calendario eventi  :: 

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7/9/2009

Three exhibitions

Kznsa Gallery, Durban

PANOPLY: A JOINT EXHIBITION BY WALTER OLTMANN & HENTIE VAN DER MERWE

Panoply is defined as: “A splendid or striking array; Ceremonial attire with all accessories; Something that covers and protects; The complete arms and armor of a warrior.” In this two-person exhibition, Walter Oltmann and Hentie van der Merwe explore their interests in costume as a way to display the absent body. Taking as the departure point the image (or icon) of the displayed costume (for example those found in museums), the artists, in very different visual languages, unearth how we understand ourselves in relation to traces of others.

Walter Oltmann explores the idea of the empty suit as a substitute or surrogate for the body. The uninhabited suits in his sculptures and drawings were initially derived from images of early European dress. Based on such “conquistador-like” clothing, he developed a series of forms in woven aluminium wire and in related drawings. Not unlike armour in appearance, these works recall features of larvae, caterpillars and beetles. By hybridising insect features with the male body, the artist explores aspects of militarism, masculinity and colonialism, and also reflects on society’s preoccupation with defense. The hitherto implied invitation to the viewer to mentally try on the suits is realised more literally in that the wire suits on the KZNSA exhibition may be worn.

Hentie van der Merwe’s work extends his current interest in an archive of Nama (Khoi) folktales he recently discovered in Germany. These tales were recorded by the German folklorist Sigrid Schmidt in Namibia during the last 40 years of the twentieth century while “working with the Nama people”. Van der Merwe explores the overlap between Nama and Afrikaans folktales: the inclusions and exclusions of details, their complex and violent nature, their grotesque humour and bold caricature that talk of violence, power and history.

The figure of the German emperor Wilhelm II – who led Germany at the time of it’s colonisation of Namibia (then German South-West Africa) towards the end of the nineteenth century – has also shaped the artist’s thinking. Wilhelm II suffered from birth complications which left his left arm withered and useless, a defect which contributed to a strongly narcissistic personality with complex psychological and sexual drives.

Van der Merwe’s ideas find form in sculpture, prints and a film made in collaboration with director Amanda Evans and composer Philip Miller that makes extensive use of high-end motion-capture technology and 3-D animation.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Walter Oltmann was born in Rustenburg, South Africa, in 1960. He has an MA in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where he currently holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts. Oltmann has received numerous awards, most notably as joint first prize-winner in the Standard Bank National Drawing Competition (1990), Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner (2001), and the SASOL Wax Art Award (2007). He is represented in all major national public collections, and has executed innumerable public sculpture commissions. Oltmann is represented by the Goodman Gallery.

Hentie van der Merwe was born in 1972 in Windhoek, Namibia, and currently lives and works in Johannesburg. He holds an MA in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, and has had a number of solo exhibitions, most recently at the Goodman Gallery (2008 and 2009). He was awarded the Sasol Wax Art Award in 2008, and the Artissima /BIG Torino 2002 Prize for Best Visual Artist at the Torino Biennale. His work is represented in major national and international collections, including the Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, South African National Gallery and the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

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DURBAN REVISITED: AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS BY JENNY PARSONS

Jenny Parsons grew up in Durban, where she studied under Virginia MacKenny, Jeremy Wafer and Clive van den Burg, graduating with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art from the Natal Technikon in 1988. She held a number of exhibitions in Durban before moving to Cape Town, where she has lived and worked for the past 20 years.

Durban Revisited is Parsons’ first exhibition in Durban in nearly two decades, and marks a return to the KZNSA, the venue of her very first show.

The exhibition explores the same subject matter of her earlier work, but with fresh eyes and from the perspective of an older, more established artist.

In preparation for the exhibition, Parsons spent two weeks drawing in and around Durban. “I was surprised to find that I was drawn to the same elements of the landscape as I was twenty years ago.”

She then returned to Cape Town where she completed the paintings in her Observatory studio. “The paintings employ a fresh and painterly brush mark and are reminiscent of the original sketches. Yet they are firmly rooted in the observed and the ‘seen’.”

Durban Revisited seems to reinterpret the familiar seen through the eyes of a painter, creating a mood, a feeling or a moment of recognition in the viewer.

“I have engaged with elements which are specific to Durban – lush vegetation, harbour views and red-roofed suburbs. Typical of my work are the vertical structures imposed on the landscape and the use of colour to depict light.”

“To return to the landscape of my childhood, and the landscape in which I became a painter, has been fascinating journey – at once familiar and foreign. Hopefully the paintings reflect the process of rediscovering the landmarks of Durban and the formative images of my early years as a painter.”

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INTERSECTIONS: AN EXHIBITION OF WORKS FROM THE KZNSA YOUNG ARTIST PROJECT SOUTHERN AFRICA 2009

The Young Artist Project (YAP) is an initiative started by the KZNSA Gallery in 2002 as a direct response to the absence of an institutional platform in KwaZulu-Natal for experimental practice. Initially the project invited four artists annually to present a first solo exhibition in the KZNSA Electric Gallery. Each artist was commissioned to present a new work or, where applicable, to realise a new component in an existing project. The motivation of YAP is to assist the artist financially in realising a concept, and to fund-raise for the covering of exhibition costs, thereby allowing the artist to remove financial concerns from the creative process. In addition to the exhibition, YAP aims to provide each participant with a catalogue of their exhibition which contextualises their work within a socio-political and art framework locally, nationally and internationally. A seminar concludes the cycle of exhibitions, where participants present their findings, and engage in discussions of their work with other curators, writers and academic researchers.

As an extension of the initial concept, the KZNSA, funding partner Pro Helvetica and dala – a local art/architecture organisation – have extend the borders and boundaries of the project and the gallery. The 2009 Young Artists Project aims to link emerging artists from countries that border South Africa in order to develop a series of interventions in public space. Four emerging creative practitioners from Lesotho (Retsepile Moholi), Botswana (Mojorosi Modisane), Mozambique (Idelio Vilanculos) and South Africa (Michele Silk) have been selected to participate in the project. These artists arrived in Durban on 16 August 2009, and will be in residency until 10 September 2009.

The purpose of this artist-in-residency programme is to develop a cross-border public dialogue on cities, space and art for social change in southern Africa. The project is aimed at developing meaningful collaboration and public participation in the practice of art for urban transformation.

The starting point for the project has been to explore the notion of intersections. Intersections are physical, conceptual, psychological and philosophical spaces where people, ideas and objects interact. Intersections mark meeting points in our cities and lives, some fleeting, others profound. The idea here is to explore the concept of intersecting spaces in southern Africa. How does our socio-political and physical environment condition these relationships? Through this discussion, how can we develop meaningful intersections that promote more humane and liveable cities?

YAP 2009 is as much about process as it is about the eventual outcome. For the purpose of this project the studio, the canvas, the gallery will be in the streets of Durban. The documentation of the process and products will be exhibited at the KZNSA. A catalogue will also be produced as a record of the process. In order to generate further public dialogue about public art for social change, a forum discussion will be organized where artists will have an opportunity to present their work to members of the public.

Inage: Walter Oltmann, Panoply, 2009, Ink, bleach and crayon on paper, 105 x 75cm

Opening 8 September 2009 at 6pm

KZNSA GALLERY
166 Bulwer Road Glenwood, Durban
Kwazulu Natal, South Africa

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