Zavick & Ulric's washline fire burns brightly - South African Art Times

THE SOUTH AFRICAN 

ART TIMES 

December 08 - January 09 • Full version also available at www.arttimes.co.za 

Zavick & Ulric’s washline fire burns brightly

N 

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THE SOUTH AFRICAN 

ART TIMES 

December 08 - January 09 • Issue 12 Vol 3 • Subscription RSA 180 p.a • Dec / Jan Print & Distrib. 7 000 copies • Full online version available at www.arttimes.co.za 

Stefano Unterthiner Troublemaker Animal Portraits - Winner 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Natural History Museum , London, UK. 

To be seen, with other amazing images at The SA National Gallery. see www.iziko.org.za for details 

Non Toxic 

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Page 2 South African Art Times. December 08 - January 09 

The South African 

Art Times 

Dec 08 - Jan 09 

www.arttimes.co.za 

Published monthly by 

Global Art Information 

PO Box 15881 Vlaeberg, 8018 

Tel. 021 424 7733 

Fax. 021 424 7732 

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Deadlines for news, articles and 

advertising is the 20th of each 

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that could be found offensive 

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not necessarily represent the official 

viewpoint of the editor, staff 

or publisher, while inclusion of advertising 

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any business, product or service. 

Copyright of the enclosed material 

in this publication is reserved. 

Stefano Unterthiner Troublemaker Animal Portraits - Winner 2008 

Wildlife Photographer of the Year owned by The Natural History Museum 

, London, UK. To be seen, with other amaizing images at 

The SA National Gallery. see www.iziko.org.za for deails 

This category - one of the most 

popular in the competition - invites 

portraits that capture the character 

or spirit of an animal in an original 

and memorable way. 

The home of Sulawesi blackcrested 

macaques is the forest, 

and that was where the group 

that Stefano followed for weeks 

spent most of its time, in Tangkoko 

National Park in the north of the 

island. But when the macaques’ 

search for food took them to the 

coastal edge of the forest, they 

ventured along the beach to scour 

the rocks for fallen fruits and nuts 

or, in the case of the young ones, 

to paddle in the waves. This 

young adult, nicknamed Troublemaker, 

was more interested in 

Stefano. So getting a close-up 

wasn’t difficult. Handling Troublemaker’s 

mischief, though, proved 

more of a challenge. ‘He would 

leap at me and kick off my back 

like a trampoline,’ says Stefano. ‘It 

was part play, part confrontation, 

part attention-seeking, part curiosity.’ 

Trouble-maker’s expression 

captures, Stefano says, ‘the spirit 

of these wonderful monkeys’, and 

the setting makes it an unforgettable 

portrait. © Stefano Unterthiner 

/ Wildlife Photographer of the Year 

2008 

The South African Art Information Directory 09 

The trusted and most comprehensive SA Art Information Directory 

2009 (SAAID 09) is nearing completion, and will be available early in 

2009. Now in its 6th edition The SAAID 09 provides the user with a 

wealth of art information - both in terms of size and access into the 

South African arts community- and is South Africa’s white and yellow 

pages of the South African art world. Advertising from R 200 - R 3000 

See www.saaid.co.za for more details 

Caitlin Ross 

Artists do battle (again) 

with the Moustache Gallery 

Artists Nico Eilers and Gavin du Plessis are not charmed by 

Laurens Barnard of the Moustache Gallery 

Questions over the running of the 

Moustache Gallery in Stellenbosch 

have again been raised after a 

painting by local artist Gavin du 

Plessis was found damaged and 

discarded on the side of a farm 

road in October. 

The damaged painting, a 92cm 

x 92cm oil on canvas titled Cape 

Town ’73, is a hyper-realist work 

which formed part of du Plessis’s 

first solo series in 1973. 

It was found by a farm labourer 

at the Nooitgedacht Estate who 

noticed it had a price tag and the 

artist’s name on the back. Estate 

chef Maryke Reuvers said she 

managed to track du Plessis down 

by Googling his name. 

Du Plessis said he was alarmed 

when he got the news, as he had 

been told by Moustache Gallery 

owner Laurens Barnard that his 

painting had been “packaged and 

sent to a buyer in Germany”. 

“I was not aware that Stellenbosch 

was in the Bundesrepubliek,” said 

du Plessis. He said he had been 

paid the agreed-upon sum of R15 

000 by Barnard, but nonetheless 

felt “shocked, insulted and hugely 

disappointed”. 

Barnard has paid him for the painting 

but he nonetheless made out 

an affidavit stating: “As far back 

as November 2007 Mr. Laurens 

Barnard, owner of Moustache Gallery, 

informed me he had packed 

and sent off the artwork to a ‘buyer 

in Germany’.” 

Barnard said that he was awaiting 

confirmation of payment from the 

German buyer and that this is the 

first he’d heard of the painting being 

missing. He said some paintings 

that he had been storing in 

his house in Somerset West were 

transported to a storeroom on the 

same road as the one on which du 

Plessis’s work was discovered. 

“It could be that it fell off…maybe it 

was stolen.” 

Capt. JF Brits, in charge of the 

investigation, said he has been on 

leave and has thus not had time to 

get started on the case. 

But du Plessis is not the only artist 

involved with the gallery who is 

“mystified” by missing works or 

money, an issue that was reported 

on by the SA Art Times in June 

2008. 

Durban-based artist Julia Forman 

said at Barnard’s request she had 

sent two acrylic paintings to an 

auction in 2006. 

Barnard allegedly contacted her 

immediately after the auction to 

inform her that one piece was sold 

for R2 500 and the other would be 

sent back to her. 

“There was a point when I did get 

hold of him, and it seemed he was 

under pressure from a number of 

artists because he was committed 

to returning the work,” said 

Forman. 

But she said subsequent attempts 

to get both her painting and money 

from Barnard have been unsuccessful. 

Painter and multi-media sculptor 

Nico Eilers said after the same 

auction he had to threaten Barnard 

with legal action before Barnard 

agreed to a meeting at the gallery, 

at which, Eilers said, he failed to 

arrive. He said a woman at the 

gallery handed him some of his 

works, but one of his sculptures 

was still missing. Barnard evaded 

directly answering questions on 

the missing works, saying only 

that “most” of his artists have been 

paid and that he has “done a lot 

more for artists in this country than 

other people, putting their work in 

my gallery”. 

“Lots of people owe me money but 

you don’t see me running to the 

papers,” he said.

South African Art Times. December 08 - January 09 Page 3 

Media24 back off from defamation 

Staff writer 

In another David and Goliath 

court case, Media24 appear to 

have bitten off more than they’d 

like to chew when they attempted 

to sue Cape Town photographer 

and copyright fundi Geof Kirby for 

defamation after he questioned the 

legality of their freelance contracts. 

But in a turnaround, rather than 

breathing a sigh of relief at the 

withdrawal, Kirby would like to haul 

them back to court to face up to 

their syndication activities, which 

Kirby believes have been illegally 

carried out with no recompense 

to freelancers, for at least two 

decades. 

It seems Media24 unwittingly 

sprung their own trap when, 

following an email to colleagues 

within a closed e-group expressing 

this opinion, they served him with 

a letter demanding a retraction 

within 24 hours or face a R100 

000 defamation suite. 

But Kirby, incensed at the 

contracts Media24 expected 

freelancers to sign, as well as by 

their “bullying tactics”, refused to 

back down. 

He said Media24 were using their 

contracts to legitimise their foreign 

syndication practices, which he 

said he “believed” were illegal in 

terms of existing legislation, which 

includes the South African Copyright 

law (1978) with amendments, 

and the Berne Convention, to 

which South Africa is a signatory. 

On the cover of their contracts 

Media24 state that their agreement 

claim against photographer 

is merely a restatement of the law 

itself, something which Kirby said 

is “disingenuous”. 

“In fact it’s actually an attempt at 

deceit, especially in light of Media24’s 

past behaviour in trying to 

enforce rights they didn’t have.” 

In section six of their agreement 

they state the freelancer has to 

hand over all intellectual property 

rights and their moral rights (i.e. 

the right to be identified as the 

author and not to have their work 

mutilated in any way) to Media24. 

Furthermore, the section indemnifies 

Media24 from “any claim 

made against it that the use of the 

work infringes any copyright or 

other Intellectual Property rights 

held by a third party and against 

any loss incurred by Media24 

pursuant to such a claim”. 

This effectively makes the 

freelancer assume the responsibilities 

of a publisher, said Kirby, 

as should the publisher be sued 

for publishing an image, the 

freelancer would have to pay the 

costs. 

The main reason Media24 want 

to grab all these rights, he said, 

is so that they can syndicate the 

work on their business-to-business 

syndication arm, Images24, 

without having to pay the author 

of the work a cent. Their foreign 

syndication, he says, goes back to 

the ‘80s. 

After refusing to retract, a summons 

for defamation of character 

- in Afrikaans, was delivered to 

his door. He said he sent it back 

politely asking for an English 

translation. 

Media24 responded by saying he 

would suffer a default judgement 

if he didn’t deal with it in seven 

working days. 

Kirby then found a lawyer and 

started preparing his defence. He 

said he has found three legal opinions 

which argue that Media24’s 

foreign syndication violated South 

African copyright and the Berne 

Convention. 

And, he said, whether or not corporations 

can sue for defamation 

is an unanswered legal question 

in this country. (The well-known 

SAB vs. Laugh it Off case involved 

infringement of trademark) 

After two “false starts” in court, 

Media24 withdrew the case 

subject to both sides bearing their 

own costs. 

He said he does not know why 

they withdrew, but suspects that 

his requests for contracts pertaining 

to photographers whose work 

he knew had been syndicated 

abroad indicated the background 

knowledge he had, and put them 

on the run. 

However, Kirby has refused to 

bear his own costs as he says 

doing so would effectively penalize 

him for a case which never went 

through court, and has filed affidavits 

compelling Media24 to meet 

his costs on a taxed basis. 

Responding to emailed questions, 

Media24 communications head 

Lutfia Vayej said: “Media24 has al- 

ways acted in good faith to protect 

its good name and reputation and 

in the Geof Kirby matter Media24 

acted within its rights. Media24 

confirms that for operational 

reasons and for good relations 

with photographers generally, the 

matter was withdrawn.” 

In response to questions posed 

over the validity of their contracts 

in relation to South African 

copyright law and the Berne 

Convention, Vayej said copyright 

was a “complex area of law” that 

was subject to “a very high level of 

specialization”. 

“We therefore do not wish to 

express a legal opinion without 

taking specialized advice.” 

The final settlement date of the 

case is at this stage unknown. 

Subscribe to the 

South African 

Art Times 

R 180 pa 

to your door 

www.arttimes.co.za 

subs@arttimes.co.za 

Tel 021 424 7733 

KUNSGALERY 

JOHANS BORMAN 

FINE ART GALLERY 

CAPE TOWN 

Maggie Laubser ‘Boy playing guitar’ 1956 

A showcase for the best of 

South African Masters, 

as well as some leading 

contemporary artists. 

Telephone: 021 423 6075 

www.johansborman.co.za 

Mon-Fri: 10h00 - 18h00 

Sat: 09h00 - 14h00 

or by appointment 

In Fin Art Building 

Upper Buitengracht Street, Cape Town 8001 

Cell: 082 566 4631 

E-mail: art@johansborman.co.za

Page 4 South African Art Times. December 08 - January 09 

RT_TIMES_DEC.indd 1 2008/12/04 12:32:30 PM 

Free delivery within Cape area 

Editorial 

This month sees the 3rd year of 

the SA Art Times, which is thrilling 

especially after one of banks who 

issued me with one of the three 

credit cards that I took out to start 

this Art Times with - thought it 

novel that I survived their high 

rate of interest on the card, and 

has come in for funding an 

exciting series of artists profiles 

next year. 

This edition is a little different to 

others in so far as it should, we 

hope reflect more on suggestions 

that we received from a well 

supported readers survey. 

To this regards there are more 

artists, captains of industry profiles 

and some amusing, and sad 

stories, and more pictures. 

I hope that most of the typos and 

spelling that we experienced at 

the start up of the paper, are a 

thing of the past, this was due to 

a serious bottleneck in the 

production of the paper. 

Thanks for everyone’s very 

generous support, both financial 

and words of encouragement, it’s 

gone a long way and it means a 

lot to all of us here. 

Here’s to next year and, 

hopefully, my wish - many more 

and diverse local art publications 

that cover these interesting times 

that we are living in. 

Thanks again and here’s to a 

great creative year ahead to you. 

Gabriel 

Commissioning Editor 

South African Art Times 

December 2008 

The Editor 


Custom Stretched Canvasses 

Hand made Easels 

Painting & print stretching 

Tel: 021 448 2799 Fax: 021 448 2797 

artstuff@webmail.co.za www.artstuff.co.za 

I refer to Veronica Wilkinson’s review of Jean Campbell’s book I Adore Red in your November issue. Wilkinson 

makes the ludicrous assertion that Campbell’s book contains ‘significant art historical information’. Half-truths 

subtly laced with spite do not make good or meaningful art history. The book consists of poorly-written autobiography 

and worthless anecdote framed around paintings and drawings that are mired in mediocrity. Pedestrian 

prose perfectly parallels a turgid handling of paint. Outing herself as a profound admirer of the ‘art theory’ and 

practice of Vladimir Tretchikoff, Campbell exposes herself as wholly bereft of any understanding of the concepts 

of kitsch, ‘camp’ or even the ironic. Her underhand swipes at the late Professor Neville Dubouw (sic) and the 

New Group are personal vendettas more than anything else. Wilkinson has either failed to notice or is too polite 

to admit that Campbell’s book is merely a glossy axe-grinding exercise in self-justification and self-promotion. 

The reviewer Ambrose Bierce once said of a book that ‘its covers were too far apart’. 

His comment fits I Adore Red perfectly. 

Hayden Proud 

The Editor 


I SAW RED 

With reference to Jean Campbell’s book ‘I Adore Red’, reviewed by Veronica Wilkinson in your November issue, 

I must comment. I am a past student of the former Foundation School of Art, where I studied for and obtained 

two Diplomas over a five-year period in the 1980s - in Fine Art (Painting) and Book Illustration. 

Apart from many other bitter and vindictive statements about personalities in the South African art world, Campbell 

has made unfounded statements about The Foundation School of Art. This was a private, independent institution 

which offered 3- and 4-year fulltime courses in accordance with the syllabus specified in its prospectus. It 

produced excellent results in Fine Art (Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture), Graphic Design, Photography and Book 

Illustration. Its motto ‘Sans Travail Rien’ – without work nothing – epitomised what it stood for. 

