ART TIMES MARCH 2023 EDITION

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Art Times March 2023 Edition

CONTENTS

Cover: Tony Gum, Milk Bags I, Christopher Moller Gallery

12. M.O.L 36

AH … LEGACY!... THE 10TH INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR

Ashraf Jamal Column

20. TO BE OR NOT TO BE CONTEMPORARY

By Stefan Hundt

26. TO EMBRACE THE SHADOW IS THE JOURNEY OF THE SUN AND THE SOUL

Curated by Ruzy Rusike

32. FREDERIKE STOKHUYZEN

The Art of living Graciously

38. ART PARIS’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY

48. A RETURN TO ESSENCE: COLLEN MASWANGAYI

Artist Proof Studio

52. THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

A new body of work by Lee-Ann Ormandy-Becker

58. transition • liminality • adaptation

An exhibition curated by the Art Museum Guides

Richard Taittinger Gallery, Jacques Monory, Technicolor numero 23, Art Paris 2023

Withthe incredible tenth Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2023 now done, the art market has little time to breathe before the year rushes into its frenetic pace. I would like to commend the ICTAF for doing a superb job in revitalizing the beat of the South African art world, each Art Fair although strong and sometimes repetitive in various forms, its real strength is in its consistency to go on as well as present a great level of professionalism and quality. New local and international galleries really freshened the fair and it was a delight to see new artists on the floor.

This colourful edition contains more editorial stories from the art world, including a mention of Zayd Minty who was much loved in South African Art circles. There are mentions of the ICTAF 2023 in our MOL and Sanlam articles, while profiles on Frederike Stokhuyzen and Collen Maswangayi are a treat to read. Our Art Action Section is always a must to browse and to enjoy the richness of available South African Art, we are blessed to have such strong Auction houses that include Strauss & Co, Stephan Welz & Co., Aspire Auction, Russell Kaplan and 5th Ave Auction Houses. Our next annual April Art Times highlights Sculpture and is a must for aspiring and established sculptures to feature their work.

Once again we would like to thank our Art Times advertisers and subscribers, it was great to meet so many of you in person at the ICTAF 2023. We look forward to bringing you more daily features and news on our website arttimes.co.za and social media platforms. Enjoy!

Gabriel Clark-Brown

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Alexis Preller The Red Blanket (detail)

M.O.L...35 AH … LEGACY!... THE 10TH INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR.

Ashraf Jamal

Francis Goodman, Change is Coming, 2023, acrylic, nails, silcone, fiberglass, wire and batting, 74 x 127 x 27cm

Entering the departure lounge of the Cape Town international airport, returning to Johannesburg after ten days spent luxuriating in the city’s art world, I stopped in front of a massive billboard dedicated to the Investec Art Fair. It was wonderful to see the faces of artists who embodied the vision of ‘legacy’ and contemporaneity in a local and global context – Frances Goodman, Dada Khanyisa, Kimathi Mafofo, AthiPatra Ruga, Chris Soal, and Sue Williamson, Brett Murray, Usha Seejarim, and Bonolo Kavula. I’d written on all of them, except the last. One had discovered me – kindly, and momentously, inviting me to co-author my first art book, Art in South Africa: The Future Present with her – while two others I ‘discovered’, one behind the counter of a design shop in Stellenbosch, the other in my class on film. It was her first year. After two months of silence, the lecture completed, the room empty, she’d asked me to look at her self-portraits on her android, posing alongside bottles of coca cola, the colour faked, the bottles originally empty. The rest, as they say, is history. In that same year, Tony Gum sold out in the Johannesburg and Cape Town fairs, was feted in Miami, and won the Pulse Prize in New York. That she still exhibits with the Christopher Moller Gallery which shot her into the global stratosphere is a credit to her integrity, or better, the proven mutuality between dealership and artist.

That Gum was the mistress of the strongest booth at the fair, is a testament to her continued impact. A cross between irony and pastiche – a withering self-awareness and blithe acceptance of her commodification –Gum’s self-portraits, in bling black and white Xhosa headdress and dopamine green skin straight out of Tretchikoff’s playbook, her wide grinning teeth capped in gold and green, centralised the core focus – the monetization of art, the black body, women. Her portraits, however, were no pedantic moral lesson. Rather, through a burlesque self-performance Gum manipulated our viewpoint, and, implosively, challenged the fetishism still latent in the global ‘taste’ for representations of the black body, and black life.

But the artists celebrated on the billboard had very different notions of ‘legacy’ – why art mattered. As the doyenne and queen, Sue Williamson, remarked – ‘I hope my art will remain as markers of South Africa’s legacy’. The author behind Resistance Art in South Africa, and a resistor herself – her vision cut from the fabric of insurrection in the 70s and 80s – Williamson’s on-going significance has everything to do with ongoing inequity, dangerously misunderstood as the result of ‘white monopoly capital’, a meme concocted in a London-based PR petri-dish, which went viral in South Africa in 2014 – its targeted purpose, to misdirect the public away from state capture under the Zuma regime. That the meme incited the Fees Must Fall Movement and the birth of the EFF, is the grotesque symptom of its damaging consequence – for it has proved critical to the destruction of universities, the mockery of politics, and thoroughly undermined a once collective national democratic project. Today we live with the grim insight, by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, that Systems Work Because They Do Not Work. This, now, is our reality. Systemic dysfunction is the failed grid through which we must understand the efficacy, or lack thereof, of any collective or singular endeavour – including the endeavour of art.

For Athi-Patra Ruga, ‘those sparks that touch people are the legacy’. Fluid, ambivalent, uproariously playful – embodying and performing the radicality which Susan Sontag first celebrated in the 1960s in her ‘Notes on Camp’ – Ruga shares Gum’s delight in the burlesque and absurd. Both are stridently against moral righteousness. If Frances Goodman shares their macabre noise, if her work is as noisome, it is because it inhabits artificiality and affectation, because her relief works made up of cosmetic prostheses – fake nails, say, or glitter – announce the glaring presence of the simulacral, of fakery. This caveat renders deeply ironic her unctuously bling pink, blue, and white banner-work, CHANGE IS COMING. It is anything but – if one assigns a positive healthy spin – but change, whatever that might mean, is inevitable.

“That Gum was the mistress of the strongest booth at the fair, is a testament to her continued impact.”

Tony Gum, Cheese I, Christopher Moller Gallery

This twisted resignation is at the core of Brett Murray’s vitriolic and satirical work, his bitter pithy one-liners, his notorious expose of Zuma as the ‘Spear of the Nation’, with his tumescent cock in full display – a work as brazen as it is unapologetic, witheringly aware that satire is null and void in a mirthlessly immoral world.

As George Orwell ominously noted in his visionary novel, 1984, ‘Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure forgotten, the lie became the truth’. With this terrifying prognosis in mind, we must reconsider Williamson’s hope for the continuance of her legacy. Will the world –the art world included – keep the faith and hold fast to her struggle, her belief in the fluency of ethical purpose? Or, have we not already destroyed the integrity upon which Williamson’s generation built their careers? Are we not, in other words, trapped in some quicksand, some freefall, some vertiginous radically relative moment in which Truth is no longer viable? Murray certainly thinks so. If legacy supposes ‘Metaphorical hooks that

people can hang their understandings on’, it is because, as metaphor, legacy is a lie, and any understanding thereof sheer fantasy. Language, as Nietzsche reminded us, is ‘an army of metaphors’. As for ‘legacy’, it is perhaps one of the most abused values in a cynical and pragmatic world.

Frances Goodman, capturing the wry irony of the current moment, notes that ‘Legacy is when someone tells you your work moved them’. For her, legacy requires a deeply subjective reaction. No overriding system can account for the personal response to Goodman’s art, or her own relationship with it. As for Usha Seejarim, her generational peer? Legacy is a ceaseless quest, an ‘approach’ to a ‘search in the most meaningful way’. A provisional distance is kept in play, a calculated detachment, which allows Seejarim the ability to expose the wonder that lies in the most banal things and experiences – in a wooden clothing peg, say. What, then, are we to make of the dreams and hopes of the other younger art stars celebrated by the Investec Art Fair?

Above: Dada Khanyisa, Amawele: Thandiwe, 2023, Mixed media, 62 x 54 x 15cm. Opposite page: Chris Soal, 2023, Save your skin

Dada Khanyisa, Amawele: Thando, 2023, Mixed media, 62 x 54 x 16cm

Dada Khanyisa, more cryptically, notes that legacy is ‘what you volunteer to the next’. Some benign baton in an on-going relay? A realisation that contingency and duration are inseparable in the understanding of art? As for Khanyisa’s art? Afropolitan, graphic, pop wood carvings, they conjure the reckless thrill of urbanity – night life, salon life, some edgy nocturnal frontier in which pleasure is triumphal, grief non-existent, the black body, black life, caught in a celebratory thrall. Perhaps this is why Khanyisa cannot provide a finite definition of legacy, because it is a verb carved out of pleasure and night.

