Distant Relatives/Relative Distance

Distant Relatives/Relative Distance brings together six contemporary artists with African connections who live mainly in European, English and American cities. These artists are Julie Mehretu, Senam Okudzeto, Wangechi Mutu, Odili Donald Odita, Barth?l?my Toguo and Owusu-Ankomah, all of whom have exhibited extensively across the world.

The exhibition is curated by Michael Stevenson Contemporary.

Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa to an Ethiopian father and American mother of European descent, was raised in the USA and today lives in New York; Okudzeto was born in Chicago to an Afro-American mother and a Ghanaian father, spent most of her childhood in Ghana and Nigeria and now lives between London, Basel and Accra; Mutu was born and raised in Kenya, spent two years at a school in Wales and furthered her studies in the USA, where she lives. Odita was born in Nigeria but has lived virtually all of his life in the USA; Toguo studied in Ivory Coast, France and Germany and lives in France and Cameroon; Owusu-Ankomah was born in Ghana, where he studied, but has relocated to Germany.

What binds all of the artists participating in Distant Relatives/Relative Distance is that they are all socially and physically displaced persons, a marked feature of life under globalisation. All of them may therefore be considered to be 'citizens of the world', or 'Afropolitans', rather than people with a clearly defined sense of nationhood, home and self, as was the case in the pre-globalisation era: they belong "to no single geography", but feel "at home in many".

Distant Relatives/Relative Distance comprises diverse works, ranging from prints, video projections, mixed media works and paintings to installations. These works deal with a variety of subjects, such as AIDS, power, exchange between the West and Africa, identity, femininity, Hurricane Katrina and modernism. They also reflect disparate aesthetic sensibilities. While each artist has his or her own approach to art, what threads the works are the varied ways in which the artists deal with their 'relative distance' from Africa and their complex historical relationship with the continent.

Since 1994, South Africa has become increasingly involved in African affairs. After the Johannesburg biennales of 1995 and 1997, however, local exhibitions have only sporadically reflected links with the continent. Distant Relatives/ Relative Distance is thus a valuable contribution to South Africa's African footprint. It also provides an opportunity for us to ponder the meaning of being African in a globalised world.

Sound Check - Pierre Crocquet

"Sound Check", by photographer Pierre Crocquet, is a compilation of images of South African musicians who have performed in South Africa at music events over recent years.

South African artists in the "Sound Check" exhibition vary from great names such as Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Caiphus Semenya, Abdullah Ibrahim and Letta Mbulu to younger musicians now established with huge followings in their own right like Jimmy Dludlu, Ernie Smith, Louis Mhlanga, Malaika, Simphiwe Dana and Freshlyground. The images were shot at events that include Jazz in the Park, Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Standard Bank Joy of Jazz and Jazzathon.

It is the diversity of the images that celebrate both old and young musicians performing concurrently at events as diverse as the Cape Town Jazz International Festival and Moretele Park that make "Sound Check" a visual feast not to miss.

Crocquet was born in Cape Town and grew up in Klerksdorp, a farming and mining town in the conservative region of the then Western Transvaal. As a boy he relished the freedom of growing up on a small town smallholding, but he always felt the need to leave and after school went to study finance at the University of Cape Town. He worked as a chartered accountant in London for five years and enrolled in a professional photography course at the London College of Printing where he specialized in reportage and portraiture.

His current freelance work is a mixture of fine art photography and commercial photography. In 2002 he won the Mondi Award for Magazine photography for images taken in Angola.

Gerard Sekoto: from the Paris Studio

The Gerard Sekoto: from the Paris Studio exhibition consists of a small but choice selection of works on paper as well as a display of Gerard Sekoto memorabilia. A number of drawings on the exhibition provide fascinating insights into Sekoto's working methods.

Sekoto was born in Botshabelo near Middelburg in the then Transvaal. He held his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1949. During the years that followed he participated in numerous solo and group shows in Europe, South Africa and Africa. Sekoto died in Paris on 20 March 1993.