Diplomas were awarded on the basis of external examination by suitably qualified professionals, teaching at 

tertiary level institutions. To illustrate my point, here are names of some of the examiners: Lyn Smuts, Cecil 

Skotnes, Geoff Grundlingh, Evelyn Cohen and Judith Mason. 

To impugn the integrity of persons of this stature by implying that they might have ‘rubberstamped’ the Diplomas 

for payment seems to me, to be libellous. 

The school provided an alternative to institutions such as UCT and the Cape Technikon. Many former students 

of the School have made names for themselves and some are recognized artists and represented in the SA 

National Gallery. Disadvantaged students from varying cultural backgrounds enjoyed bursaries awarded by the 

school. Also, I know that the school obtained sponsorship from outside sources on a regular basis for needy 

students. 

Unlike Campbell, many of us who obtained diplomas from the School can only look back at that period with 

gratitude. 

Jean Campbell’s book it seems is actually an excuse to publicly lash out at individuals and art 

Institutions in general, which she misguidedly felt, had wronged her. 

In view of what she has written, I’m sorry that i bought the book, a complete waist of my money. 

The Cape Gallery seeks to expose you 

to Fine Art that is rooted in an African 

tradition that is both eclectic and diverse. 

We rotate our exhibitions monthly touching 

your imagination with the unique 

cultural stamp that is our continent. 

We exhibit an extensive collection of work by leading 

South African Artists. Featured left are “Red Petals” 

and “ Cats do like affection” by David Kuijers. 

60 Church Street Cape Town 

Tel: +27 21 423 5309 

Fax: +27 21 424 9063 

Email: cgallery@mweb.co.za 

Web: www.capegallery.co.za 

Mon - Fri: 09h30 - 17h00 

Sat: 10h00 - 14h00 

American Express, 

Mastercard, Visa 

and Diner cards are 

accepted. Reliable 

arrangements can 

be made to freight 

purchases to foreign 

destinations. 

THE CAPE 

GALLERY 

082 SAAID Art Times David Kuijers 1 12/5/08 4:39:57 PM 

A.X.Truter 

letters to the editor 

Artist: Ann Gadd 

ArtStuff now available on the Garden Route 

Call Paul Tunmer 083 2610084

ART GUIDE 

Conrad Botes, Crime and punishment., Image courtesy of The Michael Stevenson Gallery.

SOUTH AFRICAN ART GALLERY SHOW LISTINGS FOR DECEMBER 

Eastern Cape 

East London 

Ann Bryant Art Gallery 

04 - 21 Dec 

Ceramic Secrets of the Eastern 

Cape, Eastern Cape Ceramics 

Association Exhibition 

9 St Marks Road, Southernwood, 

East London T. 043 722 4044 

Port Elizabeth 

Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art 

Museum 

04 Dec – 25 Jan, 

Who’s Who and What’s New 2008, 

A celebration of local talent, 

1 Park Drive, Port Elizabeth, 

Tel. (041) 586 1030, 

www.artmuseum.co.za 

Free State 

Bloemfontein 

Oliewenhuis Art Museum 

Until 04 Jan, 

Anthology – a mid-career retrospective, 

Lien Botha, 

16 Harry Smith Street, Bloemfontein 

T. 051 447 9609 

Gauteng 

Johannesburg 

Apartheid Museum 

Until 31 Dec, Transitions, 

Paul Emmanuel 

Northern Parkway & Gold Reef Road 

Ormonde Ext. 

Brodie/Stevenson 

15 Jan – 14 Feb 

Paintings by Robyn Penn 

373 Jan Smuts Avenue, 

Johannesburg T. 011 326 0034 

www.artextra.co.za 

Art on Paper 

Until 18 Dec 

San Art: etchings, lithographs and 

linocut prints 

44 Stanley Ave, Braamfontein Werf 

(Milpark), Tel. (011) 726 2234 

www.artonpaper.co.za 

Artspace - JHB 

Until 24 Jan, 

Oppitafel VIII (Group Show), 

A group exhibition featuring ceramic 

art and lighting design, 

24 Jan – 03 Feb,Flower Couture 

Jhb, by Franz Grabe 

142 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, 

T. 011 482 1258 

www.artspace-jhb.co.za 

David Krut Art Resources 

15 Nov – 15 Dec, Recent Editions, 

Bruce Backhouse 



www.davidkrutpublishing.com 

Gallery MOMO 

04 Dec – 05 Jan, Group Exhibition 

52 7th Avenue, Parktown North, 


www.gallerymomo.com 

Goodman Gallery 

20 Nov – 12 Dec, Real Beauty, 

photography by Jodi Bieber 


Johannesburg, 

www.goodman-gallery.com 

GordArt Gallery 

Until 13 Dec, Maureen de Jager, 

Grace da Costa, David Ceruti and 

Ludumo ‘Toto’ Maqabuka 


www.gordartgallery.com 

Johannesburg Art Gallery 

Until 01 Mar 09 Disturbance - An 

exhibition featuring Scandinavian 

and South African Contemporary Art. 

Gerard Sekoto Youth Festival, Oneday-event, 

16/12/08, 

04 Nov – 02 Feb 09, Artist at the 

Nando’s Project Room # 3, Themba 

Shibase. R30 Until30 Mar Retrospective 

Exhibition -Thami Mnyele 

and Medu 

King George Street, Joubert Park, 


Standard Bank Gallery 

Closed until February 

Until Dec 06, Judith Mason 

Retrospective Exhibition 

Cnr. Simmonds & Frederick Streets, 

Johannesburg, 2001 

Tel: 011 631-1889 

www.standardbankgallery.co.za 

University of Johannesburg Arts 

Centre Gallery 

Until 10 Dec, Modular Repetition, 

Gordon Froud 

University of Johannesburg, 

Auckland Park Kingsway campus 

cor Kingsway en Universiteits Rd, 

Auckland Park 

Tel. (011) 559 2099/2556 

Warren Siebrits Modern & 

Contemporary Art 

27 Jan – 06, Mar, Prints, Multiples 

and Photography VI 

Until 10 Dec, Stefanus Rademeyer 

- Crystalline Variations. 


Johannesburg, Tel. (011) 327 0000 

www.warrensiebrits.co.za 

Pretoria 

Alette Wessels Kunskamer 

Exhibition of Old Masters and 

selected leading contemporary 

artists. 

Maroelana Centre, Maroelana. 

GPS : S25º 46.748 EO28º 15.615 

Tel: +27 (0)12 346 0728 

Cell: 084 589 0711 

www.artwessels.co.za 

Centurion Art Gallery 

15-31 Jan, Exhibition of Mixed Media 

and Paintings, by the Centurion Art 

Centre 

Tel: +27 (0)12 358 3477, 

www.pretoriaartmuseum.co.za 

Fried Contemporary Art Gallery 

29 Nov – 24 Jan 09 Paper + +, 

Pascual Tarazona, Lien Botha, Lindi 

Sales 

430 Charles Str, Brooklyn, Pretoria 

Tel: 012 346 0158 

www.friedcontemporary.com 

Magpie Gallery 

Until 02 Jan, An evening with 

Tretchikoff, A collection of playful 

works by a variety of quirky artists 

Shop 21B, Southdowns Shopping 

Centre, Centurion T. 012 665 1832 

www.magpie.co.za 

Pretoria Art Museum 

Tel:(012) 344 1807/8, 

art.museum@tshwane.gov.za 

PAM- South Gallery 

Until Dec 08, A story of South African 

Art. A selection of artworks from the 

permanent collection of the museum. 

Includes works of early 20th century 

painters. Resistance artists of the 

1980s and artists of the 21st century 

PAM - North Gallery 

04 Dec – 10 Jan 09,Tshwane University 

of Technology Students: Applied 

Arts Exhibition 

Albert Werth Hall - 11 Dec – 25 Jan 

09, Croation Drawings 

Pretoria Association of Arts 

18 Jan – 05 Feb 

Exhibition of all SANAVA branches 

173 Mackie Street, New Muckleneuk, 

Pretoria, Gauteng, 0181, 

Tel. (012) 346 3100 

www.artsassociationpta.co.za 

UNISA Art Gallery 

29 Nov – 16 Jan (closed 24 Dec – 04 

Jan 09), UNISA final Year Visual Arts 

and Multimedia Students Exhibition 

KwaZulu-Natal 

Durban 

Art Space - DBN 

Until 17 Jan, 6th Annual Affordable 

Art Show 

3 Millar Road, Durban T. 031 312 

0793, www.artspacedurban.co.za 

Bank Art Gallery 

06 Nov – 06 Dec, Memento Mori, 

Bronwen Vaughan-Evans, 217 

Florida Road, Morningside, Durban 

T. 031 312 6911 

www.bankgallery.co.za 

Durban Art Gallery 

Until 31 Jan 09, Construct: Beyond 

the documentary Photograph, Curated 

by Heidi Erdmann and Jacob 

Lebeko. Featuring Roger Ballen, 

Zander Blom, Lien Botha, Jacques 

Coetzer, Abrie Fourie, Nomusa 

Makhubu, Zwelethu Mthethwa, 

Barbra Wildenboer, Dale Yudelman, 

Bernie Searle. Until 15 Feb 09, 

Indian Ink, Indian South Africans in 

the media: A photographic history of 

propaganda and resistance. Until 18 

Jan 09 Standard Bank Young Artist 

2008: Lolo Veleko. 

Second Floor, City Hall, Smith 

Street, Durban, 031 3006238 

Kizo 

09 Dec – 10 Jan,Against the 

Wind,Natasha Barnes 

Shop G350 Palm Boulevard Gateway 

Theatre of Shopping Umhlanga 

T. 031 566 4322 www.kizo.co.za 

KZNSA Gallery 

Until 11 Jan, SUSS’Tainable design, 

Industrial and product design,fashion 

and jewelry,books on art,editioned 

prints,drawings and sculptures 

166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood, T. 031 

2023686, www.kznsagallery.co.za 

Northern Cape 

Kimberly 

William Humphreys Art Gallery 

Until 31 Dec, Lino-cut artists, Alan 

Grobler. Until 31 Dec, Photography, 

Marlene Neumann 

Civic Centre, Cullinan Crescent, 

Kimberley, Tel. (053) 831 1724, 

www.museumsnc.co.za 

Western Cape 

Cape Town 

34 Long 

Until 24 Jan,Benefit of 

Doubt,Sculpture by Adrian Köhler. 

Until 24 Jan, Four, A group exhibition 

34 Long Street, Cape Town 

T. 021 426 4594, www.34long.com 

Art B Gallery 

03 Dec – 21 Jan, Self of Nowhere, 

Susan Kruger-Grundlingh and 

‘Stripped’ ceramics by Hennie 

Meyer, Photographic exhibiton by 

Stanford artists Annalize Mouton and 

lampshades by woodturner Attie van 

der Colff,28 Jan – 25 Feb 

Library Centre, Carel van Aswegen 

Street, Bellville T. 021 918 2301, 

www.artb.co.za 

Association for Visual Arts (AVA) 

Wrapped, Ready and Counting down 

- Artreach fundraiser, 15 & 17 Dec. 

19 Jan – 06 Feb,Exhibition of works 

by Lindile Magunya, Mwande Zenzile 

and Kilmany-Jo Liversage 

35 Church Street, Cape Town,Tel. 

(021) 424 7436, www.ava.co.za 

Bell-Roberts Contemporary Art 

Gallery 

Until 17 Jan, Prospects of Babel, 

Photographs by Greg Marinovich 

& Leonie Marinovich. Pieces 

of 8,Sculpture by Kevin Brand. 

Until 17 Jan,Wood and Clay, Noria 

Mabasa,22Jan – 21 Feb. 

176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, 

www.bell-roberts.com 

Blank Projects 

Until 19 Dec, Point Blank, Pippa 

Stalker.[c.t.] drawings sounds video. 

Esther Ernst & Jörg Laue. 

198 Buitengracht Street, Bo-Kaap, 

Cape Town, 

www.blankprojects.blogspot.com 

Plett Observations (Bruce Backhouse) at the Upperdeck Gallery forms 

part of its Summer exhibition. See more at: www.upperdeckgallery.co.za 

Cape Gallery 

Until 13 Dec, Recent Paintings by 

Jen Lewis. 14 Dec – 10 Jan, New 

work by David Kuijers and glass 

beads by Ingrid de Haast and Diana 

Ferrera 

60 Church Street, Cape Town 

T. 021 423 5309, 

www.capegallery.co.za 

David Krut Publishing: Fine Art 

and Books 

Until 15 Dec, Mirror: an exhibition 

of watercolour monotypes, Bruce 

Backhouse 

31 Newlands Avenue, Cape Town 

T. 021 685 0676, 

www.davidkrutpublishing.com 

Erdmann Contemporary / 

Photographers Gallery 

Until 31 Jan, Home is my castle: 

Lien Botha, Angela Buckland, Jean 

Brundrit, Abrie Fourie, Diek Grobler, 

Luan Nel, Collen Maswanganyi, 

Maré van Noordwyk, Nontobeko 

Ntombela, Jurgen Schadeberg, 

Themba Shibase, Leonora van 

Staden, Bronwen Vaughan-Evans 

and Dale Yudelman 

63 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town 

T. 021 422 2762 

www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za 

Everard Read Gallery - Cape Town 

11 Dec – 04 Feb 

Summer Exhibition,Painting and 

sculpture,including Anton Brink, 

Ricky Dyaloyi, Hanneke Benade, 

Vusi Khumalo, John Meyer and 

Velaphi Mzimba, amongst others 

Portswood Rd, V&A Waterfront 

Goodman Gallery, Cape 

Until 17 Jan, (REPEAT)from the 

beginning by William Kentridge. 24 

Jan – 21 Feb, Flux by Deborah Bell. 

3rd Floor, Fairweather House 

176 Sir Lowry Road Woodstock, 

Cape Town T. 021 462 7573/4, 

www.goodmangallerycape.com 

Irma Stern Museum 

10 Dec – 17 Jan Ceramics 

by Clementina van der Walt. Joe 

Faragher, 11- 19 Dec. 

Cecil Road, Rosebank, Cape Town 

T. 021 685 5686, www.irmastern. 

co.za 

South African National Gallery 

Until Jul 09, Scratches on the Face. 