Kimathi Mafofo, the mystic, wholly immersed in light, has a very different vision. ‘I aim to awaken, inspire and heal women with my art’. Bonolo Kavula shares this spirit, for she too seeks to ‘Inspire people enough to want to carry on the work’. The directive is clear –the utilitarian and dreaming worlds are one. With Mafofo and Kavula, we are in what Achille Mbembe calls an ‘anticipatory politics’, a world rich in possibility, a world in which promises are kept. And yet, beneath Mafofo’s affectless hope, there lies a darkness – the knowledge of on-going misogyny, abuse, and murder, a world in which women’s lives are grotesquely imperilled, in-and-through which art – the art of women – can stitch together this damaged soulless cruel world. Mafofo’s lyrical utopian embroidered works are the inverse of Goodman, Ruga, or Gum’s conjuring of doubt and irony. Perhaps Mafofo shares Williamson’s belief in an enduring legacy, and, as such, belongs to a time in which Truth was infallible, the Right to Justice inviolable?

Perhaps … because these days it is wellnigh impossible to ascertain the critical value of anything. Gum’s seemingly narcissistic fascination with how her personal ‘journey … translates’ into her ‘artistic endeavours’, perfectly captures a millennial disinvestment in anything other than The Self as the prime arbiter of meaning, value, being. Chris Soal, similarly, places the Self at the epicentre, noting that his legacy can best be ‘considered through the consideration I give my art’. Both Gum and Soal are clinically self-involved in what they do, and what they present to the world. Soal, however, does not portray himself, but his conscious mind and tactile hand, in works made with concrete, rebar, bottle caps, and toothpicks. Their affect is instantaneous – we feel his works, understand their warp and weft, their flux. For what Soal gifts us are artworks made of waste matter or the excesses of mass production which, after T.S. Eliot, he has shored up against our ruin

Perhaps the most visionary of all the artists championed by the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, because of its ecological focus, Soal’s work, however, cannot be understood without understanding how it intersects with the works of the others, with Goodman, Williamson, Seejarim, Murray, Mafofo, Khanyisa, Ruga, Gum. These were not of course the only artists on show. It is, however, to the fairs credit, that it has chosen to take a stand, and represent this current moment through an inspired selection. Art is a complex business. It is omnivorous, unceasing, gluttonously seductive in its drive. No other art form anywhere on earth possesses the same irresistibly perverse allure. If, in light of the monstrous machine that is the art world, that the 10th Investec Cape Town Art Fair was an astonishing success, this was not only because it perfectly combined international, continental, and local business and talent, but because it generated a mood, a spirit, amongst its attendees, which was electrifyingly life affirming. Never before, at any fair in South Africa or abroad, have I come across such a lust for life, a great thrill in the moment, a humility and awe, bravura and cautious nous, a sense of being profoundly in the world. That this event achieved such vitality is, by far, its greatest achievement.

Usha Seejarim, Jpeg embossed, 2022, Pegs and Wire, 74 x 46 x 8 cm (Detail View)

TO BE OR NOT TO BE CONTEMPORARY

By Stefan Hundt, Curator Sanlam Art Collection

The CTAF is one of the most significant events in the Cape Town and South African Art Eco system. The diversity of this year’s offering was notable in contrast to the previous year where portraiture seemed so dominant amongst the exhibits of so much of the galleries. Being a contemporary fair the CTAF really lives up to its name.

Contemporary and “cutting edge” is what is aspired to. Too often though it is contemporary with rather tatty edge. My overall sense was that many artists were desperate to impress with a decidedly peculiar approach rather than a concerted control of the medium and the manner of presentation. The viewer is confronted with deliberate anti-conformist approach to materials and media for what seems “for the sake of it” rather than a particular intention, to imbue the material with meaning. The the results often are artworks which look decidedly open ended and incomplete. Installed on their own wall space they appear to hang in a type of timeless limbo.

When it comes to traditional forms of presentation, often subsumed under the term “modern” – these were distinctly rare amongst the exhibits of this year’s fair. For the viewer with little or no historical knowledge the fair presents itself as world of infinite visual pleasure and sometimes conceptual torture. All of this, including pricing that is presented in anything but the local currency, has made art contemporary art fair a type of wonderland.

The number of galleries showcasing works by art long established artists previously under the rubric “past” has dwindled so such that the past is no longer present with exception of Wall gallery and the occasional drawing, print or painting shown in the more established big weight dealerships.

Frans Moshimanyana Thoka 1997 - Moipolai Ga llelwe, Sello Sa Gagwe ke Moropa, 2019, oil on “prison” blanket Sanlam Art Collection

Richard Mudariki 1985 - The Model, 2015 oil on canvas, Sanlam Art Collection

Elza (Elizabeth) Botha 1938 - Manifes(Maniphesto) 1982 woodcut on rice paper Sanlam Art Collection

Gavin Younge 1947 - Forces Favourites II, 1998 vellum, bicycle and monitor Sanlam Art Collection

Santu Mofokeng 1956 - 2020, Black Photo Album: Unidentified, 2001 photographic lithograph, MTN Art Collection

Yinka Shonibare 1962 - Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 14h00 Hours, 1998, C-type print, MTN Art Collection

William Kentridge 1955 - The Battle between Yes and No, 1987 screenprint on paper, MTN Art Collection

Where does one then go to get a historical and contextual perspective on what the South African art ecosystem looks like outside the wonderland of the CTAF?

The Iziko National Gallery currently presents a bit of a marathon exhibit celebrating its 150 anniversary. Viewers get swept through a huge diversity of South African Art history, of art making and collecting. The viewer is engaged to contemplate the motivations that lie behind the acquisitions and donations whilst between the various exhibits – some not “art” as such - the curator Andrew Lamprecht has cunningly placed works which jolt the eye and the mind – invoke historical occurrences and question the value of art in a fraught and unequal society. For any visitor to the CTAF a visit to the ISANG would provide a mind-opening experience of what art in society means.

Similarly, the exhibition Re Mmôgô (we are together in Setswana) currently on view at the Sanlam Art Gallery in Bellville, provides a historical overview of South African art history using works drawn from the Sanlam and MTN Art Collections. Selected key works from each collection initiate thematic and formal narratives which range from the activist politically engaged social commentary seen in the woodcuts by Elza Botha (“Manifes”) a screen print by William Kentridge (The Battle between Yes and No) and the contrived large scale photograph by Yinka Shonibare (Diary of a Victorian Dandy: 14h00); the South West African

border war, Gavin Younge Forces Favourites, civil protest such Thomas Nkuna’s Amandla Ilizwe i’Afrika, Sifiso Ka Nkame’s Open Letters for our Children and Richars Mudariki’s The Model; to the conceptually trenchant such as selection from Willem Boshoff’s, Blind Alphabeth B, Kendell Geers’s Lovers or Frans Thoka’s Moipolai Ga llelwe, Sello Sa Gagwe ke Moropa.

The Re Mmôgô exhibition presents more than 100 works by a selection of South Africa’s best-known artists from two of the country’s celebrated corporate art collections. A visual feast of superbly executed works in traditional media as well as conceptually challenging installations which are contemporary as the day they were made. From Avant Car Guard to Michael Zondi, experiencing this exhibition provides a perspective on what is truly “contemporary” in the South African art world today.

Re

Mmôgô (We are Together) Selections

from the Sanlam and MTN Art Collection shown together is on at the Sanlam Art Gallery until 26 May 2023. Viewing Monday to Friday 09:00 to 16:30. Other times and guided tours of this exhibition and the Sanlam Art Collection can be arranged with the curator. Entry is free.

For more information call: 021 947 3359 / 083 457 2699 or email: sanlamart@sanlam.co.za

Kendell Geers 1968 - The Lovers, 2000 emergency lights MTN Art Collection

To embrace the shadow is the journey of the sun and the soul

A GROUP EXHIBITION CURATED BY

RUZY RUSIKE

A path to ecological wisdom and a sustainable future

Andrea du Plessis, Francois Knoetze, Olwethu de Vos, Nindya Bucktowar, Nyakallo Maleke, Takudzwa Guzha, Pardon Mapondera, Amita Makam, Bercia Roos, Regi Bardavid, Shalom Kufakwatenzi, Akilah Watts

Exhibition 3 March to 30 April |

www.themelrosegallery.com

Walkabout Saturday 4 February at 12h00

Andrea du Plessis

TO EMBRACE THE SHADOW IS THE JOURNEY OF THE SUN AND THE SOUL

Curated by Ruzy Rusike themelrosegallery.com

Wherethe spirit is connected to the world, the unconscious mind carries with it an ecological wisdom.

‘To embrace the shadow is the journey of the sun and the soul’ is an exhibition that seeks to define or better yet identify what sustainability means within an African ideology.. Ruzy Rusike, the curator, and participating artists felt the need to explore and recapture a sense of being embedded in nature and being in a condition of reciprocity with nature, which is found in traditional forms of healing and traditional ways of being with the world.

