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Alexis Preller: Africa, the Sun and Shadows
‘Alexis Preller: Africa, the Sun and Shadows’ runs at the Standard Bank
Gallery from 13 October to 5 December 2009. A retrospective exhibition, it showcases
the work of Alexis Preller (1911-1975).
Preller was a major South African artist, whose unconventional form of expression
was impossible to classify. In his art, he created a world of signs and symbols,
shaping a private cosmology in which the myths of humankind are interconnected and
interwoven.
‘Alexis Preller: Africa, the Sun and Shadows’ showcases a wide selection
of the artist’s work, as well as a number of artefacts, documents and photographs
relevant to his life. A contribution to understanding Preller as one of South Africa’s
pre-eminent artists, and as a pioneer who defined an African style in the 20th century,
the exhibition is accompanied by Alexis Preller, a comprehensive monograph
by Esmé Berman and Karel Nel.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Alexis Preller below:
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Standard Bank Young Artists: 25 (SBYA 25)
‘Standard Bank Young Artists: 25 (SBYA 25)’, arriving fresh from the
National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, opens at the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg,
on 6 August 2009, running until 19 September. The exhibition celebrates the 25th
anniversary of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for the visual arts.
The award is inextricably linked to the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, which
has run since 1974. The award is granted to emerging, relatively young South African
artists who have demonstrated exceptional ability in their chosen field. The list
of Young Artist Award winners from the past 25 years includes many of South Africa’s
most famous and astute creative individuals in the visual arts.
Curated by the late Alan Crump, who was associated with the award as Chairperson
of the National Arts Festival Committee (1990-1999), and Barbara Freemantle, curator
at Standard Bank Gallery, the exhibition includes two works by each of the award
winners to date. The works were selected from various public and private collections
in South Africa.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on SBYA 25 below:
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Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko: Wonderland
‘Wonderland’, Nontsikelelo Veleko’s Young Artist Award travelling
exhibition, runs at the Standard Bank Gallery from 10 June to 18 July 2009.
Veleko was the 2008 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art, only the second photographer
to win the award. These awards acknowledge emerging, relatively young South African
artists who have displayed outstanding talent in their artistic endeavours. In ‘Wonderland’,
she pursues familiar themes – people on the streets, fashion, graffiti and
personal spaces.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko
below:
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Andrew Verster: Past/Present
Past/Present is a survey exhibition of works by the renowned artist, Andrew Verster.
The exhibition opened at the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown in June
2008 and has travelled to several venues throughout the country. The show highlights
work made by Verster between 1994 – the start of democracy in South Africa – and
the present. It includes paintings, drawings, stage sets, costume designs and wax
panels intended to show the diversity and ongoing creativity of one of the country’s
most prolific and respected artists.
Eduardo Villa: Moving Voices
At he age of 93, Eduardo Villa is probably the oldest working artist in South Africa.
While he is probably best known for his large public steel sculpture. Eduardo Villa:
Moving Voices reflects an often overlooked tradition of small-scale sculpture, showcasing
a prolific collection of vibrant works which reflect the artist’s delight in the
vigour of life.
If you are unable to attend the exhibition in person, you can take an online tour
by visiting the Standard Bank Gallery website: www.standardbankgallery.co.za
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Eduardo Villa below:
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Johannes Phokela: I like my neighbours
Johannes Phokela is renowned for his exquisitely painted manipulations of iconic
images by European Old Masters, particularly those from the seventeenth century,
like Rubens, Van Dyck, Breugel, Jacob de Gheyn and Caravaggio. “Most of my
work,” says Phokela, “is a contemporary take on Old Dutch and Flemish
Masters where I take on what is perceived to be Europe’s grandiose history
of art as a medium to convey values and ideals represented within a global context
of cultural elitism” (Dlamini, 2006).
One striking feature of Phokela’s satirical work is his use of a red nose,
which appears every now and again in both his paintings and sculptures. He was inspired
to use this clown-like nose after he had acquired one in the UK from the charity
organisation, Comic Relief. But the nose did not fit his African physiognomy. “At
first,” he says, “I thought I must have bought the wrong size, but in
the end I realised that they were not really made for my type of nose” (Haines,
2002).
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Johannes Phokela below:
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Judith Mason: a prospect of icons
Judith Mason was born in Pretoria in 1938. She studied at the University of the
Witwatersrand in the 1950s, obtaining a BA Degree in Fine Art in 1960. Her first
solo show was held in 1964.
In the 1970s and 80s Mason was highly visible in the South African art world at
a time when the country was isolated both politically and culturally from the rest
of the world. Even so, she was chosen to represent South Africa at the Venice Biennale,
and at international art fairs, like Art Basel. In the early 1990s Mason returned
from living and teaching in Florence, Italy. At this time, her work became part
of the South African school and university curricula and she also taught history
of art, drawing and painting at the Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape
Town.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Judith Mason below:
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Cecil Skotnes: A Private View
Of Norwegian-Canadian descent, Cecil Skotnes was born in 1926 in East London in
a poor neighbourhood. He fought in World War II against fascism in Italy with South
African troops, after which he stayed on to study painting in Florence. On returning
to South Africa, Skotnes studied art at the University of the Witwatersrand from
1947 to 1950. He lived in Johannesburg from 1946, relocating to Cape Town in 1978.
