities of the line and its abstract connotations, she depicts the complicated tangle of relationships that define us and that we in turn define, as we navigate our daily existence. Restless and suggestive, her abstract compositions evoke the dynamic ebb and flow of our daily highs and lows. Defying ready-made references and associations, Julio Rizhi’s tactile assemblages are meticulously crafted from found materials – plastics, wire – that were manufactured to satisfy a brief consumer need before being relegated to landfill. An obvious critique of our consumer society, the works are laced with a dark humour and subversive beauty, confusing
78
cultural constructs by elevating the humble throw-away, and challenging conventions on aesthetics and value. Weaving its way through ‘//thread’, a restless line connects the works, and snakes its way into a complex sea of ambiguous associations. In these divisive times, perhaps it’s the threads – the loose ends that bind and twist us together – that we should seek out. As part of the global effort to slow the current pandemic, THK Gallery will temporarily be operating by appointment only. Contact the gallery directly for enquiries and online viewings, and follow us online for the latest news and gallery updates..
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
52 Waterkant Street, Cape Town Contact us for enquiries and online viewings. Gallery currently open by appointment only.
office@thkgallery.com I 087 470 0178 I www.thkgallery.com www.artsy.net/thk-gallery I @thkgallery
DRAWN IN
A group exhibition of drawings 5 April to 26 April 2020 RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel
Brett Shuman. Elegy, pencil crayon on compressed polystyrene. 200x200cm each (diptych) Opposite Page: Adrian Owen. Unité, 2020, 61cm x 58cm
I
n today’s contemporary art world drawing is experiencing a noticeable renaissance – in short, it’s hot.
As the subtitle of a cover story on the topic in a recent edition of the US magazine ArtNews reads “From fractured fairy tales to abstract geometries, to observatories of the night sky, drawing is becoming to many artists a primary medium.” In other words, visual artists are not only now drawing more than ever, but many are only drawing. A few years ago the exhibition ‘Drawing Now – Eight Propositions’ organised by Laura Hoptman at New York’s Museum of Modern Art garnered ecstatic reviews. Peter Schjeldahl writing in the New Yorker described the show as “a trailblazing event for an art world that has sorely needed one”, also noting that it affirms that a search is on for renewed standards of mastery, validity and eloquence in a medium (ie. drawing) that has historically been the bedrock of the 80
visual arts. MOMA has significantly increased it’s contemporary holdings with a gift of more than 2,600 drawings by 640 established and emerging artists dating from the past three decades. Also well received was ‘Vitamin D -- New Perspectives in Drawing’ curated by Emma Dexter at the Tate Modern in London -- a comprehensive exhibition that presented the work of 109 artists who have emerged on the international art scene since 1990 and who actively make drawings. Currently exhibiting in Britain and attracting large crowds is ‘Leonardo da Vinci : A Life in Drawing’ which marks the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death. The show brings together 80 of the Renaissance Master’s greatest drawings in the Royal Collection. The exhibition reveals that drawing served as Leonardo’s laboratory, allowing him to work out his ideas on paper and search for the universal laws that he believed underpinned all of creation.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Malose Pete, Seeking Belonging
Jeanette Unite, Headgear, 2.5x1.25m. Opposite Page: Susan Bloemhof, It doesn’t really wash unless you get into it emotionally, 50x70cm charcoal and pastel on fabriano
So what accounts for the current resurgence of interest in this age old medium in the art world? Perhaps it’s a nostalgic longing for something that exudes integrity in an increasingly fast-paced, superficial world that seeks novelty. As often noted, drawing is the oldest visual artistic medium, dating back to prehistoric times when cave dwellers used burnt sticks or pigments to make marks, usually for ritualistic and religious purposes either on stone surfaces or directly in the earth. There is something honest about a drawing – you cannot have too many flaws, you cannot hide mistakes – unlike in a painting where technical tricks are often employed to hide a multitude of sins. To quote Salvador Dali – ‘Drawing is the honesty of art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.’ Or Philip Morsberger – ‘Show me an artist in the public eye who can’t draw and I’ll show you a charlatan.’ A good drawing never fails to entrance, to engage, to envelop the viewer
82
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Jenny Parsons, Protea, 2019, oil on board, 117x120
“A good drawing never fails to entrance, to engage, to envelop the viewer between the lines in a way that few other mediums are able to do.” between the lines in a way that few other mediums are able to do. Because drawing is so direct and immediate, it invites artists to engage this age-old medium, enfolding the act with the product, and the innovative with the timeless. Coinciding with ‘Drawing from the Collection’ currently on at Iziko South African National Gallery -- RK Contemporary is hosting ‘Drawn In’, a group exhibition of drawings. The exhibition, curated by Astrid McLeod and Brett Shuman, is not theme based, giving the invited artists free reign to fully explore the medium within their own creative parameters.
