The Department of Arts and Culture’s international Relations Department cites !Kauru as a key project in developing bi-lateral and multilateral relations

DAC, Department of international relations
Director Ruphus Matibe and
!Kauru Director Tshepiso Mohlala.

As the !Kauru African Contemporary art exhibition draws to a close, we would like to acknowledge the role of the DAC as a key sponsor of the !Kauru initiative. 

The !Kauru African Contemporary Art Exhibition opened on the 22^nd of May at the UNISA Art Gallery, to positive audiences. The !Kauru project has already brought together Africa in 2014 through a variety of events, stimulating conversation between international artists, dignitaries, embassies, academics, arts professionals and the Department of Arts and Culture. Events which took included an artist’s meet & greet evening hosted by the French Ambassador Elisabeth Barbier, the official exhibition opening at the UNISA Art gallery, an Artists Walkabout and a stimulating Round Table discussion, a youth day celebration and a community outreach programme.

As the !Kauru African Contemporary Art Project’s primary sponsor, the Department of Arts and Culture’s international Relations Department has provided solid support.  The aims and vision of the !Kauru project align with those of the Department of Arts and Culture’s (DAC), Department of International Relations. To quote their website, “ The DAC’s vision is for arts, culture and heritage to contribute to sustainable economic development, through partnerships for a socially cohesive nation .”

The visions of both DAC are closely aligned to !Kauru’s project vision, which is to provide a platform for African contemporary artists and cultural practitioners through which they may engage with each other around a showcase of contemporary art, created in and inspired by the continent; a continent with a rich cultural heritage and many creative and innovative artists.  Its ultimate aim is to incorporate all the regions of Africa over the lifespan of the project. The project promotes the visual arts as a viable career choice, and showcases the innovative and significant contemporary artistic voices of Africa.

!Kauru director Tshepiso Mohlala says that “Director of the DAC, Department of International Relations Ruphus Matibe, has supported the vision of the project since 2013 and played an important role in the growth and development of the project”. When addressing the guests at the !Kauru artists meet and greet, Louise Graham his colleague from the DAC Department of International Relations, spoke about how “!Kauru has created new opportunities as well links to the South African art market for the participating artists from the African continent”. The project thanks the DAC and all of its representatives for recognising its vision and providing support to grow this initiative.

GALLERY TIMES

UNISA GALLERY

10am – 4pm Mondays - Fridays.     

Note: The gallery is not open on weekends.

Paul Emmanuel’s The Lost Men, France public memorial installation is set to launch on 1 July 2014 adjacent to the site of theThiepval Memorial, Somme region, France

Paul Emmanuel’s The Lost Men, France public memorial installation is set to launch on 1 July 2014 adjacent to the site of the Thiepval Memorial, Somme region, France

The Lost Men, France is the third installation of South African artist Paul Emmanuel’s ongoing memorial The Lost Men Project. The Lost Men is a series of site-specific, temporary, outdoor, installations which aim to engage with memory, memorials and public grief. Each selected site has a relevance steeped in its own histories as well as engaging the thematic content of Emmanuel’s imagery. The first public exhibition of The Lost Men project took place in Grahamstown, South Africa in 2004 and was installed on Monument Hill. The second phase implemented in Maputo Mozambique in 2007, with the ephemeral artwork installed on the Catembe Ferry Jetty.  Now in 2014 the third artwork of Emmanuel’s public counter memorial project will be installed adjacent to the Thiepval Memorial on the extension of rue de l’Ancre in France.

The installation is comprised of five, 5m x 5m silk banners. These banners will hang along rue de’l Ancre; a public road which runs from the Thiepval Memorial towards the Lonsdale Cemetery, where headstones mark the graves of soldiers who died in WWI. The banners will be left in this landscape to the wind and the elements; possibly to disintegrate over time. The silk banners bear photographs of Emmanuel’s body with the names of French, German, South African and Allied servicemen who fell on the Western Front. The names were pressed into Emmanuel’s skin, without reference to rank, nationality or ethnicity. The Lost Men artwork also questions the exclusion of Black South African servicemen’s names from the walls of the Thiepval Memorial. The installation is not a permanent construction; rather it portrays a marked male body as something fragile and vulnerable. It is a non-partisan, ‘counter-memorial’ that reflects on impermanence and forgetting. The Lost Men, France does not glorify war but poses questions about masculinity and vulnerability. It questions the exclusion of people in traditional memorials – in particular black South African servicemen.

