Summer 2009/10 Projects by Stevenson

SUMMER 2009/10 PROJECTS

SUMMER 2009/10 PROJECTS 26 NOVEMBER 2009 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 16 JANUARY 2010

MICHAEL STEVENSON

PROJECT 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11

JANE ALEXANDER

RETHA ERASMUS

SABELO MLANGENI

TOM CULLBERG

GUY TILLIM

BERNI SEARLE

WILLEM BOSHOFF

DINEO SESHEE BOPAPE

TRACY PAYNE

ANDREW PUTTER

ZANELE MUHOLI

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Jane Alexander describes the context in which her Hotel Dajti series was made The Hotel Dajti photomontages were produced for the Tirana Contemporary Art Biennial 2009, The Symbolic Efficiency of the Frame. The exhibition, curated by Edi Muka and Joa Ljungberg, was presented in the Hotel Dajti from September. Bevis Fusha was commissioned to take a series of background photographs for the images from which these were selected.

JANE ALEXANDER

The architectural design and construction of the Hotel Dajti took place during the Fascist occupation of Albania in the 1930s, its name referring to Mount Dajti east of Tirana. The hotel was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers by the occupying Germans in the early 1940s, and foreign visitors to Tirana were accommodated there in the Communist era with Albanians barred from using the hotel. In 2002 it was declared a national monument but, unguarded, it has been looted and vandalised. It is expected to become the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the future.

Hotel Dajti 2009 Pigment on cotton rag paper 5 prints, 45 x 67.5cm each Editions of 12 Background photographs by Bevis Fusha

Grand Salon, Hotel Dajti

Room 111, Hotel Dajti

Ghost, Room 116, Hotel Dajti

Bar with lamb, Hotel Dajti

Hotel Dajti (search)

Sophie Perryer on the play of contrasts in Retha Erasmus’ sculptures Together with The Sum of Us (2005), Incubator and Intruder form a trilogy of largescale, suspended sculptures. Each combines contrasting materials of wood, aluminium and light, directing attention to the structure of the work and creating a simultaneous awareness of the whole and its parts. Despite their machine-like complexity, the works are, for the artist, ‘in essence personal

RETHA ERASMUS

and subjective in origin. A rigorous and disciplined working method in combination with a geometrical and precise aesthetic provides a framework within which there is allowance for aspects and ideas from the unconscious mind as well as events from personal life to filter into the work.’ The structures evoke both the realms of engineering and manufacture and the inner world of the body. Small slats or sections form the basic building blocks which are joined

Incubator 2007 Veneered Wenge superwood board, Perspex, ultraviolet light, fishing line, aluminium 78 x 250 x 110cm Detail opposite Intruder 2009 Rose wood, aluminium, Perspex, fluorescent tube, wool 82 x 497 x 220cm (Not illustrated) Line Drawing – Intruder 2008 Ink on paper 112 x 250cm

together to form individual arcs or ‘ribs’. These are mounted sequentially – growing, undulating – and together create a three-dimensional ‘body’. The ribs are fixed in position but seem to carry the potential to flex, collapse and rearticulate themselves. The hand-made parts are assembled according to detailed plans, yet the artist, who eschews computer renderings, admits an element of uncertainty in the result and no drawings of the final form are made. Each work sets up a particular negotiation between inside and outside. In Incubator, the chest-like cavity has been occupied by a glowing cocoon spun from delicate nylon filaments and ultraviolet light. The feeling is at once of protection and danger, charged with the irresistible, deadly lure of an insect electrocutor. Likewise with Intruder, boundaries are set up in order to be breached. The wooden ‘body’ is echoed and penetrated by its aluminium counterpart, an aggressive structure both sharp and nestlike. Red light, this time positioned externally, again serves to amplify mood – of warmth, perhaps, and menace – but is tenuously connected to the main form: feeding it, or feeding off it. The works thrive in the zone of dialogic play – between soft and hard, inner and outer, technical precision and sensual beauty.