84
The signature work by Brett Shuman, a large diptych titled ‘Elegy’ juxtaposes his interpretations of Velasquez’s ‘Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress’ and Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ as allegories highlighting the universal duality and paradoxical parallels of cause and effect being experienced in a world of increasing societal division. The exhibition features works by Jenny Parsons, Cathy Layzell, Jeannette Unite, Antoinette von Saurma, Susan Bloemhof, Christopher Peter, Adrian Owen and Ade Kipades.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
A solo exhibition by Amita Makan
Kgorong Building, Ground Floor, 311 Preller Street Pretoria This exhibition will run until Friday 29 April 2020
HERMANUS FYNARTS hermanusfynarts.co.za
Jean Theron Louw, The View. Opposite Page: Karin Lijnes, Bird Language
T
he visual arts is, and always has been, a major focus of Hermanus FynArts. While we all work through the hard reality of self-isolation and social distancing the new concepts we are having to learn because of Covid-19 - we are already planning how to share a few FynArts events in the coming months. Despite having had to cancel all ticketed events, the exhibitions will take place. This includes the Tollman Bouchard Finlayson Competition and Art Award which will go ahead as usual. Further information on exhibitions and openings will be communicated closer to the time. Sculpture on the Cliffs, an outdoor, site-specific art exhibition, is unique. Unlike many gallery or museum exhibitions, it is does not cater solely for urban elites—it is free-to-the-public. The exhibition celebrates diversity, inclusivity
86
and the belief that objects, places and creatures possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and language have agency – they are animated and are alive. This year’s theme, Vertical Animal, is curated by Gavin Younge, an Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, and a former Director of the Michaelis School of Fine Art. The theme encompasses the defence of the rights of all life forms – human and non-human. The sculptural installations inspire us to think visually and to reconsider our relationship with our environment. Some artists have chosen a humorous approach or witty observations to comment on the human condition, the interface between humans and animals or, in the words of Jean Theron Louw, to awaken consciousness of our connectivity with the planet.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Jake Michael Singer, Marine murmur
Janko de Beer, Divided Wisdom Opposte Page: Strange Fruit, Red Hot Glass
If necessary, as many exhibition openings as possible, will be streamed live. Of the twelve invited artists, David Griessel, Guy du Toit, Jean Theron Louw, Kevin Brand and Wilma Cruise have selected, what would appear to be, a lighter approach to these serious issues. Seven artists - Collen Maswanganyi, Jaco Sieberhagen, Jake Michael Singer, Karin Lijnes, Nanette Ranger Right Mukore and the Site_ Specific land and Nature Art Collective – have each interpreted the theme, Vertical Animal, and commented on society and environment in their own particular styles and mediums. The result of the approaches used in this varied exhibition is also evident in the wide range of materials utilised, from carved and polished sandstone and ball bearings, to resin, bronze,
88
stainless steel, re-cycled plastic, fired clay and and a variety of woods, such as sickle, blue gum and plane tree. The exhibition will be opened by Jane Taylor on Saturday 6 June at 12:30. Should it be necessary, this will be streamed live. The exhibition will remain on view at Gearing’s Point until the first week in June, 2021. Smaller works by each of the above artists will be exhibited at Art in the Auditorium. To keep updated on many new developments, please sign up for the FynArts Newsletter and social media on hermanusfynarts.co.za
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
AXIS ART GALLERY Woodstock Cape Town axisartgallery.co.za
Thank You Stanley, 24 cm high powder coated steel sculpture by Uwe Pfaff
Uniting People Collection, Various sizes in forged steel and bronze by Nicolas Lehmann
FACE, 110 x 65 x 40 cm wall mounted bronze sculpture by Johan van Vuuren
Axis Art Gallery is a boutique-style contemporary gallery situated in the trendy Woodstock area of Cape Town. We showcase the work of the best upcoming South African artists, with a large, eclectic collection of sculptures. Our sculptors include the likes of Uwe Pfaff, Janko de Beer, Mark L Swart,
Herman van Nazareth, Nicolas Lehmann, Johan van Vuuren, Marko Petrik, and Florian Junge etc., with works in mediums ranging from bronze to resin and steel.
