The Art Times June-July 2021 Edition by SA ART TIMES

JUNE | JULY 2021 ARTTIMES.CO.ZA

193 Gallery (Paris) • 313 Art Project (Paris, Seoul) • Galería 451 (Oviedo)* • Galerie 8+4 – Paris (Paris) • A&R Fleury (Paris)* • A2Z Art Gallery (Paris, Hong Kong) • Galerie AB (Paris)* • Martine Aboucaya (Paris)* • AD Galerie (Montpellier) • Afikaris (Paris) • Galería Albarrán Bourdais (Madrid) • Galerie Almine  Rech (Paris, Brussels, London, New York, Shanghai)* • Alzueta Gallery (Barcelona) • Galerie Andres  Thalmann (Zurich)* • Galerie Art : Concept (Paris)* • Art to Be Gallery (Lille) • Galerie Ariane C-Y (Paris) •  Galerie Arts d’Australie – Stéphane Jacob (Paris) • Galerie Cédric Bacqueville (Lille) • Helene Bailly  Gallery (Paris)* • Galerie Ange Basso (Paris) • La Balsa Arte (Bogota)* • Galerie Laurence Bernard (Geneva)* • Galerie Anne-Sarah Bénichou (Paris)* • Galerie Berès (Paris)* • Galerie Claude Bernard  (Paris) • Galerie Bert (Paris) • Galerie Berthéas (Saint-Étienne, Vichy, Paris)* • Galerie Bessières Art  Contemporain (Chatou) • Galerie Françoise Besson (Lyon)* • Galerie Binome (Paris) • Bogéna Galerie  (Saint-Paul-de-Vence) • Galerie Bernard Bouche (Paris)* • Galerie Boulakia (Paris/London)* • Galerie  Capazza (Nançay) • Galerie Jean-François Cazeau (Paris) • Galerie Chauvy (Paris) • Galerie Chevalier  (Paris)* • Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Beijing, Boissy les Chatel, La Havane, Rome, São Paulo,  Paris)* • Galeria Cortina (Barcelona)* • Christopher Cutts Gallery (Toronto) • Danysz (Paris, Shanghai,  London)* • Galerie Derouillon (Paris)* • Dilecta (Paris) • Ditesheim & Maffei Fine Art (Neuchâtel)* •  Galería Marc Domènech (Barcelona) • Galerie Eric Dupont (Paris) • Galerie Dutko (Paris) • galerie frank  elbaz (Paris)* • Espace Meyer Zafra (Paris)* • Galerie Valérie Eymeric (Lyon) • Galerie Les Filles Du  Calvaire (Paris)* • Galerie Claire Gastaud (Clermont-Ferrand, Paris) • Galerie Louis Gendre (Paris,  Chamalières) • Galerie Alain Gutharc (Paris) • H Gallery (Paris) • Galerie Ernst Hilger (Vienna) • Huberty  & Breyne Gallery (Brussels, Paris) • Galerie Intervalle (Paris) • Galerie Italienne (Paris) • Galerie Jean (Paris, London)* • Ketabi Projects (Paris)* • Galerie kreo (Paris)* • Galerie La Forest Divonne (Paris,  Brussels) • Galerie Lahumière (Paris) • Galerie La Ligne (Zurich)* • Galeria de las misiones (Montevideo)* •  Galerie Le Feuvre & Roze (Paris)* • Galeria Le Guern (Warsaw)* • Galerie Lara Vincy (Paris) • Alexis  Lartigue Fine Art (Paris) • Galerie Jean-Marc Lelouch (Paris) • Galerie Lelong & Co (Paris, New York)* •  Galerie Françoise Livinec (Paris, Huelgoat)* • Galerie Loft (Paris) • Loevenbruck (Paris)* • Magnin-A  (Paris)* • Maruani Mercier Gallery (Brussels)* • Galerie Martel (Paris)* • Massimo De Carlo (Milano,  London, Hong Kong, Paris)* • Galeria Mayoral (Barcelona, Paris)* • Galerie Marguerite Millin (Paris) • Galerie Minsky (Paris)* • Galerie Mitterrand (Paris)* • Galerie Modulab (Metz) • Galerie Frédéric Moisan  (Paris) • Galerie Lélia Mordoch (Paris, Miami) • Galerie Najuma – Fabrice Miliani (Marseille) • Galerie  Nathalie Obadia (Paris, Brussels) • Opera Gallery (Paris) • Galerie Pact (Paris)* • Galerie Paris-Beijing  (Paris) • Perrotin (Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo) • Pigment Gallery (Barcelona) • Galerie  Provost-Hacker (Lille) • Galerie Rabouan Moussion (Paris) • Raibaudi Wang Gallery (Paris) • Rebecca  Hossack Art Gallery (London)* • Red Zone Arts (Frankfurt am Main) • Galerie Richard (Paris, New York) •  Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac (London, Paris, Salzbourg)* • J.-P. Ritsch-Fisch Galerie (Strasbourg) • Galerie  Sator (Paris, Romainville)* • Galerie Scene Ouverte (Paris) • Galerie Alex Schlesinger (Zurich)* • School  Gallery/Olivier Castaing (Paris) • Galerie Lara Sebdon (Paris) • Sit Down Galerie (Paris)* • Galerie Slotine  (Paris) • Galerie Véronique Smagghe (Paris) • Michel Soskine Inc. (Madrid, New York)* • Stems Gallery  (Brussels)* • Galerie Taménaga (Paris, Tokyo, Osaka) • Galerie Tanit (Munich, Beirut)* • Galerie Suzanne  Tarasieve (Paris)* • Templon (Paris, Brussels) • Galerie Traits Noirs (Paris) • Galerie Patrice Trigano  (Paris) • Un-Spaced (Paris) • Galerie Univer/Colette Colla (Paris) • Galerie Vazieux (Paris) • Galerie  Anne de Villepoix (Paris)* • Galerie Wagner (Le Touquet Paris-Plage, Paris) • Galerie Olivier Waltman  (Paris, Miami) • Galerie Esther Woerdehoff (Paris)* • Galerie XII (Paris, Los Angeles, Shanghai) • Galerie  Younique (Lima, Paris) • Yvon Lambert (Paris) • Galerie Géraldine Zberro (Paris). Promises:  31 Project (Paris) • Double V Gallery (Marseille) • Hors-Cadre (Paris)* • La Galería Rebelde  (Guatemala, Los Angeles)* • Le Cabinet d’Ulysse (Marseille)* • Galerie Marguo (Paris)* • Galerie Pauline  Pavec (Paris) • Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris, Abidjan) • Septieme Gallery (Paris)

List of the 2021 exhibitors / *first time participants or returning galleries at Art Paris 2021

Fournier (Paris)* • Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger (Paris) • Gallery Joeun (Seoul)* • Kamel Mennour

09—12 Sept. 2021

Cape Town Auction 8, 9 & 10 June 2021

Fine, Decorative & African Art, Books & Maps, Furniture, Silverware, Fine Jewellery, Watches, Collectables & Wine Public viewing: Preview all the lots on auction the week before at our Cape Town Showroom, 14 Dreyer Street, Claremont 3 - 6 June | 10 - 5pm

Preview, register and bid on www.swelco.co.za Contact us for viewing appointments or condition reports on 021 794 6461 or email info@swelco.co.za

Consign for our upcoming auctions. Contact us for an obligation-free valuation on 011 880 3125 or email info@swelco.co.za

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@stephanwelzandco

Andrzej Urbanski | A046/34/31/18, from the 2018 FREQUENCY 3 series | R70 000 - R100 000

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Art Times June/July 2021 Edition

CONTENTS Cover: Christiaan Conradie, In The Old House, Mary, Oil on canvas, 131A Gallery

10. M.O.L. - LANDSCAPE Ashraf Jamal Column 18. POP GOES THE FAMILY MAN - The artist known simply as FRINGE By Matthew Krouse 26. HUSSEIN SALIM: FINDING EDEN By Ashraf Jamal 34. JOHN KRAMER - Sultan Of Small-Town Aesthetics By Lin Sampson 40. ODYSSEY A long and adventurous pilgrimage 48. SITE, MATERIALITY AND RITUAL; CONSTRUCTIVELY ENGAGING WITH DEATH AND LOSS. A solo-exhibition by Adelheid von Maltitz 52. RESTONE MAAMBO’S REMEMBER THE DIVINE MOTHER The intimacy of the spirit that resides within us all 56. PRINCE ALBERT OPEN STUDIOS A brief taste of what you may encounter… 66. THE ART OF INNOVATION Entries now open for Sasol New Signatures 2021 72. ONCE WE WERE HEROES The North West province ArtbankSA programme launch. 76. Business Art Fine Art Auction highlights 110. ARTGO Exhibition Highlights

Lien Botha, The Loss at Sea, 2019, Digital photographic construction on, Hahnemühle photo rag paper, 42 x 59 cm

Editors Note

here seems to be no telling what new technical breakthrough will come from this Pandemic, after the latest crazy thing to arrive after social media, Instagram, big tech, Tik-Tok and NFT’s has started at the Basel Hong Kong Art Fair with the use of holograms to promote your Artfair stand. Holograms are just perfect to be able to have your gallery or corporate art beamed from one side of the world to another without the worry of packaging or quarantines. It seems in this is the age of inversion, what used to be considered bad is now seems good. What used to be science fiction is now fast becoming a reality, for the few who can afford it. In years to come, like smartphones, everyone will have a hologram and move on from an antique smartphone. What seems to be at stake is the control of relevancy. Whose history, whose sculptures, whose values to consider? - or heaven forbid “cancel”. Another irony is that technology is both bringing us together, but also driving us apart through seemingly overexposure of the human condition and desensitising us through a bombardment of sensation, and to lesser extent boredom.

SOUTH AFRICA’S LEADING VISUAL ARTS PUBLICATION

CONTACT ART TIMES Tel: +27 21 300 5888 109 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town PUBLISHER Gabriel Clark-Brown editor@arttimes.co.za ART DIRECTOR Brendan Body

I guess what I am saying is that maybe there is no more right or wrong in ones hologram world and that we have an enormous amount of stuff, experiences, years of watching other lives and producers. But just how much can we can say is our own and being original is debatable. What do we consider our own creation and making of a creative world? Maybe this is the next artist’s domain, the ability to transfer real emotion and originality inside themselves and to be able to have a stop in your tracks. Perhaps one day pixels will replace paint, and a created cyber world with a smattering of AI will be more welcoming than reality. But for now, it’s good to enjoy the age we are living, and the artist’s pursuit of the human condition, beauty, and love.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING Eugene Fisher sales@arttimes.co.za

We are going out for annual a short break – and this edition is a merger of June and July editions. We will be back with lots of exciting Art Show coverage with ArtGo for the August edition.

ARTGO CONTENT info@artgo.co.za

Take Care and Keep Warm.

DIGITAL MEDIA & EXHIBITION LISTINGS Jan Croft subs@arttimes.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.

Gabriel Clark-Brown

Errata: Hermanus FynArts - would like to apologise for omitting the name of Karin Lijnes from the list of artists who are exhibiting at Sculpture on the Cliffs - 2020. Her work, Freedom Tree comprises of a large steel mobile of five ceramic bird forms.

@ARTTIMES.CO.ZA

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M.O.L 20

LANDSCAPE

Ashraf Jamal

‘Landscape’ enters the English vocabulary in the sixteenth century. Crudely, it’s a shorthand for visual depictions of the countryside. ‘A landscape is picturesque’, writes J.M. Coetzee, ‘when it composes itself, or is composed by the viewer, in receding plains’, in other words, a landscape is never neutral, it is always constructed. This past month, landscape, or the land, has preoccupied me. At the Javett Art Centre in Pretoria I saw Willem Boshoff’s astonishing retrospective which, to my mind, confirmed his pole position as one of the greatest living South African artists. At the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch, I saw the ‘Johannesburg Station Panels’ by the late yet still great J.H. Pierneef. While at the Barnard Gallery in Cape Town I stopped in to see Lien Botha’s retake of the South African landscape in her solo show, ‘Lost in Translation’. The mediums vary from mixed media to oils to digitally constructed photography, but what prevailed in each of these body’s of work was a singular preoccupation with the land – South Africa as a psycho-geography, a home for the embattled and conflicted imagination, because, of course, landscape is not only a matter of artifice because it is an aesthetic construction, but also because, in the charged colonial and postcolonial context, it persists as a proprietorial horror story. Who owns the land? Who has been deprived of it? Who has the right of occupation? who, in brief, can dream their place within it without impunity? In 1913 the Natives Land Act effectively assigned 90% of the land to a white minority. A century has past, yet still we find ourselves dealing with a catastrophic inequity. In his excoriating novel, Home is Nowhere, M.J. Mngadi describes the unabated misery which afflicts a homeless black family. As Mngadi bracingly tells us, ‘if you’re constantly on the road and in and out of rented rooms, you end up like a car tyre that wears out and gets dumped thanklessly’. In an unblinkingly brutal account of