Incubator

Line Drawing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Intruder

Michael Stevenson on a new series of photographs capturing life inside George Goch men’s hostel Sabelo Mlangeni was born in 1980 in Driefontein, near Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga, and moved to Johannesburg in 2001. After studying at the Market Photo Workshop, he attracted critical notice with his first solo show at Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, in 2007. He exhibited a series of images of women cleaning the inner city at night, entitled Invisible Women. Photographed over an eight-month period, during the hours between

SABELO MLANGENI

11pm and 3.30am, the haunting images offer us some insight into the lives of these women in a format that richly recalls the long tradition of city nightscape photography. For an interview with Mlangeni, see the catalogue published by Warren Siebrits on the occasion of the exhibition. Men Only stands as an interesting companion to the Invisible Women series. At first sight, Mlangeni’s photographs may appear to be documentary but when each series is

Men Only 2008/9 Silver gelatin handprints on fibre paper Various dimensions Editions of 7 + 2AP

considered in its entirety, his interests in gender, urbanism and a quiet activism – among other themes – become clear. This project focused on the George Goch men’s hostel on the East Rand of Johannesburg. Only men are allowed in the hostel, giving rise to a certain curiosity about life inside. As

Selection from a series of 33 images, published in full in a separate catalogue

Mlangeni says, ‘It is these imaginings that led me to photograph life in these buildings.’ However, he acknowledges, ‘my curiosity and maleness weren’t enough to gain me access to this private world’. It took him two years to develop the trust and familiarity needed. ‘The lives revealed through my lens are as complex as I imagined and at times just as familiar as my own skin.’ Mlangeni is also saddened by the fact that after 15 years of democracy, the legacy of apartheid remains clearly evident here. The George Goch hostel was built in 1961 to house mining immigrants, and today the hostel dwellers are a mix of taxi drivers, security guards and other men who moved to Jozi to better their lives. Segregation remains a defining characteristic of such institutions. Mlangeni was presented with the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2009. He has an exhibition scheduled at Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, in late 2010.

‘Mans Tehuis’

Dry pipes

Mshana

Usbali visits the hostel

Cleaning

Tom Cullberg on Studio Portraits, his new series of book paintings Seven years old: Something caught my eye high up in a bookcase at home, so I decided to climb the shelves. It didn’t take long before the whole thing began to topple and I was under an avalanche of books. A literal lesson in appreciation of the weight and power of literature. Fourteen years old: Teenager, lying dozily on the couch in the lounge at home gazing

TOM CULLBERG

at the spines of my parents’ books on the shelves, dreaming away in my own narratives sparked by their titles and appearances. The evocative potential of colour, form and typography. Sixteen years old: My parents had recently got divorced and my dad was selling our house. In anger he filled a large dumpster with most of his books. A lesson in the symbolic value and history carried in books.

Studio Portraits 2008/9 Oil on canvas Various dimensions

My paintings do not stem only from a fondness for reading or an interest in book design but also from an impetus to use the book as a framework to tell a different story. I look at its thickness and the surface with its creases and folds, shine and aging. With the buildup of paint I play around, mimicking rather than copying the original design. I shift its appearance and meaning, sometimes changing titles and subject matter, picking up and making references to the book’s owner, to myself and the here and now. In the process of arranging and painting the covers, the painted books take on new lives. There is a scene in Gus van Sant’s film My Own Private Idaho where the characters on the covers of magazines on a newsstand come alive. In the frames of the magazines the frozen images become animated and start narrating their own stories. If I remember it correctly, they chat to each other from their different positions on the stand, placed in a horizontal and vertical grid pretty much as in my paintings. I search for a similar experience. There is an interaction between the books and me as the painting takes shape, and endless possibilities for entries and departures among the combinations of covers.