90
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Believe Suspended with Fish, 180 cm high plated and powder coated steel sculpture by Uwe Pfaff
Robert Hodgins, Clem, 1983, oil on board, 61 x 80.5cm. Courtesy Strauss & Co. 92
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
ROBERT HODGINS ESQUIRE, ART CRITIC By Sean O’Toole
I
n the first of a series of profiles of artists who jobbed as art critics, Sean O’Toole revisits the written work of Robert Hodgins.
George Steiner, the great Franco-American literary critic who died in February, kicked off his remarkable career with a startling proposal. “Literary criticism should arise out of a debt of love,” wrote Steiner in the opening sentence of his debut book, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky (1959). Shouldn’t all criticism emulate this impossible ideal? Well yes, but the reasons people write about the labours of others – especially when those writers are artists, as this column series will explore – very often has little to do with love. In 1962, after an increasingly unhappy tenure teaching in Pretoria, Robert Hodgins took up a job as art critic at News/Check, a weekly news magazine edited by journalist Otto Krause. His reasons for taking the job as “rewrite man” were twofold. “I hated working for the Pretoria Tech,” Hodgins told me in 2009, a year before his death at 89. His darkly toned paintings, which he had been exhibiting at Franco-Turkish dealer Henri Lidchi’s gallery in Johannesburg, also frustrated. “I was still swimming in Braque and Picasso and all kinds of people,” said Hodgins. “So in the 1960s, I don’t think I was yet a professional artist, I was a professional amateur.” A voracious reader since his adolescence, when he served as a newsagent’s assistant in London’s Soho, Hodgins wasn’t daunted by the change in profession. “I was perfectly willing to see whether I could perform as a writer, as I wasn’t bad,” he said, repeating himself, “I wasn’t bad.”
Norman Catherine in front of his portrait by Hodgins (left). The adjacent portrait of Hodgins is by Catherine. Courtesy Johans Borman Fine Art.
And also prolific. Reckoning with his career in journalism in 2002, Hodgins offered: “I once calculated that, in a year, I’d typed the equivalent of four very long novels.” Many of his News/Check contributions are not credited, but they are easily identified by his fine literary flourishes and tart tone. Writing about the 1962 instalment of Artists of Fame and Promise, a juried competition and exhibition held under the auspices of Johannesburg’s Adler Fiedling Galleries,
94
Hodgins dismissed the winning sculptor, Eone de Wet, as a “creative metalsmith”. The article is also occasion to whisper in closed brackets about the reason Walter Battiss was unable to judge: slipped disc. Artists who job as critics, however schooled they might be in bearing journalistic witness, are rarely dispassionate observers. Bias inevitably colours their work. For all his cavalier methods and disdain for realism as a late-blooming painter, Hodgins was
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
By contrast, he is full of praise for the “exaggerated colour contrasts hallucinatory distortions” of expressionist painter Wolf Kibel. Hodgins describes Alexis Preller as “a creative artist, uniquely communicative amidst the welter of obscure patternmakers who inhabit the contemporary art scene”. In a review of Preller’s 1962 show at Johannesburg’s Pieter Wenning Gallery, he backs up this claim with a bit of art history. “Essentially, he is a 20th century painter, who uses a 15th century convention, for making statements that are timeless,” he says of Preller. “The strange, symbolic nature of his images occurs because he does not paint the object as it is seen in light and shade, but defines it as a conceptual entity – he depicts what is, rather than what is seen.” Of course, this is criticism of the showiest sort. Hodgins also produced journalistic portraiture. Here he is describing the “vital” and “volatile” Italian-born sculptor Edoardo Villa: “His staccato, sometimes incoherent, Latin-accented speech is punctuated with the earthiest of Anglo-Saxon expletives, and, from the top of his well-structured, leonine head to the base of his short, well-tailored frame, he vibrates with virile energy.”
always committed to the figure. His reviews show up this bias. He is dismissive of Christo Coetzee, then a big deal in New York and Paris, in particular the “gimmicks” of his ping-pong balls and bicycle – a reference to Lightning in a Diamond (1960), an assemblage painting shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1961. It is not difficult to see, Hodgins writes, that “this brand of informality would hardly be at home in Alberton whence he stems”.
And then there are his obligatory market reports, where critics are made to indulge in horseracing commentary. The spectre of the market dogged Hodgins’s journalism. Almost all his profiles, reviews and news roundups are informed by the goings on in Main Street. This was unavoidable. Hodgins stated writing about art during one of the country’s mini gilded ages, when new galleries erupt “like mushrooms” in every major city, as Hodgins put it, and journalistic criticism functions as the soft furnishings. But the 1960s also marked a particular zenith of high apartheid. Hodgins’s writings about black artists reflect the ideological transgressions of the age. Hodgins did not stand outside the zeitgeist. A review of Zimbabwean sculptor John Hlatywayo is emblematic. As was his method, Hodgins kicks off with a potted history.