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Willem Boshoff (Detail)

a destroyed family, we absorb the devastating consequences of landlessness – the existential grief and threat of homelessness. Mngadi does not only lay the blame on the doorstep of colonial and apartheid rule, but also at the doorstep of our present government, which, he says, has further ‘splintered the backbone of black people’s lives in this country’. In South Africa, one cannot think about landscape without thinking about landlessness. Moving from panel to panel at the Rupert Museum, one thing is blazingly evident – the absence of people, whether black or white. It is not that Pierneef’s vision is dehumanised, but that it will not accept the fact that earth and sky is not a metaphysical composite alone. True, there are pointed depictions of industrial occupation, and yet, these visions, of an excavated quarry, say, carries none of the existential freightage one finds in the works by William Kentridge who, contra Pierneef, is acutely aware of the human cost and toll generated by mining. In Pierneef’s undoubtedly exquisite renditions of the South African landscape, something Edenic and untouched predominantly prevails, as though what we are looking at exists in some frozen, eternal, unsullied point and place. Pierneef, of course, has a right to his vision. To blame him for his idealised vision is churlish. To his great credit, he was able to invent a unique optic which fused Impressionism with a flattened modular interpretation of earth and sky. The tonal pallor, which suggests an extractive and draining sun, further amplifies the uniqueness of his style, for doubtless, it is style – a peculiarly formal bent – which overrides all socio-political critique. As the great maestro, who fought long and hard for his eventual stature, tells us of the South African landscape, ‘to be blind to its beauty is crass, but to be swallowed up by it seems equally foolish’. Which is why he chooses to see the land and sky at a calculated and controlling distance, why its beauty is affectively chilling yet inviting all the same. His is a matte dispassion, as repressive as it is embracing. At the Javett Art Centre in Pretoria, a vary different dialogue occurred. Stepping into a vast emporium, presented by a consummate creative expression spanning decades, I lost my ability to breathe, so much so that I had to race to the bathroom, rip off my mask, and douse myself with cold water. JH Pierneef (1886-1957), Johannesburg Station Panel – MontAux-Sources, 1929-32, Oil on canvas, 145 x 153.5cm, Courtesy of the TRANSNET Foundation Collection

Willem Boshoff, OH Cliffshain

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The root of the problem was Boshoff’s mastery. Not only was his use of mixed media astonishing, so was his uncanny ability to fuse wildly discrepant material. Its was materiality that thrust itself to the fore, an acute grasp of the tangibility of place – this country. No other South African artist, to my mind, has a more acute grasp of the palpability of place. That Boshoff achieves this sensation, while eschewing representation – what a place looks like – is breathtakingly acute. One work, comprising earth and intersecting clippers-scissors-shears – will suffice. The scale is monumental, the impact equally so. It is not the consoling formal suturing of a Pierneef painting that one experiences, but the physical and psychic cutting-up of the deceptively seamless lay of land. And yet, despite this jagged and ragged dismembering affect, one cannot ignore the works visual eloquence, because Boshoff, too, is a great formalist, one who realises that no creative impact is sustainable without a singular grasp of aesthetics. It is because no landscape is ever experienced neutrally, because we assume a stake in everything we see and create, that the South African story assumes its psychic depth and complexity. If artists matter, it is because of their ability to touch us where it counts. Pierneef’s seeming dispassion is the root of his feeling. By reconstructing what he sees, giving form to the formless – the evermorphing nature of earth and sky and light – he not only gifted us with his own singular signature, he also provided us with the room and guidance we require to see what it is he saw. Travelling through the Karoo I came across his odd koppies with their tall conical hats and gasped with delight. We stopped the car and stepped out. In an instant I felt utterly consoled, becalmed, at home in a strange and wondrous landscape. But of course, no one in South Africa is ever wholly consoled. The land is unconsoling too. This is Boshoff’s point. There remains what John Barrell calls the ‘dark side of the landscape’. And as William Burchell opined, travelling through the Western Cape between 1811 and 1813, the region, in his view, lacked vegetal variety, it was ‘a desolate wild and singular landscape’. ‘In Africa we look in vain for those mellow tints with which the sun dyes the forests of England’. Burchell is entitled to feeling homesick, but at the expense of an entire continent?

If landscape, as an aesthetic, teaches us anything, it is the importance of context and proportion – that all apprehension is necessarily subjective. A few days ago, I stopped to see Lien Botha’s show at the Barnard, titled ‘Lost in Translation’. Her digitally constructed photographs were, to me at least, representations of nondescript swathes and swatches of land. There was nothing classical about the arrangement and perspective, no easily parsed distant horizon, middle ground, or eye-catching ‘dark coulisse on the side shadowing the foreground’, which, for J.M. Coetzee, allows for the ‘picturesque’. Instead, the effect of Botha’s photographs was monotonic, peculiarly flattening. Digitally inked into the dour grey planes were figures from a children’s school textbook. Her rationale? That hers is a reflection on the ‘static content … fifty years after the event’. In short, hers is a retrospective and nostalgic enterprise. However, ‘in search of a past/present continuum’, Botha cannot ignore that her take on a ‘comic-style genre’ also references ‘current issues such as the notion of “home” in a fragile social and natural environment’. Botha is right – one cannot. The formal elegance of her works, like that which one finds in a Pierneef or Boshoff artwork, cannot escape what lies beneath – an existential dread. In Age of Iron J.M. Coetzee speaks of the untold dead that lie beneath the surface of the earth. No apprehension of South Africa’s exquisite physical beauty is sustainable without the acknowledgement of guilt, betrayal, or venal greed. Landscape is an aesthetic and a historical phenomenon. We understand our place within it only once we have sought ‘a past/present continuum’. As W.J.T. Mitchell notes in Landscape and Power, ‘Landscape is itself a physical and multisensory medium (earth, stone, vegetation, water, sky, sound and silence, light and darkness’. To wholly embrace the land we occupy, this country, and the artists who express its story on our behalf, we need both the ‘sound and silence, light and darkness’. That said, and that being true, I must say that in the spirit of a greater wellbeing – something we desperately require – I must also repeat Pierneef’s words regarding our South African landscape, ‘to be blind to its beauty is crass, but to be swallowed up by it seems equally foolish’.

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Lien Botha, A boat comes in, 2019, Digital photographic construction on, Hahnemühle photo rag paper, 42 x 59 cm

Lien Botha, The long Goodbye, 2018, Digital photographic construction on, Hahnemühle photo rag paper, 42 x 59 cm

POP GOES THE FAMILY MAN By Matthew Krouse www.daville.co.za

he artist known simply as FRINGE completed a year-long rollout of prints in May. He released a print a month – twelve in total – in his conceptual Facsimile series that reflected with pop iconography on family values, isolation and art practice in the time of the Covid pandemic. The irony of using the age-old fax as a springboard for making messages to humanity opened a universe of possibility. What does an anonymous, cult figure like FRINGE have to say, in a time of lockdown, about a life-experienced in confinement? Perhaps, through his eyes we can learn something, given that he spends all of his time creating in total isolation anyway. The fried eggs, Warholesque bananas and sprayed hearts, that adorn the Facsimile series, illustrate the texts’ overriding conclusion that family values, artistic pursuits and individualistic loves are the keys to a happy marriage – with oneself. In the five years that Fringe has been practicing under his pseudonym he has seen a remarkable rise in fortune and reputation. Three sold-out solo exhibitions later, at the Daville Baillie Gallery in Lorentzville Johannesburg, he is exhibited in Europe with galleries in Berlin, Paris and London. His ironic pop pastiches seem to defy locality. Taking his universal appeal into new mediums, this year FRINGE released an editioned series of sculptures that appear to mourn the passing of time in the life of a child. Gutinke Meine (My Sweetest Darling), created in bronze and polyurethane, is softness made solid. The metaphorical essence of the work monumentalises the joyful moments of childhood, epitomised in the fantasy of animals as companions and friends. Mickey Escher, 100cm x 100cm, oil on canvas, 2020

Faded Love II, 100cm x 100cm, oil and spray on canvas, 2020

I Alone, 100cm x 100cm, oil and charcoal on canvas, 2021

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I LOVE, 100cm x 100cm, oil on canvas, 2021

The Valley Calls, 100cm x 100cm, oil and spray on canvas. Opposite Page: Girl No More, 150cm x 120cm, oil and charcoal on canvas, 2021

FRINGE: THE VERY DEFINITION April 2017

DON’T BLINK September 2018

In his first solo exhibition, titled The Very Definition, FRINGE was introduced as a graffitiinspired visual artist portraying the world’s most recognisable figures and figureheads with a playful makeover.

FRINGE’s second exhibition at the Daville Baillie Gallery, of mixed media works, contained an extension of his joyful, yet irreverent, iconography. Again, his anonymity allowed him to navigate the pop world of familiar characters, brands and slogans without being weighed down by the distraction of a real persona.

Celebrating the irreverent spirit of Pop Art, he created mixed media works paying tribute to music and movie stars, historical heroes and logos, bringing the city walls into the gallery space. The exhibited works fell into three broad themes: love, hope and fear.

The artist’s motivation was to encourage the realisation that the fast pace of progress, technological and creative, is inevitable. His statement claimed, ‘We can never slow our pace. If we start we cannot stop. The only way to take it in is to look through the rear view mirror, while we drive on by.‘

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Come Along, 100cm x 100cm, oil on canvas

NO SERIOUSLY March 2020 For his third solo exhibition, the paintings, sculptures and prints created by FRINGE took as their beginning point the ubiquitous popular culture of a now-globalised world. The title of the exhibition, NO SERIOUSLY, provided a clue to the artist’s outlook: an exploration of the tension between high art and commercial popularity. His new works extended his major preoccupations: fame and fortune, and conspicuous consumption. He also paid some attention to the underdogs, the great losers of comic culture: Charlie Brown, the Simpsons and Alfred E Neuman.

The next frontier for FRINGE will be an engagement with his anonymity. As his work appreciates in value, and his audience grows, the challenge of making art in total isolation becomes apparent. We wish we could say, ‘watch this space,’ but we cannot. Because we don’t know if FRINGE will ever appear. FRINGE is represented by the Daville Baillie Gallery, Victoria Yards, 16 Viljoen Street, Lorentzville, Johannesburg. Email: info@daville.co.za Phone: 082 412 9210 website: www.daville.co.za

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SAL ON N I N ETY O NE P R E S E NT S SITAARA STODEL. SO MANY WOODEN FLOORS, 2021. FOUND PHOTOGRAPHS ON LINEN.

To Whom It May Concern A group exhibition | 10.07 - 14.08.2021

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HUSSEIN SALIM: FINDING EDEN Ashraf Jamal

www.eclecticacontemporary.co.za

s Clare Patrick succinctly phrases it, Hussein Salim’s paintings ‘leave just enough clues to catalyse thinking rather than explicitly demonstrate an idea’. The artist’s delicate balancing act between figuration and abstraction is refreshing. His decision, in part, stems from the artist’s Islamic inheritance and its wariness of the graven image, but it is also indebted to a conception of painting as an intuitive and affective dialogue with the world. As Patrick puts it, Salim catalyses the human story. One enters the artist’s world, its thicket, and, therein, finds one’s own way. His is art in the most liberatory sense – he does not tell us what to think or feel, he refuses to trap us in dogma, rather, Salim invites us into a phenomenological world in which art assumes its now neglected purpose, as a dreaming tool. Salim’s new exhibition at Eclectica is titled ‘Finding Eden’. The title of an earlier showing with the gallery, ‘The Three Abstractions: love, time and death’ is as capacious. Salim asks us to engage with the big questions, be they metaphysical, theological, or achingly human. His approach, however, is tender always. This is because Salim’s paintings are evocations, glimmerings, as if seen through clouded glass – misty, ephemeral, utterly seductive. His latest offering, ‘Finding Eden’, once again conjures a quest, in this case for some imagined, or real, point of human origin. Whether one is a believer, or non-believer, is beside the point, what matters is the adventure, with or without a divining rod. Reason or Faith are not the only answers to life, there is also inscrutable mystery, conditions intuited that refuse to ‘explicitly demonstrate an idea’.

Untitled 2, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 120 cm

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‘I had this weird thought the other day, but I don’t know if it’s true’, a dear friend and painter recently remarked, ‘I thought maybe painting crudely is almost more real than painting realistically … it’s more real for the viewer. It becomes more psychological’. I agree. And Salim demonstrates this intuition cannily. His paintings are events expressed upon and within a subtly shifting ground, they are aqueous, heady, but also strangely calming. Nothing jars, even though his world vision seems suspended. I get the impression that Salim hovers before a canvas, touches it, rubs out a form, in some avid desire to capture its aura. If he is in search of the Edenic, it is because he is drawn to the penumbral allure of the mythic. Notwithstanding the dark history of the Sudanese civil war he survived, or the continued disjunctive relationship of the black body in a peculiarly Western world – the African diaspora – Salim refuses to amplify despair. Instead, his gloaming African vision reminds us that wonder too persists, that beauty lies in our grasp, and that sublimity – which refuses all bondage – remains the greater grail. It is a paradox, and a rare one at that, which Salim enshrines – his paintings are beautiful and sublime, easy on the eye yet enigmatic. And, given the psychological fatigue we are all experiencing right now, a boon. As Matisse famously remarked, ‘I dream of … an art of balance, of purity and serenity … something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue’. This is also Salim’s vocation. ‘Finding Eden’ is akin to finding one’s private ballast in a quaking world. It is not only the artist’s colour palette which consoles us, but also his compositions, their design and delicate movement. Nothing is abrasive, nothing hurts the eye and mind. Instead, the impact of his paintings is therapeutic. In their modern classic, Art as Therapy, John Armstrong and Alain de Botton remind us that art’s true mission is ‘the promotion of a sensory understanding of what matters most in life’. ‘Art has a crucial role to play in creating and keeping images of the lessons of love at the front of our minds’. That ‘A great artist knows how to draw our attention to the most tender, inspiring and enigmatic aspects of the world’. This, surely, is also Salim’s wager.