Until 15 Mar 09, Voices of the 

Ancestors 

Until 08 Mar, I am not me, the horse 

is not mine, an installation of 8 film 

fragments by William Kentridge. 12 

Dec – 15 Mar, Wildlife photographer 

of the Year Exhibition, Until 22 Mar, 

Past/Present, Andrew Verster 

Government Avenue, Company’s 

Garden T. 021 467 4660, 

www.iziko.org.za 

João Ferreira Gallery 

Asleep Inside You, Kate Gottgens, 

Until 27 Dec, 26 Nov – 20 Dec, 

Naked, In Association with Mica Curitz 

(at 80 Hout Street Cape Town): 

Cathy Abraham & Jenny Schneider. 

05 – 29 Nov, Exhibition of Paintings 

and Drawings including 

Leon Vermeulen, Lauryn Arnott, 

Douglas Portway, Michael Taylor. 

Loop Street, Cape Town 

Lindy van Niekerk Art Gallery 

From 02 Nov, Carla Bosch solo 

33 Chantecler Avenue, 

Eversdal,Durbanville, 

Tel. (021) 913 7204/5, 

www.artpro.co.za 

Michael Stevenson Contemporary 

Until 10 Jan 09, 13th Annual Summer 

Exhibition - 10 projects including 

Nicholas Hlobo, Deborah Poynton, 

Zanele Muholi & David Goldblatt, 

plus Andrew Putter, Paul Edmunds 

and Daniel Naudé. Ceramics by 

Hylton Nel also on show. Cain and 

Abel,Solo exhbition of new works 

by Conrad Botes. 15 Jan – 21 Feb, 

Nollywood,Solo exhibition of photographs 

by Pieter Hugo 

Ground Floor, Buchanan Building, 

160 Sir Lowry Road, Cape Town 

T. 021 462 1500 

www.michaelstevenson.com 

Sanlam Art Gallery 

Until 16 Jan 09, Decade Highlights 

from 10 years of collecting 

2 Strand Road, Bellville 

Tel. (021) 947 3359 

www.sanlam.co.za 

Urban Contemporary Art 

17 Dec - 24 Jan,Twenty Artists, 

Twenty Portraits 

46 Lower Main Road, Observatory, 

Cape Town T. 021 447 4132, 

www.urbancontemporaryart.co.za 

What if the World… 

Until 17 Jan, Big Wednesday, Major 

Group Exhibition 

First floor, 208 Albert Road 

Woodstock T. 021 448 1438 

www.whatiftheworld.com 

The Castle 

15-Dec, Generation Y, Artwork from 

the Artists Internship Programme 

Goodhope Studios, The Castle, 

Darling Street 

John Klynsmith 

Until 15 Jan, Exhibition of Art, Jewellery 

and Sculptures 

John Klynsmith Studio, 17 Rochester 

Road, Bantry Bay,Tel: (021) 434 

3026. 

Rose Korber 

15 Dec – 11 Jan, 17th Art Salon at 

Rose Korber Art 

48 Sedgemoor Road, Camps Bay, 

Tel: (021) 438 9152, www.rosekorberart.com 

Franschhoek 

Gallery Grande Provence 

Until 09 Jan, Angels, Group Exhibition, 

Main Road Franschoek. 01 

- 28 Feb, Feast, Louis Jansen van 

Vuuren, 60th birthday celebration. 

T. 021 876 8600 

www.grandeprovence.co.za 

George 

Strydom Gallery 

Until Nov 09, 40th Annual Summer 

Exhibition, Selected artwork from 

established SA Artists 

Tel. (044) 874 4027,www.artaffair. 

co.za, Marklaan Centre, 79 Market 

Street, George 

Stellenbosch 

Dorp Straat Gallery 

Until 16 Jan, Christmas Group Exhibition, 

Curated by Mike Donkin 

144 Dorp Street, Stellenbosch 

T. 021 887 2256 

www.dorpstraatgalerie.co.za 

Sasol Art Museum 

14 Jan – 28 Mar,Retrospective 

Exhibition, Judith Mason 

52 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch. 

7600 

University of Stellenbosch 

Art Gallery 

Until 08 Jan, 30 x 30 sale/verkoping 

- 5th year students. 12 Jan - 07 Feb, 

Masters Degree students (exams), 

Visual Arts Dept. Stellenbosch 

University 

cnr of Bird and Dorp Streets, 

Stellenbosch 

SMAC Art Gallery 

27 Nov – 15 Jan 09, Retrospective 

Exhibition, Fred Schimmel at 80 

De Wet Centre, Church Street, 

Stellenbosch T. 021 887 3607 

www.smacgallery.com 

Stellenbosch Art Gallery 

Permanent exhibition of Conrad 

Theys, John Kramer, Gregoire 

Boonzaier, Adriaan Boshoff and 

other artists. 

34 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch 

T. 021-8878343 

www.stellenboschartgallery.co.za 

Red Black and White Gallery 

07 Feb – 07 Mar,Exploring 

lines,Strijdom van der Merwe 

5a Distillery Road, Bosman’s Crossing, 

Stellenbosch, 021 886 6281, 

www.redblackandwhite.co.za 

Hermanus / Stanford 

Stanford Galleries 

20 Dec – 04 Jan Exhibition of 

works by Peter Diggery, Lorna Skaife 

and Charles Kamangwana. 

11-13 Queen Victoria Street Stanford 

Tel: 028 341 0591 

www.stanfordgallery.co.za 

Send your show 

and event listings to: 

show@arttimes.co.za


David Robinson, One of the works at 136 Campground Rd, Rondebosch, Cape Town 

(left) Thami Mnyele with the Medu Group art ensemble retrospective work will be shown at 

The Johanesburg Art Gallery from end of November. (right) Thami Mnyele, there goes a man 

The Hout Street Gallery Summer Salon 

The Hout Street Gallery Summer Salon 

opens on 4 December and runs 

until the end of February 2009 at: 

270 Main Street, Paarl. 

The Gallery is open Monday - 

Saturday from 08:30 - 5:30 pm 

and on Sunday from 10:00 - 5:00 pm. 

Visit www.houtstreetgallery.co.za 

or contact 021 872 5030. 

The Evangelist by Ann Lindsell-Stewart 

Nontsikelelo Veleko Wafakingoma Phakathi Kwam, Umdloti, KwaZulu Natal 2007 (detail) 

WONDERLAND 

by Nontsikelelo Veleko, Standard Bank Young Artist 2008 on view from 20 November 08 to 18 January 09 

Durban Art Gallery 

2nd Fl., City Hall, Smith St., Durban Tel: 031 3112264/9. Mon - Sat 08:00-16:00 Sun 11:00-16:00

ART PIG 

Alex Dodd 

The first work of art I ever bought 

was a large-scale charcoal drawing 

by Mark Hipper. It was part of the 

controversial show that earned 

him a banning order from the new 

regime at the National Arts Festival 

in Grahamstown in 1998. The 

exhibition, which touched on the 

awkward area of children and eroticism, 

was one of the first flourishes 

of South African public life that 

prompted the new state to reveal 

its inherent moral conservativism. 

My purchase was informed less 

by the so-called edgy and explicit 

nature of the show than with the 

context of its reception and the 

complexity of moral dogmatism. 

The work I fell in love with was a 

bold charcoal drawing that now 

hangs in my study opposite a 

poster from a show I saw at the 

Museum of Modern Art in New York 

in 1997. The Stenberg Brothers: 

Constructing a Revolution in Soviet 

Design was a show that celebrated 

the beauty – the seductive eye 

candy – of Soviet propaganda. 

But back to Hipper. In the central 

strip of a large sheet of crisp white 

paper is a black-and-white image 

of a young girl’s face. She gazes 

directly at the viewer through a pair 

of spectacles and, in optometrist’s 

lettering in the white strip above 

her face, are the enigmatic words: 

‘Good vision should be maintained.’ 

What do the words mean? That 

we should have our eyes checked 

regularly? That is it important to 

maintain a good outlook on life? 

Well, of course it is. 

But there is an unnerving fascist 

twinge to the phrase: an insistence 

on good vision at any cost. And 

what is ‘good’ vision? Who determines 

what is ‘good’ and what is 

not? Having grown up in apartheid 

South Africa and lived through the 

blinding idealism that fuelled the 

transition to a new nationalism 

– that although not remotely as 

dire as the previous version, is still 

nationalism and still flawed – these 

are ideas that really get under my 

skin. 

In my office the bespectacled girl in 

the Hipper drawing faces a bespectacled 

man in the Stenberg Brothers 

poster – two figures eternally 

locked into an unspeakable tension 

between different ways of seeing. 

Between them is the chair where 

I sit and write, hoping that their 

refracted and separate visions will 

always somehow inform mine. 

At Hipper’s latest solo at the Obert 

Contemporary I was thrilled to 

discover that he is still exploring 

the same difficult territory with the 

same exacting attention to the 

pristine sensuality of his surfaces. 

After a Model features a series of 

not exactly black and white, but 

valium grey paintings, several of 

which could quite happily adorn a 

contemporary edition of Vladimir 

Nabokov’s Lolita. Sharing a highly 

refined aesthetic with the work of 

Sanell Achenbach and Doreen 

Work by Mark Hipper showing at the Obert Gallery, Jhb. 

Southwood, Hipper’s paintings are 

all about memory and desire, social 

discipline and awkward personal 

submission to controlled group 

behaviour. 

They are drawn from 1950s 

Department of Education manuals 

for physical education instructors, 

and anatomy books that illustrate 

a particular directive or lesson. 

Imbued with the ominous nationalism 

of the era, these images are 

also strangely, unnervingly erotic. 

The pale white tones of the young 

girls’ thighs are highlighted by the 

blackness of their regulation shorts 

and crisp white sport shirts as they 

run, jump and do cartwheels, casting 

their strange shadows across 

the blank sports field… 

My next excursion to the opening 

of siblings Alexandra and David 

Ross’s In Camera at Resolution 

Gallery was a continuation of the 

erotically charged black and white 

theme. Alexandra Ross’s series 

of dimly lit nude self portraits are 

printed onto metal plates referencing 

Victorian daguerrotypes. You 

have to get up really close to see 

the luscious curves of the naked 

body in her strip of images, evoking 

a naughty through-the-keyhole 

feeling. 

Whereas her images are small, 

dark and provocative, the largescale 

photographs that face them 

are flooded with grainy light. David 

Ross shot his bedroom scenes 

with a cell phone and enlarged the 

low-res files almost to the point 

of disintegration, giving one the 

dreamy sense that the figure in 

the image is only half there – an 

ideal medium for the portrayal of 

that ‘morning after the night before’ 

sense of absence and perhaps 

even loss. 

Whereas Alexandra’s images have 

a Victorian studio feel, David’s 

recall the sexuality of Jean Luc 

Goddard movies. Both series are 

unashamedly nostalgic in feel – 

adding to that sense of something 

that is not quite there, bodies that 

can’t quite be had or experienced 

in full – this being an essential 

ingredient in the visual or literary 

sense of the erotic. Not having, not 

fully remembering, not being able 

to go back… so we’re left with the 

decided desire for more. 

Fanning the Flames 

What and who is fanning the eternal braai in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town 

Work by Bongumusa Hlongwe at the DUT Gallery, Durban. 

THE ART 

COWBOY 

Peter Machen 

There is a gentle unspoken feud 

between myself and the Durban 

University of Technology’s Fine 

Arts Department. Every year I 

attend their year-end exhibitions. 

And every year I complain publicly 

about something. It’s become 

something of a joke in fact. This 

year they made a map – something 

that I have been requesting 

in various media for years – “to 

make Peter Machen happy”. 

Funny thing is, though, if I hadn’t 

run into one of the lecturers the 

day before I wouldn’t even have 

known the show was happening 

because no-one invited me. Not 

that I need a personal invitation 

but as one of a very small circle of 

people in Durban who write about 

art, they could have sent me an 

email. Or even announced it in the 

papers. A billboard, whatever. Or 

maybe I’m being naïve and they 

simply didn’t want me to come 

and start my complaining. 

But I don’t think that the Tech has 

ever realised the flattery inherent 

in my continual criticism. The 

department, against all odds – facing 

the perpetual cost-cutting and 

diminishing resources that seem 

to defined modern institutional life 

– regularly produces promising talent 

and is a vital cog in Durban’s 

creative sector. And that talent 

should be made to look as good 

as possible on the one night of the 

year that the public gets to see the 

work it produces. It should shine. 

It should sparkle. It should sell. 

And some years they get it right. 

This year wasn’t too bad. There 

was the aforementioned map. 

There were arrows pointing people 

in the right direction (which really 

helped. It’s the first year that I’ve 

not walked around with a small 

crowd of people looking for the 

art). And there was some very 

promising young artists. But much 

of the work lacked curation. Which 

sounds like a tiny thing but it’s so 

important. You can’t just make 

a bunch of art and leave it lying 

around the room. If you do that it’s 

kind of not art anymore (unless 

perhaps you’re making work that 

is about leaving it lying around 

the room). I’m not saying any of 

the students took precisely that 

approach but a few of them came 

pretty close. 

There’s a degree of arrogance 

inherent in nearly all art-making. 

“Look! I made this”. This is the 

arrogance of the gallery, of the 

white wall, the cistine chapel, the 

arrogance of not doing a real job, 

of not going out into the fields. The 

DUT is a governmental academic 

institution. It’s not allowed to be 

that kind of person. But just for 

one night it should try to pretend. It 

should treat all it’s students’ work 

as jewels of the night, rare and 

precious as some of it is. Were 

I more of a lunatic I might even 

suggest they produce a catalogue 

every year... 

And so to the art. And instead 

of saving the best for last, I’ll 

dive right in. This year was the 

first time that a single talent had 

dominated my memory of the 

show so exclusively. Of the thirty 

or so young artists whose work 

was on show, one talent stood 

out high above the others. If his 

fourth year exhibition is anything 

to by, Bongumusa Hlongwe is 

already poised for the international 

stage. An accomplished painter 

and sculptor, his work echoes 

established talents such as 

Willie Bester and Andries Botha, 

but – importantly – even as his 

works reference these masters, 

consciously or not, there is a 

profound sense of a unique artistic 

vision, Hlongwe’s various narrative 

strands virtually bursting out of the 

work. As well as being technically 

versatile and producing work so 

rich in content and concept, 

CONTINUED on Page 19 

THE ARTFUL 

VIEWER 

Melvyn Minnaar 

Denial in Venice 

Alex Emsley 

Paolo Lughi is the coordinator of 

the press office of la Biennale di 

Venezia, and was rather surprised 

when he was told his office is 

wrong. It probably wasn’t his fault. 

His office had issued a release 

announcing that one of ‘the 

countries present for the first time’ 

in the upcoming Venice art fest 

(number 53, from June 7 to November 

22, 2009) is South Africa. 

