Shifts...In Consciousness
dal 16/3/2001 al 21/4/2001
Segnalato da
Ephraim Ngatane
Durant Sihlali
Dorothy Kay
François Krige
George Pemba
Ronel Kellner
Nessa Leibhammer
16/3/2001
Shifts...In Consciousness
Camouflage Art.Culture.Politics, Johannesburg
Show reflects changing attitudes towards land and people in South Africa over the las century. It will showcase a selection of artworks from the MTN Art Collection, from the early to late 20th century.
A changing Heritage ...
...which will reflect
changing attitudes towards land and people in South Africa over the last
century. It will showcase a selection of artworks from the MTN Art Collection,
from the early to late 20th century.
Tranquil vistas devoid of inhabitants, are the subject of many
South African landscapes. These 'empty landscapes' ironically elide the acts
of possession and dispossession that took place from the 17th century onwards.
Other landscape genres depict 'traditional' people in rural idylls or wildlife
in pristine nature - pictorial images which are in contrast to the social and
political realities of the country. The selected portrait works from this
collection, range from portrayals of an 'objective' nature executed with the
intense graphic detail of botanical illustration, to romantic expressionism in
which the 'exotic other' is celebrated.
Seminal shifts in perception and representation occur in the
work of Ephraim Ngatane, Durant Sihlali, Dorothy Kay, François Krige and
George Pemba. These works allow the beholder to appreciate the subject as a
historically placed, sentient, thinking-and-feeling being; neither an object
of curiosity nor a romanticised 'type'. At a larger socio-political level this
is a response to a changing political consciousness. However, the pictorial
articulation of this 'state of being' is also dependent, at a private level,
on the interaction between sitter, artist and the style of depiction.
A poem to Zwelidumile Mslaba (Dumile), by the poet Wopko Jensma
articulates a critical transition in emotional demeanor experienced by Dumile
- a change in which the artist moves from a state of polite self-deprecation
to one of anger and assertion. The portrait by Ephraim Ngatane of this artist
registers pictorially what the poem describes through text (both the poem and
the portrait will be included on the exhibition).
This selection of works provides a visual panorama of the
shifting discourses of race and place in South Africa. While pictorial styles
are not discrete, nor can the shifts be followed in any strict chronological
order, what the exhibition will make powerfully visible is the reclaiming and
assertion of historical agency and 'humanity' by all people in South Africa in
the twentieth century. Curated by Ronel Kellner and Nessa Leibhammer.
In partnership with MTN Art Institute.
The exhibition will be opened by Dr Yvonne Muthien (MTN Group Executive: Corporate Affairs).
Contact
sandri burt, maja pfeiffer or suzanne du preez
tel 27 11 447 54 61
fax 27 11 447 06 51
Camouflage Art.Culture.Politics
140 jan smuts ave parkwood 2193, Johannesburg