The Lost Men, France will be launched 1 July on a site where thousands of soldiers from England, France and their colonies, Germany, Russia to mention some of the countries involved and including South African servicemen died during the terrible battles of World War I (WWI). The 1^st of July is a significant date not only in respect of Emmanuel’s project but also to the town of Thiepval. It is the day that commemorates the commencement of the Battle of the Somme in 1916; one of the most significant battles of the Great War

This contemporary art project is the artist’s personal expression which he created for this specific arena. It is intended to stimulate conversations about memory and memorialisation.

Remembrance services will be held at the Thiepval Memorial to remember and commemorate the thousands of lives lost. French, British and other dignitaries are expected to attend the services.

The project has been selected by the Government of France as an official exhibit of the World War One Centennial. Emmanuel has also received support from Institut Francais, La Mission du Centenaire de la Premiere Guerre Mondiale, the French Institute and the National Arts Council, South Africa amongst others.

Paul Emmanuel states he is “..as many are, affected by these terrible historic battles. A was has a lasting psychological effects that are passed from generation to generation; we lose humanity, gentleness and vulnerability, feeling, empathy and sensitivity. We lose dignity, treasured relationships, potentiality, hope and the future. We become defined by ideologies that can confine and define our world view. As the Thiepval Memorial bears witness. It is a non-partisan artwork that aims to stimulate contemplation about all of this.”

WALKABOUTS WILL BE CONDUCTED BY THE ARTIST AT THE INSTALLATION SITE

Tuesday 1 July 2014 at 11 am

Wednesday 2 July 2014 at 11 am

Thursday 3 July 2014 at 11 am

Friday 4 July 2014 at 11 am

Saturday 5 July 2014 at 11 am

Walkabouts will be conducted in English with a French interpreter.

                                                  

About the !Kauru Project

! Kauru African Contemporary Art Touring project

Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014

The !Kauru African Contemporary Art project aims to promote conversations in Africa and internationally that change perceptions of the continent through contemporary art.

It provides a platform for African contemporary artists and cultural practioners to engage around a showcase of contemporary art from the continent that will travel to various locations. The strategic plan aims to incorporate all the regions of Africa over the lifespan of the project, and began in 2012 with the SADC region.

In 2014 the !Kauru African Contemporary Art project celebrates 20 years of South African democracy through the voices of artists across the African continent. Titled Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014, the exhibition will open at the prestigious UNISA Art Gallery on 22 May 2014. !Kauru is in its third year and is a South African initiated project aiming to stimulate conversations about African contemporary art both in Africa and internationally. The exhibition provides a platform for artist’s to engage issues which talk to who we are as Africans today. Attention is focused on our current identities, informed by our rich histories, cultures and contemporary experiences, which contribute to Africa as a dynamic continent.

The curatorial vision for Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014, is about unveiling the African truth. This exhibition celebrates the continent of Africa as an integral player within the global village.

As a key stakeholder, !Kauru is supported by the Department of Arts and Culture, (International Relations Department) and seeks to instil and increase Inter Africa, Caribbean and Diaspora arts and culture activities between civil society, government and the private sector. This is achieved by collaboration in various capacities between sponsors, State organisations and civil society in realising the projects vision. The 2014 season welcomes the UNISA Art Gallery to the team as a host venue and facilitator for key educational outreach programmes.

BacktoBack Advertising are the project managers under the guidance of !Kauru Director Tshepiso Mohala.

Ashraf Jamal writes on the !Kauru African Contemporary Art Project

!Kauru: Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014 at the UNISA Art Gallery until the 27th June 2014.

