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

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

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