29
Robert Hodgins, Smoking, 1986-87, oil on board, 65 x 55 cm. Courtesy Stephan Welz & Co.
96
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
“Painting and sculpture have the curious feature that although they are often produced in the liveliest possible manner by primitive nomads (Bushmen, Australian blackfellows), once a society reaches a cultural level above the hunting-nomadic one, it is not till it settles in one place that it again begins to produce the plastic arts,” he writes. “Hence, the South African Bantu has never, beyond a few minor crafts like pottery and beadwork, painted or sculpted.” Until 1963, or thereabouts, when urbanisation produced “a generation of African artists who are increasingly to be taken seriously”. Despite frequent resignations, Hodgins continued working at News/Check until 1968, when, after two years of teaching part time basis at Wits University, he took a full-time post in painting and drawing. Hodgins pivoted back to painting. News/ Check, though, would have one last chunk of him. In December 1968, the magazine published a story on SA art. Together with Wits associates Heather Martienssen and Cecily Sash, Hodgins posed for a cover photo. He wore a snug-fitting suit and raffish red tie, a sartorial elegance he would reserve for public events – like the 2005 Battiss retrospective at Standard bank Gallery.
“the art that is going to happen in the future in South Africa is going to be a figurative kind of art.” - Robert Hodgins 1968
Inside that 1968 issue of News/Check he earnestly dialogued. “It seems,” he proposed, “that in South Africa the artist has become something of a grocer; he is making works to sell and this is the thing uppermost in his mind.” His criticism had made him aware of the hungry market for new art. The sprawling conversation includes Hodgins’s thoughts on Ab-Ex (“Americans are poets of materialism”) and the painter’s duty of fidelity to place. It ends with a prediction that is also an affirmation: “the art that is going to happen in the future in South Africa is going to be a figurative kind of art.” Hodgins continued to sporadically write for publication in the 1970s. He reviewed Valley Curtain (1972), a documentary about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s project of the same name, screened at dealer Linda Givon’s Goodman Gallery in 1975. Appearing in the short-lived arts magazine Snarl, his insightful review ends: “Some accuse me of
Joachim Schönfeldt’s Wits lecture notes including a sketch of Hodgins, 1980.
Cecily Sash (left) and Robert Hodgins on cover of News/Check, 20 December 1968
wanting only critical heavy breathing over art. Well, maybe; in fact, yes, I do. And not the heavy breathing of construction workers either. My heavy breathing.” That same year he got to indulge in a lot of heavy breathing when Clement Greenberg, an eminent American art critic and champion of painterly abstraction, visited the country to adjudicate a competition and deliver a series of lectures. The Los Angeles Times reported that many South Africans found Greenberg to be “dull”, “strangely evasive” and “surprisingly insubstantial” on his specialty. Hodgins was of this camp. “Greenberg did not tell us something we expected, he, in fact, said nothing at all, gave us nothing serious to think about,” he wrote of Greenberg’s final lecture, at Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg), in Artlook magazine. Hodgins never retired from writing. He was a diligent letter writer. “I know myself and deeply know the influence of the written word, the careful phrase apparently objectively chosen and honed for blandness,
98
the phrase that assures and destroys,” he wrote in a letter to painter Mark Hipper in 1988. As his artistic profile increased following his retirement from Wits in the mid-1980s, he also indulged in interviews, most notably with Ivor Powell. “Oil paint since Titian has become such a seductive, argumentative, interesting, flexible, versatile medium,” Hodgins is quoted in Ventilator magazine (1994). Occasionally, he would author new texts. Here is Hodgins in the catalogue for the 1991 Cape Town Triennial, of which he was a regional selector: “South African art is, at this time, strongly regional, as much so as North American art, but without a New York as unifying magnet.” But mostly he painted. Words are perishable. Hodgins knew this. Chatting on the phone a few months before his passing, he drew my attention to a book by English author Julian Barnes. “He quotes Sibelius: ‘You will notice there are no statues of critics in any town of France.’ Don’t you like that?” Hodgins laughed.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Fine Art, Antiques, Persian Rugs, Collectibles
Next Auction: 24th May Now AcceptiNg eNtries For this AuctioN Enquiries: stuart@5aa.co.za
404 Jan Smuts Ave Craighall Park, Sandton
www.5aa.co.za Trusted Fine Art Auctioneers Since 1985
011 781 2040
Art, antiques, objets d’art, furniture, and jewellery wanted for forthcoming auctions
Jim Dine, offset lithograph on paper SOLD R 68,000 View previous auction results at www.rkauctioneers.co.za
011 789 7422 • 011 326 3515 • 083 675 8468 • 12 Allan Road, Bordeaux, Johannesburg
Business Art News
ASPIRE ART AUCTIONS
Private Sales – A new division at Aspire Art Auctions. aspireart.net
T
