31/1/2000
EMERGENCE
STANDARD BANK GALLERY, Johannesburg
The exhibition curated for the 1999 Standard Bank National Arts Festival, will be on show at the Standard Bank Gallery.
Emergence tracks developments in the practice, presentation and interpretation of visual arts in South Africa over the last 25 years. The framework structuring the exhibition is that of a conceptual journey through this period of major global and regional change. South Africa has witnessed intense political turmoil, violence and sweeping transformation leading up to the demise of apartheid, its first democratic elections in 1994 and the adoption of the new constitution in 1996. It is not surprising in this context that ideology has been strongly foregrounded and is the core theme underpinning Emergence.
During this timespan it can also be argued that a distinctive South African artistic identity emerges, generated by the divisions within South African life. It declares its complexity through difference.
The exhibition is not chronologically ordered, rather each decade is anchored by key works around which interrelated satellite groupings are positioned.
Covering the terrain from the inception of television broadcasting in South Africa to the information technology explosion of the Internet, Emergence takes the audience from South Africa's isolation to its current position in the centre stage of international attention. Well known artists such as Jackson Hlungwane, Penny Siopis and William Kentridge are included, with lesser known ones such as Albert Chauke and Sizakhele Mchunu.
The exhibition comprises over 150 works drawn from major public institutions and private collections around the country, and is jointly curated by Julia Charlton and Fiona Rankin-Smith in consultation with Marion Arnold.
Emergence is presented on the Internet.