Untitled I,2020,acrylic on paper,120 x 150 cm

Previous Spread: Profusion, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 150 cm Above: Untitled II, 2020,acrylic on paper, 120 x 150 cm

This does not merely mean that he is a feelgood artist, but that he is equally able to harness sorrow. One needs both darkness and light. Moreover, one needs to ‘balance’ the two in a vision that is ultimately engendering, because, only then, can art become ‘a dignified echo’ of the pain or dread we feel. It is a curious fact that at the very historical moment when the black body is palpably enshrined in the Western canon, when the African diaspora assumes centre stage in the Western world’s art economy – brokered by dealerships, integrated in museums, avidly bought by collectors – that we also have the emergence of NFT’s, non-fungible art. In other words, we have a heightened interest in ontology – blackness as a critical presence in the art world – and the rise of digitised ephemera, or, the Idea of Art, rather than the thing in-and-of-itself. This, for me, suggests a counter-intuitive desire to short a black art market, or, more benignly, or cynically, the continued ability of capitalism to absorb all contradiction. As for the fate of the black body in art? Is it merely the new in-thing, a fad, or something of great existential significance?

I raise these questions because they help me to understand how Salim operates differently. By absorbing figuration and abstraction, the tangible and intangible, he reminds us that both dimensions are vital. We are not the sum of what we objectively see, we are also the sum of all that cannot be seen and known. If his art is profoundly significant today, it is because it squares a modern art tradition and contemporaneity. A Matisse for our time, Salim tells us, through gestures, that life is unsustainable unless we give credence to the unknown and unknowable. If his bodies seem to float, hover between worlds, it is because they are transitional, ever-moving. As for the colours, the mark-making more generally? These are implicitly atomic. His is as much a colour field as it is a psychological one. While his paintings console us, they never explain our feelings away. Before a painting by Hussein Salim, we are in the midst of our own restless lives. Find Eclectica Contemporary at 56 Church street, Cape Town.

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Angus Taylor GROUNDED IV R35 000 - R50 000

JOHN KRAMER Sultan Of Small-Town Aesthetics By Lin Sampson www.princealbertgallery.co.za

ramer has, like his paintings, a pleasant innocence and true humbleness.

“I am a painter,” he says. “I have always been fascinated by painting. It is a wonderful thing and you never get tired of it.” He rues the fact that at university (Michaelis) he was not taught more about paint, about colour, about its magic qualities, its ability to transform. How it can add fizz and vigour and visual staccato and emotional texture and a Catherine wheel of fugitive colours. “At university we were just given a large bit of paper and told to get on with it. Sometimes the lecturer would make a comment like, ‘needs to be more sensitive, more shade’. But we were taught nothing about paint. “I like to paint. I give the process a lot of thought. There is always something that is new that I can focus on.” In his studio above his house in the Gardens are tubes of half squeezed paint, cadmium red, cerulean blue, lamp black. The names crackle. Over the years Kramer has marshalled these paints like a sergeant major, bossed them about, learnt their ancestry, held power over them to help produce what is both a valuable historical record that also reverberates at an emotional level. “When I left university, I knew I wanted to paint but I had no idea what to paint. I was still learning about paint. I tried hard edge, pop, realism. Good- ness knows what. None of them were me. Then I remembered our art lecturer, Neville Dubow, said ‘You must stop being influenced from overseas, look in your own backyard.’

Corner Cafe, Beaufort West, oil on board, 500mm x 800mm

My own backyard was Worcester, and I would go back there and wander around. You get to know the town you were born in. The Van Vuuren Milk Bar, banana splits in frosted glasses, the old cinema with its Art Deco out- lines. The Good Hope Cafe, typical Greek, with techno colour pictures of mixed grills and milk shakes. The Cumberland, the Masonic.

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One day I was sitting in my studio, looking at photos and thinking what is the real South Africa? Is it red hot pokers? Old Dutch Houses? I picked up one of these photographs. It was a building with a corrugated roof. Just an ordinary Cape building but it had that particular quality of heat, a blue gum tree, so I made a painting of it. It was designed in a way that it had a black border round it, so it was like you

stuck a photograph into an album, I did three or four of them. I got a great response. These buildings really became something to hang my painting on. They were my quarry.” He paints small corner cafes, superettes, barber shops, picking out monikers like Algemene Handelaars, Uitkyk Cafe and Gen Dealer.

Osman’s Corner Store, Greyton, framed oil on board, 530mm x 830mm

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Heinie’s Kafee, Napier, framed oil on board, 340mm x 550mm

He uses colour mixes that look like tumbleweed and old toadstools, spiced with aero blues and saturated reds and yellows. “The object is not simply to copy the photographs but to explore the inher- ent qualities; the nature of tone and colour in photos and how this could be manipulated in paint.” He captures the high Karoo skies and the washed Cape light. He occupies a dangerous turf that without a profound technique and acute intelligence could easily spill into the picturesque. Instead, his paintings of ordinary buildings speak most of abandonment, a country in gritty turmoil surrounded by the flaky, elemental nature of the environment with its flinty unforgiving turf and high skies. A South African exile from the Karoo who lives in London says, “I just have to look at one of his paintings, to burst into tears.”

They have an eery quality, ghostlike and spectral that is enduring, empha- sised by Kramer’s ability to paint the soft light, streaming across the latticed penumbra of the Karoo. The Karoo evades capture, sneaky and cunning, it dances and tumbles beyond the human hand, its stories of tragedy and beauty are tumulus and evasive. But Kramer has shadowed this land with his acute eye and paint brush and with a foxy alertness has managed to get under its skin with true understanding. Artist John Kramer will be exhibiting new paintings entitled “Streetscape” in the Prince Albert Art Gallery, 55 Church Street. The exhibition opens Friday 18 June at 18:00. www.princealbertgallery.co.za

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ODYSSEY

Eclectica Contemporary www.eclecticacontemporary.co.za

ur journey begins in North Africa. Here artists often work in contexts charged with multiple of constraints. They can easily find themselves in war zones and regions fraught with conflict. These Geographical discords give rise to deeper inner conflicts like a crossroads of tradition or political censorship. As a result North African Artists either have to work in exile or exhibit in foreign countries. The title Odyssey refers to a long and adventurous pilgrimage home after war, as the ancient Homeric Poem narrates. Our visual excursion begins in Magnetic North where the first documented history in Africa uproots and extends to Southern counterparts. Odyssey explores dislocation, nostalgia and a Romantic longing for past homelands, traditions and fading memories. It resembles an attempt to conjure up the past, document their memories and histories of the motherland.

Egyptian artists of the twentieth century have embraced and rejected European styles with an underlying quest for freedom that sets them apart from their European counterparts. Inspired by a variety of forms, symbols and ideas, Morocco has always been a melting pot of cultures, represented in sacred scripture and ancient hieroglyphics. Their history and identity is often linked to nature and territory. Odyssey seeks a spiritual route, rather than material representation. Artwork can be distinguished by the mystical quality of their sculptures, paintings and drawings of their own respective fields. The symbols of prehistoric writing and engraving evokes a feeling of deja vu, while dreamlike imagery reflects their mystic practices. Use of symbols to celebrate life can be seen in collective use of plants, fruits, trees and adjacent symbols, while bright colors celebrate the cycle of life transcending historical timelines. Our journey through Africa has highlighted how culture, politics and history of a country influences the psychological mindset of its inhabitants. These influences determine how we perceive the world, ourselves and others. Our aim is to underline the uniqueness and find the common thread that unites the voices of African artist. As creators our perceptions, awareness and imagination of the above often translates in our work, as Hussein Salim states: “I paint for the recognition of the imaginative, the recognition of others and the recognition the humane. Odyssey begins at in the front space of the gallery and extends to the back where the works at Eclectica Contemporary will be rotating artists from the African diaspora continuously throughout the exhibition. Left: Ibrahim-Khatab, Untitled-(I), 2020, mixed media on board, 120 x 120 cm. Opposite Page: Mohamed Rabie, Untitled, 2020, Mixed media on canvas,150 x 100 cm

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Ibrahim Khatab Ibrahim Khatab was born in Cairo 1984, works as a co-teacher at Cairo University. He works across the mediums of painting, video art and installation. Khatab has been practicing since his youth - when he was 12 years old, he created billboards on cloths and walls that were put up in the streets of Cairo. This experience at the beginning of his practice continues to influence his work and ignited his passion for the Arabic calligraphy which can consistently be seen reflected in his works. Since 2007, his work has been presented frequently in group shows and solo exhibitions. He has garnered notable recognition locally, exhibiting across various art centres and galleries in Cairo, but has seen impressive exposure abroad, having exhibited widely - from Sweden to Cape Town to Oman. He has regularly participated in the annual Youth Salon, Cairo, and has also led many workshops in Visual Arts Center, Oman; Fine Arts Association, Doha; and Sharjah Children Biennial (2013). He has been awarded various prizes for his work and in 2018, obtained his PhD from Cairo University. Khatab is currently resident in Cairo, Egypt and represented by Eclectica Contemporary in Southern Africa. Hussain Salim As a result of a tumultuous political and economical period in Sudan, which also brought about disputes of its historical context, Hussein Salim spent a number of years as a refugee in various countries including Egypt and South Africa. Following his artistic training in Khartoum University, he attained his Master’s degree in art at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg. He has exhibited extensively overseas along with acclaimed local galleries, such as Johans Borman and Bonisa Private Gallery. It was during this time that Salim and his family embarked on both an emotional and awakening return back to his homeland, Sudan. Inspired by its diversity and diasporic, multicultural communal structure, his body of work celebrates this through extensive layering of symbols, rich colours and vivid forms. Following the example of graciousness, humility and resilience of the Sudanese, Salim has worked closely with NGO’s such as African Angels and Buccaneers Outreach program, whom focus on the sustenance and uplifting of children and schools in

marginalized communities with proceeds of his artwork sales being donated to various outreach schemes. Mimouni El Houssaine Mimouni El Houssaine lives and teaches fine art in Montpellier although he travels constantly between the two Mediterranean shores of Morocco and Europe. These constant coming and goings are reflected on his canvases in a game of symbols, spattered written texts and horizons in perspective. Mimouni’s work weaves the intricate dialect of yearning for other shores, spurned on by the desire to leave, to return or simply of dreaming of being in a different place. He explains, “yearning for the other shore, is a translation of my thoughts of returning to my country, going back to my roots. It also symbolizes a return to the light, so very unique to Africa”. In his works, the many crossings are represented by means of recurring symbols such as canoes, bundles of sticks or ladders reaching for the sky. Painting, collage, materials and text are combined in a score etched in the heart of one for whom the quest for the invisible seems more irrepressible than ever. Each curve is a meditation, the slightest trace a search towards an elevated state of mind susceptible of reaching the sky. Taking inspiration from his travels, but also from music, Tuareg sounds, Flamenco and Sufi music, Mimouni’s work is layered with lyrical symbolisms. Timeless landscapes, graphic writing and splashes of colour are open to imagination, peppered with forms and shapes that verge between drawing and speech. The works hold no human figure, but the features of humanity are delicately outlined in every detail. Kamal Al-Feki Artist Kamal Al-Feki was born in 1984, earned a Bachelor Degree in fine arts 2006 Sculpture Department field,fine art college, Helwan University with honors. He has been an active member of the Syndicate of Fine Artists in Cairo, joined the (academia d’Egitto) in Rome, Italy (2016) and participated in many exhibitions and international cultural figures inside Egypt and abroad from 2007 to now. El Feki’s sculptures is an attempt to capture the familiar yet foreign concept of waiting. The artist evokes the viewer to become content with the uncomfortable pause that his weighted figures narrate in their ageless suspension.

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Hussein Salim, Communal, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 150 cm

Kamal El-Feki , Untitled I , 2020 , Bronze , 47 x 23 x 19 cm

Mimouni El Houssaïne, 65 x 50 cm

Mohamed Rabie, (Detail) Untitled, 2020, Mixed media on canvas,150 x 100 cm

The sculptures presents the futile, yet adventurous journey of becoming and the perpetuating cycles of human desire that accompany that role. Kamal’s Sculptures illustrates human life cycles as a concrete plexus of events and desires. They draw us into a state of stillness, anticipation and entraps the viewer in a dormant state of reflection. Mohamed Rabie Mohamed Rabie is an artist deeply engaged in and interested with the identity and symbolisms of his home town Minya in Egypt. He was born in Minya in 1986 and went on to study at Cairo’s Faculty of Fine Arts and is now also a member of the Fine Arts Association and the General Federation of Arab Archeologists. As such, his interest and passion for the arts goes beyond his multilayered canvases, while also contributing to and informing his creativity as he works.

His painting practice borrows from different eras and cultures present within his rich heritage and grapples with questionings of historical entanglements and contemporary geographic dynamics. Looking at the theme of ‘Egyptian heritage’ his work includes a querying of graphic texts and visual languages, translating them into a contemporary context. Using broad brushstrokes and large swathes of colour across the picture plane, Rabie offers fragmentary clues from history, and re-articulates them within the gestures of his work. This results in a strange sense of familiarity and recognition within each painting, as though recalling a forgotten story and familiar narrative.