Pieter 2009, ‘Free from the Sea’ 195 x 150cm

Migi 2009, ‘The Future Starts Here’ 195 x 150cm

Julia 2009, ‘Lesotho In Your Dreams’ 116 x 150cm

Rowan 2009, ‘Hi Fi and Stereo & Life on Mars’ 50 x 70cm

Tom 2006, ‘The World’ 50 x 70cm

Tom 2008, ‘Diamonds are Forever’ 150 x 116cm

‘Documenting Transience’ by Nicola-Louise Brandt, reprinted from Guy Tillim’s Roma, Città di Mezzo (Rome: Punctum Editions, 2009) Guy Tillim’s images of Rome are of silent, transient moments that blink between one articulated thought and another. Tillim does not memorialise or claim a sentimental intimacy with his surroundings. He investigates cycles of decay and regeneration in the city with the candour of an outsider and, in the process, he offers another way of feeling and thinking about archetypal and contemporary Rome.

GUY TILLIM

With his camera, Tillim walks the wet streets of the city in the light of late winter. A modern-day flâneur, his recordings pass only modest judgments on that which he documents. There is a neo-realist quality to Tillim’s Rome; the city is virtually emptied of people, the automobile substituting for human presence. We see vestiges of the rapid urban growth that ensued after Rome was declared the capital of Italy in 1870, continued under Fascism (1922-1942), and resumed again during Rome’s post-war

Roma, Città di Mezzo 2009 Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper 91.5 x 131.5cm each Editions of 5 + 2AP

period of reconstruction and development. Little since has impacted on the city’s topography with such force. An image of towering and uniform apartment blocks is emblematic of the late 19th century’s attempt to aggrandise the new capital. An oblique view of Augustus’ mausoleum in Piazza Augusto Imperatore and a photograph of Ponte Flaminio are expressions of Benito Mussolini’s verbose rhetoric. These sites formed part of the dictator’s obsessive drive to revive the glory of monumental Rome through direct referencing of the ancient in Fascist architecture. In the image of Augustus’ mausoleum, temporary fencing and a container in the foreground remind the viewer that the city, which continues to absorb and expand, still requires an endless cycle of maintenance to preserve its heritage. Tillim captures the dual effects of corrosion and proliferation in the Roman cityscape. He conveys a sense of transient power, in images of ghostly constructions both in the archaeological core of Rome and those tucked away in the city’s marginal landscape. His works underscore the organic and provincial nature of the city, in which everyday life is dominated by the tension of an incomplete and incoherent urban landscape still bound to its past.

Via del Porto Fluviale

Piazza dei Cinquecento

Pincio

Via Giuseppe Acerbi

Lungotevere Gianicolense

Berni Searle introduces the video Lull and related prints Water’s Edge, the first works in a new series titled Black smoke rising

Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop When the wind blows, the cradle will rock When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall And down will come baby, cradle and all.

BERNI SEARLE

Set in an apparent wilderness, there are traces of a garden once tended: rows of agapanthus obscured by overgrown grass, a dry fountain, a solitary arum lily, an archway of straggly creepers. Indigenous and alien, strangely rural and urban, the vista provides a haven of momentary escape.

Lull 2009 Single-channel HD video Duration 7 min 33 sec, sound Edition of 5 + 2AP

In medieval times, the garden was associated with the idea of the locus amoenas, the Latin expression for a ‘pleasant place’. This literary term refers to an idealised place of safety or comfort, usually a beautiful shady lawn or open woodland, often with connotations of Eden. The garden may be in a remote place and function as a landscape of the mind. Sometimes the function of the locus amoenas is inverted: instead of offering

Water’s Edge I, II, III 2009 Pigment ink on fibre paper 75 x 112cm each Edition of 5 + 2AP

refuge from time and mortality, it becomes the scene of violent encounters. In this body of work, the tranquility of the landscape is unexpectedly disrupted by a tyre set alight, a potent and sinister symbol of political protest, particularly in South Africa. The work was conceived at a time of a growing and pervasive ‘air of discontent’ in this country, which has recently been beset by protests by unions and mass demonstrations against poor service delivery. These protests can be seen as an extension of the sociopolitical dynamics that played out in the xenophobic attacks on ‘foreigners’ in May 2008, when immigrants became the scapegoats on whom similar frustrations were unleashed. The barricades of burning tyres set up during these protests are reminiscent of antiapartheid riots and demonstrations. Accompanied by struggle and freedom songs, there is a strange sense of déjà vu to the situation. The burning of tyres is also an insidious symptom of poverty and unemployment.

