Vernissage: Nicholas Hlobo and Lerato Shadi
Nothing like hanging out with arty types sipping on house red at an art opening in Jozi, always lots of eye candy around of both the artistic and human kind -after all, you can always hang out with the smokers outside if it gets too hot for you in amongst the talented. Tempted? Shimmy your touche over to the vernissage (très french for art exhibition opening) of Nicholas Hlobo and Lerato Shadi at on Thursday 6 May from 6 – 8 pm at Brodie/Stevenson gallery. The exhibition runs until 4 June 2010. Image: Left to right: Nicholas Hlobo, Isitulo samaNgesi sihlal’ iBhulukazi… 2010, ribbon, rubber on canvas; Isisele, 2010, ribbon, rubber on canvas Brodie/Stevenson is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Nicholas Hlobo, comprising new works on canvas. Any traditional notions of ‘painting’ technique are soon discarded as we encounter surfaces that have been slashed and then delicately stitched with ribbon and rubber, pockets of swollen canvas about to burst open, and ghostly allusions to real-world objects and spaces that seem to collapse in on themselves under the weight of imagined space. The artist has made the following comments on this new body of work: “The notion of pathways is carried out through this work. The lines that suggest these paths are drawn on a white sterile surface that I read as a landscape, or as skin. The lines bring with them energies that fertilise the landscape, resulting in certain areas swelling up as if impregnated by higher forces from faraway universes. The bulging areas are almost synonymous with skin trying to deal with ailments that have taken over. The skin of these objects also has to do with the space that exists somewhere deep in the core of one’s soul or imagination where everything moves with freedom that cannot be easily understood. Everything in this space is held tightly together and yet allowed to roam free. “One of the new works is titled ‘Icephe ifolokhwe ne bhoso yi five Pounds ten, isitulo samaNgesi sihlal’ iBhulukazi…’, which translates as ‘A spoon, a fork and a knife is £5.10, on an English chair now sits an Afrikaner woman’, and draws its title from a children’s game popular in the Eastern Cape in the early 1980s, where kids would sing this rhyme while running around chasing each other. I believe its origins have to do with the end of the Anglo-Boer war.” Nicholas Hlobo was born in Cape Town in 1975, and has a B Tech degree from the Wits Technikon (2002); he lives in Johannesburg. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist for 2009 with a solo exhibition touring...
Don’t Miss: Nandipha Mntambo – Umphatsi Wempi
Nandipha Mntambo was blessed to be born in the mountain kingdom of Swaziland – anyone familiar with the magnificent mountain monarchy will know how ubiquitous cattle are, one has to wonder if growing up surrounded by the gentle beasts has anything to do with the makings of the first solo exhibition of Nandipha Mntambo taking place at the Brodie/Stevenson gallery in Craighall in September. Nandipha says her upcoming body of work was in part inspired by some bullfighting she came across in Mozambique; we’re wondering if it was at that bullring just outside Maputo – intrigued, we once stopped and checked it out – it’s really eery, reminiscent of the bygone era of Portuguese occupation of Mozi… Anyway, we’re rambling – go and check out the exhibition for yourself and ponder on this brilliant young artists talent… Titled Umphatsi Wempi – loosely translated as ‘the general charged with overseeing a battle’ – the exhibition comprises several new sculptural works as well as video, photography and drawing. Central to this body of work is the concept of the boundary, particularly as something that constantly shifts and mutates, that is never fixed or static. The boundary between corporeal awareness and revulsion is explored through the artist’s use of raw cowhides, tails and ears, which are cured and sculpted. In Penis Vagina – One-Man Capsule (2009), the boundary between the need to fight and the need for protection is also apparent. Like Mntambo’s earlier piece uMcedo (2009), this work offers a space that one may enter for protection and perhaps preparation, only to emerge when one is ready. The sculpture is both penetrative and encapsulating, an evocative hermaphroditic form that speaks of pure potential. The artist’s interest in the dynamic tension that exists within the self, the push-pull between libido and mortido, life instinct and death drive, also appears in her photographic images. In The Rape of Europa, a reinterpretation of a Picasso sketch of the Minotaur caressing a girl, the artist occupies both roles, and in her recreation of Caravaggio’s painting of Narcissus gazing at his own reflection in a pond, she replaces Narcissus with herself as Zeus in bull form. In the bronze head-and-shoulders bust in the Renaissance tradition, she combines her own feminine features with those of Zeus disguised as a bull. In another new sculpture, Waiting (2009), a cowhide figure disappears into a wall. It is unclear whether the figure is waiting for salvation, or seeking a hiding place from an unknown terror. While the exposed rear of the prostrate form is undoubtedly a gesture of submission, there is also a sensuality and beauty to the figure, imbuing...