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SITE, MATERIALITY AND RITUAL; CONSTRUCTIVELY ENGAGING WITH DEATH AND LOSS. A solo-exhibition by Adelheid von Maltitz Oliewenhuis Art Museum, 13 May - 20 June 2021

Cleansing/Entombing, 2021, Site-specific earth from Poland and Germany, cremated bone ash, ash, nail clippings, breastmilk, hair, lint, resin and Plexiglas, 850mm X 4450mm X 201mm

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liewenhuis Art Museum is proud to host a solo-exhibition by Bloemfontein based artist, Adelheid von Maltitz from 13 May to 20 June 2021. Adelheid is the current Academic Head of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Free State. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 2005, her Masters in Fine Arts in 2009 and is currently studying towards her PhD in Fine Arts at the same institution. She has participated in several local and international exhibitions and in 2014 was awarded the ‘runner up’ prize in Sasol New Signatures. For Adelheid making sculpture and installation art involves processes that allow her to think and work through personal anxieties regarding trauma or loss and death. Her interest in how her own art-making processes are comparable to conventional historical, as well as contemporary rituals which engage with death and loss. This interest was sparked when she observed (what looked to her like) a mother and sister continually, over months, rebuild and maintain a roadside shrine that she passed regularly on her daily commute. By initially examining the nature of roadside shrines in relation to her own art-making processes, she realized that the roadside shrine and the mourning rituals associated with it could be perceived as an investigative device that teases out questions relating to her own studio research. She was struck by the similarities in the ways in which death and loss may be engaged with constructively and in a healing manner, in art. The similarities that emerged are related to aspects of site, materiality and ritual. She was stimulated to examine art-making concerned with trauma and loss and with memorialisation and mourning practices, according to these three categories in historical and contemporary examples in order to illuminate her research questions.

(R)evisit, rebu(I)ld, re(P)eat, 2013, Site-specific earth, ash and resin, 2540mm X 3800mm 135mm

Installation image, 2021, Oliewenhuis Art Museum

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Installation image, 2021, Oliewenhuis Art Museum

Adelheid considers most of the materials she uses in her artworks as site-specific, either directly collected from a site of trauma and loss or attempting to reference that site. These site-specific materials include earth, cremated bones, hair, nail clippings, breast milk and lint. The use of resin and Plexiglas is primarily to support these materials, and they also contribute meanings through their own material characteristics. She explains that she thinks of these site-specific materials as imbued with meaning and that she imagines the materials she uses, for example earth from Nazi concentration camps in Poland (the country where her grandfather was born and fled from during WWII) to have “witnessed” that trauma and loss. She further developed this imaginative thinking by means of particular processes when either re-working collected materials or creating new meaningfully imbued materials. These processes become ritual-like due to the structure she imposes on the way she collects and re-works the materials into her artworks. The ritualised actions of, for example, repetitive procedures of scattering, sprinkling, burning, pouring and grinding, and her working in specific places or at specific times, are all evocative. Moreover, there repetitive, place –or time-specific actions are

enlivened by personal imaginative processes. For Adelheid, even though she can imagine her way into something terrible like her own death or a family member’s death, her artwork, in all its various facets, allows her to engage with those thoughts and feelings and to some extent imagine a way out of it again. Her art making helps her be less paralysed and overcome, while it does not smooth over or hide realities. This ability to integrate the awareness of the certainty of death with the lush consciousness of continuation of life is after all what makes humans exceptional. Oliewenhuis Art Museum is located at 16 Harry Smith Street, Bloemfontein. Entrance is free and secure parking is available for visitors and for buses. A ramp at the entrance of the main entrance provides access for wheel chairs, while a lift provides access to the Permanent Collection display areas on the first floor. For more information on Oliewenhuis Art Museum please contact the Museum at 051 011 0525 (ext 200) or oliewen@nasmus.co.za. Stay up to date by following Oliewenhuis Art Museum on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for all upcoming exhibitions and events.

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RESTONE MAAMBO’S REMEMBER THE DIVINE MOTHER Melrose Gallery (Johannesburg), 17 June to 16 July

www.themelrosegallery.co.za

‘Remember the Divine Mother’, Maambo’s much anticipated solo exhibition, continues to explore and celebrate his close relationship with his mother, who has sadly passed, and his respect for woman in general. In this exhibition, Maambo creates a space that does not isolate but rather highlights the intimacy of the spirit that resides within us all, not by confronting us with an image but by calling us to listen from within. Therefore, the gaze does not build a theory or language but rather a song or a spirit through the body of a woman, the ‘divine mother’ who Maambo calls upon us to remember.

Confidence I, 2020 Collage and pastel on canvas 110 x 130 cm Opposite Page: Confidence II, 2020 Collage and pastel on Canvas 150 x 100 cm

estone Maambo navigates his ancestry and experiences with ‘Kusololwa Amumuni’, the call from the ancestors to become a sangoma or spiritual healer, through his artistic practice.

Traditional healers are considered to be the safeguards of tradition and culture and despite his decision to follow his passion for art rather than to become a spiritual healer, this is something that he takes very seriously. Perhaps it is the innate spirituality that the elders recognised in Maambo at an early age that gives his paintings their unique almost meditative and healing quality that captivates the viewer. Maambo was brought up by his mother and his respect and appreciation of femininity and womanhood stems from this positive relationship and features strongly in his works. He often paints woman in what appears to be a spiritual meditative state and the viewer feels touched to have been included into what is a very intimate and personal moment.

Maambo uses spirituality as his source in which the bodies that come to the forefront exist within the mapping of the landscapes that become the artworks. They all exist within a spiritual experience of self and are personified through their experience of the other being that which they encounter in the physical world. As a metaphor this would be described as holding an emotionally protective space, co-constructed, especially evocative of the relationship between psychoanalysis and maternal care. In his artworks he explores symbols and subject matter from everyday life, and images inspired from the Old Testament which interact with the sacred traditions and ceremonies of his ancestors creating an inimitable artistic interpretation of his life in Zambia and what lies beyond it. His paintings are created using acrylic impasto paint, varnish layering, collage and mixed media which are often applied to large canvases. ‘Remember the Divine Mother’ runs from 17 June to 16 July 2021 at The Melrose Gallery (Johannesburg) and on a viewing room on www.themelrosegallery.com This exhibition is the perfect precursor to our exciting Woman’s Month programme in August.

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RONALD MUCHATUTA’S KURARAMA

Melrose Gallery (Cape Town), 4 June to 25 July www.themelrosegallery.co.za

The Introspect, 2020, mixed media on canvas, 100 x 150 cm Opposite Page: Yellow, 2020, mixed media on canvas, 150 x 100 cm

e are pleased to present Ronald Muchatuta’s solo ‘Kurarama’ at The Melrose Gallery (Cape Town) from 4 June to 25 July 2021. This follows on from its well-received run at The Melrose Gallery (Johannesburg) and Muchatuta’s recent nomination to represent Zimbabwe at the Venice Biennale in 2022. Muchatuta created this new body of works during the shutdown in South Africa. The impact of the pandemic on the global community and the way in which it forced mankind to slow down, to take a breath and to consider what is most important in our lives has had a marked effect on Muchatuta’s life and this body of work in particular.

“‘Kurarama’ means ‘to survive’ and it is through survival that we find beauty in life and death. “The Ying-yang philosophy reflects on how the end of life in one dimension can be seen as a fresh start in another. The circle of life. The burning of the veldt before new vegetation sprouts - The land needs to breath, We need to breath. This body of work crosses points of our existence. The mark of existence comes in the forms of legacy, spirituality, youth, beauty, and cultural conditioning. “Green, Orange, Brown. A smile a kiss. Joint shoes. A spectacle with sighting and vision. Shapes - forms within foresight. The Joy of Chaos. Happiness riding with thrill. Oh how I missed you colour “, Ronald Muchatuta

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PRINCE ALBERT OPEN STUDIOS 17-20 June 2021

www.princealbertopenstudios.co.za

Botanical artist Sally Arnold at work (Photo Samantha Reinders) Opposite Page: Acrylic painting by Elcado Blom

ince its outset in 2017, Prince Albert Open Studios has been attracting an array of art lovers to the picturesque Karoo village, Prince Albert. The magnetism of this event owes a lot to the diversity of creatives that are part of its artistic community. Here is a brief taste of what you may encounter… One can visit the studios of artists painting in both acrylics and oils – Sonja Fourie, Mariana Botha, Kevin de Klerk, Deidre Maree, Cobus van Bosch (who also creates fine handcrafted knives), John O’Sullivan, Erika van Zyl, and Diane Johnson-Ackerman, who is also a printmaker, specialising in etching and linocuts. Also not to be missed is the studio of botanical fine artist and designer Sally Arnold, whose meticulous botanical drawings and paintings are elegant and sophisticated. Newcomer to Prince Albert is Anna Stone, who does resonant portraits and still-life in charcoal, conté, oils, and pastel-painting. Her work can be seen at the Prince Albert Gallery. Also showing there is Mary Anne Botha, who leans towards abstract art, in mixed media incorporating photography and collage. Next door to the Gallery is the studio of Rebecca Haysom, who incorporates collage, painting and paper maché in her narrative pieces.

At ‘Karoo Souk’, one can witness specialised and ancient crafts – hand-forged metalwork by artist-blacksmith Kashief Booley, and hand-spinning and hand-weaving of high quality mohair rugs at Karoo Looms. While visiting the functional, there is Pat Hyland, who makes creative lighting with a steampunk edge out of repurposed fittings and old car parts. Another fine craftsperson is Turid Bergstedt, whose meticulous, hand-crafted kaleidoscopes of varying sizes and designs describe beauty arising from geometry. Then there is jewellery designer Di van der Riet Steyn, whose line ‘Karoo Blues’ incorporates found pottery shards set in pure silver into wearable art. On the topic of the found, avid collector Collette Hurt creates pieces from found objects, her signature work being Bull and Gemsbok horns made from rust. The variety doesn’t end here! There is ceramicist Sue Savage’s light and friendly studio, a space where she teaches classes, and creates and shows her pots. She works entirely by hand-building – pinching, coiling, and slabbing. Another experience not to be missed is that of Heleen de Haas on Aswater Farm. Considering her farm as her canvas, one can experience her letter art and calligraphy in her studio, land art installations, hand-carved letters on stones, a word labyrinth, and letter art used in interior décor! Heleen will be doing guided ‘tours’ daily at 10am and 2pm, and there will be a pop up tearoom! There are two galleries to visit – the Prince Albert Gallery, which shows a variety of South African artists, specialising in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics, and who also represent local Prince Albert artists; and Watershed Gallery, known for its collection of JP Meyer’s work, and Jürgen Schadeberg prints. It is also home to the studio of Kevin de Klerk, who is currently

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Prince Albert in the Distance, by photographer Louis Botha.

Africa - Home, (mixed media acrylic on canvas) by Di Smith

Prince Albert Mountains, (Embroidery) by Renee Calitz

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Portrait by Photographer Samantha Reinders

Untitled, (oil on canvas) by Cobus van Bosch

working on transforming a series of Karoo oil drum bins into works of art that can be seen around town – a means of spreading awareness of the significant work of local NGOs. Also to be visited is The Barn Artist Residency, which in June will be hosting resident artist Barend Paul Barnard. Some of the artists will be showing focussed ‘themes’ and new bodies of work for June’s Open Studios. Multidisciplinary artist Di Smith is shares her ‘Karoo Landscapes’: an expression of her emotions and impressions experienced through her love of adventuring in the area. Multimedia artist Sue Hoppe will be showing her newest body of work – a series of encaustics called ‘Celebrating Karooness’, through which she hopes to put across the essence of her love for the Karoo and her new life here. Photographer Louis Botha will also be showing his love for the Karoo – expressed through images of “roads less travelled, unspoilt landscapes, little dorpies, special people and stories” – his exploration of the Karoo captures an experience of stillness, quiet, open spaces, and simplicity, of slowing down and seeing. Renée Calitz will be showing her new work,

experimenting with fibre and textile art. Through mixed media and the ‘slow’ process of embroidery she explores the theme of pausing to really ‘see’. Photojournalist Samantha Reinders will be exhibiting portraits taken in Ethiopia. She has a flair for making her Open Studios experiences interactive, and will be serving Ethiopian coffee and popcorn (a combination enjoyed there!), as well as a portrait studio set up for visitors who want their portrait taken in the same style as those on exhibit. Prince Albert Community Trust will be holding an exhibition at the POP Centre, featuring four young, up-and-coming artists: Elcado Blom, who is being mentored in acrylics by Louis Jansen van Vuuren and Mary Anne Botha; photographers Selwynw Maans and Nathan Maans, who are both doing an internship with photographer Louis Botha; and Jeffrey Armoed who does wire work. Studios will be open daily from 10am4pm, 17-20 June 2021. For more info, visit www.princealbertopenstudios.co.za

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THE ART OF INNOVATION

Entries now open for Sasol New Signatures 2021 www.sasolsignatures.co.za

Patrick Rulore Winner 2019.

ohannesburg, South Africa - Entries are now officially open for the annual Sasol New Signatures Art Competition 2021. Being the longest-running competition of its kind in South Africa, Sasol New Signatures has become a platform for unknown artists to break into the mainstream art stage. Sasol has sponsored this important art competition for over 30 years and has launched the careers of many household names in art currently working in South Africa and globally. Said Chairperson Sasol New Signatures, Pfunzo Sidogi: “The Sasol New Signatures Art Competition is not just another art competition – it is an enabler for emerging artists to not only expand the possibilities of art but also to inspire innovation and change.” This annual competition is open to all South African artists over 18 years who have not yet held a solo exhibition. Artists who have held a solo exhibition for academic purposes (a Master’s degree exhibition) are allowed to enter. Artists can submit up to 2 artworks in all artistic mediums,

including photography, performance art, video and installations. “With the advent of Covid-19, there is a greater need for innovators and creators to shape the world anew and inspire change,” said Sidogi. “Taking on this challenge, the 2021 Sasol New Signatures Art Competition has created a space for eligible emerging artists to imagine, transgress, transcend, disrupt, and innovate through their creativity,” he added. The ongoing sponsorship of this competition demonstrates Sasol’s commitment to discovering new artistic talent and promoting them to the artloving public, said said Nozipho Mbatha, Senior Manager: Group Brand and Sponsorships at Sasol. “The art of innovation is one of Sasol’s hallmarks, and the foundation upon which the business was built. It is who we are and have committed to being. For this reason, Sasol is proud to be a key sponsor, together with Association of Arts Pretoria, of this important initiative that seeks to encourage South Africa’s creativity and contribute to our national heritage,” said Mbatha.

