16 | ART 14
Art News
23 October 2019
Head out to B’Bos Art Route this weekend This year’s spring Baardskeerdersbos Art Route takes place this weekend from 26 – 27 October.
By Patrick Chapman
S
ometimes I am asked by “painters for pleasure” how they should go about marketing their art. My first response is always, “You must have a story…” meaning, tell us the background to your development as an artist and what drives you. This makes you memorable to prospective buyers who become more interested in your work as they begin to understand how you came to create a particular painting, sculpture, ceramic piece or whatever. Now Baardskeerdersbos has its own story in the name itself. You will find the village about 25 km inland from Gansbaai and it makes a lovely outing to visit the dozen or so artists who have pioneered a creative lifestyle in this tiny, unpretentious hamlet. Since 2008 the artists have opened up their houses and studios to share their creativity with art lovers two weekends a year, in spring and autumn.
Little brochures with a map and details of exhibitors are available at many galleries in Hermanus. Alternatively you can visit the website (baardskeerdersbosartroute.co.za) for background information and to print out the map. There are pubs and eateries where you could get a light lunch and often a drop of refreshment at the artists’ homes. Just don’t get too sleepy and snooze under a shady bush or a baardskeerder (spider-like creature with pincer forelegs) may trim your beard or cranium, harvesting the hair for its nest – at least that is what the legend says. So, what’s to expect, art-wise? Well, you will be looking at the work of independent professional creatives who have chosen to live in the village, sometimes for years. And as Kali van der Merwe, current co-ordinator of the artists’ group says, you will always find something new and intriguing. There are invited guest artists, too, and these change from year to year. No room to describe the artists in
detail, but I shall mention Jan Vingerhoets who creates striking pieces out of scrap metal, wood and found objects – some functional, others decorative, all fascinating. He didn’t have many works left when I called during a previous Art Route, on a Sunday afternoon. “Walala wasala” as the isiZulu idiom goes… “You snooze, you lose.” So get there early if you wish to get first choice of the paintings and varied artworks.
Clifford Mpai exhibition opens at FynArts Gallery An exhibition of work by Clifford Mpai titled ‘Traveller’ will be opening this week at the FynArts Gallery, in association with Liebrecht Gallery. Mpai was by no means a frequent flyer, and definitely not a member of the jet set, but he did travel abroad on a few occasions, and so did his drawings.
the last 30 as a waiter at the Oppenheimer family home, Little Brenthurst in Parktown – he needed to travel to the deeply rural Phoffu Village, 48 km from Potgietersrus (now Mokopane) and 310 km north-east of Johannesburg, to visit his family over Christmas and bring home the bacon.
He visited London in 1987, 1988 and again in 1994; and in 1998 he travelled to Rotterdam to attend the opening of the exhibition ‘City on Paper’, hosted by the Netherlands Architecture Institute, where a number of his works were on show. In 1991 Mpai’s work (together with that of Karel Nel and Sheila Nowers) was exhibited in Birmingham in an exhibition titled ‘Three South African Artists: A contemplative view’. Thereafter his work was also exhibited in Illinois in 1994, and at Art First in London in 1995.
The Mpai drawings selected for this exhibition include works directly inspired by his overseas visits; works which were exhibited abroad; and also works which illustrate how effortlessly Clifford Mpai bridges the apparent divide between the urban and the rural.
But Mpai did almost all his travelling between two much more seemingly disparate worlds – the urban and the rural. As a migrant labourer in Johannesburg for 40 years – as a machine operator for 10 years and later a messenger at the Modderfontein Dynamite Factory, and
Joshua Miles is showing his reduction woodblock prints, strictly limited editions and instantly likeable. This established artist has moved his family to Prince Albert where son Frederick can study for his A-levels before they all decamp to Scotland, his wife Angela’s birthplace, for a time; though Joshua assures me he will be visiting South Africa regularly to see that his local market, built up over the years, is not neglected.
Lots more for art lovers, or even the simply curious, to discover. There are unconfirmed rumours of a jazz concert in the evening. Baardskeerdersbos is a community, refuge, a crucible for talent, a place with its own story. The Art Route weekend is in its eleventh year. The rural surroundings are picturesque and take one back decades; look out for donkies and dreamy visitors and share the ambience. Well worth a visit.
Onrus artist exhibits in Franschhoek
Mpai returned to Phoffu Village after his retirement in 2002. He was born in 1937, but according to his identity document – for historical reasons it was only issued in 1990 – he was born in 1940. In 2020 he will therefore be celebrating his “official” 80th birthday, and amazingly he spent exactly half of those 80 years in Johannesburg and the other half in Phoffu Village. In celebration of this event a book titled Road to Luxemburg: The Clifford Mpai story will chronicle “the life of a quiet and remarkable man”, to quote the final words of Karel Nel’s opening address at an Mpai exhibition in Johannesburg in 1997. – Avril Gardiner, Curator 'Traveller' will be opened by Matthew Partridge, contemporary art specialist at Strauss & Co, on Wednesday 23 October at 17:30 for 18:00 at the FynArts Gallery in The Courtyard, 2 Harbour Road, Hermanus. RSVP: Chantel Louskitt on 060 957 5371 or admin@ hermanusfynarts.co.za
A collection of etchings and drawings by well-known South African artist, Titia Ballot, who resides in Onrus, is currently being exhibited in the Annex of the Huguenot Memorial Museum in Franschhoek. The title of the exhibition is ‘Refuge’ and one of the works is ‘The Protestants’ (above) which is positioned as the centrepiece on a wall of portraits of famous and ordinary South Africans descended from Huguenots (this work also forms part of the museum’s permanent collection). Over the past 32 years, the artistic vision of Ballot (née du Toit) has been grounded in the Protestant heritage of her Huguenot ancestors. Her earlier works, referring to specific Huguenot artifacts, were exhibited in the museum during the tercentenary celebrations in 1988. More recent works visually express the trauma of contemporary migrants and refugees in South Africa. “The newly revamped Huguenot Memorial Museum exhibition connects the local history of the Huguenots to global issues of persecution, exile, belonging, identity and the legacies of refugees in their new homelands,” says curator and art historian, Tracey Randle. The exhibition is on until 30 October.