he 2020 UBS & Art Basel Art Market Report confirmed that private sales by auction houses globally for the 2019 year totalled $1.8 billion. Similarly, Aspire Art Auctions continues to record an increasingly significant portion of its annual revenue from private sales. Aspire’s primary business objective is to serve their clients in all aspects of art ownership and collecting. In response to the rising demand and frequency of private deals, the company has developed a dedicated Private Sales division to provide clients with an alternative platform and a personalised consulting service for acquiring and selling artworks – discreetly and more regularly outside the annual auction calendar. This bespoke Private Sales service combines the firm’s market knowledge and its client relationships with a targeted approach. Aspire’s specialist team remains constantly engaged with both sellers and buyers and the various consignments in their care, working directly with private and institutional clients, connecting them to specific works of art to complement their collections. The Private Sales division launches in April 2020. This new service can be accessed through a dedicated portal on Apsire’s website from where private sales will be managed all year round through an online gallery which allows collectors access to available works of art and additional information. Aspire’s Private Sales will offer diverse works from across the company’s specialised categories of historic, modern and contemporary art from Africa, alongside key modern and contemporary works from other markets. The offering complements Aspire’s wellestablished specialist advisory services including collections management, valuation for auction, insurance and estate planning as well as financing art purchases through Bidvest Bank.
Lucky Sibiya, Posting Letters, 1992
100
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
“The Private Sales division launches in April 2020. This new service can be accessed through a dedicated portal on Apsire’s website from where private sales will be managed all year round through an online gallery.”
Above: Zander Blom, Untitled 1.254, 2012 Opposite Page: William Kentridge, 9 Films, 2004
102
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
J.H. Pierneef, Sunlit mountains, Clarens, 1918
While private sales are not new to the auction market or to Aspire in particular, the firm is wellpositioned to pioneer this important new sales channel in South Africa. Says Managing Director Ruarc Peffers: “Our clients increasingly prefer the discretion and exclusivity of selling privately. While public auction remains the core of our business and an excellent vehicle for realising strong results, Aspire is delighted to present a platform which meets the needs of collectors who wish to trade at their leisure and with complete discretion. Our dedicated Private Sales division is the natural expansion of our comprehensive fine art services, offering clients the flexibility of bespoke timelines and timeous liquidity.” Collectors are invited to contact Aspire to discuss prospective acquisitions and additions to their collections, or to review works they wish to make available for private sale. Interested buyers can request a tailor-made portfolio of works on offer or simply visit Aspire’s new online gallery to see a selection of top-quality works available for immediate purchase via the dedicated Private Sales page.
104
Collecting at a Click! In a Few Easy Steps: – Go to www.aspireart.net – Select Private Sales from the main menu – To view available artworks for immediate purchase, register or log in for access to the online gallery – Browse, make a purchase or send an enquiry about a particular artwork using the imbedded functionality – Receive your invoice and make payment via EFT – An Aspire representative will be in touch to assist with any after-sales services, including but not limited to framing, logistics and installation For further information on Private Sales or any other art advisory services, contact: JOHANNESBURG: +27 11 243 5243 or enquiries@aspireart.net CAPE TOWN: +27 21 418 0765 or ct@aspireart.net
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
The Heather Auer Art Studio Visit us at Glencairn, Simonstown (By Appointment Only) South Africa: +27 (0)82 779 2695 / Email: info@heatherauer.com
Business Art
STRAUSS & CO Online-Only Auction 6 - 14 April 2020 www.straussart.co.za
Mikhael Subotzky, Johnny Fortune, photographic print 56 by 78,5cm, R 8 000 - 12 000
Simon Stone, Love of the Desert, oil on cardboard 36.5 by 30.5cm, R 18 000 - 24 000 106
Diane Victor, Smoke Man smoke, drawing on paper 58 by 42cm, R 8 000 - 15 000
W W W. A R T G O . C O . Z A
Ayanda Mabulu, Did Blak Lives Ever Matter?, mixed media, 86 by 112cm, R 30 000 - 50 000
Claudette Schreuders, Three Sisters I, II, III, three five colour lithographs, 66 by 41cm (each), (3), R 90 000 - 120 000
Business Art
STRAUSS & CO
19th century, Modern, Contemporary and Post-War Art, Decorative Arts, Jewellery and Wine 10 & 11 May 2020, The Vineyard Hotel, Cape Town www.straussart.co.za
Irma Stern, Still Life with Lilies oil on canvas 83 by 76.5cm, R 13 000 000 - 15 000 000
Maggie Laubser, Bird and Boats, oil on board, 50 by 39.5cm, R 400 000 - 600 000
Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, oil on canvas, 41 by 50,5cm, R 500 000 - 700 000 108
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Irma Stern, Zanzibar Arab, oil on canvas, 67 by 64,5cm, R 10 000 000 - 12 000 000
Business Art News
STEPHAN WELZ & C0.