Taking place at The Melrose Gallery, Johannesburg, the curator has invited artists from the Caribbean, East Africa and Southern Africa to create an exhibition within an environment that transcends individualism, which is common in the Western world.

‘To embrace the shadow is the journey of the sun and the soul’ is an ethical message like the Ubuntu philosophy, “I am what I am because of what we all are.” We affirm our humanity when we acknowledge that no individual is complete without another. Therefore, Akilah Watts, Amita Makan, Andrea du Plessis, Bercia Roos, Francois Knoetze, Nindya Bucktowar, Nyakallo Maleke, , Pardon Mapondera, Regi Bardavid, Shalom Kufakwatenzi and Takudzwa Guzha have contributed to this exhibition not to respond to the definition of what it means when we talk about sustainability. Instead they respond to the intimacy of what it means to create an environment for human life and generational well-being, forming part of the process of nature that eliminates the ego, which puts us at the centre of the ecosystem. They, like nature, allow for the cycle of life, death and rebirth. When considering this cycle and sustainability one cannot ignore issues of poverty, rectification and racial injustice

Akilah Watts, From Consummed,To Consuming, Acrylic, 2020

Andrea Du Plessis, First Light, Oil on canvas, 101 x 76cm, 2022

åbove: Andrea Du Plessis, Heart of Gé, VR painting, 2022

Opposite Page: Akilah Watts, Nexus, Acrylic on canvas 91 x 91cm

thereby acknowledging the fight for climate justice. . Whilst recognising that the core issue lies in our state of unconsciousness, that ignores the sensual aspects associated with living within and as a fundamental part of the landscape and nature herself. This exposes a profound grief that exists within humankind that is manifested or mirrored in Mother Nature.

This is what the exhibition is about. It is about facing the shadow and acknowledging that the consciousness of our being demands courage, determination, and choice. Integrating the unseen and unknown of ourselves (symbolised

in the spiral and the journey of the sun and soul) or else the conscious self becomes a slave of the autonomous shadow.

Running from the 3rd March to 30th April, the exhibition will include a program of engagements starting with a walkabout on Saturday 4th of March at 11h30 for 12h00 rsvp to tyron@themelrosegallery.com

The exhibition will also be presented online and can be accessed from 03 March. Visit themelrosegallery.com

Nindya Bucktowar, Sea Form, Ink and water 120 x 70cm

Nindya Bucktowar, Sea Fragment, Ink and water 21 x 30cm

‘To embrace the shadow is the journey of the sun and the soul’ is an exhibition that seeks to define or better yet identify what sustainability means within an African ideology”

Exhibitions performances talks, presentations demonstrations, workshops food and wine, films and children’s events

Ceramics Exhibition: Sonja Kastner

Presentation: Into Plato’s Cave, Kevin Atkinson’s Remarkable Art & Life

FREDERIKE STOKHUYZEN

The Art of living Graciously.

12th March - 31st March 2023

capegallery.co.za

Stylish and colourful, Frederike Stokhuyzen’s tree, flower and landscape studies are deeply rooted in her love and knowledge of nature. Together with her husband, John White, a vintage Bentley enthusiast she has toured South Africa, the UK, USA, Europe, Canada and Australia, pulling off the road whenever Frederike spotted a striking scene and pausing while she sketched it in pen and wash. Later, at home in her studio, she transformed these sketches into bold designs on canvas applying the oil paint with deft palette knife strokes.

Frederike believes that fine art and wellcrafted design are key to creating a home environment that promotes a harmony. Frederike was ‘Born to be an artist’. In her joyful and disciplined approach to her career spanning over 60 years she has never wavered from her principles.

Encouraged by her Dutch parents, she signed up for a B.A. Fine Arts majoring in Design at Rhodes University in 1956. Upon graduating in 1960 she set off for London to spend a year at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Here she took up stain glass window and mural design as well as clay modelling and gained exposure to the bold designs the English Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Prior to WWI &WWII, fine artists, glass artists, furniture makers and architects formed guilds and often collaborating on a single project, reacting to the shoddy craftsmanship of industrially produced products that were deemed soulless. Frederike shares the pervasive philosophy of the artists and craftsmen in these guilds, that good design has the capacity to improves lifestyle.

Treescape, Tulbagh District, 36 x 51cm

Cape proteas, 36 x 51cm

Tree Study Northern Cape, 36 x 51cm

Spring near Clanwillian, 36 x 51cm

Table Mountain from The Glen Camps Bay, 46 x 64cm

Frederike’s own unique vision. her innate creativity and the intuitive approach to her art, as well as her honesty and careful observation, have underpinned her reputation as artist esteemed by those who collect her paintings.

Frederike has repeatedly participated in prestigious group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad, In the U K at The Royal Institute of oil painters, The Royal Institute Winter Salon and The Royal Society of British Artists. She has shown solo in London at the Mall Galleries and Fraser Carver Gallery, the Jersey Channel Isles.

In France at The Paris Salon (Salon des Artistes Francaise), in Germany South African Watercolour exhibition Nuremberg.

In S.A.; at South African Art Today, also the prestigious Republic Exhibition, Durban. Frederike has regularly participated in the Grahamstown Festival of arts. Frederike has also had regular solo exhibitions in South Africa and Namibia. The Cape Gallery has had the pleasure of showing her paintings for the past two decades.

Frederike’s paintings are found in private collections in Germany, France, Holland, Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Opening 12th March at 4.30 pm at The Cape Gallery. 60 Church Street, Cape Town 8001

Camelthorn, Kalaghadi, 36 x 51cm

“Frederike believes that fine art and well-crafted design are key to creating a home environment that promotes a harmony.”

ART PARIS’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY

ArtParis is celebrating its 25th anniversary with an edition that will bring together some 134 galleries from 25 different countries at the Grand Palais Ephemere from 30 March to 02 April 2023.

Art Paris - which was founded in 1999 - is organised by France Conventions, a French family-run business. Thanks to the efforts of its owners, Julien Lecetre and Valentine Lecetre, ogether with fair director Guillaume Piens, Art Paris has become, in the space of 25 years, a leading spring arts event, an innovative art fair that fosters discovery, setting out to explore in depth the world of modern and contemporary art.

A regional, national and cosmopolitan, Art Paris has put the spotlight on many countries or continent’s art scene: Russia (2013), China (2014), Singapore and Southeast Asia (2015), South Korea (2016), Africa (2017), Switzerland (2018), Latin America (2019) and the Iberian Peninsula (2020).

In parallel, Art Paris is committed to supporting the French scene. Since 2018, it has been asking an exhibition curator to turn a subjective, historical and critical eye on a selection of specific projects by French artists from among the participating galleries. A specific theme is chosen and the focus is accompanied by a text presenting their work. In 2018, Francois Piron considered those artists whom history had passed by. This was followed in 2019 by A Gaze at Women Artists in France curated by Camille Morineau and her association AWARE, Common and Uncommon Stories by Gael Charbau (2020), Portraiture and Figuration by Herve Mikaeloff (2021) and Natural Histories by Alfred Pacquement in 2022. This year’s theme is Art & Commitment with independent exhibition Marc Donnadieu.

The Covid-19 pandemic marked a turning point in the fair’s history. Art Paris was the world’s first post-lockdown “physical” art fair in September 2020 and, in 2021, it went on to become the first event to inaugurate the Temporary Grand Palais on the ChampdeMars. Six months later, in April 2022, it was also the first fair to adopt a sustainable, life cycle analysis-based approach to its organisation. Its recent themes are totally in tune with those that are omnipresent in both society and contemporary creation: art and the environment in 2022 and commitment and exile in 2023. These strong convictions and commitments contribute to the originality of this leading spring arts event and set it apart on the art fair calendar.

A strong and renewed list of exhibitors: Boosted by the success of its previous editions, the 2023 selection pursues the fair’s development with a list of exhibitors renewed at 33% (i.e., 44 new galleries compared to 2022) and the continued presence of a number of international heavyweights: Almine Rech, Continua, Lelong & Co., Mennour, Perrotin, Templon and Nathalie Obadia.

60% of the exhibitors are domestic galleries and 40% internationally based. This deliberate choice enables the fair to showcase the wealth of the French gallery ecosystem that includes leading modern and contemporary art galleries and galleries based in towns all over France, while providing support to emerging structures with “Promises”, the sector for young galleries. Noteworthy returning exhibitors include galleries such as Derouillon, Dina Vierny, Catherine Putman, Maria Lund and Anne-Sarah Benichou, whereas Maia Muller will be taking part for the first time.

“An innovative art fair that fosters discovery, setting out to explore in depth the world of modern and contemporary art.”