(Together with Andorra, Gabon, 

Montenegro, Pakistan, Monaco, 

and the United Arab Emirates, by 

the way.) 

Dearly-departed and very-alive 

South African artists surely sat 

up in stunned disbelieve at such 

misinformation. 

Before the cultural boycott kicked 

in, South Africa regularly had 

artists at the biennale. And, since 

the early 1990s, quite a number 

have managed to get there and 

flaunt their skills in the Giardini di 

Castello or somewhere in the halls 

of the Arsenale. 

Of course, one can easily dismiss 

this bit of nonsense as a faux-pas 

by lesser-informed, hyped-up 

media personnel. (The record 

was set straight via e-mail from 

Cape Town.) Those who have 

been tracing the history of South 

Africa’s relationship with the 

arcane establishment and system 

that makes la Biennale, however, 

will suspect this ‘misspeak’ the 

result of yet another bureaucratic 

entanglement. 

The first thing that sets one 

thinking, reading between the 

lines of that press statement 

which reported that “the president 

... Paolo Baratta, along with the 

director .... Daniel Birnbaum, met 

today ... the representatives of the 

nations participating ...”, is that 

word ‘representatives’. 

Who, from our mission in Italy 

(surely a diplomat), was that representative 

- clearly clueless to the 

fact that South Africa has been 

represented at the Venice biennale 

for yonks? 

Since 1993, when South Africa, 

on the cusp of democracy, had a 

hastily-arranged presence, the link 

between South African art and 

the world’s oldest showcase of its 

contemporary production has been 

a gothic maze. Blame it on the 

bureaucracy; both sides. 

That year, South Africa’s small, 

eye-catching show Affinities in the 

palazzo Giustinian Lolin, seemed 

a cheerful prelude to the fact that 

the country would, the following 

year, for the first time, get a national 

department of arts and culture. 

Fat lot of good that did for a formal 

relationship between Venice and 

SA, 14 years down the line. 

In 1993, with DAC and the national 

arts council still just a good idea 

in Madiba’s head, one expected 

some fumbling to hastily arrange 

things for such a very public international 

show. We had been out of 

that picture so long, no-one knew 

what to do. But we did it. 

Those with memories of the business 

of art and politics will recall 

how during the dawn of democracy 

‘consultation’ and ‘representation’ 

were the guilty buzz-words. 

Participating in anything arty 

meant organisers had to egg walk 

every step of the process. (How 

this stymied some careers and 

promoted others, is worthy of a 

future art history doctorate.) 

Nevertheless, the Venetians were 

as excited as the rest of the world 

of South Africa’s (artistic) liberation, 

and their invitation was warm 

and wide open. The problem was 

how to ‘facilitate’ it. (Another buzzword 

in those heady days.) 

The ‘old countries’ embedded in 

the 113-year history of the Venice 

biennale traditionally had (still 

have) ‘national pavilions’. In those 

colonial days, such an individual 

showcase for an anointed artist 

was, of course, a bold, competitive 

demonstration of the state and 

power of nations. 

By the late 20th century these 

pompous buildings cluttered up 

the gardens. As a far-flung colony 

in the early days, South Africa 

wasn’t in the game, and by the 

time we were invited as a liberated 

nation, space had become an 

issue. 

Yet new spaces have been 

opened up elsewhere in the city 

and the organisers too had become 

award that even art history 

had moved beyond the confines 

of the national. So the invitation to 

South Africa has, since 1994, been 

open and welcoming. The problem 

was - and clearly remains - on the 

South African side. It’s mostly one 

of will, money and commitment. 

Bearing in mind that the 53rd Venice 

Biennale is six months away, 

South African artists shouldn’t 

hold their collective breath. At the 

time of writing, Paolo Lughi had 

nothing to report to expectant 

South African art fans. As could 

be expected, no information was 

forthcoming from the DAC.


Summer Salons 08/9 

Sam Nhlengethwa: Tribute to William Kentridge 2008, Litho. To be 

seen at the Rose Korber 17th Summer Salon 15 Dec - 11 January 09 

(See advert on rhs of page) 

Woman with Crayfish by Jan Vermeiren to be seen at The Hout Street 

Summer that runs until end of February 09. Visit www.houtstreetgallery.co.za 

iziko 

m u s e u m s o f c a p e t o w n 

Frans Oerder, Reading the bones on exhibition at Sanlam’s 

Decade Show until 16 January 2009. 

AM NOT ME, THE HORSE IS NOT MINE, An installation of 8 film 

fragments. 11 December 2008 – 8 March 2009 at the Goodman 

Gallery, Cape Town. 

Work by Strydom van der Merwe on a group exhibition entitled 

Christmans Group show open until 16 January 09 at 

Dorpstraat Gallery, Stellenbosch 

Putting a spin on history 

� Kids under 16 get in free 

� Visit any one of our 12 museums 

around the Western Cape 

� Join our summer school programmes 

General Enquiries 

www.iziko.org.za 

Email: info@iziko.org.za / Telephone: +27 (0)21 481 3800

flyer.indd 1 2008/10/16 05:11:09 PM 

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DALE ELLIOTT IN ‘THE ARTIST’ MAGAZINE 

Western Cape artist Dale Elliott has recently been invited to have his instructional 

art approaches covered in extensive articles in three consecutive issues 

of the well-known British ‘The Artist’ monthly magazine. 

Speaking from his Villiersdorp studio and gallery, Dale informed how the 

editor of the magazine, Sally Bulgin, visited his gallery some months ago and 

invited him to produce the articles, setting out his ’10-steps’ approach to oils 

and acrylics, together with additional art input. Dale submitted the illustrated 

multi-image material by mid-year, and the articles appeared in the October 

and November issues, with the final submission due to appear in the December 

publication. Dale kept the subject-matter bright and South African. The 

first demo was of an extensive Boland landscape; the second an informal 

settlement, and the December issue covers the steps in painting a karoo farm 

panorama 

The Elliotts have for many years been at the forefront of the Painting Holiday 

concept, and Dale has developed techniques and approaches which are 

unique and are now available on CD Rom and DVD. In the definitive publication 

on the Garden Route, ‘The Paradise Coast’ by Patricia Storrar, Trent 

Read in a chapter on the artists of the area writes that Dale “has probably 

taught more people to paint than anyone else in the country..” Over the past 

three decades the Elliott Art Studios have hosted over 3000 creative folk on 

their varied Courses, and many lives have been changed by the exposure to 

the right-brain world. Their courses include indoor and outdoor painting options, 

and they cater for all levels of expertise – from beginners to advanced 

artists, in their state-of-the-art teaching studios at Villiersdorp. 

There has been a big response to the Artist articles, and Dale has been 

answering dozens of queries from interested folk in many distant lands. His 

steps in painting are covered on his extensive website at www.daleelliott. 

co.za as are full details of his courses. He can be contacted at e-mail dale@ 

daleelliott.co.za or phone no. 0288402927. The Artist magazine has a most 

informative website at www.paintersonline.co.uk

South African Art Times. December 08 - January 09 2008 Page 11 

Artist details sought by 

Standard Bank collection 

Standard Bank will be publishing a 

catalogue of the corporate art collection 

in the new year and would 

like to include all the artworks in 

the collection. To date 250 artists/ 

family members/copyright holders 

have given permission to publish 

works in the catalogue. 

Below is a list of those artists that 

we have not been able to contact 

at all. 

If anyone can help with any leads 

please contact:Judy Legrange 

Tel. 011-631-2533, 

Fax 011-636-7515, 

Email Judy.Legrange@standardbank.co.za 

List of artists - information needed: 

Nils Andersen,Gerard Bhengu, 

Zoltan Borboreki, Robert Broadley, 

W Buhler,Jan Dingemans, Enslin 

du Plessis, Paul du Toit, shengi 

Manifestation Two, one of two 

paintings by Lesley Bergere stolen 

from a Johannesburg gallery. 

Johannesburg - Two valuable, 

original oil paintings were stolen 

from a Parkhurst, Johannesburg, 

art gallery where they were to 

have been exhibited, their owner 

Duma, Viola Fitzroy, Bruce Hancock, 

Cecil Higgs, Mary Hillhouse, 

S J Hlatswayo, Job Kekana, Otto 

Klar, Alexander Klopcanovs, Fritz 

Krampe, Frieda Locke, Speelman 

Mahlangu, Chabani Manganyi, 

Isaac Masisi, Reuben Mateman, 

Fanie Matjie, Erich Mayer, Terence 

McCaw, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Lettie 

Mhlangu, Nomadie Mhlangu, 

David Mogano, John Mohl, Billy 

Molokeng, Julian Motau, James 

Mphahlele, Rose Msangu, C 

Nxumalo, Derrick Nxumalo, Owen 

Owen, Denise Penfold, Roland 

Pitchforth, Douglas Portway, 

Sibusiso Sabela, Roderick Sauls, 

Bongani Shange, Edwine Simon, 

Poppie Skosane, Rose Skosane, 

Nita Spilhaus, Cecil Thornley 

Stewart, Roy Taylor, Anna Masangu 

Thabane, Cecil Thuketana, 

Ishmael Thyson, Allan Turton, 

Maurice van Essche, Vuyile 

Voyiya, Paul Wiles and David 

John Yule 

Paintings stolen at Johannesburg 

said on Sunday. 

The artist, Lesley Bergere, said 

she was busy setting up her paintings 

for an exhibition that opened 

at the weekend when she went to 

the kitchen for a few minutes. 

“When I returned to the gallery I 

realised something was missing 

and when I checked against my 

list, I discovered that two paintings 

had disappeared.” 

Bergere was “shocked and astonished”. 

The theft was reported 

to the police. There had been a 

number of people in the gallery 

at the time of the theft, Bergere 

said. The stolen paintings are 

called Manifestation Two, depicting 

butterflies emerging from a 

vacuum, and an abstract titled 

Red Crescent, featuring warm, 

amber colours. 

A work by Clementina van der Walt that forms part of her show entitled: Hearth 

at the Irma Stern Gallery, Cape Town. Opens 10 Dec 08 until 17 January 09. 

A drawing by Mark Kannemeyer, Lorcan White Storm 2008 Pen and ink drawing. 

Exhibition entitled Zombie was at the Art on Paper Gallery, Johannesburg. 

John Meyer, Dreams of the city, to be seen at The Everard Read Gallery 

Cape Town, Summer Show. 

A Wavescape surfboard, meticulously decorated by underground comic 

artist Andy Mason (and surfer) fetched R 17 000 on a fundraising 

auction. Proceeds went to the NSRI and Shark Spotters

Daniel Novela in his studio 

Sheep going home. Oil on canvas 

To visit Daniel Novela art studio please book an appointment and for more information on how to get there or for a preview see: 

www.danielnovela.co.za or email to info@danielnovela.co.za 

or contact Daniel Novela at: Studio: +27 18 489 1780 Fax: +27 18 489 1777 Cell: +27 82 262 3600 

EdnaFourie 

g a l l e r y 

McGregor 

Route 62 

E X C L U S I V E H O M E 

o f t h e p a i n t i n g s o f 

Edna Fourie 

0 8 3 3 0 2 5 5 3 8 

www.ednafouriegallery.co.za 

Daniel Novela Art Studio 

One of worth visiting art places in South Africa is the studio 

of Daniel Novela, one of the black landscape impressionists 

that South Africa has ever produced before. His studio is 

situated in Khuma between Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom. 

Just one and half hour to drive from Johannesburg to see 

this humble international and highly gifted artist. 

This is an opportunity for all serious art collectors: individuals, 

groups, executive corporate, art galleries and Museum 

Curators, art auction Managing Directors and many others. 

Among those who have visited Novela studio is the world renowned 

Mr Carlos Parreira, the former BafanaBafana Coach 

as well as Mr Robert Du Preez the Managing Director of Mr 

Price who all have made a good collection of Daniel’s work.


Standard Bank celebrates 25 years of 

supporting South Africa’s young artists 

Standard Bank, one of the leaders 

in art sponsorship, has announced 

its Young Artist award-winners 

for 2009, celebrating 25 years of 

sponsorship of the arts. 

These awards, seen as one of 

the most prestigious of their kind 

in the country, honour young 

South African artists who have not 

yet gained widespread national 

exposure or acclaim, but who are 

making a significant mark in their 

field. 

These awards honour and actively 

promote the talent of these young 

artists, providing them with a 

platform for experimentation of 

new innovative concepts and 

ideas. Besides providing them with 

financial support, it gives recognition 

to their talent. 

The winners of the 2009 Standard 

Bank Young Artist Awards are as 

follows: Nicholas Hlobo for Visual 

Art Jacques Eugene Imbrailo 

for Music Ntshieng Mokgoro for 

Drama Kesivan Naidoo for Jazz 

Thabo Rapoo for Dance 

As part of their prize, each of the 

winners will be featured on the 

Main Programme of the 2009 

National Arts Festival in Grahamstown 

(2 - 11 July 2009). This 

platform gives them the license to 

present a new innovative piece of 

work which audiences will see for 

the first time. 

Nicholas Hlobo knew about the 

awards but never dreamed that 

he would have the opportunity to 

exhibit in Grahamstown as 

the winner of the Standard Bank 

Young Artist Award for Visual Art. 

“I am truly honoured to have been 

chosen and hope to give 

audiences something new and 

innovative,” he enthused. 

The 2009 National Arts Festival 

runs from 2 – 11 July and for 

further information visit www. 

nationalartsfestival.co.za. 

Previous Winners 

1981 Richard Grant, John Theodore, 

Jules van de Vijver, 

1982 Janice Honeyman, Neil 

Rodger, Lindy Raizenberg, 

1983 Paul Slabolepszy, Malcolm 

Payne, David Kosviner, 

1984 Peter Schütz, Ken Leach 

Standard Bank - 1820 Foundation 

10th Anniversary Special Award: 

Lamar Crowson, 

1985 Marion Arnold, Maishe 

Maponya, Sidwill Hartman, 

1986 Andrew Buckland, Gavin 

Younge, 1987 William Kentridge, 

Hans Roosenschoon, 1988 Margaret 

Vorster, Mbongeni Ngema, 

1989 Johnny Clegg, Marthinus 

Basson, Helen Sebidi, Gary 

Gordon, 1820 Foundation Special 

Award Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1990 

Robyn Orlin, Fée Halsted-Berning, 

Bonnie Ntshalintshali, 1991 Peter 

Ngwenya, Andries Botha, Darrell 

Roodt, 1992 Deon Opperman, 

Tommy Motswai, Raphael Vilakazi, 

Kevin Harris, 1993 Christopher 

Kindo, Sibongile Khumalo, Pippa 

Skotnes, 1994 Jerry Mofokeng, 

Sam Nhlengethwa, Michael 

2008/9 

ART LOVERS, HERE IT IS 

HOT OFF THE PRESS AND AVAILABLE NOW! 