February Cape Town sale a resounding success swelco.co.za
Our first sale of 2020 in Cape Town was a remarkable success. Some notable sell-through results by category are as follows: maps 100%, carpets 70%, collector’s items 75%, decorative arts 77%, furniture 87%, silver 85% and fine art 63%. These results are by number of lots which contributed to a sell through of 79% for the sale as a whole. All in all a resounding success. There was significant international bidding during the sale which contributed to the results, all of which shows the value of hosting the sale on more than one internet platform. We are now looking forward to our first Johannesburg sale at the beginning of April in our brand new showroom at 205a Jan Smuts Avenue Rosebank. We are continually consigning for our future auctions throughout the year, so please do not hesitate to contact us if you wish to do so, even for a simple opinion on the value of your collectables. Please email us on info@swelco.co.za or ct@swelco.co.za Tel: 011 880 3125 or 021 794 6461
Pieter Willem Frederick Wenning (South African 1873 - 1921), Bluegums, Pretoria, Sold: R 208,980
110
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
Abraham Storck (Dutch 1635 - 1710), Warship Taking On Supplies, Sold: R 714,600
Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886 - 1957), Landscape With Trees, Sold: R 464,400. Opposite Page: A.R. Penck (German 1939 - 2017), Stalin War Ur Ein Spiel, Sold: R 174,150
Salvador Dali (Spanish 1904 - 1989), Prayer Of Saint Bernard From The Divine Comedy Series (1964) Sold: R 18,576
112
Gustav Klimt (Austrian 1862 - 1918), Portratskizze: Dame Mit Boa, Sold: R 37,152
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
ONGOING SHOWS OPENING EXHIBITIONS APRIL 2020 PLEASE CHECK ONLINE FOR THE LATEST ART SHOWS AND EVENTS ARTGO.CO.ZA Ade Kipades. Vessel as Ruin, 2020, compressed charcoal on Schoelershammer 4G, 49.7x69.7cm, RK Contemporary
ONGOING SHOWS: APRIL 2020
131 // A // GALLERY GROUP EXHIBITION 131 SIR LOWRY ROAD UNTIL 12/04/2020
EVERARD READ FRANSCHHOEK CORLIE DE KOCK CHIAROSCURO UNTIL 14/04/2020
MAWANDE KA ZENZILE UDLUDLILALI UNTIL 25/04/2020
WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/131ART/
WWW.EVERARD-READ-FRANSCHHOEK.CO.ZA
(WWW.STEVENSON.INFO/EXHIBITION/5010 LINK)
UNTIL 12/04/2020
UNTIL 14/04/2020
UNTIL 25/04/2020
ART@AFRICA WATER WARS UNTIL 30/04/2020
ONLINE WWW.STEVENSON.INFO
DOAR CONTEMPORARY
WWWARTATAFRICA.ART
ONLINE ARTINTHEYARD.CO.ZA (USE THIS LINK ARTINTHEYARD.CO.ZA/ARTISTS)
COODE CRESCENT, PORT OF CAPE TOWN UNTIL 30/04/2020 071 624 7130 ONLINE WWW.DOAR.CO.ZA (USE THIS LINK ONLINE WWW.DEMO. PIETERGROBLER.CO.ZA/DAOR/ABOUT-US/)
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
DEEPEST DARKEST VIEW ONLINE GALLERY UNTIL 30/04/2020
DYLAN LEWIS SCULPTURE GARDEN ALL VISITS BY APPOINTMENT UNTIL 30/04/2020
WWW.DEEPESTDARKESTART.COM
CONTACT INFO@DYLANART.CO.ZA.