In 2000 the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology donated the contents of his studio to the Iziko South African National Gallery. One example of the donated works is the Study for the Donkey Cart, dated 1946, which is a study for the oil painting. The sketch captures the essence of the scene in a few, brilliant strokes. A comparison with the final painting shows a number of detailed changes and is evidence of the care and attention Sekoto devoted to the work.

Other similar examples on this exhibition are the Study for Bernard, the artist's brother asleep, dated 1945 and the Study for Two Friends, a pencil drawing of 1940.

Theresa-Anne Mackintosh - 'If you say so'

'If you say so', is a new body of work by Theresa-Anne Mackintosh (2006). This collection of animated videos continues some stylistic themes and conceptual concerns introduced by her earlier works, such as Jackie the Kid, which was first exhibited at the NSA in Durban, and is also included in this exhibition. Viewers are treated to a display of quirky yet graphically sophisticated drawings that constantly morph and surprise, where animals, people, and objects move, intersect or come apart continuously.

Mackintosh introduces photographic imagery in her animations as a new addition to her working method, suggesting an edge between fantasy and reality.

Ultimately, Mackintosh's videos do not prescribe any meaning, nor do they provide answers or conclusions But they invite the viewer to make creative connections between segments, and invest in the characters based on personal experience and childhood memories.

The many strands that make up the exhibition are often at odds with one another - the viewer questions whether the narrative is adult or childlike and whether it is nurturing or destructive, optimistic, funny or sad. The sardonic sense that underlies the works is encapsulated in the title: 'If you say so', signifying that Mackintosh is playing a game with the audience: "make of it what you will."

Wim Botha: Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art 2005

Wim Botha's traveling exhibition began its year long tour at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and concludes its run at the Standard Bank Gallery on 15 July 2006.

Botha works in multiple media, with sculptures, etchings, paintings and drawings all forming part of his intricate installations. These reflect on and subvert the symbolic imagery of power, religion and art history. By visually interfering with venerated forms of art, artefact and decoration, the artist offers questions related to the underlying implications of systems and structures that attempt to define who we are. In several of his installations this subversion alludes to the systemic decay inherent in symbolic representations related to power. This is coupled with a reconstructive desire, simulating found imagery in an altered way that allows the possibility of a revision of our assumptions.

Wim Botha graduated from the University of Pretoria in 1996 and has since become one of the most prominent young contemporary artists in South Africa.

Included in Botha's Standard Bank Young Artist exhibition is the Mieliepap Pietà, a life-size mirrored replica of Michelangelo's original, modelled in maize meal and epoxy resin. The sculpture was first exhibited at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York in 2004, as part of the group exhibition Personal Affects: Power and poetics in contemporary South African art, where it alternately offered subtle comment on western traditions and was appropriated by worshippers as part of the fabric of the church. Botha is also well known for his Christ figure carved out of bibles, titled commune: suspension of disbelief, which hangs in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and commune: onomatopoeia, a complex installation of a suspended room, which is currently touring Europe on Africa Remix, a survey of the contemporary art of the continent.

Botha has held four solo shows, and his work has been included on group exhibitions nationally and internationally. He has also received other prestigious awards, including the prize for best artwork at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in 2001, being named festival artist at the KKNK in 2003, and sharing the first annual Tollman award with Churchill Madikida in 2003.

Bronwen Findlay: All about Everything

The starting point for Bronwen Findlay's exhibition, All about Everything is a large oil painting of the same title. The painting depicts elements of past works and a seemingly random collection of domestic objects. These objects are sometimes immersed into the paint to become part of the total picture.

The oil painting is as much about the subject matter as it is about manipulation of paint on the surface of the canvas - it is about textures and colours and mark making. Objects are both destroyed and brought to life by paint. The painting represents the everyday "clutter" which can become important in one's life.

Although smaller works, including prints, will also be exhibited, all the works will take their cue from this major work. All about Everything includes an interest in using decoration and pattern as a starting point; also evidenced in her past work.

Findlay has exhibited at the Standard Bank Gallery previously when she collaborated with Daina Mabunda and Faiza Galdhari.

Findlay is currently teaching in the art department at the University of Johannesburg. Previous shows and exhibitions have been predominantly in Durban where she has taught and lived.