On the outskirts of cities, tyres are burnt overnight to recover the wire inside. This is sold as scrap for as little as 40 cents per kilo, and many tyres need to be burnt to obtain a kilo of metal. Laws have recently been instated making possession of this wire illegal and prohibiting scrapyards from buying it. However, tyres continue to be set alight, often as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fuelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; for burning the plastic off other metals, with harmful toxic effects for people in surrounding areas and for the environment. In South Africa, as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, the frustrations and levels of desperation will continue to grow. These simmering tensions have the potential to erupt, and, as in the video, black smoke threatens to engulf the garden. In Lull and Waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Edge there is a temporary abating, before the storm.

Lull

Waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Edge I

Waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Edge III

Waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Edge II

Willem Boshoff explains his interest in the language of the wind

Alles van waarde is weerloos (All things of value are vulnerable) – Lucebert (1924-1994)

The idea for Windwoorde came about when I observed a small gust of wind carry around

WILLEM BOSHOFF

the dry autumn leaves of beech trees in Sonsbeek Park, Arnhem, in the Netherlands. I have used the idea of the wind in previous works and here it struck me that wind needs the large trees and leaves in order to be heard and ‘seen’. Wind is the breath or spirit of the physical world and the objects through which it ‘speaks’ are its ‘vocal cords’. In Zulu, the word for wind is moya but it is also the word for ‘spirit’ and ‘breath’. I am predominantly a language artist and I found words for the wind in other languages where its meaning denotes the physical phenomenon as well as an abstract or even

Windwoorde 2008 Six lightweight banners, also called ‘leaves,’ strung up in mid-air from trees in a forest or from pillars, posts and the walls of buildings, approximately 110 x 100-200cm each Two slabs of black granite, 3 x 80 x 120cm each Night Winds 2009 Six beaded panels 70 x 100 x 5.5cm each

spiritual essence. Wind is air in motion. Languages are likewise constantly in a state of flux and movement. They tend to come and go in the history of the world and the ideas they convey are kept relevant with effort. Usually we preserve meaning by repeating our thoughts orally, but with the advent of writing and, lately, of cyberspace, it has become easier to make knowledge permanent. Just like the wind needs the anchor of trees, buildings and leaves to be heard, so too are languages and thought dependent on text, speech and our will to share for their preservation. In Latin the seeds of plants as well as the seed of man and beast are all indicated by the word semen. When we have a seminar we are sowing the seeds of ideas. Without wind, pollination cannot take place. Without the seeding of words, semination and semiology are not possible. My work alludes to seed and text in the form of colourful plastic sewn together in lush wordings. It further alludes to wind in the form of shapes that look like paper or leaves blown about. Finally it performs above an anchor in the form of two slabs of granite related to permanency and rootedness in the earth. The wind is transient, fleeting, vulnerable, and its capture is only possible poetically. Autumn leaves are equally transient and vulnerable. In their prime they exist as tokens of

virility, growth and life, but in seasonal time they crumble to dust and are integrated into the earth. Beliefs and values are also at the mercy of our resolve and our determination to publish, broadcast and share them – to speak and sow them so they may be heard and take root. The six suspended ‘leaves’ each contain a word for the wind/spirit/breath, carefully woven as recycled plastic into synthetic hessian. The BaPedi people stationed at Mogalakwena in the far northern region of South Africa used craft skills to make the leaves. The stitching resulted in a nodular visual effect that alludes to a sowing/scattering of seed on wind and paper. The Mogalakwena group also sewed seams into the banners that make ribbing in aluminium rods possible. This makes them look like framed kites and adds stability when they are strung up in the air. There is one wind name written on each leaf: Lumuya, Chelidonias, Vãyu, Zonda, Wagnark, Mana. These names are chosen from the six main continental areas: Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, North America and Oceania. On the two granite panels placed underneath are inscribed the six words for wind and what they mean, as reproduced below.