Project: !Kauru: Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014  

Event:  Touring exhibition project
Date:   22 May 2014 – 27 June 2014
Venue:  UNISA Art Gallery Pretoria

The !Kauru African Contemporary Art Exhibition opened on the 22^nd of May at the UNISA Art Gallery, to positive audiences. The !Kauru project has already brought together Africa in 2014 through a variety of events, stimulating conversation between international artists, dignitaries, embassies, academics, arts professionals and the Department of Arts and Culture. Events which took place in the past week include an artist’s meet and greet evening hosted by the French Ambassador Elisabeth Barbier, the official exhibition opening at the UNISA Art gallery, an Artists Walkabout and a stimulating Round Table discussion. Facilitators who took part in the the Round Table discussion included Prof. Simon Mapadimeng, Ashraf Jamal, Bongani Mkhonza and Gordon Froud.

 The !Kauru exhibition will be open at the UNISA art gallery until the 27^th of June.

This is the third year of this project which aims to stimulate conversations within Africa and internationally to facilitate a change of perceptions about the continent through its contemporary art. Events still to come as part of the !Kauru African Contemporary Art project include youth day activities and a community outreach and development program.  The youth day activities will be hosted by UNISA’s Art Departments Students. A community outreach program includes walkabouts for community art groups and educational institutes. Additionally there will be a development seminar for up-and-coming artists by Art Source South Africa, which will give them the opportunity to think strategically about their career direction.

In 2014 the !Kauru African Contemporary Art project celebrates 20 years of South African democracy through the voices of artists across the African continent. According to !Kauru 2014 Curator Avitha Soonful “about unveiling the African truth.” This exhibition explores the continent of Africa as an integral player within the global village. Twenty artists from SADC and East African countries have been selected to take part in the exhibition. Artists selected to participate in the exhibition include Thame Kaashe from Botswana, Endale Desalegn from Ethiopia,Patrick Rorke from Lesotho, Alpheus Mvula from Namibia, Pierrot Man from Madagascar, Nirveda Alleck and Krishna Luchoomun from Mauritius. Three Mozambican artists, Anesia Zefenias, Gemuce Pompillio Hilario and Lourenço Abner Tsenane, Christine Chetty from the Seychelles and Mohau Modisakeng, Diane Victor and Churchill Madikida ahowcasing from South Africa. Reheme Chachage and Safina Kimbokota from Tanzania, Victor Mutulekesha and Kenneth Zenele Chulu from Zambia. As well as Nancy Mteki and Israel Israel from Zimbabwe.

Project Director, Tshepiso Mohlala of Back2Back Experiential Marketing says, “my vision is for this project to become a bi-annual event which will showcase the artworks of top African contemporary visual artists, starting with the SADC region. Thereafter touring four regions of the African continent. Ultimately the future plans are to tour these exhibitions internationally”.

Supported by the Department of Arts and Culture’s international relations department, !Kauru provides a platform for African contemporary artists and cultural practioners to engage around a showcase of contemporary art from the continent. The strategy aims to incorporate all the regions of Africa over the lifespan of the project, which began in 2012. The project promotes visual arts as a viable career choice and showcases the maturity and significant contemporary art voices of Africa.

GALLERY TIMES

UNISA GALLERY

10am – 4pm Mondays - Fridays.     

Note:The gallery is not open on weekends.

For media enquiries:

Art Source South Africa
Kelly McErlean
011 447 2855
kelly@artsourcesouthafrica.co.za

or

UNISA Art Gallery

Nana Tshangana

012 441 5876

tshannn1@unisa.ac.za / www.unisa.ac.za

!Kauru Contemporary Art Exhibition Opening

The !Kauru African Contemporary Art project is in full  production for the 2014 exhibition that will open at the UNISA Art Gallery on the 22^th May 2014. This is the third year of this project which aims to stimulate conversations within Africa and internationally to facilitate a change of perceptions about the continent through its contemporary art.

Through a series of talks, walkabouts, lectures, seminars and other programmes aligned to the exhibition, the project aims to sensitize and mobilize South African and African audiences as well as the media, in the appreciation of contemporary African visual arts. Art is seen as a means to promote inter Africa /Diaspora cultural exchange in a direct and meaningful way.

Supported by the department of Arts and Culture international department, !Kauru provides a platform for African contemporary artists and cultural practioners to engage around a showcase of contemporary art from the continent that will travel 5 regions of the African continent. The strategy aims to incorporate all the regions of Africa over the lifespan of the project, which began in 2012 with artists from the SADC region and east Africa. The exhibition will promote mid-career to established artists and will showcase the maturity and exceptional wealth of talent to be found within the region.