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Cecilia Maartens-van Vuuren Merit winner 2019

Above: Luyanda Zindela - runner up 2019

Lebohang Kganye winner 2017. Opposite Page: Cecillia Maartens-van Vuuren Merit Winner 2019

Sasol New Signatures is not only about art but also education. Since 2001, the competition has hosted information sessions for potential entrants. These detailed sessions to give entrants much needed technical information regarding format, size, media and layout of entered works as well as valuable advice regarding the presentation of competition standard work. This year, due to COVID-19, the Information Session will be hosted online on the 7th June 2021 through numerous virtual platforms. All necessary information will can be found on our website. Contemporary, innovative and emerging artists with winning aspirations are invited to submit their artworks at one of several collection points around the country between Tuesday, 7 September and Wednesday, 8 September 2021, from 10h00 and 16h00. The winner of the Sasol New Signatures Art Competition will be announced on Wednesday, 10 November 2021. The winner will receive R100 000 and a solo exhibition at next year’s exhibition. The winning works will also be displayed at the

Pretoria Art Museum from Thursday ,11 November 2021 to Sunday 9 January 2022., The runner up will receive R25 000 and the five merit award winners will each walk away with R10 000. The 2019 Sasol New Signatures winner, Patrick Rulore, will hold his first solo exhibition within the official Sasol New Signatures 2021 exhibition. The exhibition is titled “Life in Darkness”. Rulore said of his work: “I am fascinated by the human figure, and in my paintings, I attempt to capture some of the complexity of the body and the enigmatic power which human beings possess. This series explores human connection against the black drop of an ephemeral world of light and shadow. Working on a large scale is crucial to my creative process”. For more information on competition, Information Sessions and drop off points: www.sasolsignatures.co.za Or contact: Nandi Hilliard from the Association of Arts Pretoria on 012 346 3100, 083 288 5117 Email: artspta@mweb.co.za

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Two new competition partners help blaze the way forward for Free State artists www.newbreedart.co.za

The winner of the 2019 New Breed Art Competition were, from left to right, Bokang Nkejane (Merit Award), Miné Kleynhans (Merit Award), Neo Theku (Overall Winner), Bongani Tshabalala (Public Choice Award) and Kay Fourie (Runner-up). The competition did not take place in 2020 due to Covid.

he Art Bank of South Africa and the Free State Art Collective have come on board as the latest partners to the New Breed Art Competition, so-doing significantly increasing the national exposure and career advancement the competition holds for Free State artists. Now in its fifth year, the New Breed Art Competition is presented by Phatshoane Henney Attorneys, in association with Oliewenhuis Art Museum, as it has been since its inception in 2016. With ArtbankSA and the FSAC now joining forces with this one-of-a-kind visual arts competition aimed at uncovering new and emerging Free State artists, this platform for showcasing local art is put on an exciting new trajectory. “Because Phatshoane Henney Attorneys is committed to promoting emerging new breed artists, we are thrilled to welcome ArtbankSA and the Free State Art Collective on board as official competition partners to further

leverage the growth and development of Free State art and artists. Each entity is influential in own right in not only the Free State but also the national art arena, and through their linking up with the competition’s vision of discovering new local talent, the benefit for artists in entering, exhibiting during, as well as winning the competition, is greater than ever,” says Magdel Louw, Competition Coordinator and Marketing and PR Manager at Phatshoane Henney Attorneys. As a national programme of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, the Art Bank of South Africa is tasked with purchasing art from emerging South African artists. As competition partner, the Art Bank will be intimately involved in the competition providing artists selected to participate in the New Breed Art Competition Exhibition a valuable opportunity to gain exposure with this important national programme, as well as attend a skills development workshop conducted by the ArtbankSA.

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“ArtbankSA continuously seeks out associates. Our vision of a prosperous visual art sector through the development of young contemporary South African Artists is what Phatshoane Henney Attorneys seeks to achieve through its New Breed Art Competition. When the engagements between our two organisations started, we did not hesitate to associate ourselves with this initiative. The symbiotic ethos of both our organisations continuously pave a way to a prosperous and self-sustaining future for our sector,” remarks Nathi Gumede, acting project manager of ArtbankSA. In addition, artists selected to participate in the New Breed Art Competition Exhibition at Oliewenhuis Art Museum, including the final winners, automatically qualify for consideration and possible inclusion in the exclusive Free State Art Collective, founded and headed up by Karen Brusch The FSAC’s main purpose is to develop and support the careers of all member artists and to raise awareness of talent in the Free State, thereby developing a more visible national presence. The Collective also aims to mentor emerging artists and to provide a network of information and opportunity. Furthermore, the FSAC initiates workshops offered by professionals, providing further skills and conceptual development training, with the intention of keeping Free State artists connected to national trends and new innovations in art production and practice. “Entering a competition such as the New Breed Art Competition and being chosen as a finalist, is an invaluable opportunity for growth. All artists who are serious about their careers enter competitions. It is a way of cultivating your art practice, being acknowledged as an artist and gaining visibility,” comments Brusch. Digital art can now also be entered At the recent virtual launch of the 2021 New Breed Art Competition, Louw further announced the inclusion of digital/video art as exciting new medium that can now also be entered. This is in addition to the wide variety of other media allowed for entry such as photography, sculpture, textiles, paintings, drawings and even graphic art – which promises to introduce a variety of fresh and exciting entrants to the 2021 competition.

She strongly encouraged Free State artists to enter works in a diversity of mediums, with the important condition that all entered works must have been completed between 1 January 2020 and 13 September 2021. “We find ourselves in a historic time in our lives, and art is the ideal medium for commentary and communication to allow the viewer to engage with the wide variety of historic events that dominated the past year. These events set forth unique experiences, changes and consequences – and we encourage all entrants this year to take the opportunity to reflect on this in their works,” said Louw. “Consider where we have been, where we are now or where we are going, or what we all – or you yourself – have went through. There is such a multitude of aspects to reflect on: be it trauma or growth, perhaps enlightenment or enrichment, or even looking at the insights or advances that has resulted from this past historic year. Precisely for this reason we encourage fresh, new art and a new way of looking at things - and also portraying this through your art.” Entries take place from 13 to 19 September 2021 at Oliewenhuis Art Musuem, with the artists selected for the Competition Exhibition at Oliewenhuis Art Museum to be notified by 29 September. The Competition Exhibition will stretch from 5 October to 14 November. The final winners are to be announced on 4 November 2021. “This year’s new competition partnerships hold especial value to all entrants in that it allows for the possible opening of very important doors to opportunity. We look forward in great anticipation to the talent that’s bound to come forth from the Free State art arena once entries to the competition open later this year,” Louw concludes. Entry forms are available at www.newbreedart. co.za, Phatshoane Henney Attorneys at 35 Markgraaff Street and Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein. For more information, contact Louw at magdel@phinc.co.za or (051) 400 4085.

THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION EXHIBITION NWU Art Collection, 15 May -15 June Curated by Amohelang Mohajane

Philemon Hlungwani, Hihanya hi matimba

Phillip Boucomse, Silo by die Meule

Colombe Ashborn, Lüderitz

his exhibition is a response to an invitation from the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to commemorate International Museum day which is celebrated on the 18th May 2021. The NWU Gallery as part of the International committee for University museums and collections (UMAC).

that explore the four chosen topics around the main theme. The theme for 2021 is “The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine”, these topics are Digital transformation (focus: education), Social relevance and sustainability, Climate action, New Business models.

The COVID-19 crisis has swept the whole world abruptly, affecting every aspect of our lives, from the interactions with our loved ones, to the way we perceive our homes and cities, to our work and its organisations.

This invitation was open to museums, their professionals, and communities to create, imagine and share new practices of (co-) creation of value, new business models for cultural institutions and innovative solutions for the social, economic and environmental challenges of the present. This is an effort to raise awareness of the fact that Museums are an important means of cultural exchange.

With the cultural sector being among the most affected the NWU Gallery saw this as an opportunity to showcase some works

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Katlego Tlabela, Generational knowledge

With this Hybrid event we are leaning towards an increased focus on digitisation and the creation of new forms of cultural experience and dissemination. We have also taken this time to collaborate with our immediate communities as this is a pivotal moment for our society, and we called on local museums to embrace it and lead the change. The time is now to rethink our relationship with the communities we serve, to experiment with new and hybrid models of cultural fruition and to strongly reaffirm the essential value of museums for the construction of a just and sustainable future. We must advocate for the creative potential of culture as a driver for recovery and innovation in the post-COVID era.

This exhibition showcases the NWU Art Collection with an inclusion of New acquisitions to our collection from 2019, some of the participating artists include Phoka Nyokong, Katlego Tlabela, Jonel Scholtz and some more earlier works Lindeka Qampi, Philimon Hlongwane, Jean Lampen, Louisemarie Combrink, amongst many others. We would like to extend a heartfelt gratitude to our partners JB Marks Municipality and the Potchefstroom Museum, Goetz Fleischack Museum, President Pretorius Museum, Totius House Museum, Archives in Potchefstroom & the Matlosana Municipality and Klerksdorp Museum.

PIM PAM PUM

NWU Art Gallery, 15 May 2021 until 15 June 2021

n the hot or cold, depending on the season, dusty environs of Pomfret, isolated from the rest of the South African sub-continent and away from home, the children of the 32 battalion played games and sang songs like children do. Closed off and isolated in the shadow of the war, the children learned to play and played to learn. Much has been written about the potential of games for important skill development and children’s ability to distinguish between reality and make believe. In that time of innocence, full of the joy and purity of spirit, they internalised what their fathers did and were; truly terrifying men who were instruments of war and were destined to die or remain refugees. Keeping score of kills and suspicious of everyone the men in effect lived through events in which they defied death. The games the children played shows how the military and by extension, the war shaped the social education of the children which made the games the learning tools and possible recruitment manipulations and subsequently shaped their reality; they too were destined to be refugees forever. Pim Pam Pum reminds one of the fairgrounds shooting gallery where we blast away and see how many remain standing and we win a prize if we ensure none remain standing. There is much latent violence imbued in a seemingly childish song and play making. The lyrics: each bullet kills one up there on the pylon there is a glass of poison who drank and died?... with luck, with luck who is free is you is your father a player how many goals has he scored? are insidious and create an environment where the children learn to be ready and armed to defend themselves. The backdrop of this exhibition is the fragmented psyche brought on by life in the shadow of the border war and living with the terrible ones. The need to move on from an imperfect and lost childhood underpins Pim Pam Pum.

Above and Below: Anabu Anabu. Opposite Page: Street Scenes

Seemingly excavating this lost childhood, Pim Pam Pum explores the fictive potential of looking at the past to heal the future. Through the strategic placement of games and songs that Helena played with her friends as a child, this exhibition explores the subliminal images and narratives within which her own identity was moulded. The context and speculative scenarios illuminate the act of ‘forgiveness’ and ‘haunting’ and represent the vehicles through which to construct meaning and a possible reality. The Potchefstroom iteration becomes the transgression of space and time to explore the need for personal attachment, for emotional stability and for permanency in a world where this might not be possible. - Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa

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ONCE WE WERE HEROES NWU Art Gallery, 23 June 2021 until 05 August 2021

nce we were heroes attempts to respond to the lingering uncertainty brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic. The world appears to be on standby. References have been made to a new normal, alluding to a future that is unknown.