The 2nd Edition Guide to artists & galleries 

along the Garden Route. 

Pick up your copy at tourism offices, information centres, 

selected hotels, B&B’s and tour operators from 

Mossel Bay to Plettenberg Bay and Oudtshoorn. 

Williams, 1995 Jane Alexander, 

Boyzie Cekwana, John Ledwaba, 

Abel Motsoadi, 1996 Lara Foot 

Newton, Trevor Makhoba, Vincent 

Mantsoe, Victor Masondo, 1997 

Lien Botha, Geoffrey Hyland, 

Sibongile Mngoma, Standard Bank 

Special Award for vision, commitment 

and contribution, Alfred 

Hinkel, 1998 David Mudanalo 

Matamela, Debbie Rakusin, 

Bongani Ndodana, Nhlanhla Xaba, 

Aubrey Sekhabi, 1999 No awards 

made. 2000 Zenzi Mbuli, Gloria 

Bosman, Alan Alborough, 2001 

Tracey Human, Brett Bailey, Fikile 

Mvinjelwa, Walter Oltmann, 

2002 Gregory Vuyani Moqoma, 

Sello Maake Ka Ncube, Prince 

Kupi, Brett Murray, 2003 Moya 

Michael, Yael Faber, Dumisani 

Phakathi, Angela Gilbert, Berni 

Searle, 2004 Kathryn Smith, Mncedisi 

Shabangu, Portia Lebohang 

Mashigo, Tutu Puone, Moses 

Taiwa Molelekwa (posthumously), 

2005 Wim Botha, P J Sabbagha, 

Andile Yenana, Mpumelelo 

Grootboom, 

2006 Concord Nkabinde, Churchill 

Madikida, Hlengiwe Lushaba, 

Sylvaine Strike, 

2007 Acty Tang, Bronwen Forbay, 

Shanon Mowday, Pieter Hugo, 

Akin Omotoso, 

2008 Dada Masilo, Nontsikelelo 

‘Lolo’ Veleko, Jaco Bouwer, Mark 

Fransman, Zanne Stapelberg. 

Untitled by 

Chris Slack, one 

of the works on 

exhibition at the 

new UCA 

Gallery, 

Observatory CT 

of 20 artists 

displaying 20 

works. The show 

starts 17th 

December and 

will run until the 

24th January 

09 . See more 

details at: www. 

ucagallery.co.za 

Tel/Fax: +27 (0)44 620 4042 

e-mail: mike.ehrman@worldonline.co.za www.gardenrouteart.co.za 

That all-artist friend for all 

seasons, retired AVA director 

Estelle Jacobs, was finally given 

a just reward (well, sort of - if you 

think a curious, but elegant little 

bronze fits that bill) when she was 

named winner of this year’s Western 

Cape trophy for contributing to 

the visual arts. 

A vivacious, dramatically blackdressed 

Jacobs received the 

trophy, design by Charles Haupt 

of Bronze Age, from the provincial 

director of arts, culture and language, 

Jane Stuurman-Moleleki, 

at a rather odd awards dinner in 

the Bloemendal party boma on the 

Durbanville hill. 

The annual awards, in various 

categories, are made by the Western 

Cape provincial government’s 

department of cultural affairs and 

sport. Quite unique, it has been 

going for nine years. If you didn’t 

know that, it is because, for all 

their good intensions, the department 

seems rather inefficient in 

getting the message out. After all, 

if you honour someone you want 

to world to know. 

(How about inviting the media?) 

Estelle Jacobs, respected Cape Town arts administrator recieves her reward. 

Finally, Acknowledgement in 

Bronze for Estelle Jacobs 

Very few of Estelle’s great many 

fans knew, never mind had been 

invited to the party. Had they been, 

the applause would have been 

tremendous. Her contribution to 

the local arts over the 15 years at 

AVA, and before, is indisputable. 

Well done, Estelle. 

But the organisers can jack up 

these worthwhile awards. The 

process itself too is rather clouded. 

Beyond newspaper advertisement, 

very little is known how decisions 

are made. (Some very strange 

names got themselves onto the 

‘nomination’ lists!) Maybe the 

department needs a little advice to 

jack up the project, process and 

party. 

* Other winners are: 

Mthobeli Phillip Guma (heritage 

resources); Jan Corewijn (lifelong 

contribution to conservation); 

Antonia Malan (historical archaeology); 

Bertdene Laubscher of the 

Togryers-museum (new museum 

project); Alfred Hinkel (dance); 

Theo Vilakazi (drama); Camillo 

Lombard (music); Jungle Theatre 

Company (innovative community 

art and culture project); Bethesda, 

Bergrivier Association for persons 

with disabilities (disabilities in art); 

Nyanga Arts Development Centre 

(innovative community art centre); 

Cape Education Trust, Early 

Learning Resource Unit (promotion 

of multilingualism); Ntsiki 

Ntusikazi (promotion of three 

official languages); Andries van 

Niekerk (promotion of marginalised 

indigenous and SA sign languages); 

Rocklands library (Teresa 

Denton) (community-involved 

library); Table View library (Elmarie 

Weldman) (best library/librarian); 

Francois Verster (promotion of archive 

services); Thandi Swartbooi 

(achievement of women in the 

arts, culture, heritage, language, 

libraries, archives); Ama-ambush 

(achievement of youth in that 

field). 

Lifetime achievement awards were 

presented by MEC Cameron Dugmore 

to Sithathu ‘Boks’ Mkonto, 

Sulaiman Christian and Johaar 

Mosaval. ‘Legends of the arts’ 

awards were made to Errol Dyers 

and Christopher Kindo.

Nicolas Hlobo: Standard Bank Young Artist 2009 

An artist inspired by everyday 

Theresa Smith 

Daily News, Tonight 

(Text from Newspaper) 

Nicolas Hlobo. Photo Artthrob 

Art was not taught at school 

when Nicholas Hlobo grew up in 

Transkei, but his teachers always 

asked him to draw on chalkboard. 

His friends called him an artist, but 

he never considered a fine arts 

career even going so far as to take 

a computer course after matric, at 

the insistence of his father ?I had 

this feeling, this urge that I had to 

go and study art, but even then I 

wasn’t sure,? said Hlobo. 

It was only in 1998 that he started 

working on his portfolio and sat the 

entrance exam for Wits Technikon. 

Art that explores culture and taboo 

SOWETAN, Time Out (Text from Newspaper) 

After his successful solo exhibition 

at the ICA Gallery in Boston in the 

US, award-winning visual artist 

Nicholas Hlobo’s striking art has 

put him on par with the country’s 

best. 

Born in 1975, Hlobo uses rubber~ 

leather and ribbon to explore 

Xhosa traditions, homosexuality 

and other issues that are taboo for 

some people. 

When Time Out visited Hlobo at 

his studio in the heart of Jozi, he 

was putting the final touches to a 

huge piece that he calls Ingubo 

Yesizwe. 

He says the piece will be flown 

to London for an exhibition that 

opens there on December 8. 

Hiobo’s works are not easily understood 

by laymen, or laywomen 

for that matter. 

He explains: “I don’t want my 

work to be straightforward. I want 

people to understand it in their 

own way. When art is too obvious, 

it insults people’s intelligence.? His 

medley of artistic creations reflect 

liberalism, but on the whole they 

reflect reality. Culturally, however 

he is generally very open-minded. 

Hlobo says his latest work is 

inspired by the skin of cows, which 

is used metaphorically. 

He explains: ?Initially it started 

very small, but the idea grew. I 

used a cow as a metaphor. 

“If you look closely, the piece 

resembles a landscape. Cows 

represent wealth in African culture. 

So this piece is very central and it 

speaks a lot about African culture,” 

says Hlobo. 

“If you look at the shape of the 

piece, it is changing. It is like life 

and politics in this country”. “Life is 

not static, it changes all the time.” 

Hlobo has established his profile 

both in South Africa and internationally. 

Recently, he exhibited at the 

Nicholas Hlobo: Umphanda ongazaliyo 2008. Rubber, ribbon, zips, steel, wood, plaster. Photo: John Kennard 

Image courtesy of Michael Stevenson 

Studio Museum in Harlem in New 

York and at Haunch of Venison in 

London. 

He credits his success to his 

international exposure. 

“Traveling all over the world and 

being exposed to different cultures 

has made me grow. 

“The way I approach my work has 

also changed,” Hlobo says. 

Previously, he has produced interesting 

works such as Kwatsityw 

iziko, Izele, i.qqirha Lendlela, 

Vanity In the Making, Umtya Net 

hunga and Hermaphrodite. 

Hlobo is the winner of the Tollman 

Award for Visual Arts 2006. 

He recently won the Standard 

Bank Young Artist Award for Visual 

Arts 2008. 


chosen for the award and I will 

do my utmost to continually give 

audiences something new and innovative,” 

says the excited Hlobo. 

After his successful solo exhibition 

at the ICA Gallery in Boston in the 

US, award-winning visual artist 

Nicholas Hlobo’s striking art has 

put him on par with the country’s 

best. 

Born in 1975, Hlobo uses rubber~ 

leather and ribbon to explore 

Xhosa traditions, homosexuality 

and other issues that are taboo for 

some people. 

When Time Out visited Hlobo at 

his studio in the heart of Jozi, he 

was putting the final touches to a 

huge piece that he calls Ingubo 

Yesizwe. 

He says the piece will be flown 

to London for an exhibition that 

opens there on December 8. 

Hiobo’s works are not easily understood 

by laymen, or laywomen 

for that matter. 

He explains: “I don’t want my work 

to be straightforward. I want people 

to understand it in their own 

way. When art is too obvious, 

A B.Tech in Fine Arts followed and 

today the 34-year-old has exhib 

ited his art - solo and as part of a 

group -all over the world, including 

Rome, London and New York. 

Hiobo has gained an international 

reputation for his experimental use 

of materials, using non conventional, 

found materials such as rubber 

or leather to tell his stories. 

“I draw with a knife,” he said. The 

Joburg resident draws inspiration 

from things around him. 

“Nature, architecture, dance especially, 

performance art ... I’m 

inspired by my surroundings and 

the city I live in.? What does winning 

this award mean to you? 

I’m very grateful to be acknowledged, 

encouraged and motivated 

to work harder I view it as a way 

of saying to me ?thank you for 

contributing towards writing our 

cultural history?. It’s like someone 

has pressed the accelerator and 

now I have to tell more stories to 

share my culture with the world. 

What do you bring to your art 

form? 

I’d say it’s my courage to tackle 

the subjects that I do, celebrating 

my identity and my heritage. My 

identity as in my ethnic identity as 

a Xhosa, then being a homosexual 

man and thirdly my South African 

Nicholas Hlobo: Umphanda ongazaliyo 2008. Rubber, ribbon, zips, steel, wood, plaster. Photo: John Kennard 

Image courtesy of Michael Stevenson 

identity My national identity is my 

ethnic heritage but also includes 

my colonial heritage and all the 

influences of being South African. 

Some people prefer if we all 

stayed away from talking about 

being black, or Xhosa or South 

African, some of my friends say 

I’m digging a hole for myself But I 

find it important that we acknowledge 

difference, because our 

differences are what makes us a 

diverse nation. 

To me, my work and the material 

I use are an attempt to challenge 

visual arts or fine arts conventions. 

What is a drawing supposed to 

look like? Must it be in pen or 

pencil? Why not cut it? Isn’t that 

a drawing? Why not use rubber 

instead of casting with clay or carving 

stone? Why not use something 

else, something metaphoric. 

Whatever I use, -it’s there to add 

to the story I’m telling. Who has 

been your greatest inspiration? My 

grandmother my mother’s mother 

After she died, it was my other 

grandmother Any ideas what you’ll 

present in Grahamstown” 

I’ve got some ideas, it’s like baking 

bread, I’m still waiting for the 

dough to rise. Then I’ll knead it 

again and put it in the pan. 

it insults people’s intelligence.? His 

medley of artistic creations reflect 

liberalism, but on the whole they 

reflect reality. Culturally, however 

he is generally very open-minded. 

Hlobo says his latest work is 

inspired by the skin of cows, which 

is used metaphorically. 

He explains: ?Initially it started 

very small, but the idea grew. I 

used a cow as a metaphor. 

“If you look closely, the piece 

resembles a landscape. Cows 

represent wealth in African culture. 

So this piece is very central and 

it speaks a lot about African 

culture,? says Hlobo. “If you look 

at the shape of the piece, it is 

changing. It is like life and politics 

in this country. “Life is not static, 

it changes all the time.” Hlobo 

has established his profile both 

in South Africa and internationally. 

Recently, he exhibited at the 

Studio Museum in Harlem in New 

York and at Haunch of Venison in 

London. He credits his success 

to his international exposure. 

“Traveling all over the world and 

being exposed to different cultures 

has made me grow. “The way I approach 

my work has also changed” 

Hlobo says. 

Previously, he has produced interesting 

works such as Kwatsityw 

?iziko, Izele, i.qqirha Lendlela, 

Vanity In the Making, Umtya Net 

hunga and Hermaphrodite. 

Hiobo is the winner of the Tollman 

Award for Visual Arts 2006. 

He recently won the Standard 

Bank Young Artist Award for Visual 

Arts 2008. 


chosen for the award and I will 

do my utmost to continually give 

audiences something new and innovative” 

says the excited Hlobo

Student Graduate shows 08 

Cara Gilloughley - Ring Mistress, Ruth Prowse School of Art

Student Graduate shows ‘08 

Finishing (Art) School: Kindling Nostalgia 

Melvyn Minnaar traipse through local end-of-year student shows WC 

It’s a day or so after the opening, 

a hot midday in Stellenbosch, and 

Joe Foster is rather irritated. Mumbling 

about the riff-raff who seems 

set on sabotaging his artwork by 

writing comments on the black 

board and fiddling with his chicken 

and easter egg sculptures, he sets 

out to straighten the display. 

He certainly looks the part of an 

art student a-few-years-down-theline: 

butt-hanging jeans, dreadish 

locks and a stagey demeanour, 

but the irony of his violated art 

installation doesn’t seem to have 

hit home. If you play and perform 

with quisquilian stuff that looks like 

material that others discard, you 

may well expect some spectators 

to be enticed to join in the sport. 

After all, the last thing a budding 

artist wants is for her/his art to be 

put on a bourgeois pedestal. 

