Represent Recommends: Theresa-Anne Mackintosh
Catch MENAGERIE from exciting upcoming young artist Theresa-Anne Mackintosh at the fab Momo gallery – it opens Thursday 8 November @ 18h30 and closes 26 November 2007. Theresa-Anne Mackintosh “Each has his or her own thoughts, as we know daydreams and visions are part of us all. These secret daydreams are revelations known only to the thinker. Everybody deals with something private in his or her head”. After having completed her MA (Fine Arts) degree at the University of Pretoria, Mackintosh joined a broadcast design and animation company in Johannesburg to further explore her interest in animation. Currently she is a full-time artist involved in various projects. Mackintosh works in various media, including painting; sculpture and animation. http://www.gallerymomo.com/ 52 7th Avenue Parktown North Johannesburg T: +27 11 327...
CATCH THIS QUICK! Kathryn Smith
We have been wanting to catch this exhibition since it started but have been too busy – you only have two days to catch brilliant young artist and ex-Durbanite Kathryn Smith’s work “In Camera” at the Goodman on Jan Smuts – so Go Go Go. We’ll do our best! The Goodman Gallery presents Kathryn Smith’s In Camera, opening on September 15 at 18h00. This is her first solo exhibition since her Standard Bank Young Artist touring exhibition Euphemism (2004-2005). The exhibition closes 6 October, 2007. In Camera is a Latin phrase literally meaning ‘in private’ or ‘in secret’. It is most commonly used in legal cases where testimony is presented in private chambers instead of in open court. In camera testimony is most often facilitated where reliving the experience of a violent and traumatic event through verbal narration would be aggravated by having to do this in public. This opportunity is often given to victims of sexual assaults and children involved in criminal cases. Kathryn Smith’s In Camera presents a controlled, immersive environment featuring a series of portrait drawings, sourced from a range of print and online media photographs and processed so as to blur the distinction between the handmade and the mass-produced. Her subjects are the victims and perpetrators of violent acts, the circumstances of which remain almost incomprehensible in their extremity, even if the facts surrounding tabloid revelations of these cruel private desires are known. Smith is particularly interested in how, through repetition, certain photographic images get detached from their subjects and the representation of a person becomes emblematic of ‘victimhood’, ‘the missing’, ‘monstrosity’ or ‘evil’. This kind of rhetoric functions as a means to situate the perpetrators outside the realm of human behaviour and does not allow us to dwell on the particular circumstances of each violent interaction. Smith’s drawings have been made with ultraviolet-sensitive inks, invisible to the naked eye. As an artist known to work with performance and photo-based media, the choice of ink, brush and paper presents another way of processing the photographic image, particularly these images mediated and re-mediated such that they become like a retinal afterimage, a trace of something we have seen or experienced but which remains beyond our grasp. In setting up a relationship between the spectrum and the spectral, In Camera is an exhibition of ghosts, an attempt to reclaim that which eludes cognitive and emotional capture and retention. The installation comprises audio and lighting components, making use of both the Goodman Gallery’s public façade and display windows to accommodate aspects of the exhibition for evening...
Design meets Art at Momo
WOW – Gallery Momo just keeps blowing us away with their vision and work. Up next is an awesome furniture exhibit featuring some of SA’s top furniture designers such as Gregor Jenkin. Buzzing, inviting and full of promise and inspiration, the “Design meets Art” kicks off on the 16 August. Go Go GO. PHILIP NEL EGG DESIGN TONIC DESIGN GREGOR JENKIN & STEVEN TANCHEL OPENING THURSDAY 16 AUGUST @ 18H30 52 7th Avenue Parktown North Johannesburg T: + 27 11 327...