Don’t Miss: Two eminent Jozi photographer’s exhibiting
Get to the Brodie/Stevenson gallery next Monday night the 13 July 09 for a one-on-one walkabout with photographer Zanele Muholi. Zanele will be showing visitors around the her latest exhibit entitled Faces and Phases that opens tomorrow night. Musa Nxumalo will also be exhibiting his Alternative Kids at The Photo Workshop Gallery from 8 July -AND the two artists will be discussing ‘Sexuality and Subculture’ after Zanele’s walkabout… sho, lots to see – GO GO GO : Faces and Phases Brodie/Stevenson presents a solo exhibition by Zanele Muholi 9 July – 1 August 2009 Please join us for the opening on Thursday 9 July 2009 at 6pm Zanele Muholi will be giving a walkabout on Monday 13 July 2009 at 2pm at Brodie/Stevenson. The walkabout will be followed by a discussion between Zanele Muholi and Musa Nxumalo titled ‘Sexuality and Subculture’ to be held at the Market Photo Workshop. The discussion will be held on Monday 13 July 2009 at 6pm at the Market Photo Workshop. Zanele Muholi’s exhibition Faces and Phases is showing at Brodie/Stevenson from 9 July – 1 August 2009. Faces and Phases is an ongoing series of black and white portraits that focuses on the commemoration and celebration of black lesbians’ lives, and challenges the public’s perceptions of female and male identity.Collectively, the portraits become an act of visual activism, the photographer’s response to the violation, rape and murder of innocents because of their sexualities and ethnicities. Depicting women of various ages and backgrounds, this gallery of images offers a powerful statement about the similarities and diversity that exists within the human race. For more information about Zanele Muholi’s exhibition please click here Brodie/Stevenson is located on the ground floor, 373 Jan Smuts Avenue, Craighall, Johannesburg. Hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10.30am to 5.30pm, and Saturday from 9.30am to 3pm. Email info@brodiestevenson.com. Telephone +27 (0)11 326 0034. Fax +27 (0)11 326 0041. For directions to Brodie/Stevenson please click here For directions to the Market Photo Workshop please click here Musa Nxumalo’s exhibition Alternative Kidz is at The Photo Workshop Gallery from 8 July – 9 August 2009. Musa Nxumalo is the 2008 Edward Ruiz Mentorship recipient; his exhibition documents urban black youth who choose to identify with alternative culture. In doing so, Nxumalo re-presents and repositions not only mainstream South African youth culture, but also the ability of alternative counter-culture to react against social stereotyping. In this context, alternative culture is both culturally dissonant and individually liberating. For more information about Musa Nxumalo’s exhibition please click...
Self/Not Self – A collective of artists explore the Self
Brodie/Stevenson presents Self/Not-Self, the second curated exhibition that explores modes of self-representation across a range of contemporary art practices. Self/Not-Self 26 March – 25 April 2009 Opening on Thursday 26 March at 6pm The exhibition as a whole considers concepts of self-portraiture and the role of the artist/author. While it is undoubtedly reductive to interpret all work as autobiographical, the significance of how artists ‘write themselves into’ their work is fundamental to contemporary art practice. This ‘writing in’ may occur in various ways including performance, the gestural mark, the trace, the alter-ego, autobiography (both real and fictitious), confession and absence. This exhibition will look at indirect or ‘absent’ self-representational approaches, where strategies of surrogacy, projection and alternative personae are employed. Aspects of this approach include the object as stand-in for the self, self as alter-ego, self as artwork, as another’s body, and as text. These approaches contain an inherent sense of remove, and allow for a mode of autobiography through a third-person or object. In their ‘looking outwards’ to the world, these artists offer a challenge to the very idea of a coherent or contained self. Artists on the upcoming show include Avant Car Guard, Conrad Botes, Wim Botha, Reshma Chhiba, Simon Gush, Nicholas Hlobo, Lawrence Lemaoana, Michael MacGarry, Richard Penn, Wilhelm Saayman, Penny Siopis and Sober and Lonely. Brodie/Stevenson is located on the ground floor, 373 Jan Smuts Avenue, Craighall, Johannesburg. Hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10.30am to 5.30pm, and Saturday from 9.30am to 3pm. Email info@brodiestevenson.com. Telephone +27 (0)11 326 0034. Fax +27 (0)11 326 0041. Image: Lunga Kama – Ubuntu libhongo...
Wim Botha solo gallery exhibition
What more can we do BUT nag you to support local (young) artists? Besides give you everything you need get there? Just stop saying ‘one day’ and GO GO GO – you’ve got until the 13th December to catch Wim Botha’s first solo Gallery exhibition in Johannesburg…. for this debut, Wim Botha will present a new sculptural installation, large and small individual drawings and recent large-scale prints. The works are primarily concerned with the passage of time from a relativistic perspective. It makes reference to both inverted and non-chronological time and the resultant relativity of a personal point of view…The installation makes use of visual elements that have their origin in the languages of art history and historical visual culture and are presented in a semi-structured constellation that seems to suggest a non-linear timeline. Using as original source motif the standard illustrated depiction of time as a sequence of events consecutively arranged in a linear model, the work adapts and perverts this format in three-dimensional space – turning back on itself, this sequence with its various elements suggests a type of system, a volatile organism with high entropic possibility. The main structure of this constellation is formed by hexagonal mirror-sided vitrines, that, as a variation of the typical display cabinet, seems to be turned inside out, putting the surrounding elements as well as its larger surroundings on display. In the two-dimensional works, skeletal studies of human and animal figures in animated poses subjects the assumed finality of death as end of time to a longer time-frame. However, in ignorance of possible spiritual dimensions, these works remain in the material realm, hinting at another form of continuity. Brodie/Stevenson is located on the ground floor, 373 Jan Smuts Avenue, Craighall, Johannesburg. Hours are Tuesday to Friday, 10.30am to 5.30pm, and Saturday from 9.30am to 3pm. Email info@brodiestevenson.com. Telephone +27 (0)11 326 0034. Fax +27 (0)11 326 0041. Image: Gyps africanus, 2008, Pencil on paper, 40 x 50...
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