Not that Foster’s delicious yellow 

chicken - a mini-monumental 

version of the plastic township 

sidewalk hybrid - and dance-hall 

decorated easter egg will fit such 

high places. He’s clearly been 

thinking about art-making and 

another of his conclusions is the 

rough cardboard walk-in Vibe 

Collector in the room next door: 

a put-down of the highbrow if 

anything. 

These are the room and lecture 

halls of the university’s ‘Department 

van Visuele Kunste’, where 

the annual year-end open-house 

students’ show is an added attraction 

for those tourists who’ve 

marked down on their lists all 

the Dylan Lewis bronze animals 

prancing on the town’s street 

corners. 

If there’s one thing that such 

intrepid arty types are usually 

looking for in these shows it’s the 

unbridled, go-for-it exploration of 

talent and contemplation that is 

only allowed when you’re young 

and experimentally-a-gogo. 

So how did this year shape up? 

Not too hot, in Stellenbosch, it 

seems and lesser so than last 

year. Beyond the cool of the fine 

jewellery (it really needs, as does 

the Ruth Prowse, its own show) 

and run-of-the-mill commercial 

graphic designs, one wonders 

whether these students are really 

challenged by their institutional 

guardians. Much of the student 

art looked, well, ordinary, even 

half-hearted. 

Perhaps that is a little unfair to 

say about the like of Niel Vosloo’s 

photo imagery, Zahn Rust’s cheerful 

wild graphics and Ferdinand 

Kidd’s intense drawings and paintings. 

They did well. 

A lot of the Stellenbosch work 

seems driven by a curious nostalgia. 

It could be a sign of the times. 

At Ruth Prowse’s final-year show, 

nostalgia was everywhere. 

André Roth’s skills with charcoal 

(Starshine with daddy and teddy), 

Tarryn Gordon’s with bleach 

added, and Christopher Zinne’s 

portraits of vulnerability all drew 

on a sometimes naïve-looking 

nostalgia. Like as if the world is cut 

off from this, their, reality. 

Elzahn Nel’s art seemed to drive 

the nostalgia beyond her nice 

drawings to the monomania of buttons 

bearing sentimental pictures, 

and the melancholy of a forlorn 

silent sixties radio. 

Luckily there was Cara Gillougley’s 

naughty photo prints in the foyer 

to cheer us up with their awkward 

playfulness. 

Playfulness was hard to find at 

the Michaelis, but nostalgia there 

certainly was (and the expected 

silliness here and there). 

Racine Williams’ lighthouse took 

up on that theme. (Maybe, like 

Shane Marks’ sweet ‘drawing 

machine’ and clever prints, one of 

the few playthings.) But the theme 

was more vigorously explored in 

he projects by Ariane Questiaux 

(reminiscing about the ‘Belgian 

Congo’), Katharine Jacobs (a 

cheerful, funky ‘escapist’ installation) 

and Lauren Fletcher (prints 

about prints about patterns). 

tOf course, painting itself is more 

often than not a medium informed 

by nostalgia and Chad Barber’s 

fine canvasses seemed drenched 

in such otherworldliness. (A su 

perb, ghostly Below II marks him 

as one of the show stars). Master 

student Jake Aikman has already 

taken on painting as a serious 

vehicle and the work in the gallery 

is up to scratch. But it was Julie 

Donald’s dense ‘white paintings’ in 

the Egyptian that somehow took 

on a striking presence and got one 

thinking. 

It seems as if this year there was 

stronger conceptual interrogation 

in some senior student studios. 

Pieter Cilliers’ exquisite formalism 

gives nostalgic minimalism 

a kick in the butt. These are truly 

beautiful pieces, with their whiffs of 

Whiteread 

Beauty also seems to be the 

unexpected result of Tenille 

Robertson’s clever photo essay 

about ‘crowds’ in which high-energy 

people and masses turn into 

elegant graphic patterns. ‘Beauty’ 

could only ironically apply to the 

delicious, but quirky photo project 

that led Keelin Pincus to search 

out nudists for full-frontals. There 

is plenty of humour here - note that 

relaxing Werner’s plumpy Anesca 

is engrossed in her novel Jy Erf 

die Blomtyd! 

The grand prize, the Michaelis, 

every art student’s aspiration, this 

year, went to Robert Watermeyer. 

And there can be no argument 

that his photographic series about 

border posts is the best work on 

show. Elegant and tight in concept, 

understated and formal in execution, 

yet full of visual adventure 

and emotional power, these are 

top-notch images. 

If one wondered elsewhere 

whether art student stil consider 

themselves challenged, Watermeyer 

undoubtedly set the bar 

high for himself. He knows how to 

work that camera and get viewers 

to step up. 

(1) Joe Foster Vibe converter. (2) Joe Foster Chicken with wagging 

wings ande tail (3) Ferdinand Kidd, Rocket (4) Zan Rust, Painting. 

(5) Van Aardt, P. (Vrydag, 11 Januarie). Sjef (21) sterf tragies. Eikes 

Stadnuus 59-1. (6) Stuart Bird: Grapes of Wrath (7) Keelin Pincus, 

Neil and Beulua, Sun Eden Naturist Resort, Gauteng (8) Claudia 

Ramos One sheep at a time (9) Tenille Roberts Ballet Congregation 

(10) Lauren Fletcher Vidi, Vici, Veni (11) Linda Stupart You Do it To 

Yourself (and that’s what really hurts) (12) Jessica Vandeleur, Paris 

Hilton (detail) (13) Nicole du Preez, Police (14) Jessica Vandeleur, 

Paris Hilton (detail) (15) Lucas Grant (16) Taryn Racine

Annual roundup of student shows 2009: UNISA, 

University of Johannesburg and Rhodes University. 

I was once again privileged to see 

three exhibitions by tertiary institutions 

as end of year shows. These 

exhibitions are the showcase of 

the student works from various 

art schools at the exit points for 

degree’s and diplomas. I was 

fortunate to be in Grahamstown 

while their show was on and to 

see the difference between work 

produced at Rhodes as apposed 

to the institutions upcountry. The 

major difference, I think has to do 

with degrees of subtlety. 

While UJ and UNISA are often 

bold and perhaps even brash in 

their exploration of issues of 

social commentary and identity, 

the Rhodes students tend towards 

the subtle shifts in perception from 

subject to artwork. An example is 

found in Rhodes student Nicole 

du Preez who photographed 

policemen and women in the town. 

At first glance, these appear as 

mug shots and then a sense of 

discomfort creeps in and these 

‘protectors’ almost appear menacing 

in their blandness and their 

scale. Similarly, Luke Kaplan set 

about photographing every inhabitant 

of the town Klein Wupperthal. 

The 300 or so inhabitants stare out 

of the images at the viewer and 

yet the variety of faces and subtle 

shifts of lighting render these as 

individuals mostly benign and ona 

few a bit scary. A very different 

feeling is evoked from these faces 

as opposed to those of the police. 

Another photographic series ‘The 

Star” by Jessica Vandeleur deals 

with newspaper intervention. This 

student has used Paris Hilton as 

her subject and skilfully inserted 

the socialite’s image into photographs 

from the press media, 

particularly the disturbing images 

of the xenophobic attacks. This 

almost seamless juxtapositioning, 

enlarged and printed on newsprint 

is visually effective and quite 

disturbing. The sculptural works of 

Lucas Grant employ resin casts of 

life-sized pigs in seemingly playful 

positions interacting with farming 

implements. On closer inspection, 

the playfulness becomes sinister 

and perhaps even torturous. The 

implication in terms of abuse both 

of animals and mankind with the 

white pig as metaphor becomes a 

chilling reminder of torture, abuse 

and genocide reminiscent of 

Orwell’s Animal Farm. 

UNISA student work is very 

thorough and thought through 

and each student presents a body 

of work as a mini exhibition. The 

work that really stood out for me 

was that of Ronit Yudelman. Her 

clear resin casts of rotund female 

forms that house colourful objects 

like ‘perfect’ Barbie dolls and .... 

comment on perceptions and aspirations 

as well as the psychology 

behind perceptions of the feminine 

as seen through the eyes of various 

sectors of society. They 

are beautifully crafted and luscious 

and yet contain a social message. 

Similarly her photographs of 

By Gordon Fround 

people moving very quickly (in a 

gym or at an airport) speak of the 

endless motion of the rat race and 

the futility of this movement. These 

works are aptly titled ‘going nowhere-slowly’. 

This psychologistturned-artist 

has many interesting 

comments to make and promises 

to be a light to watch in future. 

The University of Johannesburg 

has two exit points, a three yeardiploma 

and a four-year degree. 

In this year’s offerings, the work of 

the diploma students was more impressive 

than the degree students. 

The clarity of ideas and 

technical finish of the third years 

was superior to most of the seniors. 

The works of two third-year 

students in particular stood out: 

Taryn Racine and Marie Coetzee. 

Coetzee spent the year building 

a claustrophobic room wherein 

painful memories dwell. These 

memories inhabit the walls, hiding 

in cracks and tears as drawings 

and family portraits through which 

threads are stitched 

obliterating the image. Wallpaper 

extends into manadalas of paper 

doilies that frame symbolic vaginal 

images. This domestic scene 

drips with household objects 

altered, disrupted and rendered as 

dysfunctional. Coetzee’s control 

of lighting, minimal colour usage 

and material intervention create an 

extremely uncomfortable space 

that unpacks the discomfort of 

enforced domesticity and the 

expectations placed on a young 

white afrikaaner woman. Racine 

also explores her identity but in 

a very different way. Not nearly 

as uncomfortable but certainly as 

powerful as Coetzee, she traces 

her feminine roots through four 

generations of female family 

members. She obfuscates images 

of these women by overlaying 

pattern forcing the viewer to squint 

in order to get a semblance of the 

image. 4 Large black patterned ink 

portrait drawings stare out 

across a room and are met by the 

stares of four tightly rendered, 

almost photographic portraits with 

subtle images and symbols sewn 

into them hinting at the personal 

history of each protagonist. The 

effect is visually electric and the 

versatility of this student sublime. 

Social commentary and personal 

identity once again seem to be 

the order of the day in most of 

the student works at all three of 

these institutions. I am particularly 

pleased to see the return of the 

well made or crafted and finished 

art-object that goes beyond merely 

the concept but employs the 

‘old-fashioned’ notion of beauty 

in the making that enhances the 

meaning of the content. 

Gordon Froud 

Director of gordart Gallery, 

Johannesburg. 

Durban University of 

Technology (DUT) 

Peter Machin (continued from page 10) 

Hlongwe is also that rare young 

artist capable of channeling the 

zeitgeist through his own deeply 

resonant language. 

Along the way to Hlongwe’s exhibition, 

which I actually saw last, I 

was literally stopped in my tracks 

– in a strange dumbfounded way 

– by a series of collaged images, 

courtesy of second year student 

Amy-Jo Windt. My first response 

was “what-the-hell?” and then 

“wow, these are brilliant”. Combining 

an art-brutishness with an 

inverted exploration of fashion and 

identity, Windt’s simple distortion 

of perspective and proportion is 

tinted with a joyful menace. While 

her oeuvre still has the essence 

of work-in-progress, there is a 

deftness and inherent strangeness 

to her work that promises 

great things to come. And it was 

fascinating to see her precisely 

constructed ceramic work, suggesting 

an artistic schizophrenia, 

which is always useful. 

Another young artist who left an 

impression was Pakiso Tsekiso. 

His use of words and images 

double-hinges on a residue of 

popular culture and a grasp of the 

genuinely poetic. His brisk simple 

images combined crisply with the 

texts and the result linger in the 

ghost of personal meaning. His 

work occupies the highly linguistic 

visual street culture of Durban 

in which taxis, buses and grafitti 

dance with poetry, sex, god and 

calls for personal responsibility. 

But more than simply exploring the 

culture, it seems to be a part of it, 

an extension that would be as at 

home in a beautifully curated 

white room or slapped onto the 

concrete of a freeway intersection 

or an urban wall. 

The vision of these three artists 

and of several others that I 

saw, crystalised and matured to 

various degrees, reflects my only 

real reservation about much of 

the other work on display. It too 

often felt that the students were 

working too slavishly within the 

confines of contemporary South 

African art production, and also 

– on occasion – too much within 

the particular confines of the Tech 

and the influence of lecturers and 

other students. Across media and 

disciplines much of it felt samey. In 

fact, some of the technically best 

work lost its shine because its 

discourse was too familiar. If you 

can’t do new, you’ve got to be 

technically brilliant. Both is ideal. 

Then there are those whose ideas 

are not new or technically brilliant 

but still manage to break through. 

I’ve seen countless painting in 

which notions of memory and 

nostalgia are expressed through a 

degraded paint process – particularly 

at Tech shows - and so I was 

surprised that I was so taken by 

Nicole Erasmus’ haunting renditions 

of childhood, although not all 

of her work impressed equally. 

Other ones-to-watch included 

Sabelo Khumalo whose silkscreened 

digital photographs of 

Shisa Nyama stands stretched the 

borders of the medium while his 

collaboration of with US design 

supremo Mick Hagerty were 

delightful and substantial. The 

multidisciplinary work of Zama 

Mthiyana and Thembeku Ngcemu 

also impressed, as did Saskia 

Whitehead’s sublimely executed 

explorations of femininity. But 

these last three artists, as is so 

often the case with student art, still 

need to find their own voice. It is a 

quest that delivers infinite rewards.

The South African Art Information Directory 09 

The trusted and most comprehensive SA Art Information Directory 2009 (SAAID 09) 

is nearing completion, and will be available early in 2009 

Now in its 6th edition The SAAID 09 provides the user with a wealth of art information 

both in terms of size and access into the South African arts community- and is 

South Africa’s white and yellow pages of the South African art world. 

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or call 021 424 7732 and ask for Eugene

Warren Siebrits 

By Michael Coulson 

I first ran across Warren Siebrits 

at Trent Read’s contemporary art 

gallery in Parkwood in the early 

1990s, and that relationship was a 

crucial stage in his development. 

Like many of us, he regrets the 

failure of that venture. 

“It was a well-conceived business, 

but launched when the art 

business was at rock bottom. You 

could pick up Pierneefs for R160 

000-R180 000, and nobody was 

interested in modern art.” Only 

Ricky Burnett, with his Tributaries 

show, had previously explored this 

field, Siebrits feels. 

Unlike many gallerists, Siebrits 

says he fell into the art world 

largely by accident. To defer 

national service, after matric he 

enrolled for a BCom at the then 

RAU (now University of Johannesburg). 

