THE ART OF INNOVATION

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.

The 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.

“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

Phillip Boucomse, Silo by die Meule

Philemon Hlungwani, Hihanya hi matimba

Colombe Ashborn, Lüderitz

This 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).

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.

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

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.

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

In 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