PAST EXHIBITIONS
February 2008 - December 2008
February 2008
BEEZY BAILEY & JOYCE NTOBE
“Being blown backwards into the future”
14 February 2008 – 2 March 2008
Beezy ushers in his alter ego, Joyce Ntobe. Joyce last exhibited in Johannesburg with her feminist mother earth installation twelve years ago, and like Beezy, Joyce has moved onto a serious and electrifying body of new work.
Her large-scale oils of township landscapes are inspired by Gerhard Richter’s paintings from photographs. They ask questions about inequality in South Africa. Why is it, for example, does Joyce, like other successful black artists living in the leafy suburbs paint pictures of the townships? In spite of their impoverished subject matter, the pictures are beautiful. Recent floods offer reflections of colorful shacks under a clear blue sky. They expose the contradictions, paradoxes and ironies that make South Africa what it is.
The main theme running through Beezy’s work is fallen angels. The work deals with issues relating to the demise of the white South African male, which, when not being Joyce, Beezy is of the species. The large scale bronzes, monoprints, drawings and paintings in this exhibition represent a profound spiritual and above all artistic journey that represents a coming of age after 25 years as a full time artist. “Being blown backwards into the future” explores arts rich history from Giotto, da Vinci, Rembrandt and more recently Bacon and Baselitz to find the foundations of grappling with now and the future. The once all-powerful white male angel is falling. And in doing so, he experiences a transcending and soul searching that could only result in moving to a more mature place.
Romulus and Remus are painted in oil and charmingly rendered in bronze. The wolf suckles the twins, representing the abandoned white colonialist and the African abandoned by his traditional culture, representing modern Africa. The twins grow up; Romulus kills Remus, and becomes the founder of Rome. There are indeed South African historical cross-overs here.
March 2008
ZWELETHU MTHETHWA
“Children of a Lesser God”
6 March 2008 - 30 March 2008
Zwelethu Mthethwa is one of those rare, gifted artists who excels at whatever medium he tackles. Acclaimed internationally for his large format photographic images he is equally renowned for his lyrical mixed media, pastel and acrylic paintings in which he interweaves a sharply-etched realism with dreamlike elements. In all his work the formal beauty of his imagery is celebrated as much as the narratives it depicts.
In ‘Children of a Lesser God’ Mthethwa’s elegant line, astute sense of composition and iridescent palette are welded with unsettling, albeit it, subtle, social commentary. Each work in this exhibition tells a story that is terrifyingly prevalent in communities both urban and rural. It is a narrative about innocence, betrayal, vulnerability and violation. Yet it is told with surface seductiveness, through Mthethwa’s fluid conflation of colour and composition, recurring symbolic motifs and a lyricism that is almost musical in intonation.
In 2007 over 23 000 children were raped, over 1 000 were murdered, almost 21 000 were assaulted and almost 5000 were subjected to indecent assault. These were only the reported cases. What the statistics don’t reveal is that most of the adult perpetrators were known to their innocent victims, some were care-givers, entrusted to protect their young charges, many were family members, including parents.
And what the statistics also omit is that these crimes against children were committed not through violent coercion, initially anyway. Like Mthethwa’s imagery the perpetrator’s strategy was surface seduction.
But ‘Children of a Lesser God’ does not prettify pain. It is a story that needs to be told.
March 2008
EDOARDO VILLA
“Changing Worlds 1947-2007” @ the Cradle of Human Kind: - Nirox Sculpture Park
8 March 2008 - 4 May 2008
Edoardo Villa is South Africa’s longest practicing sculptor and at 92 he remains creatively explosive. He has had thirty-five one-man exhibitions and participated in seventy-five group exhibitions. Villa has been invaluably supported by Lukas Legodi his longstanding studio-technical assistant and friend for the last forty-three years.
Villa works in the ancient African traditions of creating images from both iron and bronze, having allusions to the ancient, using modern technology. During Villa’s career both steel and bronze works continue to inform each other through modelling and construction which follow in his creative process.
Villa’s work has seldom been overtly political, yet is often a barometer of the emotional and socio-political shifts that occurred in South Africa over the sustained period of his career. We see a trajectory from the anguished “Confrontation,” produced during the dark years of Apartheid, to the exuberance of the most recent optimistic and colourful pieces, celebrating our new found optimism and liberation.
March 2008
JOHANNESBURG ART FAIR
@ The Sandton Convention Centre13 March 2008 -16 March 2008
Artists Exhibiting with Everard Read:
Rodger Ballen; Beezy Bailey; Joni Brenner; Vusi Khumalo; Amos Letsoalo; Paula Louw; Greg Marinovich; Zwelethu Mthethwa; Don Searle; Mmakgabo Sebidi; Helmut Starke; Simon Stone; Willem Strydom; Angus Taylor; Edoardo Villa; Harry Voigt; Thea Soggot; Wayne Barker.
The first African contemporary art fair in Johannesburg will represent the single largest collection of African contemporary art for sale under one roof. A selection of local and international galleries, a curated Show by Simon Njami and a special commission of work by Robin Rhode will constitute Joburg Art Fair 2008.
April 2008
RICKY BURNETT
3 April 2008 – 20 April 2008GARY JAMES & ALEXANDER JAMES
A Voyage into the Interior22 April 2008 – 11 May 2008
May 2008
JEAN JANSEM
15 May 2008 – 1 June 2008WALTER VOIGT
26 June 2008 – 13 July 2008
July 2008
FRANCKI BURGER
Brait-Everard Read Art Award 200817 July – 3 August
August 2008
KERRI EVANS AND ALESSANDRO PAPETTI
14 August 2008 – 31 August 2008
September 2008
JOHN CAPLE
4 September 2008 – 21 September 2008
LUCIAN FREUD
22 September 2008 – 12 October 2008
October 2008
ANGUS TAYLOR
16 October 2008 – 2 November 2008
November 2008
LOUIS JANSEN VAN VUUREN AND ZWELETHU MTHETHWA
An exhibition of collaborative works by Louis Jansen Van Vuuren and Zwelethu Mthethwa5 November 2008
December 2008
DECEMBER SHOW
4 December 2008 – 4 January 2009