Gaep Gallery, Damir Ocko. Untitled

Above: Dilecta, William Kentridge, Scribe with ibis

Opposite page: Martch Art Project, Merve Morkoc, Untitled

Nosbaum Reding, Damien Deroubaix, Sans titre

Galerie Maïa Muller, Hassan Musa, Le Passeur Tranquille Ii (d’après Delacroix), 2019

A2Z Art Gallery, Nge Lay, Les fenêtres

Dilecta, Jean Gfeller, DOOM Eternal

Danysz, Rakajoo, Contemplation

Templon, Omar Ba, Devoir de mémoire (Memoir Work)

As far as other countries are concerned, the list gains some new names with the first participation of a Chilean gallery (AMS), a Ugandan gallery (Afriart), a Romanian gallery (Gaep) and a Lebanese gallery (Saleh Barakat Gallery). Turkey will be represented this year by two galleries (Martch Art Project and The Pill), as will Morocco with the Comptoir des Mines and Atelier 21. Korea boasts four exhibitors: H.A.N. Gallery, Gallery Woong, Simon Gallery and 313 Art Project. A Palazzo (Brescia), Baronian (Brussels), HdM Gallery (Beijing), Francesca Minini (Milan), Poggiali (Florence) and Nosbaum Reding (Luxembourg) are making their first appearance to the fair.

The number of exhibitors showcasing modern art continues to progress with the return of galleries such as Ditesheim, Zlotowski and Repetto and first-time exhibitor Retelet (Monaco). The same goes for photography with new exhibitors Bigaignon and Fisheye Gallery and returning exhibitor Camera Obscura.

For more information about participating artists, galleries and related events visit artparis.com.

Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paz Corona, Untitled Opposite: Saleh Barakat Gallery, Anas Albraehe, Untitled

A RETURN TO ESSENCE: COLLEN MASWANGAYI

Artist Proof Studio

artistproofstudio.co.za

Artist Proof Studio invited Collen Maswangayi to come to come work with our printers from August - November 2022 to develop a new body of prints. It has been many years since he created any prints, almost 20 years ago, recalls the artists. Collen had full access to the printing studio and worked under guidance of experienced master printer, Pontsho Sikhosana. In the studio, Collen talked nostalgically about his years as a student, the last time he attempted creating a printed artwork, trying to remind himself of the process of printing. Mentioning that his lecturer was APS cofounder and executive director, Kim Berman.

The prints from his first session picked up from the cropped compositions like the reliefs he started in 2019. Using vibrant colours, the subject depicts the familiar subject of traditional Africans in their dressing and lifestyle. Referenced from his free-standing sculptures he’s known for.

Collen comes from an artistic family; he is a third-generation sculptor who primarily works in the medium of wood. His father is the wellknown sculptor Johannes Maswanganyi and his grandfather Piet Mafemani Maswanganyi was a carver of note as well.

In 2021, the Claire and Edoardo Villa Will Trust granted the Edoardo Villa Extraordinary Award for Sculpture to Jackson Hlungwani, the first of its kind to be awarded to an artist posthumously in acknowledgement of Hlungwani’s significant contribution to South African sculpture.

In addition to the production of Alt and Omega: Jackson Hlungwani, a significant publication on his work, the award honoured his memory and the woodcarving tradition by supporting another sculptor, Collen Maswanganyi, to develop his practice.

As part of his award, Maswanganyi established a workshop titled Carving X, with the aim of continuing his familial legacy, in particular the transfer of skills and knowledge, which began with his grandfather and his father.

The workshop took place between September - October 2022, during which he collaborated with fellow sculptors Richard Chauke, Amorous Maswanganyi, and Ben Tuge. The artists worked together to produce two large scale collaborative works, as well as a series of smaller independent works, using wood from a fallen Oak tree at NIROX. The works were showcased alongside pre-existing works by each artist at the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, in an exhibition that explored the role of collaboration, grappling

with questions of authorship, individual and collective identity, and the role of community in the making process.

The Claire and Edoardo Villa Will Trust, together with the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, continue to provide ongoing support to Maswanganyi and Carving X, acknowledging the importance of the wood carving tradition in South African sculpture, and aiding its development. The Trust was happy to partner with Artist Proof Studio to further support Maswanganyi’s travel and accommodation during recent showcasing of his work at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2023.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

A new body of work by Lee-Ann Ormandy-Becker AITY Gallery, Franshhoek artintheyard.co.za

Lee-Ann Ormandy-Becker, a native of Mbabane, Swaziland, was born in 1962 and moved to South Africa with her family when she was two years old. She currently resides in Rooiels, where she devotes her full-time efforts to her artistic pursuits in her studio.

Following her year as a Rotary Exchange Student in the United States, Lee-Ann began her artistic education by enrolling in the Fine Arts Diploma program at Natal Technicon; Although she did not complete the course, she subsequently completed one year of study at UNISA. Lee-Ann held her first solo exhibition at NSA Gallery in 1997 and has participated in several group exhibitions over the years. Her painting was chosen for the Brett Kebble 2004 exhibition, and she received a Merit Award from CSA Western Cape for her ceramics in 2019.

Lee-Ann’s artistic process involves working with both clay and oil paint, both of which reflect her fascination with texture and tactility. Her artistic statement reveals a strong emphasis on the subconscious, memory, dreams, mythology, and emotion. She strives to use paint as a tool to create poetry and convey her artistic vision, while clay serves as a medium for the expression of her subconscious thoughts and emotions.

Her work is heavily influenced by the surrounding environment of her studio, specifically the fynbos and the sea. Lee-Ann’s ceramics reflect her appreciation of nature’s imperfections and the constant evolution of life and death, while her paintings showcase her desire to reveal the hidden influences that impact our lives.

I’m late, I’m late aka Ukrainian Girl, 120x120x5cm, Oil on canvas

Do you suppose she’s a wildflower, Oil on canvas, 120x120cm

What does it matter where my body happens to be, my mind goes on working, Oil on canvas, 120x120cm

Alice and Blue Bird waiting for the Mad Hatter, Oil on, canvas, 80x80cm

Ormandy-Becker’s recent collection for her solo show “Through the Looking Glass” is a captivating and multifaceted one that operates on various levels to elicit an array of responses from viewers. On one level, the title suggests a world that is inverted and alien, where things that were once familiar become strange and unfamiliar. This theme is one that resonates deeply with Lee-Ann OrmandyBecker’s artistic approach, particularly her exploration of the subconscious mind. In this realm, thoughts and feelings can take on different forms and be expressed in ways that are unconventional and unexpected. The subconscious can be a place of paradox, where contradictions coexist, and meaning is elusive. Lee-Ann’s desire to explore this terrain is evident in her artwork, where she delves into the surreal, the illogical, and the

wondrous. By encouraging viewers to join her on this journey, Lee-Ann invites us to suspend our assumptions and explore the hidden depths of our minds. Through her art, she challenges us to look beyond the surface and embrace the unexpected and the mysterious, opening up new avenues of perception and understanding.

Join us for the opening of our upcoming exhibition on Saturday, March 11th, 2023 at 11 am at AITY GALLERY | Franschhoek.

The event will feature an introduction by the esteemed Professor Gregory Kerr, adding a deeper level of insight and meaning to the already captivating works of art on display.

“Lee-Ann’s artistic process involves working with both clay and oil paint, both of which reflect her fascination with texture and tactility.”

Vessel 9, Porcelain, underglaze and transparent glaze, 32x20x20cm Vessel 7, Porcelain, underglaze and glaze, 28x11x12cm

Art, antiques, objets d’art, furniture, and jewellery wanted for forthcoming auctions

View previous auction results at www.rkauctioneers.co.za 011 789 7422 • info@rkauctioneers.co.za • Bram Fischer Centre, Lower Ground, 95 Bram Fischer Driver Cnr George Street, Ferndale, 2194

Walter Whall Battiss, Figures in a Village SOLD R150 000

transition • liminality • adaptation

An exhibition curated by the Art Museum Guides

16 March 2023 – 1 May 2023

Oliewenhuis Art Museum

oliewen@nasmus.co.za

Oliewenhuis

Art Museum is excited to present the annual Art Museum Guide exhibition for 2023. transition • liminality • adaptation was curated by the current 2022/2023 Art Museum Guides at Oliewenhuis Art Museum with artworks sourced from Oliewenhuis Art Museum’s Permanent Collection and The Art Bank of South Africa’s Contemporary Collection.

The curators, all close to graduating or recent graduates in visual arts, curated the exhibition with the purpose of raising questions within the notions of the art industry. They explain: ‘As ‘young emerging artists’, we often find ourselves questioning what it means to become successful artists, and whether this means limiting our originality and creativity for the purpose of acknowledgement and acceptance in the visual art industry.’ This exhibition explores and challenges the barrier that separates ingenuity and conformity. A variety of artworks, with diverse use of media and conceptual ideas, artistically expressed by both emerging and established artists are juxtaposed with each other.