AFRICA Lumuya In Venda, a language spoken in South Africa, a soft breeze that airs the home or blows gently on the cheek. Sweetness and sensitivity from a friendly visitor give a sense of lumuya. In the Zulu language the wind is umoya, also spelled moja, which means spirit, intention and breath. The Umoja Gospel Choir sings inspirational songs. EUROPE Chelidonias An old Greek name for a west wind believed to bring the swallows into Europe from Africa. The wind and the swallows announce the arrival of springtime. Chelidonias also signals the opening of the sailing season and the arrival of scores of fish, and many fish species consequently carry aspects of the name Chelidonias. ASIA Vãyu A Hindu name for the wind and air. Vãyu is primarily taken to be the cosmic breath of the world. It facilitates the way we inhale and exhale and therefore provides our dynamic energy and inspiration. It is the underlying principle in meditation and is key to the enjoyment of good health and a fulfilled life.

SOUTH AMERICA Zonda In Argentina, a hot and humid wind that blows strongly across the Pampas plains. Although unpleasant in spring, the wind melts the snow when it reaches the higher regions of the Andes mountains. This in turn brings a welcome source of irrigation to the farming area of the Pampas that would otherwise suffer from drought. NORTH AMERICA Wagnark An Eskimo word for the north-west wind â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a favourable wind to travel in and to have around whilst going about oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tasks. Eskimos can tell whether they are slow or fast, hard-working or idle by comparing their pace to that of the Wagnark. The first Malamute dog from Alaska to arrive in Europe, in Switzerland in 1965, was named Wagnark. OCEANIA Mana Wind in the languages of Polynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Maori. In some parts mana means authority, control, influence, prestige, power and psychic force, but in other parts it is a diffused supernatural power, which has no will of its own and does not exist as a spirit, that may be present in living as well as non-living things.

Members of the Mogalakwena crafts group with the banners A procession as part of the Sonsbeek International Sculpture Festival Right: Windwoorde installed in Sonsbeek Park, Arnhem, the Netherlands

Chelidonias

Lumuya

Zonda

Wagnark

Mana

VÃ£yu

Dineo Seshee Bopape gives an account of making her video, Bird’s Milk this video began as a ‘love letter’ to a lover, simply detailing particular ‘everyday’ events in the relationship - a collage of several video clips from a 3megapixels digital camera a sentimental anthology of our time together ... ..., we broke up, and she dramatically told me that she did not want to be in any of my works.

DINEO SESHEE BOPAPE Bird’s Milk 2009 Single-channel digital video 5 min 44 sec, sound Edition of 3 + 1AP

i decided to delete (most of) her from the frames only choosing to keep the parts of the film where the camera moves between us thereby somewhat deleting ‘the story’, and keeping only its abstraction: (everything else) caught by a careless hand, a camera lost you might say ... or the things caught by an unseeing eye this process of deleting ... of re-editing what had already been edited out by the frame of the lens and reconfiguring the already re-presented memory (scenes performed within the relationship in front of the camera) and allowing the descriptions of things to become lucid shapes and colours bleeding into each other via the swift movement of the camera and the grainy texture of the pixelated image ... becoming a virtual field of colour(s) ... a story that has been diluted of its content into ... bird’s milk, a circular current of effects/affects ... the title phrase ‘i like to feed my lover bird’s milk’ i took from an eartha kitt song uska dara – it’s a turkish saying meaning something like ‘sweet nothings’, like something that is very very pretty, but impossible to reach ... a sweet but unattainable/ungraspable ideal perhaps?