What is known are the challenges that the whole world is currently grappling with. The loss of human life, loss of jobs, and - most importantly - the question, when will all this end? The art sector in South Africa is no different. Artists face an uncertain future. Online exhibitions have become a norm. This has changed the artistic practice as we know it. Historically, viewers needed to be intimate with the artwork to fully appreciate it. The artist’s skill, textures and materiality all created the viewer experience. Some of these elements are not easily experienced through the digital mode. With the advantages that online exhibitions bring, such as the ability to reach greater numbers of audiences owing to the internet, the nagging question remains: is the new normal a forever normal? In recognising the complexities of the times, once we were heroes attempts to acknowledge and celebrate the artists who have persevered and continued to produce artworks without the certainty of what will become of their produce, as the old normal would have “given” them. The exhibition title is a play on words on what would become of the South African creative sector and its heroes, the artists in the new normal. The exhibition forms part of the North West province ArtbankSA programme launch. The exhibition will feature artworks from such artists as Daniel Tladi, Poloko Madikong, Nicola Holgate, Phoka Nyokong, Kali Van Der Merwe, Lebohang Motaung, Dimakatso Mathopa, Franz Phooko, Thalente Khomo, Mothobi Mefani, Themba Khumalo, Collen

Maswanganyi, Tshegofatso Nkhumeleng, Cassian Robberze and Lindo Zwane to mention but a few. The Art Bank of South Africa is a national programme of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture as part of the Mzansi Golden Economy (MGE) strategy implementation. ArtbankSA is hosted by the National Museum Bloemfontein, an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. Its vision is to promote, foster and stimulate a vibrant market for the collection of South African contemporary visual art. ArtbankSA will achieve this through curating a definitive collection of contemporary South African visual art, promoting financial sustainability for the artists. This will be done through the leasing and selling of artworks, nurturing emerging South African artists by expanding the market for their work and providing skills development opportunities and fostering an appreciation for contemporary art by making art accessible to the broader public in their workplaces, shared spaces and homes. The collection offers the public a window of opportunity to assist the ArtbankSA in achieving these targets. Through the exhibitions that it curates, ArtbankSA seeks to receive feedback from the different sectors of society, but most importantly to use the platform to communicate its work and the available opportunities for young South African contemporary Artists in its work. Please join us in celebrating this milestone. For more information, please contact NWU Art Gallery Curator, Ms Amohelang Mojahane Tel: (018) 299 4341 email: amohelang.mohajane@nwu.ac.za

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Daniel Tladi, Life in Khuma II

Phoka Nyokon, Something we know

AGILITY IS THE NEW BLACK!

NWU Gallery, Potchestroom, 23 June until 05 August 2021

A Soldier’s Dreams, 2021, Mixed Media on canvas

AGILITY IS THE NEW BLACK! is a collaborative multi-disciplinary exhibition featuring mother and son-Thina Minya & Themba Minya. The dynamic duo is having their first major institutional show at NWU Gallery. Each artist is reflecting on form, without bowing to societal nuances to define their practice. With this in mind, the exhibition presents and highlights a refreshing, unique take on abstract themes of race, sexuality, identity politics , social struggle, feminism and the self. With many of the new works created in isolation, they are brought together in this show as a visual conversation to represent the universal human experience.

Agility is the new black! is the new body of works -20 in total- produced during the global pandemic. Agility is the new black! explores notions of feminism, identity, race and social struggle, seen in the works of Thina Minya & Themba Minya. Thina’s minimalist, semiabstract works are loaded with provocative perspectives that play with visual narratives and challenge cultural norms, gender norms, identity and stereotypes. Similarly, Themba’s works break down the multifaceted nature of identity and social struggle.

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My Skin is not the Problem, 2021, Oil and Enamel on Board

Fragmented, 2021, Mixed Media on canvas

Power Heels, 2021, Mixed Media on canvas

Auction News

THE FACES OF THE STEPHAN WELZ & CO. JUNE PREMIER AUCTION www.swelco.co.za

he Stephan Welz & Co. Premier Live Auction will be commencing on the 8th June 2021, running for three days and includes two art sessions. The sale offers a diverse collection of pieces and is sure to interest local and international collectors alike. The staff at Stephan Welz have been paying careful attention to our recent results, attempting to predict and identify trends in the market in order to present works to our collectors that reflect the current market and offer the best opportunity for investment. The resurgence of portraiture has been at the forefront of recent art trends and is appropriately reflected in the selection of works on the upcoming June Cape Town Auction. This includes increased interest in historical Continental portraits, as well as an increase in portraits being created by living contemporary artists. Lucian Freud frames the importance of portraiture by stating ‘I think a great portrait has to do with the way it is approached ... it is to do with the feeling of individuality, and the intensity of the regard and the focus on the specific’. Historically, portraits were the only way to record someone’s appearance. However, portraits have long since been more than just a form of documentation, but have been vehicles to demonstrate authenticity and denote messages about the sitter. The process of creating a portrait not only reveals qualities of the sitter, but more importantly, reveals the artist through the sitter. Flourishing in Renaissance Italy, commissioned portraits dominate a large portion of art history, with entire museums and galleries dedicated to the genre. While these historical portraits are seemingly simple depictions of a person, the choices made by the artist, including what clothing they wear, where they are found and what they are holding, are conscious storytelling choices. In Portrait of a Boy with Lace Collar (Lot 259), the chubbycheeked young boy is depicted in soft pastel

(June CT) Lot 259, Continental School (18th/19th Century) PORTRAIT OF A BOY WITH LACE COLLAR, pastel on paper, R3 000—R5 000. Opposite Page: (June CT) Lot 420, Lionel Smit (South African 1982) PORTRAIT IN PROFILE, oil on canvas, R220 000—R320 000

with a rosey-pink complexion, which indicates good health. The boy is wearing a large lace collar and silk cap, which could be indicative of some special occasion or event— perhaps a christening— which this portrait was painted to commemorate. The luxurious fabrics and textures of the boy’s garments also indicate an impression of luxury and family wealth, as clothing was a significant indicator of class and stature within society at the time. The boy is also depicted with a certain seriousness, both in posture and expression, perhaps highlighting the family’s entrenchment of exemplary obedience, morals and discipline. Similarly to most genres, portraiture radically transformed with the advent of modern art in the late 19th Century. While commissioned portraits became less and less common in modern painting, artists chose to represent people that held some significance in their lives. Picasso’s portrait of Benedetta Banco

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(June CT) Lot 449, After Pablo Picasso (Spanish 1881 - 1973) MADAME RICARDO CANALS, 1905 from the BARCELONA SUITE, a proof before letters outside of the edition of 60, signed ‘Picasso’ in pencil in the margin, publisher’s dry stamp on the lower left corner of the print, offset lithograph, R50 000— R80 000

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(July JHB) François Krige (South Africa 1913 – 1994), BOY IN BLUE, oil on board, R100 000 – R150 00

(Madame Ricardo Canals, Lot 449) was painted in 1905, having just abandoned his Blue Period in 1904, and on the cup of his Rose Period. Madame Canals appears striking, strong and intense, adorned in black mantilla, with a face of pastel shades and otherwise muted tones. She is a beautiful but peculiar work to be produced by the artist at this time in his oeuvre. He selects to use elements that are particularly Spanish, as if a nod to his good experiences in Barcelona.

Picasso’s portrait of Benedetta indicates a shift in the approach to portraiture during modernist movements, and works like this would perhaps inform the reimagining of portraiture in contemporary art in the years to come. While many feel that portraiture in a contemporary context does not meet the need for context and symbolism, contemporary portraiture has been adapted to meet these demands and is more than just representational. In a world ruled by social

(July JHB) Marlene Dumas (South Africa 1953 – ), FACELESS, lithograph, R40 000 – R60 000. Opposite Page: (July JHB) Maggie Laubser (South Africa 1886 – 1973), PORTRAIT OF A MAN WITH WHITE MOUSTACHE, oil on paper on hardboard, R250 000 – R350 000

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(July JHB) Hennie Niemann Jnr (South Africa 1972 - ), SUNDAY AFTERNOON, oil on canvas, R100 000 – R150 000

media, representations are all around us, and it may seem as though the individual has become less relevant in mass society. However, perhaps it is just the opposite. Contemporary portraiture sees depictions of a person through the eyes of an artist, with a more honest approach, and an attempt to show the otherwise invisible qualities of the sitter. Lionel Smit represents his subjects through his use of shades from throughout the colour spectrum to depict tone, depth and his sitter’s mood. Portrait in Yellow (Lot 419) consists almost entirely of yellow shades, with the rare streak of blue and grey increasing intensity and managing to portray a ghostlike countenance in this unusual hue. The Portrait in Profile (Lot 420) is almost entirely, and unusually for the artist, devoid of colour. Rendered in charcoals, Smit has achieved a somewhat pensive mood in his subject.

The resurgence of contemporary and historical approaches to portraiture is further highlighted by the works on our upcoming Johannesburg Premier Online Auction, taking place in July. Works by Marlene Dumas and Anton Smit present an ironic and more three-dimensional form of portraiture, while Maggie Laubser, Francois Krige and Hennie Niemann Jnr capture their subjects in brilliant hues and dynamic brushstrokes. The Cape Town Premier Auction is live and open for registration, but keep an eye on our social media pages and website for the launch of this exciting Johannesburg collection. For any enquiries contact us on 021 794 6461 or email info@swelco.co.za or whatsapp us on +27 72 145 6715

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5th Avenue Auctioneers Next Auction - Sat 29th & Sun 30th May

Ephraim Ngatane

Adriaan Boshoff

Irma Stern

J.H. Pierneef

Preview: Thurs: 27th 9am - 5pm

Fri: 28th 9am - 5pm Sat: 29th 10am - 1pm

Live online only ~ Check our website for a full catalogue

5thAveAuctions.co.za

011 781 2040

stuart@5aa.co.za

404 Jan Smuts Ave, Craighall Park, Sandton

Auction News

STRAUSS & CO

Rare botanical art and new contemporary paintings among highlights of Strauss & Co’s June sale www.straussart.co.za

trauss & Co’s forthcoming June sale of modern, post-war and contemporary art, decorative arts and wine includes an impressive line up of paintings from two important corporate collections, one offering a unique overview of Cape winemaking and its traditions, the other gathering an important grouping of South African women botanical artists. Due to commence on Monday, 31 May, the timed online-only sale includes a substantial offering of art, including important photos and ceramics, as well as a themed wine session that focuses on Stellenbosch’s best producers. The online sale concludes on Monday, 7 June 2021 at 8pm. Strauss & Co is very fortunate to be offering an important single-owner collection of botanical paintings and prints by some of the most significant South African women botanical artists, including Thalia Lincoln, Auriol Batten, Barbara Jeppe and Gill Condy, who was the resident artist at the South African Biodiversity Institute in Pretoria from 1982 until her recent retirement. The selection of botanical art has been de-accessioned from a major financial institution’s corporate collection as part of a strategic repositioning towards contemporary art and will be offered in a dedicated session. A particular highlight of the botanical art session is the 11 original watercolours by Ellaphie WardHillhorst produced for the 1994 monograph on the aloe-like genus Gasteria written by Ernst van Jaarsveld, an internationally recognized expert in the field of succulents. This collaboration between botanist and artist was a significant milestone in botanical publishing in South Africa at the time. Other notable lots include Auriol Batten’s striking Scadoxus puniceus, commonly known as the paintbrush lily (estimate R3 000 - 5 000), and three beautifully rendered depictions of irises by Barbara Jeppe (estimate R 3 000 – 5000 each). Sam Nhlengethwa, Woman with Basket, collage on paper, 46 x 46cm, R 30 000 - 50 000

John Newdigate, Birds in Foliage, porcelain with underglaze pigments diameter: 37,5cm, R 15 000 - 20 000 Opposite Page: Auriol Batten, Scadoxus puniceus, watercolour and pencil on paper 27 by 20,5cm, R 3 000 - 5 000

Following on from the successful April sale of a tranche of works de-accessioned from the KWV Collection – highlights of which included Cecil Skotnes’ hand-carved and incised panel piece The Origin of Wine/The Epic of Gilgamesh, sold for R910 400 – Strauss & Co is pleased to offer a further consignment of works from this collection of post-war paintings rooted in the Cape region, its landscapes, people and industries. The KWV Collection includes Carl Büchner’s Red Interior (estimate R35 000 - 50 000), one of two oils by this romantic humanist and student of Maurice van Essche. Fifteen drawings and watercolours by François Krige variously depict winemaking operations, such as ploughing and picking, as well as Cape landscapes. Other artists represented in this consignment include David Botha, Herbert

Coetzee, Llewellyn Davies, Pranas Domsaitis, Zakkie Eloff, Amos Langdown, Kobus Louw, Alexander Rose-Innes, Edward Roworth and Gordon Vorster. Reviewing the art offering in the forthcoming sale, Wilhelm van Rensburg, head curator and senior art specialist at Strauss & Co, has identified a number of pieces by contemporary artists worthy of consideration by collectors. They include Sam Nhlengethwa’s 2005 collage on paper, Woman with Basket (estimate R30 000 – 50 000), and five recent watercolours by Colbert Mashile. Painted in 2020, the watercolours (estimate R5 000 – 8000 each) feature a vibrant palette and represent a new departure from Mashile’s earlier initiation subject matter – three fine examples dated circa 2007-08 are also included in this sale (estimate R15 000 – 24 000 each).