As a starting point for selecting artworks, the curators envisioned an organic, mixed media installation, titled: The Wall, including sketches and paintings in various media, photos, text and pre-sketches, that they’ve created over a period of time. The Wall serves as an anchor point for this exhibition, as it seems to be out of place and a bit distorted, but also becoming part of the exhibition and exhibition space – a space that generally serves to only showcase finished, ‘museum quality’ artworks, created by established artists. The curatorial style of the wall is an informal mixture representing both the traditional ‘white cube’ style of display and the studio space, where the process of creating artworks take place - often a seemingly chaotic space with artworks in various phases of planning and completion.

Nigel Mullins, Hopeful Monsters, 2000, Lithograph on paper, 1 m x 75 cm

Ben Botma, Natura Mortua: Conventus Familiae, 2007, Computer print with oil paint, 83 x 121 cm

Andries Gouws, Bar of Soap, 2003, Oil on canvas, 15 x 15 cm

Diane Victor, Walking Blind: From A Little History, 2018, Etching on paper, 9.5 x 7 cm

This allows the viewer to identify the themes of adaptation, where the artworks are ‘trying to fit’ into a system but on the other hand, through the distorted, organic installation, attempting to simultaneously transform the artworks into their own authentic piece. As a result of this conflicting position artists (along with their artworks) place themselves in, they often find themselves in a state of liminality

Themes such as identity, spirituality, mental health, the macabre, humour and satire can be found on The Wall. Artworks were selected by how they relate to these themes. Viewers are not only made aware of corresponding themes, styles and mediums between artworks in the exhibition space and of those on The Wall, but also differences such as the curatorial styles and the unfamiliar artist names. As a result of this, one could become aware of the influence of the visual art industry and the ways in which artists have to compromise between conformity and individuality in order to become successful artists.

transition • liminality • adaptation can be viewed from 16 March 2023 until 1 May 2023 in the Annex Gallery on the first floor of the Main Building at Oliewenhuis Art Museum. The art museum is located at 16 Harry Smith Street, Bloemfontein and is open to the public from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 17:00, and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays between 09:00 and 16:00. Entrance is free and secure parking is available for visitors at a minimal fee. 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 please contact Oliewenhuis Art Museum on 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.

Klas Thibeletsa, Life Story, 2007, Oil on canvas, 97 x 174 cm

A variety of artworks, with diverse use of media and conceptual ideas, artistically expressed by both emerging and established artists are juxtaposed with each other.

Business Art ASPIRE ART

Icons of 20th Century and Contemporary Southern African Art lead

Aspire’s debut 2023 Live Auction in Cape Town. aspireart.net

Robert Hodgins, A Day at the Office, 2003. Estimate: R 500 000 – 700 000

Aspire

Art is proud to announce highlights from the March live sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art from Southern Africa. Taking place on 15 March, the auction features an exceptional collection of 80 lots, specially selected for the discerning collector.

Showcasing a wide range of works across a multitude of mediums, the collection spans a century of significant contributions to the art historical canon in Africa.

Marelize van Zyl, Senior Art Specialist says, “Kickstarting Aspire’s 2023 programme, we are delighted to present our March Auction of 20th Century & Contemporary Art – a sale that has become a highly anticipated event in the Cape Town auction calendar, showcasing and recognising works by truly exceptional artists from Southern Africa across various categories”.

Estimate: R 300 000

Dumile Feni, Ecstatic Dance, 1965.

– 500 000

Georgina Gratrix, Mr Nice to Meet You, 2011.

Mary Sibande, I am a Lady, 2009.

Estimate: R 180 000 – 240 000

George Pemba, The Poet

Estimate: R 350 000 – 500 000

Christo Coetzee, Afrika, 1972.

Estimate: R 120 000 – 160 000

David Goldblatt, Anna Boois, Namaqualand, Northern Cape, 20 September 2003, 2003. Estimate: R 200 000 – 300 000

Contemporary highlights include seminal works by William Kentridge, Robert Hodgins, Sue Williamson, Helmut Starcke, Wim Botha, Johannes Phokela, Zander Blom, Athi-Patra Ruga, Dan Halter and Georgina Gratrix amongst others. International superstars include Pascale Marthine Tayou and Francisco Vidal.

Photographic works feature prominently as a specialist section and include limited editioned prints by celebrated documentary photographers Alf Kumalo and David Goldblatt alongside incredible photographic works by artists like Mary Sibande, Ayana Jackson, Candice Breitz and the awardwinning Mikhael Subotzky.

Leading the sale is a group of important and rare works by South African modern masters, most significantly a selection of expressive drawings by Dumile Feni and paintings by social realist George Pemba. Works by Louis Maqhubela, Lucky Sibiya and Trevor Makhoba are also on offer. The modern collection is complimented by an early landscape painted

by J.H. Pierneef and a beautifully rendered gouache by Irma Stern from 1951. A stunning abstract work by Christo Coetzee, acclaimed for his involvement in the international avant-garde movements during the 1950s and 1960s, is sure to attract the attention of serious collectors.

The live auction takes place on Wednesday, 15 March 2023 at 6 pm from Aspire’s auction room at 37A Somerset Road in De Waterkant, Cape Town, and will be live-streamed. Bidders can take part in the room, by telephone or online.

Auction Preview: 11 – 15 March 2023

Sale Enquiries:

Marelize van Zyl: marelize@aspireart.net

Sarah Sinisi: sarah@aspireart.net

For more information and to download the auction catalogue, visit: www.aspireart.net.

J.H. Pierneef, Landscape at dusk, n.d. Estimate: R 300 000 – 400 000

Business Art

STEPHAN WELZ & CO.

Jacobus

Hendrik Pierneef is one of the most prolific and collectable South African artists of the 20th century. He gained his generational legacy by revolutionizing and redefining the concept of truly genuine South African art. It was his belief that South Africans had a unique aesthetical style and this notion stemmed into the thematical concerns of specifically Pierneef’s earlier works. He simplified his landscapes using geometric structures, flat planes, lines, and colour to represent the harmony, order and the overall uniqueness found in nature. It is the perpetuation of finding a truly genuine South African aesthetic which aided Pierneef in redefining the cannon of South African art, and is the primary reason why he is so collectable amongst serious art investors.

Pierneef’s love for the country and its people drove his desire to promote everything that was truly South African in terms of art, music, and architecture, and in turn formed his philosophy of life.

Although Pierneef’s influence reached far beyond his lifetime – he was heavily invested in developing the cultural mindset of South Africa and dedicated himself to working with several publications which held these matters in great regard. During the 1920’s Pierneef was the acting art editor of a publication called “Die Nuwe Brandwag”. The aim of the publication was to release quarterly issues which discussed South African music, architecture, poetry, literature, theatre, and art. It was during this time that Pierneef allowed the publication to use his linocuts in some of their issues.

The geometrical element of Pierneef’s art meant that mediums such as linocuts were favourable to the artist and their influence and collectability have far exceeded any artist of his generation. Pierneef allowed the publication to photograph each linocut to assist with the photoengraving process. Photoengraving is a photochemical process

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886 – 1957) HUIS, OUD-PRETORIA, Photoengraving, Estimate: R30 000 – R50 000

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886 – 1957) PRELLER SE HUIS, PRETORIA, Photoengraving, Estimate: R30 000 – R50 000

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886 – 1957) HUIS BY SILVERTON, Photoengraving, Estimate: R30 000 – R50 000

which uses a plate (either made from steel or in this case resin) which is then treated by the appropriate photosensitive substance in order to lift the image onto the plate. It is then pressed onto a flat paper surface to transfer the image – in typesetting this image would be called a line block.

Providing his linocuts for publications such as “The Nuwe Brandwag” was a common practice for Pierneef as he felt an obligation to assist and support various artistic endeavours in South Africa. This was all done in the jest of trying to form a truly unique South African artistic aesthetic. These line blocks are relatively scarce to investors and make an interesting collectable given their significance. A selection of these line blocks will be on offer during the Stephan Welz & Co Premium Johannesburg Auction this March. Recognizable linocuts which have been transformed into line blocks include “Huis By Silverton”, “Unigebou En Doringboom”, “Huis, Oud-Pretoria” and “Preller Se Huis, Pretoria”.

Stephan Welz & Co’s March auction is just around the corner and true to our nature we have many interesting pieces on offer. We encourage collectors to mark their diaries for the 28th of March 2023. To register or bid please visit www.swelco.co.za and for any condition reports or queries please contact us on 011 880 3125 or info@swelco.co.za

“Pierneef’s love for the country and its people drove his desire to promote everything that was truly South African in terms of art, music, and architecture, and in turn formed his philosophy of life.”

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886 – 1957) UNIGEBOU EN DORINGBOOM, Photoengraving, Estimate: R30 000 – R50 000

A CABINETMAKER SPENT 30 YEARS TRYING TO PROVE A PAINTING HE BOUGHT AT AN ANTIQUE SHOP IS A RAPHAEL. A.I. MAY HAVE JUST DONE IT FOR HIM

Firtst published on Artnet, Richard Whiddington, February 21, 2023

Stumblingupon a lost masterpiece is the great fantasy of amateur collectors. For Anthony Ayers, proving that the painting he purchased in 1995 at a quaint English antiques shop was the work of a Renaissance maestro became something of an obsession, one that nearly 30 years later has reached a conclusion—well, maybe.