According to Project Director, Tshepiso Mohlala of Back2Back Experiential Marketing, “my vision is for this project to become a bi-annual event which will showcase the artworks of top African contemporary visual artists, starting with the SADC region, thereafter touring 4 regions of the Africa continent. Ultimately the long term future plan will be to tour these exhibitions internationally”, she says.

In 2014 the !Kauru African Contemporary Art project celebrates 20 years of South African democracy through the voices of artists across the African continent. Titled Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014, the exhibition will open at the prestigious UNISA Art Gallery on 22 May 2014. The exhibition provides a platform for artist’s to engage issues which talk to who we are as Africans today. Attention is focused on our current identities, informed by our rich histories, cultures and contemporary experiences, which contribute to Africa as a dynamic continent.

The curatorial vision for Rerouting Dialogue 1994-2014, is according to !Kauru 2014 Curator Avitha Soonful “about unveiling the African truth.” This exhibition celebrates the continent of Africa as an integral player within the global village.  More than 18 artists from to SADC countries have been selected to take part in the exhibition.

Artists which will be in the 2014 exhibition include, Endale Desalengn from Ethiopia, Patrick Rorke and Stephen Mashaobathe from Lesotho, M. Alpheus Mvula from Namibia, Anesia Zefenias Filipe, Gemuce and Lourenco Dinis Pinto from Mozambique and Mohau Modisakeng, Dian Victor and Churchill Madikida from South Africa to name a few.

A Round table discussion will be held on the 23^rd of May as well as an Artists Walkabout on the 24^th at 9:30am-11:00am which will be open to the public. Other events which surround the !Kauru Contemporary Art project and the 2014 exhibition include the initiation of the prestigious African Collectors club on the 30^th of May. The collectors club aims to promote African art and create a platform where African collectors can gain knowledge of African art as an investment vehicle. Events which will be initiated in June include a community outreach programme which allows underprivileged Art students to interact with the !Kauru exhibition and take part in conversations and a youth day celebration driven by the UNISA art department students.

GALLERY TIMES

UNISA GALLERY

10am – 4pm Mondays - Fridays.     Note:The gallery is not open on weekends.

For media enquiries:
Kelly McErlean
011 447 2855
kelly@artsourcesouthafrica.co.za

or

UNISA Art Gallery

Nana Tshangana

012 441 5876

tshannn1@unisa.ac.za / www.unisa.ac.za

Bernice Stott, Litmus Skin

Bernice Stott, Litmus Skin

Durban artist Bernice Stott will be opening her exhibition titled Litmus Skin at Gallery on Leviseur, Bloemfontein in association with Art Source South Africa. The exhibition will open on the 13th of May at 18h30 and run until the 2nd of June 2014. 

Stott’s career has been centred on the human narrative and her intrigue with the female body in contemporary South Africa. Stott’s primary media are sculpture and painting, although Stott says that “photography has led me to into the media of video and performance art”.

Bernice has created a series of paintings based on photographs titled Litmus Skin. The body of work evokes a childhood that is mixed with horror and delight. The motif of a circle in Litmus Skin indicates a symbol of protection: the circle a child draws around her/himself and the circle of protective love a caring mother traces around her children. A circle can also refer to a cycle, in this context a cycle of deprivation, which can be disrupted and replaced with roundness and fullness of being. The cycle of deprivation can be broken by an individual becoming conscious – loving, enacting new behaviours and ritualising new events – and through a supportive community. 

In Litmus Skin red is primary colour, a symbol of violence, blood, passion, victimhood and wounding. When discussing her work Stott quotes respected Durban based art critic, Peter Machen, “Stripped of our skin, we are all the same colour underneath. Adrenalin tastes the same to everyone. Whiteness might be pinkness but pink is not whiteness”. 

Bernice Stott has completed a post graduate degree in Drama which was followed by a Masters in Fine Arts at Durban University of Technology. She has been teaching in the Drama and Performance Studies Department (UKZN) for several years. Stott says that “Art making feeds my soul: it is a place of meditation yet it provides me with an engagement of both my internal and external life”.