There he met Stefan Welz’s 

son Conrad. They became friends, 

and Siebrits says that visiting a 

house like a lived-in museum is 

what first led him to appreciate 

beautiful objects. 

Welz offered him a job after the 

ultimately unavoidable military 

service. But though the experience 

was invaluable, he didn’t feel the 

auction business was for him. “An 

auctioneer is purely an agent, he 

can’t choose what to deal in. And 

there’s some horrible stuff out 

there!” 

So he was thrilled when Trent 

asked him to join him, and stayed 

virtually until the gallery closed in 

1995. 

Between then and opening his 

own gallery in 2002, Siebrits was 

at various times arts adviser to 

bodies like the Gauteng Legislature, 

Gencor (now BHP Billiton, in 

association with his great friend 

Kendell Geers) and the Sandton 

Convention Centre. He briefly ran 

Metroplex, a gallery operating from 

two shop windows in Rosebank, 

and with Johans Borman curated 

and published Aspects of SA Art, 

a big show at the Convention 

Centre. 

He remembers buying the likes of 

Jane Alexander, William Kentridge, 

Robert Hodgins and Joachim 

Schonfeldt for the legislature 

collection at what would now be 

bargain-basement prices. 

Gencor was a different challenge. 

Then CEO Brian Gilbertson said 

the collection must reflect the 

changing nature of society, to 

try and help the staff adapt. “But 

initially this had the opposite effect. 

Many of the older, more conservative 

staff found the work offensive, 

and complained that ‘Satanists 

were at work’ “. But Gilbertson 

stuck to his guns. 

Siebrits kept driving through Parkwood, 

past the site of Clive Kellner’s 

defunct Camouflage gallery 

with a “To Let” sign in the window, 

and was increasingly intrigued by 

the availability of a ready-made 

space. He also needed a big 

space for Kentridge’s Casspirs Full 

of Love project, and eventually 

couldn’t resist the challenge. 

With time, his exhibitions have 

taken on an individual identity, with 

a strong social conscience. His 

latest show, for instance, includes 

a large collection of “struggle” 

posters, marking protest meetings 

and the deaths of activists like Neil 

Aggett. His social awareness is 

also reflected in his commitment 

to wear a hat daily for a year, in 

commemoration of the senseless 

death of his friend Sheldon Cohen. 

Other shows encourage younger, 

lesser known artists, which he 

sees as an important function of 

commercial galleries. 

Another feature is the excellent, 

well-written catalogues he 

produces, which set a high point 

recently with Jo Ractliffe. Helped 

by sponsorship, this cost upwards 

of R300 000 – more than 10 times 

what he normally spends. He sees 

catalogues as both important historical 

documents and evidence of 

provenance, beliefs he also drew 

from Stefan Welz. 

Warren Siebrits, Director: Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary. 

Siebrits does not buy much art for 

himself, saying it would be wrong 

to compete with his clients. He 

does collect vinyl records, of which 

he now has over 10 000, 

and books, especially on SA art. 

But his life is so bound up with his 

business, one can’t imagine he 

has much time to listen to, or read 

them. 

Interior of Gallery

Rip, Stitch, Mix and Burn: Zavick Zaroff Botha and Ulric Roldanus set fire to a washing line piece, 

entitled “Fresh Laundry”, Llandudno Beach, 21 November 2008 

Rip, Stitch, Mix and Burn - 

Zavick and Ulric Remix Sculpture 

y David Robert Lewis 

HEN early 20th Century 

ritic of psychoanalysis Karl Kraus 

roclaimed, in his attack against 

reud and the Austrian school: 

From now only piracy will be 

ermitted,” he was merely answerng 

the terrifying problematic which 

merican, Ralph Waldo Emerson 

ad previously delineated: “It 

s as difficult to appropriate the 

houghts of others, as it is to 

nvent,” consequently all forms of 

ppropriation, whether they be the 

utright theft of the remix pirate, 

he anti-hierarchic nomadism of 

he schizophrenic or the mashup 

ulture of the hip-hop musician, 

re all really just comments on the 

rtistic process we call invention. 

o be alive in the maelstrom 

f today’s insanely literary pop 

ulture, to write about art, is to 

isk offending highbrow critics 

ho maintain theory is the sole 

rerogative of the academic, that 

ny discourse is invariably that of 

he Western Canon vs the Other 

nd all activities, including the 

ctivity of art should, and can only 

e, understood from within the 

ealm of polite bourgeois society, 

hrough a lens provided by doestic 

homeland safety security 

egulations, 2010 soccer stadiums 

nd a city by-law prohibiting urinaion, 

belching, farting in public and 

oxious odours? 

ake Zavick Zwaroff Botha and 

lric Roldenaus’ recent collaboraive 

excursion into the public art 

rena. A series of washing lines 

hat have appeared across the 

ity, from Gugulethu to Thibault 

quare, The Kramat to Slave 

onument on Church, echoing 

he earlier interventions by Garth 

rasmus and Victor Peterson, 

ho erected a simple Washing 

ine over a decade ago, during 

he 1996 District Six sculpture 

estival: “The need to remember 

very detail of what has been lost 

aunts those who have lost it: the 

nstinct of the amputee to exercise 

he absent limb. The urgent desire 

o re-establish the security of what 

s known and familiar; of that which 

eminds you of yourself, and says 

o others that you exist.”(1) 

Fresh washing” by the non-existnt, 

the absent stage like Jan Van 

chalkwyk’s landscape entitled: 

For more info and review: http://davidrobertlewis.wordpress.com 

‘Kassiesbaai Washing Line’, a poor 

imitation of an earlier Constable, 

who no doubt would also have 

issues with who did the laundry 

when, and in what order. Servant, 

worker, waterman, thief. Looking at 

art through detergent is like examining 

the proverbial water closet. 

How much has changed, in power 

relations and the strength of OMO, 

since the first troglodyte dreamt 

up this most laborious of practices 

and then proceeded to paint and 

sculpt the end product - forgetting 

about our rights to a living wage, 

or the problem of not owning the 

means of production which in turn 

produced what we like to refer to 

as visual art? 

“In the Netherlands we don’t have 

laundry lines, says Ulric, over 

an Amstel at the Obscafe, here I 

encountered these lines again...” 

My carefully crafted notes are 

rendered into meaningless laundry 

list by a group art exhibition 

held later at Michael Stevenson, 

requiring the writer to decipher 

hieroglyphics, code by Sun Ra. “I 

have vandalised my work,” offers 

Zavick who expresses a penchant 

for quilting and embroidery. 

Incisions into the cultural landscape 

of Cape Town that beckon 

us all to take cognisance of the 

process of bricolage, elucidated 

by the grand semiotician Roland 

Barthes in the Empire of Signs 

- the artist as revolutionary DIY, an 

eternally recurring and everpresent 

‘nowever’amidst a clusterbomb of 

found objects or objets trouves. 

When all one has is a box of 

lion matches, and an Amstel, a 

bonfire will do. Rip, Stitch, Mix and 

Burn, with the type of arson that 

is required to turn theory of the 

haphazard, into chance, extraordinary 

aggregate of molecular 

love, incendiary performance 

art, nocturnal emissions of toxic 

fumes, the nightly annihilation of 

self practised by practitioners of 

Butoh and advocates of Zen. 

I encounter the quilty duvet 

inspired: “Washing line”, (there 

can only be one, all of the rest are 

replicas) strung between two poles 

on Llandudno beach. Zavicks laundry 

is caught up in moral exegesis 

on the joys of igniting the Atlantic 

sunset with gaseous plumes, 

offending a bunch of art directors 

who are trying to shoot a Thomas 

Cook travel commercial. I am a 

tourist trapped in a Swedish movie 

by Russian film director, Andre 

Tarkovsky, you know the one 

– Sacrifice – all time best picture & 

f-ck Ingmar Bergman. 

Supa’dog’s underpants are now 

being sacrificed with a long slow 

burn that is caught on multi-dimensional 

digital chips and filtered 

back to those of you who live 

in the future – Ozzy Osbourne 

burning a guitar like Jimi Hendrix 

in a remix scene from Francis 

Ford Coppolla’s Apocalypse Now 

-- the attack on bourgois art theory 

has begun, still we are living in 

a pastiche of cross-referential 

excess. What one desires, or 

needs is 50seconds of WaWaWa, 

how many WWWashinglines were 

set on fire? According to Wikipedia 

Washingline fires have started to 

catch-on. The fire department is 

worried. The mayor is no longer 

taking calls, but wants a ban on 

laundromat bonfires in place 

before 2010. 

With all this laundryline sampling 

art, what next? A soap commercial 

from Pears and Mary Quant? 

Could soap become the next 

bubble, as highbrow executive art 

galleries are doomed to reproduce 

in comic detail the artefacts of 

the day, (mortgage bonds, class 

traitors) what could be considered 

theatre in the round dished up to 

the well-healed, the sartorial few 

who live on sushi lunches and 

demand easily digested, and saleable 

pap for bread. 

The only solution lies in a total denial 

of any form of representation. 

In the same way it is impossible 

to identify the water that forms a 

river because a river can only exist 

by the grace of its movement. The 

sphinx has spoken. To the death of 

art and an ode to its destruction. 

(1) Emma Bedford and Tracy 

Murinik Re-membering that place- 

public projects in District 6. District 

6 Public Sculpture Exhibition 1996. 

[David Robert Lewis has written art 

reviews for the Cape Times. His 

involvement in visual arts includes, 

Gallery Mau Mau, Sub Liberation 

Underground, Invisible Graffiti, 

Human Etchings, amongst other 

things] 

Nicola Danby, director of Artinsure – former head of BASA; Dr Fred 

Scott, well-known art collector and speaker at the event; with Gordon 

Massie, MD of Artinsure who has brought his international expertise to 

South Africa and partnered with Hollard to deliver specialist insurance for 

investors in art. 

Bottem: (left to right) Lee-Ann Dobrescu, Operations Manager of Hollard 

Insurance Partners; Clive Kellner, head of the Johannesburg Art Gallery 

and Gordon Massie, MD of Artinsure 

Art is big business and growing 

steadily despite financial world crashs 

There has been an unprecedented 

growth in the value of art globally 

and South Africa is keeping pace, 

said Nicola Danby, director of Artinsure 

– formerly head of BASA. 

She was speaking at a recent 

event held by Artinsure and Hollard 

in Johannesburg to discuss 

the ‘value of art in the South 

African context’ with leaders in 

the field who gathered to hear art 

insurance expert, Gordon Massie 

and well-known collector Dr Fred 

Scott talk on the subject. 

“Latest annual figures of global 

art sales are $25 billion with a 

19% increase in value last year, 

particularly in contemporary pieces 

created from 1960 onwards,” MD 

of Artinsure, Gordon Massie, said. 

He pointed out that the last time 

the financial world crashed in the 

80s the value of art crashed with it. 

“But this time the development has 

been different with the art world 

being bolstered by investors from 

Middle East Royal Families and 

BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, 

India and China who have been 

buying high value works in spite of 

the shaky situation in the financial 

world.” An example of this, he 

said, was the fact that Damien 

Hirst opened his solo show the 

day after the Lehman Brothers 

crash and AIG rescue plan and 

netted himself a profit of $200 

million. “Whilst there is evidence 

of a correction taking place, Art 

continues to sell as evidenced in 

recent sales. At a major sale I was 

at in early November an investor 

said to me ‘You would not believe 

there is a credit crunch going on 

out there!’” 

Massie says good news for local 

investors is that well known South 

African artists are also becoming 

international brands and the local 

market is experiencing significant 

increases in values. 

As an example, he explained 

that if a South African investor in 

art had spent 100 Euros on an 

Irma Stern work in 1997, today it 

would be worth 1500 Euros. “As 

art develops into a truly attractive 

investment, owners need to be 

sure that their insurer appreciates 

the true value of their art works. 

There have been recent examples 

where claims were inexpertly handled. 

For instance in one specific 

example, a R12 million painting 

by a well known South African 

artist was stolen and due to lack 

of expertise, the insurer offered to 

replace this premier painting with 

another painting by the same art 

ist. The trouble was the intended 

replacement painting only had 

a market value of R500 000. 

Underwriting and evaluating art 

is a specialist area and collectors 

need to be sure they are protected 

effectively against loss by people 

who understand the art world and 

true market values.” 

Massie also demonstrated by 

using true examples that fire is the 

biggest risk to artwork followed by 

accidental damage and then water 

damage. “Whilst theft is a risk the 

probability of a theft is lower than 

these three risks,” Massie said. 

Photo: Ryszard Kasiewicz 

Artistic Director of 

Documenta 13 

Announced 

The curator Carolyn Christov- 

Bakargiev, and author of the 

very first monograph on William 

Kentridge, has been selected as 

the artistic director of Documenta 

13, scheduled for June, 2012, in 

Kassel, Germany. 

The CEO of Documenta and the 

Fridericianum museum, Bernd 

Leifeld, announced that the 

supervisory board of Documenta 

unanimously agreed to her appointment, 

following a proposal 

by the international ‘finding’ 

committee. 

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev 

is one of a new generation of 

international curators and art 

commentators on the fast track. 

She is familiar with South African 

art, mainly through her association 

with William Kentridge, whose 

local retrospective of 2004 she 

co-curated. 

She has just had a major 

international success as artistic 

director of the Sydney Biennale, 

but is based at the Castello di 

Rivoli museum of contemporary 

art in Turin as chief curator. From 

1999 to 2001 she was at the PS1 

contemporary art centre in New 

York. 

Christov-Bakargiev graduated 

magna cum laude from the University 

of Pisa, Faculty of letters 

and philosophy, in 1981. Her 

master thesis was on the relation 

between contemporary poetry and 

painting. 

Her appointment to the highly-visible, 

globally-influential post as 

director of Documenta 13, comes 

with high kudos. The ‘finding’ 

committee reads like a who’s-who 

of the contemporary art world: 

Joseph Backstein (director, 

Institute of Contemporary Art, 

Moscow), Manuel J. Borja-Villel 

(director Museo Nacional Centro 

de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid), 

Kathy Halbreich (associate director 

Museum of Modern Art, New 

York), Paulo Herkenhoff (formerly 

director of Museu Nacional Belas 

Artes, Rio de Janeiro), Oscar 

Ho (Chinese University of Hong 

Kong), Udo Kittelmann (director 

Museum für Moderne Kunst, 

Frankfurt), Kasper König (director 

Museum Ludwig, Köln), Elizabeth 

Ann Macgregor (director Museum 

of Contemporary Art, Sydney) and 

Rein Wolfs (artistic director of the 

Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel).