The subject matter of the Flaget Madonna was commonplace enough for a 16th-century panel painting: A serene Mary holding an infant Jesus with the accompanying presence of Elizabeth and John the Baptist. But something about the brushwork and painting’s aura convinced Ayers it was the work of Raphael, the Italian Renaissance master to whom a mere 200 paintings are attributed.

He duly encouraged friends to help him fund research into the painting. To date, more than $500,000 has been spent hiring specialists to analyze the paints and wooden panels, and recently, working with Art Recognition, an award-winning A.I. system for art authentication

Beyond being a passion project for Ayers and his supporters, it stands as a potentially lucrative gamble given the last Raphael work to sell at auction, a sketch titled Head of a Muse, netted $48 million in 2009. In today’s market, Ayers’s “Raphael,” if authenticated, would likely fetch hundreds of millions. Unfortunately, he won’t ever see that happen; he died earlier this year.

For some, the findings of Art Recognition, a Zurich-based company, offer the most supportive evidence so far. After building a dataset comprised of all Raphael’s authenticated paintings and comparing them against similar and contemporary works, the system learned to identify brushstrokes and color variations

specific to the “School of Athens” painter. It concluded the faces of the Madonna and Jesus were 96 percent attributable to Raphael with the figures of John and Elizabeth, the background, and the drapery likely completed by his studio, a standard practice of the time. “Through brushstroke artificial intelligence, we offer objectivity and accessibility to clients,” said Carina Popovici, founder and CEO of Art Recognition. “Art history, provenance, chemical analysis, and other methods are all critical to the full understanding of an artwork, but attribution decisions should not be left solely to the subjective human expert’s eye.”

Art Recognition’s findings fit tidily into previous investigations made into Flaget Madonna. The company Art Analysis and Research, which conducts scientific and technical painting studies, spent four years looking into the work. It concluded the painting was likely the work of Raphael’s studio, in part due to the presence of orpiment, a pigment used by a very select group of Renaissance painters, including Raphael.

Finally, there’s the work’s provenance, which was the starting point for Ayers’s research in the late ’90s. The painting that is now held in a vault on the outskirts of Chicago has enjoyed a nomadic existence. It arrived at the English antiques shop via an American dealer who bought it from a convent in Kentucky, which had received it as a donation in 1837 from the French-born Bishop Joseph Flaget, from whom the painting takes its name.

Prior to being bequeathed by Flaget, it’s thought to have been part of the Vatican collections Though whether or not such provenance, along with the supporting A.I. data and human evidence, will be believed by the art world remains a multimillion-dollar question.

HOW THE BRAIN CREATES YOUR TASTE IN ART

By Emily Velasco, California Institute of Technology FEBRUARY

27, 2023

Firtst published on medicalxpress.com

Ithas been said that there is no accounting for taste. But what if taste can actually be accounted for, and what if the things doing the accounting are the neural networks inside your brain?

In a new paper published in Nature Communications, a team of Caltech researchers show how they have revealed the neural basis for aesthetic preferences in humans using a combination of machine learning and brain-scanning equipment.

The work took place in the lab of John O’Doherty, Caltech’s Fletcher Jones Professor of Decision Neuroscience, and builds on research published by that lab in 2021. In that previous research, scientists trained a computer to predict volunteers’ taste in art by feeding it data about which paintings the volunteers liked and which they disliked. With enough training, the computer became adept at correctly guessing if a person would like a Monet or a Rothko, for example.

That act of liking or disliking a piece of art seems so innate and occurs so instantly and seamlessly in our brains that few of us have probably taken the time to wonder why or how it happens, but aesthetic preferences have been the subject of philosophical discussions for hundreds of years.

“When you see a picture, you decide immediately if you like it or not, but if you think about it, this is really complicated because the input is very complex,” says lead author Kiyohito Iigaya, formerly of Caltech and now with Columbia University. “This is actually a very open question, and we haven’t really known how the brain manages to do it. So, we were wondering if we could understand it using a computational modeling method.”

That method involved having volunteers rate paintings (as many as a thousand) over the course of four days while their brains were scanned with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. Those brain scans and the volunteers’ ratings of the paintings were fed into a machine-learning algorithm, along with the output of a neural net trained to examine the paintings for qualities like contrast, hue, dynamics, and concreteness (whether the painting is abstract or realistic).

The data the team collected showed that areas within the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual input, are responsible for analyzing those qualities. An area in the front of the brain known as the medial prefrontal

cortex (mPFC) is responsible for assigning a subjective value to them. Basically, the brain breaks a piece of art down into its essential qualities, and then decides whether those qualities are pleasing or not. This is more or less the same way the brain decides if it likes food or not, according to another study conducted by the O’Doherty lab. That study found that the brain analyzes a food according to its protein, fat, carbohydrates, and vitamin content, and then determines if those qualities are pleasing.

“What they found is that the brain integrates those different nutritional features to produce the overall liking of food,” Iigaya says. “That’s actually an inspiration for our work.”

In their paper, the researchers say their findings suggest that this “value construction” system may be widespread throughout the brain and may explain many kinds of preferences.

“I think it’s amazing that this very simple computational model can explain large variations in preferences for us,” Iigaya says.

The paper describing their research, titled, “Neural mechanisms underlying the hierarchical construction of perceived aesthetic value,” appeared in the January 24 issue of Nature Communications.

Firtst published on dailymail.co.uk

RoaldDahl once told painter Francis Bacon that he ‘hoped to God’ his publishers would not change his work, and vowed to send the ‘enormous crocodile’ - one of his characters - to gobble up any who did.

‘I’ve warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books, they will never see another word from me. Never!’ Dahl is reported to have said.

‘When I am gone, if that happens, then I’ll wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the ‘enormous crocodile’ to gobble them up.’

The comments, uncovered by The Guardian, were recorded by Barry Joule, a friend of Bacon who accompanied the pair on a visit to Dahl’s Buckinghamshire residence in 1982.

Bacon was said to have heartily agreed with Dahl’s sentiment, adding: ‘There must be no changes to an artist’s original work when he is dead for any reason whatsoever.’

The revelation comes as publisher Penguin Random House announced on Friday it will publish ‘classic’ unexpurgated versions of Dahl’s children’s novels after it received criticism for cuts and rewrites that it said were intended to make the books suitable for modern readers.

Along with the new editions, the company said 17 of Dahl’s books would be published in their original form later this year as ‘The Roald Dahl Classic Collection’ so ‘readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.’ The move followed a storm of criticism of scores of changes made to ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and other much-

loved classics for recent editions published under the company’s Puffin children’s label, in which passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered.

Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ - originally published in 1964 - became ‘enormous’ rather than ‘enormously fat.’ In ‘Witches,’ an ‘old hag’ became an ‘old crow,’ and a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be a ‘top scientist or running a business’ instead of a ‘cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman.’

In ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ the word ‘black’ was removed from a description of the ‘murderous, brutal-looking’ tractors.

The Roald Dahl Story Company, which controls the rights to the books, said it had worked with Puffin to review and revise the texts because it wanted to ensure that ‘Dahl’s wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today.’

While tweaking old books for modern sensibilities is not a new phenomenon in publishing, the scale of the edits drew strong criticism from free-speech groups such as writers’ organisation PEN America, and from authors including Salman Rushdie.

Rushdie, who lived under threat of death from Iran’s Islamic regime for years because of the alleged blasphemy of his novel ‘The Satanic Verses,’ called the revisions ‘absurd censorship.’

Rushdie, who was attacked and seriously injured last year at an event in New York state, tweeted news of Penguin’s change of heart on

HOW ROALD DAHL FEARED POSTHUMOUS CHANGES TO HIS WORK: AUTHOR SAID HE ‘HOPED TO GOD’ EDITORS WOULD NOT ALTER HIS ART AFTER HE DIED - AND WOULD WISH AN ‘ENORMOUS CROCODILE TO GOBBLE THEM UP’ IF THEY DID

Friday with the words ‘Penguin Books back down after Roald Dahl backlash!’

PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel wrote on Twitter: ‘I applaud Penguin for hearing out critics, taking the time to rethink this, and coming to the right place.’

Camilla, Britain’s queen consort, appeared to offer her view at a literary reception on Thursday. She urged writers to ‘remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.’

Dahl’s books, with their mischievous children, strange beasts and often beastly adults, have sold more than 300 million copies and continue to be read by children around the world. Their multiple stage and screen adaptations include ‘Matilda the Musical’ and two ‘Willy Wonka’ films based on ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ with a third in the works.

But Dahl, who died in 1990, is also a controversial figure because of antisemitic comments made throughout his life. His family apologised in 2020.

In 2021, Dahl’s estate sold the rights to the books to Netflix, which plans to produce a new generation of films based on the stories.

Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s, said the publisher had ‘listened to the debate over the past week which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl’s books and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation.’

‘Roald Dahl’s fantastic books are often the first stories young children will read independently, and taking care for the imaginations and fast-developing minds of young readers is both a privilege and a responsibility,’ she said.

‘We also recognize the importance of keeping Dahl’s classic texts in print,’ Dow said. ‘By making both Puffin and Penguin versions available, we are offering readers the choice to decide how they experience Roald Dahl’s magical, marvelous stories.’

A Good Read

VIRAL “PHOTOGRAPHER” REVEALS HIS IMAGES WERE AI-GENERATED

Jos Avery had told his followers he used a Nikon D810 to take his distinctive black-and-white portraits. Firtst published on hyperallergic.com by Rhea Nayyar

JosAvery was surprised when his portraiture account amassed nearly 30,000 followers in just five months. The selfdescribed photographer primarily posted heavily retouched black-and-white portraits accompanied by fictional stories about the subjects to @averyseasonart. But Avery recently came clean and told the world that his “photos” were actually generated by Midjourney, a text prompt-based artificial intelligence image-generation program.

Avery spoke his truth in Ars Technica last week, telling the publication that he originally wanted “to fool people to showcase AI and then write an article about it.” He did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.

To develop the portrait images, Avery would submit hundreds of carefully worded prompts for image generation on Midjourney, composite the best iterations, and edit the layered pictures using Adobe LightRoom and Photoshop. On average, it took Avery about 85 generated images (~21 prompts, as one prompt yields

four images) to find one that was usable and worth editing. “It takes an enormous amount of effort to take AI-generated elements and create something that looks like it was taken by a human photographer,” he told Ars Technica. “The creative process is still very much in the hands of the artist or photographer, not the computer.”

Yet, Avery deliberately identified himself as the “photographer” behind his portraiture, only revealing that his images were generative composites in his Instagram comments section three weeks ago before recently adjusting his account bio to include the term “AI.” According to Ars Technica, Avery maintained that he used “a Nikon D810 with 24-70mm lens” to capture his “subjects,” further backing himself into a corner as each post received dozens of praising comments until his admission of guilt.

Avery still posts generative portraiture on his Instagram, now hinting at the process in the captions but disclosing that the images are from AI in the comments section.

Unsurprisingly, this revelation is particularly polarizing as the conversation regarding the blurry ethics of AI use in the art sphere continues to unfold. Despite the partial commenting limitations on Avery’s account after the news broke, some Instagram users have decried his craft as “disingenuous,” “intentionally misleading,” and “a fraud,” while others remained impressed with Avery’s prompt-engineering and the lifelike results that followed.

In both his interview and his comments section, Avery vehemently defends his “work,” noting that the people who have issues with AI’s integration into art echo the same concerns as those who were skeptical or dismissive of photography when it was first invented. He also mentions that he started out as an AI skeptic himself.

“I honestly did not like AI much when I started the journey but have fallen in love with the limitless creativity,” Avery wrote in response to a critical comment. “I also like that it doesn’t create perfect images the exact way I want them. It means I have to work for it, re-generating, editing, drawing, compositing. I enjoy the collaboration.”

Spanish photographer Silvia Catalán, who criticized Avery’s content, told Hyperallergic that generative images in place of real photography “produce sadness, anger, and despair.”

“It seems good to use AI as a resource, for example, photographers have always used resources, but to use it as a photo, to make others believe that you are a photographer, or that you are a better photographer, seems very wrong to me,” Catalán continued.

Bavaria-based photographer Dirk Kultus didn’t buy Avery’s defense about working concurrently with AI to create something new. “Even if AI-generated images are modified, photoshopped or edited – they are still generated by the AI and not created by the user,” he said to Hyperallergic.

“I think it also shows how easily the AI itself fools you by giving you the idea and sense of creating something when using it,” Kultus explained. “But you don’t. You just feed the algorithms which then calculate a result based on pure randomness and probabilities on a given database, created by others. It just modifies and manipulates existing results — texts, images, whatever — and generates a variation or combination. A process almost completely dependent on the algorithms of the AI and you as a user have only a very limited influence on.”

DID AIR POLLUTION INFLUENCE FAMOUS IMPRESSIONIST PAINTERS?

Artists like Turner and Monet painted the smog they saw in London and Paris, a new study says Firtst published on Smithsonianmag.com by Christopher Parker

J.M.W. Turner’s painting Apullia in Search of Appullus (1814) depicts a landscape in rich detail, with bridges, trees and people all clearly defined on the canvas. On the other hand, Rain, Steam and Speed (1844) is a cornucopia of color with loosely defined boundaries.

For atmospheric scientist Anna Lea Albright, based at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, this contrast sparked a question and eventually a study, which was published late last month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Could the Impressionists have been depicting air pollution during the Industrial Revolution?

Albright, the study’s lead author, and coauthor Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard, analyzed 60 paintings by Turner and 38 by Claude Monet of landmarks in London and Paris. But what exactly were they looking for?

“Low contrast and whiter hues are hallmarks of the Impressionist style. They are also hallmarks of air pollution, which can affect how a distant scene looks to the naked eye,” writes Science News’ Bas den Hond.

Using benchmark photographs taken under clear and polluted conditions, the researchers created a “metric for contrast” that they would apply to the paintings. They then checked their data against estimated historical levels of pollution. Their resulting analysis showed that air pollution levels correlated with “hazier contours and a whiter color palette.”

“These results indicate that Turner and Monet’s paintings capture elements of the atmospheric environmental transformation during the Industrial Revolution,” the researchers write.

Theories have bounced around the art history world to explain this very phenomenon, including

the idea that Turner’s and Monet’s eyesight might have worsened as they aged. This new explanation provides a data-driven alternative.

The study is also starting a conversation about Impressionism itself, and whether the findings change our understanding of the movement.

“Impressionism is often contrasted with realism, but our results highlight that Turner and Monet’s impressionistic works also capture a certain reality,” Huybers tells the Washington Post’s Kasha Patel. “Specifically, Turner and Monet seem to have realistically shown how sunlight filters through smoke and clouds.”

The idea that these Impressionist icons were simply painting what they saw has drawn criticism. In the Washington Post, art critic Sebastian Smee warns against “confus[ing] internal creative choices with external stimuli.”

He acknowledges that the connection between pollution and the work of Impressionists exists—though it has been raised before. Still, he worries that putting too much stock in this explanation undercuts the creative variance of Monet and Turner. What should we make of Monet’s famous waterlilies, blurred and obfuscated even though he painted them 50 miles northwest of Paris?

“Monet wasn’t a recording machine. He was a painter emerging from a long tradition,” writes Smee.

In some ways, the study’s authors agree. They argue that air pollution can only explain a portion of the contrast differences. Albright tells Science News, “Different painters will paint in a similar way when the environment is similar. But I don’t want to overstep and say: Oh, we can explain all of Impressionism.”

Whether the truth lies with Albright or Smee or somewhere in the middle, one thing is for certain: Europe was undergoing tremendous changes during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. Turner and Monet were born amidst such unprecedented changes, and they would have noticed as clear skies turned to hazy ones.

In the future, the researchers want to study how pollution and climate change affect the work of today’s artists. As Huybers tells Hyperallergic’s Elaine Velie, “I think it’s really interesting to look at how people depict their environment—and how environment influences what we choose to observe.”

A FEW WORDS IN REMEMBRANCE AND HONOUR OF ZAYD MINTY

Tribute to Zayd Minty 2023

Written by Mario Pissarra

DearZayd, I’m grateful for having been your colleague and friend. You were a visionary who challenged me to think beyond the limitations of the present, an enabler who opened doors for many, including for me at the Community Arts Project. It was at CAP (1993-96) that we worked closely together to rebuild an organization brought to its knees after the withdrawal of anti-apartheid funding. It was an immensely challenging period, as we took some difficult decisions in anticipation of broader changes that, for the most part, have yet to be.

After CAP, you made an invaluable contribution in exploring the links between the arts and urban development. You did this in so many ways - as a researcher, cultural manager, curator, writer, consultant, lecturer... Your thesis, for which you were awarded your doctorate earlier this month, will surely serve as essential reading for anyone working in this field.

It says a lot about you that whilst you were pragmatic about your rapidly deteriorating medical condition, you never gave up dreaming of creating new cultural spaces, working to establish a residency in the home you shared with your beloved Tali. I miss you my friend but take some comfort in knowing you had decided it was time to go. Comfort too in that while you may be gone, your legacy lives on.

Image: CAP staff photo (1994). Back: Simba Pemhenayi (RIP), Carol Knowles, Nigel Mentor, Zayd Minty (RIP), Lawrence Makinana, Barbara Voss, Lungile Bam (RIP). Front: MP, Lynette Davids, Sicelo Nkohla, Sophie Peters, Mashabalala Mkonto (RIP). Pablo Pissarra (RIP) on the ground. Source: University of Cape Town. Libraries. Special Collections BC1195 Community Arts Project.