Michael Stevenson on Tracy Payneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circular paintings Tracy Payne offers us a meditation on colour in her new series of paintings. The six colours of the visible light spectrum are familiar to us as the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, to which a seventh colour, indigo, is sometimes added. These colours correspond to the chakras or energy centres of the body in the Ayurvedic tradition, shifting from red at the base of the spine, through green at the heart centre, to violet at the crown of the head. For each colour and chakra, Payne has chosen a

TRACY PAYNE

flower indigenous to the Cape, abstracting it to create a kaleidoscopic and jewel-like circular composition. These radiating paintings bring our awareness to the intensity of colour and allow us to contemplate our own emotional experiences to the hues. The pulsating contrasts and optical illusions within the compositions mesmerise our minds beyond the finite points of focus to which we are accustomed when viewing the world. In many respects, Payneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Cape Chakras 2008/9 Oil on canvas Diameter 94cm

work could be viewed in the tradition of sacred art. The circular canvases recall the stained-glass rose windows of Christianity and the mandalas of Buddhism, among other forms inviting spiritual contemplation. At the same time, her flowers seductively remind us of the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth; the ravishing blooms will fade and go to seed in the continuing cycles of creation.

Rooimalva

Gousblom

Rooikanol

Moederkappie

Blouklokkie

Bobbejaantjie (Babiana disticha)

Bobbejaantjie (Babiana angustifolia)

Following on from Hottentots Holland: Flora Capensis, Andrew Putter again makes use of the past to construct images of how we might live together in the future Andrew Putter focuses on the ‘Wild Coast’ of South Africa in his new series of portraits. Many Europeans were shipwrecked along this coast in the 1600s and 1700s. Most fled or perished, but a handful were taken in by local Xhosa-speaking communities. Some of these European castaways formed deep ties with their African hosts, learning the language, marrying into the tribe, and dying as Africans. ‘Bessie’, for example, was a six-

ANDREW PUTTER

year-old British girl who washed up on the Mpondoland coast in the early 1700s, married a chief and became a great Xhosa queen. Putter’s portrayal of these real characters is clearly fictional yet he is careful to work within the space of the historically possible. Many of the adornments (both African and European) that appear on the models were sourced from important collections, and the choices of hairstyles, fabrics, flowers and plants were the result of research,

African Hospitality 2009 Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper 5 prints, 74 x 52.6cm each Editions of 8 + 2AP

collaboration and consultation with experts. The series takes its name from a painting titled African Hospitality. Painted in 1790 by George Morland, the work shows castaways from the Grosvenor (an English ship wrecked on the Wild Coast in 1782) being rescued by the native Mpondo. The survivors in Putter’s works are drawn from three historical wrecks – the earliest being the Portuguese Nossa Senhora de Belem in the mid-1600s, the latest the Grosvenor. Putter draws equally on the cultural histories of Europe and Africa in these works. Although the adornments and landscape are largely south-east African, the poses, compositions and lighting are heavily indebted to 18th-century English painting. Putter proposes that it is not inevitable for one culture to thrive at the expense of another, but that it is possible for new forms to emerge through the interplay of dissimilar cultures. Indeed, he shows that this interplay is already present in colonial history, gently reminding purists that everything is always already a mixture. Putter again draws on his long experience as a collaborator and as a producer working across various disciplines. These portraits would have been impossible without the generous, often central input of a number of contributors, to whom the artist is most grateful:

Photography and compositing Tony Meintjes Loans from private collections Michael Stevenson, Julie Atkinson (Atkinsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Antiques), Thomas van Glyswyk and Anelle Zaloumis (Zulu Azania), Stephen Long, Rayna Odes, Carol Kaufmann, John Caviggia Hair Tony Martin (Yazo 4 Hair), assisted by Hendrik Marais Stylist John Caviggia Make-up Tess Berlein Catering Flora Barrow Models Claire Berlein, Claire Watling, Tamara Quarmby, Dene Botha, Jesse Wentzel, Paul Underwood Special thanks Carol Kaufmann and Winnie Herbstein (Iziko South African National Gallery), Steven Long, Tanya Barben Research assistance Mohamed Adhikari, Federica Angelucci, Veit Arlt, Farzanah Badsha, Bridget Baker, Jaco Boshoff, Jaco Bouwer, Sue Clark, Hazel Crampton, Cheryl Farquharson (St Leger and Viney), Dr Sean Field, Dr Lesley Green, Patricia Hayes, Lindsay Hooper, Pieter Hugo, Daniel Isherwood, Franziska Jenni, Mungai Kinyanjui, Dr Gerald Klinghardt, Dr Susan Levine, Dr Tim Maggs, Judy Maguire, Andiswa Majwete, Vanessa Mandel (Woodheads), Deborah Mangold (World of Birds), Dr John Manning, Ralph Mayer (Mayers Fabrics), Brent Meersman, Lalou Meltzer, Zayd Minty, Nophumzile Mjo, Heath Nash, Peet Pienaar, Hayden Proud, Julia Raynham, Chris Ntombemhlophe Reid, Anna Richerby, Anette Roup, Christoph Schoen, Kay Shade, Jonathan Sharfman, Sandi Sinjake, Robert Shell, Sandy Shell, Doreen Southwood, Rod Suskin, Stephen Valentine, Carl Vernon, Gill Vernon, Ronel Wagener, James Webb, Leslie Witz, Ulrich Wolf, Prof Nigel Worden. Support and advice Tido Bam, Mary van Blommestein, Lindy Chong, Jenny Ferrini and Mike Ormrod (Orms), Geoff Hyland, Rob Keith, Byron Keulemans, Negeva Norval and Hans Stauch (Boss Models), Runette Louw, Bronwyn Moore, Binky Newman, Hans Niehaus (Hans Niehaus Collectors Specialist), Rayna Odes, Christopher Peter, Thomas Rebok, Lucy Turpin, Jenny Young, Claire Watling.

Mary Hosea

Joao the Portuguese

Lydia Logie

Guillaume Chenude Chalezac

Bessie

Zanele Muholi on the concept behind her red light district intervention My passion for women’s experiences and their history inspired Being (T)here, which is essentially a research project in which I explore a foreign space and interact with it. Photos in this series were taken in the red light district in Amsterdam while I was on a residency at the Thami Mnyele studio. When I conceptualised the project I had a lot of questions in mind, among them: ‘What

ZANELE MUHOLI

are the secrets and moral panics of society when one looks at these images and thinks of one’s sexuality?’ The major part of my work deals with marginalised groups and the multiple identities that come with ‘being’. This project continues my ongoing documentation of black lesbian identities, particularly looking at the different types of work women choose to do for survival. (It is a different question when someone is forced to do a certain kind of

Being (T)here 2009 Documentation of intervention Photographer: Sean Fitzpatrick

job against her will.) Part of the project is the continuous collaboration with other visual practitioners, as my own image is recorded by various photographers on my behalf. In this way I emphasise what bell hooks called ‘turning [my] own body into a subject of art’, as I consciously allow myself to be captured by the ‘other’.

Jane Alexander Born 1959, Johannesburg; lives in Cape Town. Alexander’s most recent solo exhibitions took place at the Jack Shainman Gallery, New York (2009), and at Durham Cathedral, UK, as part of the Durham University Institute of Advanced Study’s 2008/9 research programme ‘On Being Human’. Group exhibitions in 2009 include the fourth Tirana Biennale, the 10th Havana Biennale and the first Dojima River Biennale, Osaka. Dineo Seshee Bopape Born 1981, Polokwane; currently enrolled in MFA programme at Columbia University School of the Arts, New York. Latest solo exhibition: You Fucking

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Horrible Bitch! at Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam (2009). Group shows in 2009 include The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York, and Rebelle: Art and feminism 1969-2009, Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, the Netherlands. Bopape won the MTN New Contemporaries award in 2008. Willem Boshoff