Lolo Veleko @ the Goodman
Catch moving and shaking “street photographer” and artist Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko at one of our favourite galleries, the Goodman in Jan Smuts avenue, closing on the 11 August. You can read more about Lolo in an interview on AfricanColours where they describe Lolo’s backstory as: Nontsikelelo Veleko started photography as a part time study course at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg. Her first major photographic exhibition was “Seeing Women”, which took place at the Market Photo Workshop in 2005. This year she was selected to represent the Market Photo Workshop as participant at the Bieler Fototage, a Swiss photographic encounter. She was born in Bodibe, North West Province, South Africa and studied graphic design at Cape Technicon. In 1999 she enrolled at the Market Photo Workshop. Focusing on issues of the identity, Mute!Scream!Mute! examines how people present themselves to the outside world and thus construct their identities. Through the use fashion and clothing Nontsikelelo Veleko questions perceived notions of beauty. She focuses her lens on those around her, but at times she also turns the lens towards herself, posing both in guises of various identities and representing herself in self-portraiture. Focusing on issues of the identity, Mute!Scream!Mute! examines how people present themselves to the outside world and thus construct their identities. Through the use fashion and clothing Nontsikelelo Veleko questions perceived notions of beauty. She focuses her lens on those around her, but at times she also turns the lens towards herself, posing both in guises of various identities and representing herself in self-portraiture.The exhibition comprises three series of photographs. http://www.notblackenough.lolo/, a project that emerged out of Nontsikelelo Veleko’s early interests in issues surrounding identity in 2002. In this series of photographs she uses the self to explore South Africa’s mixed cultural heritage, assuming other peoples identities by donning different clothes and props. Her images challenge perceptions about identity that are based on appearances and historical assumptions (Murinik 2007). http://www.notblackenough.lolo/ explores Veleko’s identity in terms of the way other black people view her. Placed in the context of urban life, Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder, continues Veleko’s exploration of identity. Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder is a study, documentation and constructing of urban street fashion culture in Johannesburg, South Africa. It specifically looks at urban fashion around Johannesburg’s city centers and surrounding townships. Veleko uses this series of photographs to examine how people present themselves to the outside world and construct their identities. These portraits challenge perceptions of beauty, examining the very act of judging others in terms of the external identities that they project. A new photographic series of Self Portraits will also be exhibited...
Represent Review: 12 Naked Men
Our citizen journo AmorAmor popped into the new kid on the Rosebank art block for the opening of the gallery and a photographic exhibition. We were thinking, the city should consider naming the greater Rosebank towards Parkhurst area “Art Precinct”. It’s brimming with galleries that are filled with fascinating local and international artists… and all for mahala…Go Go Go. It does wonders for the artist in you. See pics here. 13th June – July 6th David Brown Fine Art 39 Keyes Avenue Rosebank Johannesburg (011) 788 4435 Gallery Gallery hours Mon-Fri 9am – 6pm and Saturdays 9am – 1pm The provocatively titled opening exhibition at the David Brown Gallery Rosebank is as deceptive as the gallery owner and artist in question. I dropped into the new David Brown Gallery, 39 Keyes Avenue, Rosebank, early yesterday morning. It was the best decision I made that day. Walking into the quiet and minimalist space you realize that this gallery is a work of heart. The austerity of the space makes it absolutely clear that this is where art is the focus, not ego or image. If, like me, you looked at the title of the exhibition and expected to see another photographic glorification of the (hu)man form, you could be a little disappointed. I was not. On the contrary, I was wonderfully surprised by how wrong an assumption could be. I guess I did have forewarning. The picture on the invitation is Michael Meyersfelds’ ‘Custom’, No. 6 in his series of twelve. This was not another Da Vincian “Universal Man” study, nor was it a Jean Paul Gaultier ad campaign. This was different; as Michael explained, “These twelve images were made to depict and convey the conditioning of man”. Michael’s pictures bear such titles as ‘Born’, ‘Repentance’, ‘Bewildered’, ‘Deceit’ and ‘Acceptance’. Each picture portrays the title, within the context of man’s conditioning, in wonderfully surprising and enlightening ways. From the attention to detail in the composition of each photograph to the variety and uniqueness of the models he chose, each piece shows you man/men in ways that are completely familiar and utterly new. The unfettered clarity of ‘Born’ and the stark reality of ‘Fear’ strike a chord of recognition somewhere in the region of your belly button. You feel a silence descend as you move from picture to picture that is somehow enhanced by the soundtrack that fills the room like smoke. The play of light in ‘Entitled’ and ‘Greed’ focuses your attention on the subjects so completely that it takes you a moment to realize there is a bigger picture both in and outside the frame. Perhaps that is the beauty of Michael’s work: its...
We will be back!