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Hennie Niemann Jnr (South Africa 1972 - ), Sunday Afternoon, oil on canvas, R100 000 – R150 000

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Johannesburg-based Samson Mnisi’s 2013 work, Abstract Composition in Red (estimate R30 000 – 50 000), presents a quirky combination of abstract expressionism and traditional African scarification marks. Durban-born Louis Maqhubela, now aged 82 and living in London, is an important figure in the early development of an indigenous abstraction, and is represented in the sale by Abstract Composition with Birds (estimate R5 000 – 7 000), a chalk pastel and charcoal work from 1968. Strauss & Co is delighted to offer four hardwood sculptures by Michael Zondi made circa 1978-82. They include Two Figures (estimate R8 000 – 12 000 each), an elongated figure work in the style of Zondi’s Calabash (1963), first shown at the 1966 Venice Biennale. Santu Mofokeng’s Paul Dintshi and Child: Sunday at a Shebeen (estimate R20 000 – 30 000) leads the photography selection. This important portrait was taken at Vaalrand Farm, Bloemhof, circa 1988, during Mofokeng’s association with the African Studies Institute at Wits University. Other contemporary photographers featured in this sale are Jane Alexander, Pieter Hugo and David Lurie. Strauss & Co’s focus on modern and contemporary ceramics continues with a selection of works by celebrated makers Juliet Armstrong, John Newdigate, Hyme Rabinowitz, Clementina van der Walt and the collective at Rorke’s Drift. Newdigate’s Birds in Foliage (estimate R15 000 – 20 000) is a large porcelain dish decorated with his characteristic bird designs. Armstrong’s Ingcayi (estimate R15 000 – 20 000) is a very fragile porcelain depiction of a ceremonial cowhide pregnancy apron that includes gold leaf detailing.

Juliet Armstrong, Ingcayi (Pregnancy Apron), mixed media and bone china with gold leaf 45 by 49 by 5cm, R 15 000 - 20 000

(Detail) Walter Battiss, Liza, silkscreen on paper 61 by 48,5cm, R 12 000 - 16 000

Walter Battiss is a stalwart of Strauss & Co auctions and is represented in the forthcoming sale by delightful works connected to his Fook Island period. They include a bronze Fook coin (estimate R5 000 – 7 000) and two Fook T-shirts (estimate R2 000 – 3 000). The sale also includes a number of Battiss screenprints, notable among them Liza (estimate R12 000 – 16 000). A number of Battiss associates and collaborators are also represented. They include Carl Büchner (Harlequin Boy, estimate R8 000 – 12 000), Norman Catherine (two posters, estimate R3 000 – 5 000 each), Braam Kruger (two lots of artist and model drawings, estimate R3 000 – 4 000 each) and Rupert Shephard (Landscape, estimate R6 000 – 8 000).

1950s,” says Wilhelm van Rensburg. “Battiss and Shephard often exchanged works, like artists often do. Kruger, a maverick artist and culinary chef later in life, befriended Battiss as a young man in the 1970s, and like Battiss, was a compulsive drawer.”

“Büchner taught with Battiss at the Pretoria Art Centre for a decade, until 1954, and Shephard was a good friend of Battiss in the

BROWSE > BID > BUY: www.straussart.co.za

Also worth noting in the sale is a selection of lots by Wolf Kibel, Charles Gassner, Judith Mason and Fred Page, all handled by legendary Cape Town dealer Joe Wolpe. They include Mason’s 1966 charcoal and pencil drawing Caryatid (estimate R7 000 – 9 000). Strauss & Co’s June sale will be held exclusively online and commences on Monday, 31 May, and concludes on Monday, 7 June 2021 at 8pm.

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Art News

HOW WE PROVED A REMBRANDT PAINTING OWNED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA WAS A FAKE First Published on www.theconversation.com

he paintings of Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn are displayed in prestigious art galleries in capital cities around the world. One – a small oil painting on a wood panel depicting the profile of an old man in a hat and cloak – made its way to South Africa in the late 1950s. It was part of an extensive collection belonging to a Dutch businessman, JA van Tilburg, who emigrated to the country. In 1976 the work was donated to the University of Pretoria. For decades, the work was attributed to Rembrandt, the world famous artist from the Dutch Golden Age of painting (15881672). After all, it had a good provenance. Provenance is the study of the history of an object after its creation. Typically in the case of a painting it would be the history of the ownership of the artwork.

In an effort to get to the bottom of the origins of this particular Rembrandt we started to do provenance research and then started to learn the techniques used in studying the works of Rembrandt on a technical level. In a research paper we concluded that the work previously accepted as a Rembrandt was indeed not by the artist. The search We could trace the painting back through 14 buyers and sellers by researching auction catalogues at the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History). The painting could be tracked all the way to 1899, when it was described as “surely authentic” by De Groot.

The painting was documented as being part of the Warneck Collection, an important private art collection in Paris, as described in the book by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. But provenance research carried out in the Netherlands in 2015-2016 showed that the painting’s provenance to the Warneck Collection was in fact incorrect.

Several factors made us believe the painting might be original. Distinctive marks on the back of the frame, mention of an invoice in Rembrandt’s handwriting accompanying the painting at the 1889 auction, as well as expert reviews suggested that it could indeed be a Rembrandt, or at least from his studio. (It was commonplace for a master to have apprentices work in his studio and on his paintings.) There were even references to chemical analyses of the painting in 1941 by one of the time’s most eminent and earliest technical art analysis scientists, AM de Wild.

We work for University of Pretoria Museums and an academic unit called Tangible Heritage Conservation, the only one of its kind in subSaharan Africa. Here, over the last three years, we have developed analytical techniques to study the materiality of artworks and objects – all relevant information related to the work’s physical existence, including its history and conservation.

But, to determine whether the painting was in fact by Rembrandt, provenance research was not enough. It needed to be complemented by an art historical connoisseurship, which looks at a stylistic review. Are things like the style, colours and composition of the painting typical of the artist’s work? It needed to be backed up by physical evidence through technical art analysis.

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Technical art analysis is not widely available in South Africa and there were challenges in taking the painting to Europe to be authenticated. The solution was to start developing local expertise. This included learning to use and understand techniques such as X-ray fluorescence, ultraviolet light and infrared photography to inspect the painting. Using cutting edge technology we searched for fresh evidence about the painting’s authenticity. The evidence Authentication requires multiple steps to ensure all aspects of the painting point to the creator of the work. Photographs taken under ultraviolet light investigated possible retouching and restoration. Infrared imaging techniques looked for any under-drawings or compositional changes. X-rays identified structural components of how the panel was secured in its cradle – and the presence of a lead-based underground to prepare the panel, as well as lead white in the paint. The wood panel was examined using dendrochronology, a method to date wood down to the year that the tree was cut down, in this case in the 1640s. An analysis of the individual pigments in the painting was also done using a handheld X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. All the results suggested that the correct elements were present in the painting, specifically lead, to place it in the 1600s, the time of Rembrandt. But then the opportunity arose to bring in an X-ray fluorescence scanner, which combines X-ray fluorescence sampling with scanning technology. This can help determine the elemental composition of materials. The scanner allowed us to map the entire surface of the artwork, instead of relying solely on a handful of small areas to identify and characterise certain pigments – as was done using the handheld spectrometer. Now data could be analysed in layers, allowing for layers to be selected or removed from the digital map in order to look at the elemental distribution over the entire surface. A desktop scanner

“The attribution and age of these works when donated or purchased are simply believed, due to the lack of expertise in art authentication and the cost of sending them to Europe to be authenticated.”

was sufficient in the case of this small painting but the technology is the same as that used at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in their Rembrandt Operation Night Watch project. Although the scanning picked up the same elements consistent with Rembrandt’s palette, these were in minimal quantities compared to what was expected and has been identified in other Rembrandt paintings around the world. Lead white should have been used in the preparatory ground layers and in the white paint, but only minimal quantities were present. Zinc white was also present. This is problematic as it was only introduced as a pigment in 1834. In addition barium sulphate was found in large quantities. But mining of barium sulphate was only possible from the 1850s onwards. The outcome Thus, a creation date is only possible after 1850 when barium sulphate was introduced. This painting in the collection was thus made 200 years after Rembrandt. It remains unattributed. Several collections in South Africa contain old master paintings like this one. The attribution and age of these works when donated or purchased are simply believed, due to the lack of expertise in art authentication and the cost of sending them to Europe to be authenticated. Proving that these works are not what they seem is likely to become more common.

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Art News

LAW

The E.U. Rules Against Banksy in His Trademark Fight With a Greeting Card Company, Citing His Own Statement That ‘Copyright Is For Losers’

2018. A year later, in November 2019, Full Colour Black fought back, and applied for cancellation of the trademark, arguing that it was filed in bad faith and that it was nondistinctive. It was here that Banksy’s own MO came back to haunt him.

t doesn’t appear to be a cheeky prank or a practical joke this time. The “Cancellation Division” of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) just issued a decision declaring a trademark owned by street artist Banksy invalid. Further, an attorney says the mysterious street artist and his attorneys are themselves to blame. The “real nail in the coffin,” attorney Aaron Wood told the World Trademark Review in announcing the news on May 19, was the “public comments of Banksy and his lawyer.” Wood represents a greeting card company known as Full Colour Black Limited, a specialty retailer of street art greeting cards, that went head to head with Banksy over its use of Banksy’s Laugh Now. One of the artist’s most famous images, the work shows a monkey wearing a sandwich board. Some versions of the image bear the inscription “laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge.” The company officially charged with issuing certificates of authenticity for Banksy, known as Pest Control, first filed an EU trademark claim for the monkey sign artwork in late

Full Colour Black claimed that the art is a work of graffiti sprayed in a public place— and EUIPO agreed. “It was free to be photographed by the general public and has been disseminated widely,” the ruling states. “Banksy permitted parties to disseminate his work and even provided high-resolution versions of his work on his website and invited the public to download them and produce their own items.” Furthermore, in his 2007 book Wall and Piece, Banksy had said that “copyright is for losers.” The ruling notes that the street artist explicitly stated that the public is morally and legally free to reproduce, amend, and otherwise use any copyright works forced upon them by third parties. The artist has known for years that his works are widely photographed and reproduced by a range of third parties without there being any commercial connection between these parties and Banksy, the EU office found. Another factor that played into the ruling was the fact that Banksy’s true identity remains a mystery. “It is also noted that as Banksy has chosen to be anonymous and cannot be identified this would hinder him from being able to protect this piece of art under copyright laws without identifying himself, while identifying himself would take away from the secretive persona which propels his fame and success,” the ruling states.

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The ruling noted the connection between Banksy and Pest Control, but said “the evidence is not exhaustive in this regard as the identity of Banksy cannot be legally determined.” Banksy might be in for more bad news in the weeks and months ahead. Similar trademark applications—including for another famous image, Flower Bomber—are pending. Wood said in total, there are five more cases before the EUIPO and he anticipates four of them being decided within the next month or so in the same way as this latest decision. And the issues are not limited to the artist’s EU trademarks. Many of the applications filed

by Pest Control Office around the world are based on registered rights within the European Union, so the EUIPO finding will have knockon effects. “I believe the decision sounds the death knell for his trademark portfolio—at least in the European Union—and it raises the spectre of cases in other countries,” Wood told the World Trademark Review. “In the United States, for example, you have to make a declaration of your intent to use a mark and the effect of fraud is substantially more important. I dare say a finding that Banksy is a fraudster will not go down well.”

Art News

HOLOGRAMS TO BEAM OVERSEAS GALLERISTS INTO ART BASEL HONG KONG FOR VIP CLIENT MEETINGS

ome exhibitors at Asia’s biggest annual art fair have found a novel way of meeting clients without braving Hong Kong’s twoweek quarantine rule for arrivals Sales at the scaled down affair and other events this week will be watched for confirmation the top end of the global art market is holding up amid the pandemic Art Basel Hong Kong, which opens its doors on Wednesday, will transport some overseas gallerists directly into the Wan Chai Convention and Exhibition Centre, venue for the annual fair, via a groundbreaking, quarantine-dodging method: holography.

The 2021 edition of Asia’s largest art fair features 104 galleries, about half the usual number; 50 per cent of them are operating satellite booths for which overseas exhibitors have sent over artworks but no staff. On Wednesday, when the fair opens to VIPs, some of these will conduct private “hologram viewing sessions” on site, with people such as Emi Eu from the non-profit Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) “beamed in” to present highlights from her booth. The return of Art Basel, which was cancelled in 2020, is partly down to the Hong Kong government’s eagerness to promote a business-as-usual vibe as the number of new

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Covid-19 cases in the city dwindles. The art fair will be held at the same time as local fair Art Central and Christie’s Spring auctions at the Convention Centre, with all rent covered by the government’s “Anti-epidemic Fund”. Hong Kong’s exhibitions industry has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic; visitors from China and overseas have not been able to enter since spring 2020 unless they have a work permit and are willing to put up with strict quarantine requirements. With Hong Kong having relaxed social distancing restrictions this year, commercial galleries and auctions have reopened to the public. Lots worth HK$3.85 billion went under the hammer at auctioneer Sotheby’s spring sales in the convention centre last month, the second highest total on record for the company’s auction series in Asia.

Visitors at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2019. Tickets for this year’s fair are sold out. About half the usual number of exhibitors will have booths at the event. Photo: James Wendlinger Sales in Hong Kong this week are likely to confirm the strength at the top end of the international art market as the pandemic continues to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Art Basel Hong Kong is held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from May 19 – 23. All public tickets have sold out. Winners of the Post Magazine competition for Art Basel Vernissage tickets will be informed by email before May 20.