Figuring Faith: Images of belief in Africa

This exciting new multi-media exhibition picks up on current thinking on explorations of religion in modern life. Selected objects from the Wits Art Galleries and Standard Bank collections of historical African and contemporary South African art form the core of the exhibition, while there are also inclusions from private collections and other institutions.

The exhibition is structured around a number of interpretive themes, including aspects such as experiences of worship and ritual, religious clothing, body modification and decoration, ancestor worship and new experiences of death and dying and the impact of the AIDS epidemic in refashioning faith and religious ceremony. Some of the themes covered include Confession & Catharsis, Redemption & Salvation.

Rituals and images concerned with memorialising facts and events.

The exhibition involves a diverse array of artistic disciplines and concept manifestations, from small scaled objects in the personal register used for private devotional purposes to large sculptures used for preaching. A wide range of media likewise will be included, such as embroideries, ceramics, photographs, installations, paintings, wooden objects, beadwork and traditional forms of dress and decoration.

The extent to which the collection is able to communicate these themes is vast. Forms of traditional dress and body adornment, objects that are carried as forms of religious status and power, objects that are constructed for placing in religious sites or shrines and other forms of power objects used in communication with ancestors, such as headrests. All offer opportunities to consider issues of faith and its representation in Africa.

The exhibition will not only use static forms of presentation, the aim is to create a multi-modal visual experience that includes light, sound, film, installation and a selection of new specifically commissioned artworks for the exhibition.

The exhibition will be launched at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg in April 2006 and will travel to the National Festival of the Arts in Grahamstown from 29 June to 8 July, thus affording a wider national audience the opportunity to view the exhibition.

Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith of Wits Art Galleries

Picasso and Africa

Picasso and Africa has shown at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg during February and March 2006, and will be seen at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town from 13 April to 21 May 2006

The exhibition is the culmination of longstanding partnerships formed between these institutions that also include AFAA, (l'Association française d'action artistique), Iziko Museums of Cape Town, and Air France. Discussions to develop this ambitious project were initiated more than three years ago.

With President Mbeki and President Chirac as Patrons, the exhibition has the full support of the French and South African governments and reinforces the important cultural ties between the two countries. Previous exhibitions of work by Marc Chagall (2000) and Joan Miró (2002) that were also organised by Standard Bank and IFAS have formed the foundation for this groundbreaking venture.

Says Derek Cooper, Chairman of Standard Bank: "We are delighted once again to join these long-term partners in presenting to the South African public the most significant collaborative exhibition to date."

The Picasso Museum in Paris and one of its leading curators, Laurence Madeline, agreed to work with Marilyn Martin, Director of Art Collections at Iziko South African National Gallery, to conceive and develop the exhibition for South Africa.

Picasso and Africa offers, for the first time, a dialogue between Africa and Picasso and explores the influence of African art on his artistic output, in the company of classical African pieces.

Says H E Jean Felix-Paganon, Ambassador of France: "Picasso always relied on different cultural traditions which he combined in his unique work. His is a good example of the benefits of cultural diversity that France and South-Africa are promoting together."

A major loan from the Picasso Museum is augmented by works from the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou; as well as the Picasso family and other lenders.

The exhibition has three distinct yet interrelated components:

• More than 60 paintings, drawings and sculptures, dating from 1906 to 1972, which contain and communicate Picasso's African inspiration;
• A selection of works that reflect the diversity and rapid changes of which he was capable;
• A selection of African sculptures, similar to those with which Picasso may have been familiar. These were sourced from various South African holdings, as Picasso's own collection is dispersed and too fragile to travel.

A prestigious book with in-depth essays by the two curators and other prominent writers, will accompany Picasso and Africa. The book will include a detailed biography, an anthology of texts on the exhibition's theme as well as illustrations of all the exhibited works.

In addition, art education specialists for the Standard Bank Gallery and the Iziko South African National Gallery have developed an extensive workshop and educational programme, including a published resource for art educators and learners, with the support of Business and Arts SA (Basa). The programme also caters for learners with special needs.