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020 116
ART IN THE YARD
38 HUGUENOT ROAD, FRANSCHHOEK, UNTIL 30/04/2020
STEVENSON CAPE TOWN
W W W. A R T G O . C O . Z A
021 876 2071 is@isart.co.za
Kobus la Grange STELLENBOSCH & FRANSCHHOEK
Ruhan Janse van Vuuren TOKARA – HELSHOOGTE
ONGOING SHOWS: APRIL 2020
ECLECTICA PRINT GALLERY PALIMPSEST MARELISE VAN WYK UNTIL 30/04/2020 WWW.ECLECTICAPRINTGALLERY.CO.ZA
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
IS ART KOBUS LA GRANGE 11 HUGUENOT ROAD, FRANSCHHOEK 29B CHURCH STREET, STELLENBOSCH TEL: (021) 876 207 UNTIL 30/04/2020
SMITH CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY 56 CHURCH STREET, CAPE TOWN UNTIL 30/04/2020
STELLENBOSCH ART TRIENNALE TOMORROW THERE WILL BE MORE OF US UNTIL 30/04/2020
GROUND ART CAFFE MICHAELA RINALDI EXHIBITION UNTIL 30/04/2020 ONLINE SHOP WWW.GROUNDARTCAFFE.CO.ZA
UNTIL 30/04/2020 118
WWW.SMITHSTUDIO.CO.ZA
(USE THIS LINK: WWW.SMITHSTUDIO.CO.ZA/ARTISTS)
UNTIL 30/04/2020 W W W. A R T G O . C O . Z A
WWW.STELLENBOSCHTRIENNALE.COM
UNTIL 30/04/2020
Featuring: Justice Mathonsi, David Madlabane, Landi Raubenheimer, Thokozani Madonsela, Thabang Molefe, Ramarutha Makoba
6 April 2020
2020
ArtistProofJHB
Artist Proof Studio
ONGOING SHOWS: APRIL - MAY 2020
ECLECTICA ART & ANTIQUES FRANK SPEARS BLUE EYED CLOWN 021 762 7983
EVERARD READ CAPE TOWN QUARRIED CONSCIOUSNESS ANGUS TAYLOR 08/04/2020 UNTIL 30/04/2020
WWW.ECLECTICAARTANDANTIQUES.CO.ZA
WWW.EVERARD-READ-CAPETOWN.CO.ZA
ART@AFRICAART@AFRICA IN AFFILIATION WITH JULIE MILLER AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY ARBOR ONEIRICA UNTIL 02/05/2020 WWW.ARTATAFRICA.ART
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 30/04/2020
UNTIL 02/05/2020
EVERARD READ JHB THE PORTRAIT SHOW GROUP EXHIBITION UNTIL 02/05/2020 WWW.EVERARD-READ.CO.ZA UNTIL 02/05/2020
UNTIL 02/05/2020
UNTIL 02/05/2020
BECOMING: WHAT IS & WHAT IS NOT NEW ACQUISITIONS OF THE ART BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA UNTIL 03/05/2020
OLIEWENHUIS ART MUSEUM BECOMING: WHAT IS & WHAT IS NOT UNTIL 03/05/2020
WWW.NASMUS.CO.ZA
WWW.NASMUS.CO.ZA
NWU MAIN GALLERY PHILISWA LILA SKIN, BONE, FIRE: THE FIRST ALBUM UNTIL 05/05/2020
WWW.SERVICES.NWU.AC.ZA/NWU-GALLERY
UNTIL 03/05/2020
UNTIL 03/05/2020
UNTIL 05/05/2020
120
W W W. A R T G O . C O . Z A
ONGOING SHOWS: APRIL 2020 - JANUARY 2021
RUPERT MUSEUM THEN & NOW GROUP EXHIBITION UNTIL 10/05/2020
NWU BOTANICAL GARDEN GALLERY
PHOKA NYOKONG “DINOOLWANE, MATLOTLO LE BALOI” (FOLKLORES, TREASURES AND WITCHES) UNTIL 05/05/2020 WWW.SERVICES.NWU.AC.ZA/NWU-GALLERY
UNTIL 05/05/2020
UNTIL 08/05/2020
UNTIL 10/05/2020
SANLAM ART LOUNGE LANDSCAPES MADE MODERN UNTIL 30/06/2020 WWW.BLOG.SANLAM.CO.ZA/ARTCOLLECTION
UNTIL 15/05/2020
IZIKO SA NATIONAL GALLERY MATEREALITY CURATED BY ANDREA LEWIS UNTIL 02/08/2020 WWW.IZIKO.ORG.ZA/MUSEUMS/ SOUTH-AFRICAN-NATIONAL-GALLERY
UNTIL 02/08/2020
122
UNTIL 22/05/2020
UNTIL 30/06/2020
LA MOTTE MUSEUM
PALETTE FINE ART GALLERY 41 CHURCH STREET, STELLENBOSCH 01/03/2020 UNTIL 01/01/2021
WWW.LA-MOTTE.COM
WWW.PALETTESCULPTUREGALLERY.CO.ZA
CELEBRATING THE LOVE OF ART – A PERSONAL SELECTION BY HANNELI RUPERT-KOEGELENBERG UNTIL 31/12/2020
UNTIL 31/12/2020
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
UNTIL 01/01/2021
SUBSCRIBE!!
