While conventional in its display, practices only recently welcomed into the hallowed halls of contemporary art feature prominently: textiles in particular. Viewers initially experience Malawi-born, South Africa-based artist Billie Zangewa’s pieced and sewn works in raw silk from a distance. Stepping down from the ticket area towards Zangewa’s work creates an optical game that makes her choice of materials a surprise not necessarily visible from a distance. Zangewa describes The Rebirth of the Black Venus (2010) towering over downtown Johannesburg as biographical; the title also suggests the historical figure of Saartjie Baartman, whose body in the early 1800s infamously became the subject of colonial prurience – only eventually returning to South Africa for burial in 2002. This tension between the personal and the political perhaps troubles art from the African continent more so than elsewhere.

If an ability to recognise political subtexts feels almost mandatory interpretation for the diligent viewer, Zangewa’s figure wears a banner announcing a useful mantra: “Surrender wholeheartedly to your complexity”. The phrase could be carried throughout the exhibition, which makes no curatorial claims of thematic cohesion. Where Zangewa uses textiles to create works that may look like paintings from a distance, the patterned paintings of Malian artist Amadou Sanogo recall textile patterns without the literal use of cloth. Instead, Sanogo’s paintings are informed by personal knowledge and experience, in his case of the labour intensive textile dye process of bogolan. The technique uses fermented mud on cotton to pattern woven textiles often with a high contrast palette – an aesthetic that carries over to Sanogo’s stunning paintings.

In the upper mezzanine two South African artists use stitch for very different aesthetic means. Senzeni Marasela’s ongoing work with textile and performance is inspired by her mother’s generation, life under apartheid and the women who wait because of work, or war or incarceration, for their men. In the ongoing series Waiting for Gebane, delicate red water colours and stitched thread line drawings evoke the erasure and disregard for women’s identity. The artist uses the derogatory description “Kaffir sheet” to describe the material she stitches into – a re-appropriation of the name denoting coarse quality cotton textiles sold during the colonial era in rural trading stories of KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Nearby, Nicholas Hlobo’s trademark use of recycled rubber tyres and vibrant organza stitched with ribbon sutures create a sculpture that is both phallic and anthropomorphic – a reference, at least in part, to the artist’s identity as openly gay black South African man. The museum’s online podcast explains Hlobo’s use of his native language of Xhosa for titles (which remain untranslated) in the sculpture Ndimnandi ndindodwa (2008) and stitched wall piece Nalo ikhwezi alinyulu (2015) as a “reference both to his own roots and how art often needs to be translated when seen outside of its original context”.

If Zangewa’s The Rebirth of the Black Venus towers over the urban horizon of Johannesburg, Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s Atlantic (2017) offers another image of female empowerment. Ogunji works across media, including performance, but here uses delicate tracing paper. A simple line drawn face carries a dense wrap of hair piled high supporting a turn table. Handwritten text trumpets from the subject’s ear: “We originate in loss. Our lost ones line the sea. We need to get back to them – become amphibious mammals like polar bears and platypuses. Our land aint Africa but the sand that is our ancestors bones.” Nearby haunting blue lines in The proof, an undersea volcano, attraction, extraction, distraction (2017) suggest faint veins outlining horizontal figures – a reminder of the catastrophic loss of life created by the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans.

An extensive exhibition catalogue, printed with seventeen different covers, deserves credit for largely avoiding the trap of commissioning European voices to speak on behalf of the continent’s experiences. Babacar Mbaye Diop of Senegal contributes a useful overview of sub-Saharan contemporary art events, while “Notes Towards a Lexicon of Art and Place” written by Cape Town-based Sean O’Toole provides an insightful challenge to the exhibition’s somewhat unwieldly curatorial premise.

The two parts of the exhibition title deserve their own critique. Alpha Crucis is considered the brightest star in the Southern hemisphere. Invisible from the Northern Hemisphere, it is part of the Southern Cross constellation and – from Oslo, or anywhere in Europe – requires a physical reorientation to witness in person. Contemporary African Art in its vastness is an even trickier nomenclature. Hardly invisible to the northern hemisphere, the selected artists, for the most part, represent well established identities in a global art market hardly invisible to the northern hemisphere. In this aspect Alpha Crucis (curated in a pre-Covid world, of course) feels a little out of touch.

Alpha Crucis – Contemporary African Art

Astrup Fearnley Museet

Oslo, Norway

31 January – 6 September, 2020

The post Alpha Crucis – Contemporary African Art, the end of a monumental series of exhibitions appeared first on Artskop.

The use of materiality to shape the aesthetic experience

The group exhibition explores different issues and ideas such as climate and environmental issues; pollution; waste; xenophobia; poverty; beauty; gender; and politics – using certain materials to provide insight into their reality. The exhibition opened on Friday 14 February 2020, it unpacks how artists have used the materials, whether directly or indirectly, to raise questions about larger societal concerns. The selection of artists may explore a wide range of issues; however, the thread that connects them all is that of using materiality to guide the aesthetic experience. Artists featured in the exhibition include Athi Patra-Ruga, Patrick Bongoy, Jodi Paulsen, Billie Zangewa, Bert Pauw, Bronwyn Katz, Cyrus Kabiru and Gabrielle Kruger – to name just a few. These artists explore what is important to them with autonomy and authority, but without losing the material traditions that have been such an important part of their nation’s artistic or historical legacy.