Opening speaker of Stott’s exhibition and director of Art Source South Africa Les Cohn says that, although the work deals with incredibly difficult and painful subject matter, Stott has created works that are sensitive, evocative and intimate. Art Source South Africa an art project consultancy is working in association with Gallery on Leviseur to present Bernice Stott’s body of work this May. “Art Source South Africa is excited to work in association with Bloemfontein’s first contemporary art gallery and bring Bernice Stott’s work to a national platform.” Cohn.

Les Cohn will be delivering the opening remarks on the 13th of May at 18h30. Furthermore in collaboration with Stott’s exhibition there will be a performance, directed by Mark Dobson on the 14th of May at 19h00.

GALLERY TIMES

Tue - Fri: 7:00 am - 4:00 pm

Sat - Sun: 8:00 am - 2:00 pm

GALLERY ADDRESS

59 Dan Pienaar Avenue, 

Westdene

9301 Bloemfontein, Free State

For media enquiries contact:

Wilma Cruise

Will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Wilma Cruise’s touring project titled Will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? showcasing a new body of work launched at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival on 27 June 2013.  The exhibition was well received by the public at the Festival and was reviewed by Cue, the Festival Magazine and Art South Africa.

“Will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? derives its impetus from the nursery rhyme character of Humpty Dumpty, a fanciful creature, half man, half egg who finds himself in Alice’s daydream in Through the Looking Glass. I have re-interpreted this bad tempered anthropomorphic egg by creating a clay character roughly modelled in a bulbous round shape. In the exhibition he is depicted perched on a stool, legs crossed, or he is upside down, or dancing, his spherical form precariously balanced on his underdeveloped legs. As an indicator of his vanity, he is shod in a pair of bright red ballet slippers. I have called him H.D. Arnoldus, an allusion to the metaphorical imp that was said to sit on my shoulder as a little girl.  He also pays a passing nod to the tokoloshe, which in South African folklore is a malevolently mischievous creature”, says Cruise.

Will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? is the fourth exhibition in The Alice in Wonderland Sequence. What distinguishes this exhibition from the previous ones is that, in this exhibition the artist invites the audience to come and join in the dance as a way of being involved in and engaging the game of Alice in Wonderland. “You, the viewer, are invited to unravel the conundrums and the absurdities contained within the tales and re-interpreted in the artworks of The Alice Sequence. You are invited to make the connection between thinking speaking humankind, as exemplified by Alice, and the non-speaking other – even if it is, as in this case, a pompous anthropomorphic egg!” says Cruise.

Explaining her current work Cruise states, “In this series of exhibitions I interrogate the curious interface between Alice in Wonderland and the animals that inhabit her dream world. Using ceramic sculpture, painting, drawings and text, I explore the nature of animal/human communication within the fecund metaphor provided by Lewis Carroll’s tales of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass”.

The next showing of  Will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? is at Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein in July 2014.

Wilma Cruise, Detail of: Alice: Self Portrait ll, Mixed media drawing on paper, 200 x 100cm, 2011.  Photo:  Ant Strack

By Wilma Cruise from the Will you, won't you, will you join the dance? exhibition

By Wilma Cruise from the Will you, won't you, will you join the dance? exhibition

2013 Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale (GICB)

Wilma Cruise has been invited to participate in the 7th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale (GICB) in Korea.

GICB presents newly created artworks made specifically for this exhibition by requesting artists to share their interpretations on the 2013 theme, ‘Community-with me, with you, with us’ in conjunction with social, geographical, cultural and aesthetical issues.  The GICB is the most prestigious ceramic biennale on the circuit.  "It is a huge accolade for me to be invited and it is a pinnacle of my career to date as a ceramic sculptor", says Cruise.

Cruise's work will be shown in the International Prize of GICB 2013 which is the main exhibition of the GICB. It is the highlight and the most important venue as it addresses different issues associated with the current tendencies in international contemporary art. The final selection for the exhibition has been progressed through a nomination format. Among the 91 artists recommended by 11 international committee members representing Asia, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Oceania, only 30 artists are nominated for the main exhibition by the director Lee Inchin.

The GICB will open on 28 September - 17 November 2013 at Icheo in Gyeonggi, Korea.