Get your 2020 Art Times delivered for only R380 - And receive the Dec/Jan Bumper Season Edition free The Art Times is a monthly 132 page gloss perfect bound South African Art Publication available in print, online and on mobile. If you would like to subscribe to The Art Times please email proof of payment with your full name as reference to subs@arttimes.co.za or 021 300 5888 to confirm your subscription. Pay: ARTLIFE (PTY) LTD Bank: FNB Acc Number: 62752894058 Branch Code: 260209
OPENING EXHIBITIONS
APRIL 2020 WEEKS 1-4 PLEASE CHECK ONLINE FOR THE LATEST ART SHOWS AND EVENTS ARTGO.CO.ZA
Andrew Sutherland, Impression (ii), 2020, Oil on paper, 297x420mm, Salon91
OPENING EXHIBTIONS: APRIL 2020 WEEK 1-4
ECLECTICA CONTEMPORARY RELEARN, MY SOUL - ASANDA KUPA OPENS 02/04/2020
THK GALLERY //THREAD 02/04/2020 UNTIL 30/05/2020
BERMAN CONTEMPORARY THE NEW VANGUARD 04/04/2020 UNTIL 25/04/2020
WWW.ECLECTICACONTEMPORARY.CO.ZA
WWW.THKGALLERY.COM/
WWW.BERMANCONTEMPORARY.COM
OPENS 02/04/2020 WEEK 1 APRIL
01/03/2020 UNTIL 31/03/2020 WEEK 1 APRIL
RK CONTEMPORARY DRAWN IN GROUP EXHIBITION 05/04/2020 UNTIL 26/04/2020
SALON NINETY ONE THINGS BEHIND THE SUN, A GROUP EXHIBITION 06/05/2020 UNTIL 06/06/2020
WWW.RKCONTEMPORARY.COM
WWW.SALON91.CO.ZA
05/04/2020 UNTIL 26/04/2020 WEEK 1 APRIL
06/05/2020 UNTIL 06/06/2020 WEEK 1 APRIL
16/04/2020 UNTIL 20/04/2020 WEEK 3 APRIL
131 // A // GALLERY OLIVIE KECK AND DANIEL LEVI SOLO SHOWS 131 SIR LOWRY ROAD OPEN 16/04/2020 Insta: @131agallery
THE CAPE GALLERY OUT AND ABOUT 26/04/2020 UNTIL 14/06/2020 WWW.CAPEGALLERY.CO.ZA
16/04/2020 UNTIL 16/05/2020 WEEK 3 APRIL
26/04/2020 UNTIL 14/06/2020 WEEK 4 APRIL
16/04/2020 UNTIL 21/05/2020 WEEK 3 APRIL 126
W W W. A R T G O . C O . Z A
04/04/2020 UNTIL 25/04/2020 WEEK 1 APRIL
POP UP PLACE OBS SALVAGED - RESCUED FROM RUIN ANNE TERBLANCHE AND MIKE TERBLANCHE 42 TRILL ROAD OBSERVATORY 16/04/2020 UNTIL 20/04/2020
Olivie Keck, I’ll Turn On The Charm, 2019, Posca and Acrylic on Hardwood, 67cm x 45,5cm 131 // A // GALLERY
(Detail) Amanda Shingirai Mushate, Myself Yourself, 2020, Oil on canvas, 185x170cm, THK Gallery
GET YOUR COPY OF THE ART TIMES ON ROVOS RAIL
Ontrack with the most adventurous Rovos Rail readers who love a world of art and beauty.
SOUTH AFRICA’S LEADING VISUAL ARTS PUBLICATION
THINKING OF SELLING? Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art Johannesburg, 27 July 2020 Please contact us for a valuation | Entries close 30 April 2020 +27 11 728 8246 | jhb@straussart.co.za | www.straussart.co.za Alexis Preller, Mapogga Woman (detail) R600 000 - 800 000