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12/1/2011

Alterating Conditions

Two locations, Johannesburg

Performing Performance Art in South Africa

Artists/Participants:
Lerato Bereng, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Tegan Bristow, Reshma Chhiba, Steven Cohen, Hasan and Husain Essop, Gabrielle Goliath, Peter Van Heerden, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Donna Kukama, Gerald Machona, Thando Mama, Nomusa Makhubu, Bettina Malcomess, Zen Marie, Mohau Modisakeng, Molemo Moiloa, Nontobeko Ntombela, Athi-Patra Ruga, Bernie Searle, Lerato Shadi, Fiona Siegenthaler, Minnette Vári, Amy-Jo Windt, Nelisiwe Xaba.

Curator: Claudia Marion Stemberger

When Brian O’Doherty first published his famous essay Notes on the Gallery Space in 1976, he provocatively questioned the gallery space and system. Already one year earlier, RoseLee Goldberg had argued that the emerging arts practices at that time, as conceptual art or performance art, amongst others, negotiate space radically differently. 30 years later, Goldberg resumes that performance art today has, finally, become interesting for museums, but is still overlooked or rather presented as part of an event-like side programme of biennials or art fairs. Goldberg rather suggests to reflect how to give performance a specific time and space.


When it comes to ArtsonMain in Johannesburg, South Africa, a conglomerate full of white-washed spaces, one might want to keep in mind, that the white cube is close-knit with (post-war) western art. How is performance art presented in those spaces full of both internal (art-world) connotations and indirect notation of powerful regimes of the gaze? Could performance art still work as form of institutional critique or has the art form internalized the white cube already? Or rather should the relationships between the notion of performance as (ephemeral) action and performative representation in media such as video and photography be challenged?

The focus on performance art makes an art form visible that seems quite hidden in South Africa until today, at least from a (questionable) Eurocentric perspective. Throughout live-performances, performative video installations, performative photography, lectures, guides and talks, the exhibition project shall question common notions of performance and performativity, the supposed (in)visibility of this art practice in South Africa and abroad.

Programme details
www.artandtheory.net/projects

Support
Goethe-Institut Johannesburg; Bag Factory Artists Studios; National Arts Council of South Africa; Stipendium Förderprogramm Kuratorenreisen, Goethe-Institut München; Austrian Embassy Pretoria

Project partner
SAVAH / CIHA Colloquium: Other views: Art history in (South) Africa and the global south (University of the Witwatersrand, 12 – 15 January 2011)

Special thanks to
Anthea Buys

For press information and images
please contact Louise Van der Bijl: louweeza@gmail.com

Image: Athi-Patra Ruga, Miss Congo, 2007, 3 channel video, sound, 4 min 44 sec, edition of 8 + 2AP. Courtesy of the artist and Whatiftheworld Gallery, Cape Town

Openings
GoetheonMain: Tuesday 11 Jan 2011, 6:30pm
Bag Factory: Thursday 13 Jan 2011, 6:30pm

GoetheonMain
245, Main St City & Suburban Johannesburg www.goethe.de/goetheonmain
Opening times:
Tuesday, Wednesday, 10am - 4pm; Thursday, 11am - 8pm; Friday and Saturday, 10am - 4pm; Sunday, 10am - 2pm

Bag Factory
10 Mahlatini Street Fordsburg Johannesburg 2001 www.bagfactoryart.org.za
Opening times:
Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm

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