In 1963 Skotnes helped to establish the Amadlozi group. This group, which included
Guiseppe Cattaneo, Cecily Sash, Sydney Kumalo and Edoardo Villa, sought to work
at the intersection of African and European art. Skotnes first exhibited his prints
on his first solo show at the Pretoria Art Centre in 1957, and some were chosen
to represent South Africa at the Sao Paolo and Venice Biennales of 1957 and 1958.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Cecil Skotnes below:
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Pieter Hugo: Messina/Musina
Pieter Hugo was born in Johannesburg in 1976 and is a self-taught photographer and
filmmaker. He started taking pictures at the age of twelve, when his father bought
him his first camera. He documents social issues globally but has a special interest
in Africa and developing countries.
On winning the 2007 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art award, Hugo says:
‘It means that photography is being recognised as an artistic medium in South Africa
and this gives me great pleasure… It is refreshing that there is now the space where
we can appreciate photographic images beyond the urgency of photojournalism.’
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Pieter Hugo below:
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Skin-to-Skin
For centuries in South Africa skin colour was used to define our social status and
culture – and to keep us apart. Under apartheid this separation became extreme when
people were classified ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘coloured’ or ‘Indian’ according to skin
colour. Black and white people could not live in the same neighbourhoods, go to
the same schools, eat in the same restaurants, ride in the same busses, use the
same bathrooms, swim or play together, or get married. When South Africa became
a democracy in 1994, discrimination against people on the basis of skin colour was
outlawed. Now we may associate with each other as we like, without restriction.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Skin-to-Skin below:
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Marlene Dumas: Intimate Relations
It will give viewers in-depth insight into Dumas’s extraordinary oeuvre through
a broad selection of her work, ranging from early conceptual pieces dating from
her student years to her recent paintings and drawings dealing with contemporary
global issues.
The words ‘Intimate Relations’ from the title of this exhibition encapsulate the
ideas and concerns Dumas has explored in her work during a career spanning thirty
years or so. It raises questions about what intimate relations are and how these
relations between people, places and objects are structured. It also probes the
way we connect with one another, both personally and globally, and how we relate
to art.
More particularly, Dumas’s work deals with ideologically complex subjects. Her work
challenges many of our taboos. For not only has she made autobiographical works,
but her attention has also focused on racial themes, stereotypes, motherhood, death,
violence, sexuality, eroticism, and religion.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Marlene Dumas below:
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Christine Dixie: Corporeal Prospects
Christine Dixie was born in Cape Town in 1966. She completed her undergraduate studies
in fine art at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1988, before obtaining an
Advanced Diploma in Fine Art in 1990. Dixie gained a Masters in Fine Art from the
Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town, in 1993. She was a research fellow
at the Ampersand Foundation in New York in 1998.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Christine Dixie below:
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Churchill Madikida: Like Father Like Son?
Madikida was born in Butterworth in 1973 to a ‘coloured’ mother and a black father,
who abandoned him. His life as a young person was challenging, to say the least.
Not only was his family poor, but he also grew up with two stepfathers, one ‘coloured’
and the other Xhosa, neither of whom accepted him. To make matters worse, his Butterworth
community did not embrace him either, because he was neither ‘coloured,’ nor black.
‘I am just in between,’ says Madikida. ‘My community in Butterworth didn’t accept
me as black. They used to call me all these different names. I became very closed.
Drawing became one of the ways I communicated my feelings.’
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Churchill Madikida below:
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Karel Nel: Fugitive images from deep space.
Born in 1955, Karel Nel is a renowned South African artist who exhibits locally
and abroad. He has taught Fine Art since 1980 at the University of the Witwatersrand,
where he is now an Associate Professor, and was awarded a Fulbright placement at
the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988. Nel has won numerous awards and
commissions, and is represented in most art museums and public collections in South
Africa, as well as in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African
Art in Washington DC and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He lives and
lectures in Johannesburg but spends six months of the year travelling to the major
art centres of the world, as well as to remote parts of the Pacifi c, Asia and the
east coast of Africa. These expeditions inform his life’s work.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Karel Nel below:
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Willem Boshoff: Word forms and language shapes 1975-2007
Willem Boshoff was born into a humble working class family in Vanderbijlpark in
1951. In the conservative world of an Afrikaner town, where it was commonplace for
a boy to help his father around the workshop, Boshoff inherited his love of wood
from his father, who was a master carpenter. But the relative harmony of his childhood
years was shattered when, like all white males during apartheid, Boshoff was forced
by the South African Defence Force to serve two years of military service after
leaving school, then report for regular military camps. Boshoff refused to carry
a rifl e, and came to reject all forms of violence and war, suffering isolation
among fellow Afrikaners as a result.
To read more, download the full educational supplement on Willem Boshoff below:
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