Born 1951, Vereeniging; lives in Johannesburg. Windwoorde was

commissioned for the 2008 Sonsbeek International Sculpture Festival in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Recent exhibitions include Penelope and the Cosmos (with Karel Nel) at Circa on Jellico, Johannesburg (2009). Boshoff’s retrospective, Word Forms and Language Shapes, took place at the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, in 2007. Tom Cullberg Born 1972, Stockholm; lives in Cape Town. Cullberg’s most recent solo exhibition, Small Moments, took place at João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, in 2008. Group shows in 2009 include Sing into My Mouth and Big Wednesday at Whatiftheworld, Cape Town. Retha Erasmus Born 1977, Pretoria; lives in Cape Town. Recent group exhibitions include Production Marks: Geometry, psychology and the electronic age at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, travelling to the KZNSA Gallery in Durban and Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg, in 2007/8. The first sculpture in Erasmus’ trilogy, The Sum of Us, showed on In the Making: Materials and process at Michael Stevenson in 2005. Sabelo Mlangeni Born 1980, Driefontein, Mpumalanga; lives in Johannesburg. Mlangeni won the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2009. His first solo show, Invisible Women, took place at Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, in 2007. Group exhibitions include A Look Away: South African photography today at Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin (2008), and I am Not Afraid: The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg at Camera Austria, Graz (2007).

Zanele Muholi Born 1972, Umlazi, Durban; lives in Johannesburg. In 2009 Muholi was awarded a Fanny Ann Eddy accolade by IRN-Africa for her contributions to the study of sexuality on this continent; she also won the Casa Africa prize for best woman photographer and a Fondation Blachère prize at the Bamako biennial of African photography. Group shows included Life Less Ordinary at Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK; Undercover: Performing and transforming black female identities at Spelman College Museum, Atlanta, USA; and Rebelle: Art and feminism 1969-2009 at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, the Netherlands. Tracy Payne Born 1965, Cape Town; lives there. Payne’s most recent solo exhibition took place at the Kizo Gallery in Umhlanga, KwaZulu-Natal (2008). Group exhibitions in 2009 include Harbour: The expression of containment in contemporary South African art at the KZNSA Gallery, Durban. Andrew Putter Born 1965, Cape Town; lives there. Putter is the recipient of a 2010 fellowship from the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town. Group exhibitions in 2009 include Us at Johannesburg Art Gallery; Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art at the Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK; and the 10th Havana Biennale. Putter was a Spier Contemporary awardwinner in 2007. Berni Searle Born 1964, Cape Town; lives there. Searle’s fifth solo exhibition at Michael Stevenson will take place in 2010. Group shows in 2009 include the 10th Havana Biennale; Undercover: Performing and transforming black female identities at Spelman College Museum, Atlanta, USA; Rebelle: Art and feminism 1969-2009 at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, the Netherlands; Continental Rifts: Contemporary timebased works of Africa, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles; and Beauty and Pleasure in South African Contemporary Art, The Stenersen Museum, Oslo. Guy Tillim Born 1962, Johannesburg; lives in Cape Town. Tillim’s Roma, Città di Mezzo was commissioned by FotoGrafia, the photography festival of Rome (2009). His Avenue Patrice Lumumba travelled to the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris; Museu Serralves in Porto; the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA; FOAM_Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam; and Extracity, Antwerp, among other venues, in 2008/9.

Catalogue no 47 November 2009 Cover image Dineo Seshee Bopape, Birdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Milk, 2009, still from digital video Michael Stevenson Buchanan Building 160 Sir Lowry Road Woodstock 7925 Cape Town, South Africa Tel +27 (0)21 462 1500 info@michaelstevenson.com www.michaelstevenson.com Editor Sophie Perryer Design Gabrielle Guy Photography and image repro Mario Todeschini Printing Hansa Print, Cape Town

MICHAEL STEVENSON