Art News

‘IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPARE 2019 AND 2021; IT’S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORLD’: WHAT HAS SOLD AT ART BASEL IN HONG KONG First Published on the artnewspaper.com bylisa Movius 21st May 2021

radically altered but still lively Art Basel in Hong Kong (ABHK) kicked off on Wednesday (until 23 May), with VIP visitors reaching full Covid capacity, limited to 75% of regular visitors, on the opening day. Turnout was bolstered by the Buddha’s Birthday holiday in the city. “Hong Kong is a small city, and [the Covid era] has the benefit that collectors are here, and not traveling like many would be in usual times,” says Henrietta Tsui-Leung, the co-founder of Hong Kong-based gallery Ora-Ora, showing six artists including Mai Miyake and Peng Jian at the fair.

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“It’s nothing like normal, [but] what’s important is to have the core people there,” Art Basel’s global director Marc Spiegler says, speaking by phone from Switzerland. “We can’t have the same numbers at the opening, so it’s not crowded compared with last time, in order to stay within the [Covid] controls. It’s just that people are now not used to being in big crowds.” Hong Kong can now boast zero community transmissions of Covid-19, but protective measures remain in place, including 21-day quarantines for the few people permitted to enter the territory. Besides the crowd controls and mask mandate; the checking of

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Hong Kong’s contact tracing app; the lack of congregations above four people; a much grumbled about ban on vendors’ eating at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre; and the whittled down size (104 galleries compared with 2019’s 242), the absence of an international presence was the greatest transformation. Over half of the participants from overseas were operating “satellite” or “ghost booths”, run by temporary staff hired by the fair, due to the difficulty of getting into Hong Kong. “It’s impossible to compare 2019 and 2021, it’s a completely different world. We’re happy about the numbers of galleries and people that came, and the sales both online and in-person,” Spiegler says. “Fundamentally, galleries feel that they are selling well, which is important. This is the first step, in exploring the hybrid model, and bringing back the cultural vibrancy of Hong Kong.”

Big galleries are reporting plenty of the usual hefty sales, such as Joan Mitchell’s 1962 12 Hawks at 3 O’Clock at Lévy Gorvy gallery, which sold for around $19.5m. The gallery also sold works by Pat Steir, Tu Hongtao and Michael Lau on the opening day. Hauser & Wirth sold George Condo’s Blues in A Flat (2021) for $1.75m and Haunted by Demons (2020) for $800,000, as well as Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Broken Crowd (2021) for $595,000 to Shanghai’s Long Museum. Seoulbased Kukje gallery sold Le Ufan’s Dialogue (2020) for “in the range of $400,000-$450,000” and Park Seo-Bo’s Ecriture No. 970428 for “in the range of $250,000-$280,000”. Hong Kong-based galleries are likewise ebullient at the focus put on the city’s art scene this year, including a poster campaign for the fair shot by the local artist Stanley Wong (aka Anothermountainman) of 26 art world figures including gallerists Tsui-Leung,

Anthony Tao and Amanda Hon, writer Vivienne Chow, and artists Yuk King Tan and Andrew Luk. Luk’s installation, in a focal spot of the fair floor, sold to Adrian Cheng’s K11 Foundation via de Sarthe Gallery, says its director Willem Molesworth, who also sold a work by the mainland collective Double Fly Art Center for $18,000. Another local gallery, Blindspot, saw works by Sarah Lai, Trevor Yeung and Sin Wai Kin (fka Victoria Sin) sell for between $5,000$30,000, plus Lam Tung Pang’s Meaningless No.12 (2020) for $60,000-$70,000. “We were not censored [this year], and we’ve never been censored [in Hong Kong]” - Marc Spiegler, Art Basel’s Global Director ABHK this year shares the convention centre with the Art Central fair (20-23 May) as well as a section for Fine Art Asia fair, which included an ABHK pop-up in its 2020 edition last November. Art Central highlights include Chan

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Wai Lap’s project The Lonesome Changing Room, exploring nostalgia and identity by recalling Hong Kong’s iconic public swimming pools. “Art Central is fun and energetic, both young and old,” Tsui-Leung says. “People have been researching quickly. I sold to some collectors in their 20s, and I can’t say they are knowledgeable but they are abreast of trends—like NFTs, good figurative art and bad figurative art,” she adds Mainland gallerists with “ghost booths” in Hong Kong gave mixed reports: those able to get at least one regular staff member to Hong Kong claim to be doing brisk sales, while those entirely reliant on temporary staff aptly describe business as ghostly.

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A Good Read

OXFORD COLLEGE WILL NOT REMOVE CONTROVERSIAL STATUE OF BRITISH IMPERIALIST CECIL RHODES Independent commission recommends contextualising the sculpture instead First Published on the artnewspaper.com by Gareth Harris 20th May 2021

riel College says it has no plans to “begin the legal process for relocation” of the statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes following a report by an independent commission which recommended that the college should “now invest in understanding and contextualisation of its relationship with Rhodes”.

It plans, for instance, to “commission a virtual exhibition to provide an arena for contextualisation and explanation of the Rhodes legacy”. It will also fundraise for scholarships to support students from Southern Africa and “provide additional training for academic and non-academic staff in race awareness”.

The commission, chaired by Carole Souter, was set up last year to assess the fate of the contentious sculpture by Henry Alfred Pegram which stands on the façade of the Oxford University college. According to the commission report, “in respect of the future of the Rhodes statue, a majority of commission members supported the expressed wish of the governing body to remove it”.

Neil Mendoza, the provost of Oriel College, says in a statement: “We understand this nuanced conclusion will be disappointing to some, but we are now focused on the delivery of practical actions aimed at improving outreach and the day-to-day experience of BME students. We are looking forward to working with Oxford City Council on a range of options for contextualisation.”

The lengthy list of recommendations put forward by the commission include agreeing a plan for “improving educational equality, diversity and inclusion within the college”. Crucially, it stresses that “if the statue and plaque are moved they could be relocated inside the college to a less prominent position”. However, it has rowed back on making any firm recommendations regarding removing the sculpture.

However last June, the governing body voted in favour of removing the statue of Rhodes (the college launched the independent commission into the “key issues “ surrounding the contentious work at the same time). The governing body said in a statement that they “expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the King Edward Street Plaque [commemorating where Rhodes lived in 1881]. This is what they intend to convey to the independent commission of inquiry.”

Oriel’s governing body says in a statement that it has “carefully considered the regulatory and financial challenges, including the expected time frame for removal, which could run into years with no certainty of outcome, together with the total cost of removal”. Instead, “it is determined to focus its time and resources on delivering the report’s recommendations around the contextualisation of the college’s relationship with Rhodes,” and has agreed to establish a task force to consider the recommendations contained in the report.

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Dan Hicks, a curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum and professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford, says that “the terms of reference of Oriel’s independent commission of Inquiry did not include making the decision about the removal of the two monuments… the next question is about the technical process and timetable of applying for Listed Building Consent.” He adds: “Many will wish to hear more about what the college describes as the ‘complex challenges and costs’ associated with this

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Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel College, High Street Oxford

next step. Some may also call for the written submissions received by the Commission to be placed in the public domain, and to receive reassurance that there has not been any interference in this democratic process by politicians.” The historian David Olusoga tells The Art Newspaper that all of the interventions announced by Oriel are welcome. “The legacy of Rhodes needs to be contextualised and details of what he did in Southern Africa, rather than merely what he said, need to be examined publicly. But the college could have done this at any time,” he adds. “The lack of contextualisation of Rhodes, like the diversity and inclusion failures of the collage and the university could have been addressed years ago. This decision is part of a mindset that presents the addressing of

modern-day inequalities as an alternative to addressing the fact that we live in a nation studded with memorials that celebrate the lives of men who committed terrible crimes,” says Olusoga Campaigners from the Rhodes Must Fall group—inspired by the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol last year by Black Lives Matter demonstrators—say that the 19thcentury politician and diamond mining magnate represents white supremacy and supported apartheid-style measures in South Africa. But the Save our Statues campaign group, described as a “coalition formed to protect Great Britain’s cultural heritage”, said on Twitter said it “would fight [any decision to remove the Rhodes statue] every step of the way”.

A Good Read

THIEVES STEAL ROSARY BEADS CARRIED BY MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS TO HER EXECUTION First Published on the artnewspaper.com bylisa Movius 21st May 2021

set of gold rosary beads clutched by Mary Queen of Scots during her execution in 1587 was among a number of treasures stolen from Arundel Castle in West Sussex. Staff were alerted when thieves tripped an alarm in the medieval castle at 10:30pm on Friday. When police arrived on the scene they found around £1m worth of artefacts stolen from display cases in an area usually open to the public. Items taken include 16th-century coronation cups given by Mary to the Earl Marshal and gold and silver objects. Police are examining a 4x4 saloon car which was found abandoned and on fire in nearby Barlavington.

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A spokesman for Arundel Castle Trustees said: “The stolen items have significant monetary value, but as unique artefacts of the Duke of Norfolk’s collection have immeasurably greater and priceless historical importance.” Arundel Castle, ancestral home to the Dukes of Norfolk, had only opened its doors to the public on Tuesday after closing for five months during England’s national lockdown. Of the rosary beads, West Sussex police said in a statement: “It has little intrinsic value as metal, but as a piece of the Howard family history and the nation’s heritage it is irreplaceable.” Mary was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire for her complicity in a plot to murder her cousin Queen Elizabeth I.

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GALLERY AT GLEN CARLOU A SOLO EXHIBITION BY STUART DODS FEATURING A SELECTION OF WORKS BY HIS MENTOR BEEZY BAILEY. EXTENDED TO 27 JUNE 2021. WWW.GLENCARLOU.COM/ART-GALLERY

LA MOTTE MUSEUM CELEBRATING THE LOVE OF ART A PERSONAL SELECTION BY HANNELI RUPERT-KOEGELENBERG UNTIL 25/07/2021 WWW.LA-MOTTE.COM/PAGES/MUSEUM

NORVAL ART FOUNDATION IINYANGA ZONYAKA ATHI-PATRA RUGA UNTIL 26/07/2021 WWW.NORVALFOUNDATION.ORG

ECLECTICA CONTEMPORARY ODYSSEY IBRAHIM KHATAB, HUSSAIN SALIM, MIMOUNI EL HOUSSAINE, KAMAL AL-FEKI, MOHAMED RABIE ONGOING SHOW FOR JUNE/JULY WWW.ECLECTICACONTEMPORARY.CO.ZA

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ARTMUG

ADD SOME ART TO YOUR FAVOURITE COFFEE MUG WINTER SPECIAL: R199 WITH FREE COURIER

CHOOOSE FROM 100’S OF ARTWORKS OR EMAIL US YOUR ARTWORK AT MUGS@ARTMUG.CO.ZA OR CALL US ON 021 300 5888

ARTMUG.CO.ZA

ARTGO: AUGUST-DEC 2021

ONGOING SHOWS

NWU ART GALLERY THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION EXHIBITION | NWU ART COLLECTION ONGOING JUNE/JULY

WWW://SERVICES.NWU.AC.ZA/NWU-GALLERY

PALETTE FINE ART GALLERY NOW OPEN IN FRANSCHHOEK HUGUENOT RD AT NUMBER 40 ONGOING EXHIBITION OF SCULPTURE WWW.PALETTESCULPTUREGALLERY.COM

RUST-EN-VREDE CLAY MUSEUM THE CUBE PRESENTS: ANGELA GILBERT 25/05/2021 UNTIL 28/08/2021 WWW.RUST-EN-VREDE.COM

THE ENDANGERED WILDLIFE TRUST CONTEMPORARY 21 ARTIST CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 04/09/2021 UNTIL 12/09/2021 WWW.EWT.ORG.ZA

ANTON SMIT OPEN AIR EXHIBITION AT CENTURY CITY ARTS TRAIL ONGOING WWW.ANTONSMIT.CO.ZA

ART@AFRICA CAPE TOWN WATERWARS UNTIL 31/12/2021 WWW.ARTATAFRICA.ART

DYLAN LEWIS SCULPTURE GARDEN GROTTO - A NEW INSTALLATION ONGOING WWW.DYLANLEWIS.CO.ZA

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LIST YOUR GALLERY OR NEXT EXHIBITION ARTTIMES.CO.ZA

W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A

THE PRINT GALLERY IS THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THAT OUR GALLERY HAS REOPENED POP IN AND SEE OUR LATEST SHOW: CAPE OF GOOD INK AND PRINT CLUBS CATALOGUE SHOW

www.printgallery.co.za 109 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town 072 182 0234 We take work on consignment

ONLINE-ONLY AUCTION 31 May - 7 June 2021 BROWSE > BID > BUY: www.straussart.co.za

Michael Taylor Easy Going People (detail), R 10 000 - 15 000

Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Decorative Arts and Wine

The Art Times June-July 2021 Edition

Articles inside

Business Art

PRINCE ALBERT OPEN STUDIOS

THE ART OF INNOVATION

ONCE WE WERE HEROES

SITE, MATERIALITY AND RITUAL

HUSSEIN SALIM: FINDING EDEN

ODYSSEY

RESTONE MAAMBO’S REMEMBER THE DIVINE MOTHER

POP GOES THE FAMILY MAN