Michael Coulson 

From studying grassland sciences 

in Pietermaritzburg to promoting 

international art events may not 

sound a logical career path, but 

Ross Douglas, whose Artlogic 

company organises the Johannesburg 

Art Fair, makes it sound 

sensible enough. 

Though he didn’t complete that degree, 

after switching to philosophy 

and economics Douglas started 

his career in ecotourism, first in the 

Okavango and then Mozambique. 

When Mozambique’s tourism 

industry was slow to get back off 

the ground after the 1993 election, 

Douglas produced a documentary 

on the demobilisation of Frelimo 

and Renamo soldiers. 

He returned to SA the following 

year to make documentaries for 

TV channels like SABC’s 50-50 

and National Geographic. When 

the burgeoning of witless reality TV 

slashed budgets for more worthy 

projects, he switched to making 

commercials and planning the long 

(and still!) awaited Great SA Film. 

This too ran up against budgetary 

constraints, but educated him 

in the basics of film production. 

Deciding on another fresh start, 

he persuaded William Kentridge to 

adapt his Soho Ekstein videos as 

an event with 35mm film production 

and live music. Presentations 

in New York, London, Berlin and 

Milan were a huge success, says 

Douglas, and emboldened their 

next venture: Kentridge wanted 

to stage his successful European 

production of Mozart’s opera The 

Magic Flute in SA. 

This required major corporate 

sponsorship. Douglas says he was 

turned down by Standard Bank, 

which was heavily involved in its 

Picasso & Africa exhibition, but 

was fortunate enough to bump into 

Paul Harris of FirstRand and Rand 

Merchant Bank. Banks were then 

in great shape and RMB, which 

had for years sponsored annual 

Starlight Classics concerts, was 

looking for further arts sponsorships. 

Harris as well as being an art collector 

of note, is also a shareholder 

in the Everard Read Gallery, so 

is au fait with both the aesthetic 

and commercial sides of the art 

market. In return for branding 

rights, RMB paid a fee and put up 

an unsecured interest- 

free loan. The production ended 

up costing R11.5m, and Douglas 

says “It broke even. We managed 

to pay RMB back in full – though it 

took time.” 

But, says Douglas, “One-off 

projects are a terrible business 

model. You can’t capitalise on 

them. So though Flute was a success 

– it sold out in both Jo’burg 

and Cape Town – we needed a 

sustainable business model that 

we could repeat every year. 

“We did some research and 

found that art fairs are popular 

internationally. An internet search 

identified 247 worldwide, before 

we stopped counting. I even went 

to Delhi to see how the Indian 

art market, which is estimated at 

US$750m a year, works. 

“It took some time for us to come 

up with a model that would work 

locally. Thanks to Harris, First 

National Bank then came on board 

as the major sponsor, followed by 

BMW and Telkom.” 

Douglas is not starry-eyed about 

why corporates sponsor the arts. 

“They need success at a number 

of levels. Sponsorship helps build 

the brand, in terms of both general 

awareness and social responsibility, 

and provides an opportunity 

for interaction with clients. 

“But too often in SA delivery 

doesn’t match up to the promises. 

The challenge is to keep a contemporary 

art event going to gain 

credibility and continuity, and we’re 

trying to do that.” 

He admits that times are hard, 

but is confident that the 2009 fair 

will build on this year’s. “There’s 

no doubt that we’ve grown the 

market. Six months after the event, 

one leading Cape Town gallery 

told us that 70% of his business 

was coming from people he’d met 

at the fair.” 

But he’s not resting on his laurels. 

As the Art Fair settles down, it 

should no longer demand all his 

time. He’s built up a great data 

base, and is looking for other ways 

to exploit it. Nor has he dropped 

his interest in ecology: his other 

passion is global warming, and 

with his partner Cobi Labuschagne 

he’s started Greenlogic, which he 

wants to become as important in 

the local green space as Artlogic 

is in art. 

Ross Douglas 

Ross Douglas

Warm, unpretentious and frequently 

smiling, Jodi Bieber is immediately 

likeable. Her congeniality has no 

doubt worked in her favour, especially 

as a documenter photographer 

with an interest in insinuating 

herself into realms far removed 

from her own white middle-class 

milieu. Certainly with her latest 

exhibition, entitled Real Beauty, 

which sees women of all shapes 

and sizes posing in their underwear, 

it must have taken some convincing 

to have persuaded all these 

women to allow Bieber to capture 

their bodies, flaws and all. Revealingly, 

Bieber draws a blank when 

I ask about her relationship with 

her subjects. The inference is that 

whatever the nature of the afflations 

she strikes with her subjects it isn’t 

premeditated. 

“I think that if you are honest people 

can pick that up. I try to capture 

something of who they (my subjects) 

really are. It might not be who 

they are, but who I think they are.” 

In Real Beauty Bieber assumed a 

hands-off approach, allowing her 

subjects to choose how they would 

Jodi Bieber: From Real Beauty; Claire: ‘I’m 81 years of age and I like myself. My attitude changed when I developed cancer 7 years ago and I decided I didn’t want to die and I wanted to live 

and I changed my attitude completely towards life. By being aware that you may die, you have to be strong and pull yourself through it and change your thinking completely, and that’s why I 

am so comfortable with my body. So comfortable with myself and I’m always reaching out to do exciting things’. 2008 

Documenting unruly women 

Mary Corrigall meets Jodi Bieber, the documentary photographer who has caused a buzz with her latest study of daring women 

Jodi Bieber 

like to present themselves. While 

some clearly pander to the male 

gaze, others are confrontational 

assuming defiant poses. 

“It is a rebellion, the ultimate reason 

the women did the project was that 

they wanted to make a stand for 

real beauty. It talks about how we 

present ourselves in front of the 

camera as women. For me it is 

about a celebration (of beauty) and 

going against the media.” 

After enjoying a long career as a 

photojournalist – albeit that she 

eschews the title - Bieber is acutely 

aware of the inner workings of 

the media. Upon completing an 

informal education in photography 

at the Market Photo Workshop 

in Newtown, Johannesburg, she 

joined The Star newspaper as a 

trainee, covering the 

years of South Africa’s transition to 

democracy. 

Photography immediately appealed 

to Bieber as it allowed her to 

express herself and delve into other 

ways of living. 

“Photography is a tool, I can’t paint, 

I can’t draw. Coming from a middle 

class background, photography 

gave me that opportunity to cross 

over to the other side, that privileged 

situation where I could 

From Real Beauty; Lucille: ‘I am today because of my belief in myself, 

my religion and more basically my upbringing, my foundation was 

strong. And if it wasn’t for my foundation, the people in my life when I 

really explore what is happening in 

this country.” 

When Bieber first entered the 

realm of photography in the early 

nineties, the political situation in 

South Africa was volatile. This 

shaped Bieber’s early aesthetic. 

“I was posted at Ulundi (where pre 

election violence was rife) they 

were dark times. My whole per- 

spective on life changed because of 

all the death (I witnessed). My mind 

was dark and that’s where I was for 

ten years; looking at those kinds (of 

subjects).” 

Jodi Bieber, Babalwa 

The work Bieber produced during 

that period of her career featured 

in her acclaimed 2006 book, 

Between Dogs and Wolves, which 

documents South Africa’s dark 

underbelly, capturing gang life 

in townships and the destitute. A 

was growing up, I don’t think I would have been here today’ 2008 sense of hopelessness pervades 

Jodi Bieber From Real 

images of impoverished children 

wandering through a desolate, 

neglected urban landscape. 

In the mid-nineties came Bieber’s 

biggest break when she was invited 

to participate in the prestigious 

World Press master class in 

Holland. After completing the 

course, she was catapulted into the 

international media, freelancing for 

magazines such as Geo, Stern and 

The New York Times magazine. 

During this time Bieber’s focus 

shifted from covering news events 

to documenting real-life narratives. 

It was Linda Givon, founder of the 

Goodman Gallery empire, who 

recognised qualities in Bieber’s 

photography that aligned it with art. 

Although Bieber feels that her 

work has always straddled the 

art realm, at first she didn’t grasp 

Givon’s interest. 

“I didn’t understand what it meant. 

She told me she had a show for me 

in Belgium and I told her I was busy 

shooting.” But with a magazine editors 

losing interest in documentary 

photography, Bieber was grateful 

that art galleries presented an 

alternative platform to showcase 

her work.“A lot of photojournalism 

is about recording and while my 

work has appeared in the media 

and that’s where I come from I 

believe that I have never recorded. 

I believe I have always interpreted. 

I hate that word photojournalist, I 

am a photographer.” Bieber says 

its art critics who have defined 

her work, invested her work with 

meaning, not the art gallery context 

that has begged new readings. 

Ultimately, Bieber is only interested 

in bringing her work closer to the 

general public.“I have shown my 

photographs in a village and in an 

art gallery, it makes no difference to 

me.” • Real Women is showing at 

the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg 

Beauty; Brenda: ‘I think if 

you believe you are beautiful, 

you will appear beautiful 

to the world’ 2008

Gouws’s fascination of 

Steve Kretzmann 

Slowing down the viewer’s gaze is 

the aim of self-described “Dutch- 

South African Buddhist-Calvinist 

bourgeois artist-philosopher” 

Andries Gouws’s meditative 

paintings. 

“Any worthwhile art demands a 

meditative or contemplative eye; a 

pace of looking that is many orders 

of magnitude slower than what is 

typical for our age.” 

This view on his work gives us 

an idea as to why Gouws also 

teaches philosophy at the University 

of KwaZulu-Natal’s Durban 

campus. 

But while academia pays the bills 

now, he “hopes” to be a full-time 

artist within a year or two. 

And with the first three of his new 

series of paintings of feet being accepted 

for the 2001 Spier Contemporary, 

and his fourth winning the 

prize for painting at the Ekurhuleni 

Awards earlier this year, his hopes 

are well on the way to becoming 

reality. 

His ‘feet’ painting, which he started 

on around the beginning of last 

year, hold the same pathos as a 

good portrait, in fact one might 

argue they are portraits in terms of 

the depth of the sitter’s character 

they portray. 

His focus on feet came about 

unexpectedly – as many good or 

interesting things do - born out of 

a need to “move beyond the confines” 

of what he had been doing 

for the previous 15 years. 

“I had in the past occasionally 

drawn feet, and once even made a 

silkscreen to go with Ritsos’s two 

line poem: 

The nights go by with big strides 

That’s why the loveliest statues 

stand with their feet together. 

But I had never expected that I’d 

ever focus on feet the way I’ve 

been doing,” he says. 

It seems the subject matter Gouws 

has concentrated on over the 

years has always been rather 

surprising to him. 

Living in Holland for 16 years 

after studying art in Cape Town 

(at Michaelis), Italy, Düsseldorf 

and finally Amsterdam, he said 

he “pined” for the South African 

landscape and climate and started 

off painting “big, colourful, gestural 

abstract” paintings in acrylics 

before moving on to graphics. 

Back in South Africa, having sold 

his treasured 500 kg Artel etching 

press and returned to oils, he 

said he imagined he would paint 

the landscape and nudes, things 

which “grabbed my gut most 

directly”. 

But he soon ended painting interiors 

and still lifes, unexpectedly 

connecting with a Dutch tradition 

that while in Holland he had felt he 

did not belong to. 

Arguably, his feet paintings remain 

in the tradition of interiors and still 

lifes, although with a twist that puts 

them in a new realm. 

“These feet do not have the same 

meditative quality of my still 

lifes and interiors. They are more 

confrontational; engaging with feet 

disconcerts me – they look back at 

me in a way objects in a still life or 

interior don’t.” 

He says his wife has commented 

that the paintings of feet are “unexpectedly 

religious”. 

Though Gouws’s wife is “as much 

of an unbeliever” as he says he is, 

the religiosity of the work shouldn’t 

be that surprising taking into account 

his expressed admiration for 

Velasquez and Rubens, although 

he suggests his current paintings 

“suggest other triggers: El Greco; 

Grünewald, Caravaggio even”. 

His earlier work, he says, “often 

suggested that Vermeer and Piero 

were the artists I had looked at 

more closely”. 

But returning to the religiosity 

of feet, it is interesting to note 

that he started concentrating on 

people’s pedal extremities in “late 

2006/early 2007”, shortly after 

former apartheid minister Adriaan 

Vlok’s famous washing of Director 

General in the Presidency Rev 

Frank Chikane’s feet. 

Asked whether there was any 

connection to that highly publicised 

action and his choice of subject 

matter, Gouws says: “One never 

knows! I hadn’t thought about it. 

Feet perhaps reflect some more 

elemental aspect of our being 

- more closely linked to violence, 

vulnerability, and then I suppose 

the aspect of asking for, and giving 

forgiveness, isn’t such a big step 

from there.” 

Pretty feet are also few and far between, 

and Gouws does not hide 

the battering that his subject 

dirty pretty feet 

matter has endured. A clue to 

his choice of rendering the most 

abused parts of the body in the 

rich texture of oils lies in his description 

of his immediate Durban 

environment as an area comprising 

“attractive ugly industrial 

areas”. 

“Durban to me is like one big workshop, 

in which there is nothing 

inclining one to preciousness – the 

opposite of Stellenbosch, where I 

lived for a few years before coming 

here.” 

However, for all the pretty dirtiness 

of Gouws’s Durban, he describes 

his studio as 150 square metres 

of “wonderful, airy” space lit by 

“huge” south-facing windows. 

It is a working space he does 

not have any plans on leaving 

although he admits he wouldn’t 

mind being nearer something like 

the Louvre, the Prado or the Met, 

as there are very few art buyers 

in Durbs. 

A travelling exhibition is on the 

cards though, for those who don’t 

get to enjoy the KZN art scene. 

Gouws is planning on taking his 

work to the Pretoria Art Museum, 

Oliewenhuis Museum in Bloemfontein, 

the University of Stellenbosch 

Art Gallery and other venues 

which are being negotiated. 

And while waiting for the real thing 

to come to a town near you, you 

can see digital images of his paintings 

at www.andriesgouws.com. 

Anton Gouws

ART 

Auction 

16 December 2008 

Viewing 

12-15 December 

Enquiries 

London 

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nlambourn@christies.com 

+44 (0)20 7389 2040 

Cape Town 

Juliet Lomberg 

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+27 (21) 761 2676 

Durban and Johannesburg 

Gillian Scott-Berning 

gillian.gsb@mweb.co.za 

+27 (31) 207 8247 

Catalogues 

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London +44 (0)20 7389 2820 

London 

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SW1Y 6QT 

View catalogues 

and leave bids online 

at christies.com 

IRMA STERN (1894-1966) 

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HIGHLIGHTS 

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