The materials being used often have an inherent history, which can offer a powerful starting point and make for a more meaningful process. These mostly upcoming or established artists provide a glimpse into the vibrant South African art scene as well as the visual production from the rest of the African continent. This swathe of contemporary artists from across the continent are exploring ‘the material’ in new and exciting ways. The works encapsulate a very wide scope of materials, showing that ‘materiality’ is a rich subject; materials range from cow-hides to plastic bags, from bra-straps to pantyhose, from fake nails to computer parts. Matereality, curated by Andrea Lewis, Iziko Curator of Prints and Drawings.

About Iziko Museums of South Africa (Iziko)

Iziko operates 11 national museums, the Planetarium and Digital Dome, the Social History Centre and three collection-specific libraries in Cape Town. The museums that make up Iziko have their own history and character, presenting extensive art, social and natural history collections that reflect the diversity of African heritage. Iziko is a public entity and public benefit organisation that brings together these museums under a single governance and leadership structure. They are unfortunately currently closed due to covid-19.

Matereality

Iziko South African National Gallery

From February 14th to –

25 Queen Victoria St, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001

South Africa

The post Matereality at Iziko Museum appeared first on Artskop.

Aspire Art Auction cements position in chosen markets

Aspire Art Auctions’ latest offering in Cape Town demonstrated the company’s pre-eminence in the South African market in the strategic art segments in which it specialises. Contemporary art took centre stage, with Aspire’s special focus on work by William Kentridge, coinciding with the artist’s magisterial exhibitions in Cape Town. Aspire is also the foremost auction house in the country to sell work in two other specialised areas, namely the work of black South African artists from the twentieth century, and fine art photography. Once again, both of these offerings performed well.

Their SPRING 19 Auction was held on Sunday, 1 September 2019, at Avenue, the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. As a company, they reaffirm a clear strategic outlook focused on developing value in particular market segments; especially contemporary art, black modernist South African art, and fine art photography, while still demonstrating their expertise and market nous to handle the major signatures of the South African art auction market. A well-positioned focus on the work of William Kentridge, South Africa’s most prominent international contemporary artist, led the sale, timed to coincide with his major exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA and Norval Foundation in Cape Town.  

Kentridge Specialists

Aspire’s ability to successfully sell contemporary art was signalled by the special focus on the work of Kentridge. An early landscape drawing from 1988 led this section on the artist, with Untitled (Witwatersrand landscape) which fetched R2 731 200.

One of the master’s most prominent and internationally exhibited print portfolios, Portage, sold for R682 800. A range of other Kentridge prints on offer such as Four Cats, Summer Graffiti and Black Monkey Thorn all performed well, with the latter fetching well over its high estimate. The strong showing by the Kentridge section of the sale was rounded off by his three-dimensional work Head I, which achieved R170 700.

Success in the Modernist Markets

Aspire has again performed well in more traditional areas of the modernist market with a beautiful landscape by Maggie Laubser, By die See (Seascape with Boats and Birds) selling for R796 600.

Their consistent approach to develop the previously neglected black modernist market segment is notable. Aspire has been succesfull in creating value and building market knowledge in what is becoming a much respected area of South African art. This segment was led by a remarkable drawing by the renowned Dumile Feni, Mother and child, which sold for R546 240, currently the second highest price for a work on paper by Feni. Aspire still holds the auction record for the artist’s work.

A lyrical watercolour and gouache work by Gerard Sekoto, Portrait of a woman, sold for R295 880, well above its high estimate. Other significant sales include an early work by Mmakgabo Mmapula Helen Sebidi, Milking the Cows sold for R68 280 and a beautiful incised wood panel titled Buffalo by Lucky Sibiya sold for R85 350.

Leaders in Contemporary Art and Photography

The sale again demonstrated their established market leadership in the contemporary and photography segments, with many new records set and auction debuts made. Leading the showing in the contemporary collection was a piece by Deborah Bell, Tapestry I hear you with my heart, which sold for R295 880, and an exquisite embroidered work by Billie Zangewa, The Cotswolds, which fetched R227 600, setting a new South African record at auction for the artist.

Earlier this year, Aspire pioneered the first dedicated fine art photography section at auction which performed remarkably well. The company followed up this success in the current auction, with David Goldblatt, with whom Aspire achieved a world record price earlier this year, again taking center stage. His photograph The farmer’s son with his nursemaid, the farm Heimweeberg, near Nietverdiend in the Marico Bushveld. Transvaal (North-West Province), 1964 fetched R318 640, in addition to major successes for works by Mikhael Subotzky and Zanele Muholi that sold above their high estimates.

Artist’s Resale Rights (ARR)

Aspire will once again be paying royalties to living South African artists under the terms of the Company’s Artist’s Resale Rights (ARR) initiative. Aspire voluntarily covers the cost of the ARR percentage fee. To date, Aspire has earned royalties for over 100 living South African artists through their sales, across the market spectrum, and has paid out around R600 000. Their efforts to improve the sustainability of the art industry in the country has been recognized at national level when they won the Business Arts South Africa Best Strategic Project Award in 2017.

The post Good results for works of South African black modernist appeared first on Artskop.