ARTGO MARCH 2023

NEW GALLERIES, ONGOING SHOWS AND OPENING EXHIBITIONS

Templon Kehinde Wiley, The Virgin Martyr Cecilia, Art Paris

ARTGO: MARCH 2023

OPENING EXHIBITIONS

Absa L’Atelier 2021 Gerard Sekoto award winner, Abongile Sidzumo’s solo exhibition

Sidzumo is showcasing his recently produced artworks themed “Amagoduka”, a concept of belonging and what he considers home. www.arthotspot.absa.africa

Online Store

www.artistproofstudio.co.za

Everard Read Cape Town

Elléna Lourens

Too Far From Sea

02/03/2023 until 31/03/2023

www.everard-read-capetown.co.za

The Melrose Gallery

To embrace the shadow is the journey of the sun and the soul. A path to ecological wisdom and a sustainable future.

A group exhibition curated by Ruzy Rusike 03/03/2023 until 30/04/2023

www.themelrosegallery.com

Artist Proof Studio

Absa Gallery

Art.b Members’ Exhibition

We invite you to share in the possibilities of discovering new work by artists who are testing processes, artists who are showing for the first time, alongside the possibility of finding a surprise by returning names & faces from our community. Opens 04/03/2023 @ 10:30 for 11:00

Until 24/03/2023. www.artb.co.za

RK Contemporary Solo Studios Riebeek Kasteel : Preview

Introducing the studio artists for our annual Solo Studios 18 - 20 August 2023. Preview will be running for the month of March 2023 at RK Contemporary. 04/03/2023 - 26/03/2023

www.rkcontemporary.com

www.solostudios.co.za

IS ART GALLERY

Studies’ - A solo exhibition by Isabella Kuijers

Opening by Prof Elizabeth Gunter on 04/03/2023 at 11h30

Kuijers works experimentally and playfully with the medium of watercolour.

Until 31/03/2023

www.is-art-gallery.com

Everard Read Cape Town Lionel Smit | Exposure 08/03/2023 until 01/04/2023

www.everard-read-capetown.co.za

ARTGO: MARCH 2023 OPENING

EXHIBITIONS

AITY Gallery Franschhoek

Lee-Ann Ormandy-Becker

Through The Looking Glass

11/03/2023 until 01/04/2023

Opening Saturday 11th of March at 11 am

Introduced by Gregory Kerr www.aitygallery.com

The CUBE : Anton Bosch + Esra Bosch

A continuation of the Centenary celebration of Esias Bosch’s birth in the Clay Museum. The CUBE showcases contemporary ceramic creations by his children Anton Bosch and Esra Bosch. 11/03/2023 until 05/04/2023

www.rust-en-vrede.com

Rust-en-Vrede Gallery

Wiehan de Jager

A Solo Exhibition exploring the dynamics and properties of paper.

11/03/2023 until 05/04/2023

www.rust-en-vrede.com

Dogscapes

A Solo Exhibition by Cathy McShannon

11/03/2023 until 05/04/2023

www.rust-en-vrede.com

Rust-en-Vrede Clay Museum

Rust-en-Vrede Gallery

Rust-en-Vrede Gallery

Lied van die Filosoof

A Solo Exhibition by Dr. Elfriede Dreyer

11/03/2023 until 05/04/2023

www.rust-en-vrede.com

EBONY/CURATED Room With a View

EBONY/CURATED is pleased to present; ‘Room With a View’, a Group Exhibition curated by Karen Elkington, which loosely plays on the idea that the ‘room’ or ‘interior’ has something to say. 15/03/2023 until 22/04/2023

www.ebonycurated.com

The Cape Gallery

Frederike Stokhuyzen ( Solo exhibition)

South African landscapes, treescape, rockscapes and flowerscapes as well as wildlife are the embracing theme of Frederike’s work.

12/03/2023 until 31/03/2023.

www.capegallery.co.za

DAOR Contemporary Autumn 2023: A Group Exhibition

Featuring artists Connor Cullinan, Donna Solovei, GOOD GOOD BOY, Andrea Du Plessis, Carin

Dorrington, Emily Rae Smith Labuschagne, Kristen McClarty, Manuela Holzer, and more.

Opens 16/03/2023 at 18:00

WWW.DAOR.CO.ZA

ARTGO: MARCH 2023 OPENING EXHIBITIONS

Oliewenhuis Art Museum

Transition, Liminality, Adaption

Artworks on exhibition were selected from Oliewenhuis Art Museum’s Permanent Collection and the Art Bank of South Africa’s Contemporary Collection.

16/03/2023 until 01/05/2023

www.nasmus.co.za

Fynarts Hermanus For The Love Of The Arts

Exhibitions, performances, talks, presentations, demonstrations, workshops, food and wine, films and children’s events.

09/06/2023 until 18/06/2023

hermanusfynarts.co.za or admin@hermanusfynarts.co.za

11/03/2023 to 31/03/2023

www.131agallery.com

131 A Gallery, Cape Town Group Exhibition

LIST YOUR GALLERY OR NEXT EXHIBITION ARTIMES.CO.ZA

ARTGO: MARCH 2023

ONGOING SHOWS

Echoes of Time: Coral Fourie

A body of work is echoing and intertwining through three different timelines; the present, past and future.

Until 17/03/2023

www.services.nwu.ac.za/nwu-gallery/about-us

Cyanima | An Exhibition of Photographic work by Ian McNaught Davis

Until 19/03/2023

www.glencarlou.com/art-gallery

The Damage Still Remains: Len Kumalo the lifetime work of Len Kumalo, a photographer and photojournalist who practiced predominantly through the early 1970’s - 2000’s.

Until 17/03/2023

www.services.nwu.ac.za/nwu-gallery/about-us

I’ve got the Darkness Baby| by Ingrid Winterbach

A playful exploration of dark themes. A delight in the endless possibilities of oil paint as a medium.

Until 19/03/2023

www.glencarlou.com/art-gallery

NWU Botanical Gardens Gallery

Glen Carlou Gallery

NWU Art Gallery

Glen Carlou Gallery

Glen Carlou Gallery

You are Here | Porterville Curated. A Group exhibition

Until 19/03/2023

www.glencarlou.com/art-gallery

Art@Africa

Curious Whispers – Valeria Talian Solo

A collection of multidisciplinary works focusing on the world today. Valeria’s works often include eyes, eyes are truly the window to one’s soul, and they represent both the literal and the figurative meaning. 16/02/23 until 30/03/23

www.artatafrica.art/collections/valeria-talian

Norval Art Foundation

Bonolo Kavula: Lewatle

Kavula’s art has existed between the intersections of painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture, pushing the limitations of each.

Until 20/03/2023

www.norvalartfoundation.org

Nel Observatory - John-Michael Metelerkamp started painting late, when he turned thirty, when he took to painting, painting took to him like a fever. It has been a decade since, and he still has not stopped. 17/02/2023 until 31/03/2023

www.nelart.co.za

ARTGO: MARCH 2023

ONGOING SHOWS

UJ Art Gallery

Nimrod Ndebele - Gerard Sekoto Collection

Exhibition

For at least 70 years these artworks have been on private, home display, and they available for the public to see in the UJ Art Gallery. Until 31/03/2023

www.movingcube.uj.ac.za

The Viewing Room Art Gallery at St. Lorient

Save the artist - An Endangered Breed

A multi-media, group exhibition in which the artists are telling theirstories of their journeys with art through their art. 25/02/2023 until 08/04/2023

www.theviewingroom.co.za

SMAC Cape Town

Open Arms by Jody Paulsen

Until 01/04/2023

www.smacgallery.com

Entangled Intimacies: art, more-than-human embodiment, and the climate catastrophe

The Young Curators Incubator – a programme conceived in collaboration between the GoetheInstitut Johannesburg and the Wits School of Arts History of Art department

Until 06/05/2023

www.goethe.de/ins/za

Jan Rupert Art Centre

IN-RESPONSE: Art of the Space Age Group exhibition

Until 21/05/2023

www.rupertmuseum.org

Zeitz MOCAA

When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting

Until 03/09/2023

www.zeitzmocaa.museum

Sanlam Art Gallery

Re Mmôgô

“We are together” (translated from Se Tswana) Selections from Sanlam and MTN Art Collections shown together

Until 26/05/2023

www.blog.sanlam.co.za

Norval Art Foundation

Having but little Gold by Berni Searle

Retrospective exhibition

Until 13/11/2023

www.norvalartfoundation.org

PORTRAIT AWARD 2023

DIGITAL ENTRIES OPEN ON 1 JUNE 2023 AND CLOSE ON 10 JUNE 2023

1ST PRIZE: R150 000

2ND PRIZE: R 30 000

3RD PRIZE: R 20 000

www.rust-en-vrede.com/

portrait-award/

Johannesburg

28 - 30 March 2023

TWO FIGURES AND THE MOON

Maurice Charles Louis van Essche