The inaugural Stellenbosch Triennale 2020 takes place 11 February – 30 April in various locations across Stellenbosch, draws in the continent’s important curators to present programmes interlocking with and at many levels of artistic achievement. The event brings together the finest contemporary art from Africa for the world. See the full programme for more on the Stellenbosch Triennale 2020, and click here to download the programme and map for this unique event.

The Chief Curator Khanyisile Mbongwa declared: “We are starting here, from the place that has seen us bloom and perish. We start in the South, the corner, and from here we will expand. We start here with and without, displaced and disposed – we look towards the horizon and we see Tomorrow There Will Be More Of Us. As direct extensions of history, we are remembering – through the ancestral awakening – that exhumes the ancient on a global level. We experience our imagination as a sharpened tool in our state of becoming. (…) The remembering, is the act of tracing memory. The ancestral, is the act of cultural recovery, the inheritance and familial. The spiritual, is the act of connecting and positioning of oneself through soulful alignment. The imagination, is the act of forming new ideas and concepts not present to the senses. The becoming, is the act of enabling radicalized desire thus creating new individuations and affections. And as Gloria Anzaldía reminds us, “nothing happens in the real world unless it happens in the image of our heads”.

Please visit the website of the Stellenbosch Triennale to read the full program here.

Tomorrow there will be more of us

The Woodmill Lifestyle Centre – Vredenburg Road Devon Valley, Stellenbosch

Tues – Fri 10:00 – 18:00

Sat – 10:00 – 16:00

Sun  – 10:00 – 14:00

Stellenbosch Triennale 2020

11 February – 30 April

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Nadège: Mongezi, you have come regularly to Atelier Le Grand Village these last five years. How do you feel when you come to the studio here?

Mongezi: It is peaceful, it is just nice, quiet, like a retreat. I come here to clear my mind, to work on lithography and other different mediums. I come here for a new start to explore new ideas, see how things develop. It’s a great place to work.

Nadège: What about the studio?

Mongezi: I like the feel of the studio. It is unlike any other studio where I have worked. Here it is the countryside. There is the barn which has evolved into a studio, combined with the flowers, the garden, and some old rustic stuff. I’m not used to such things, I’m a town boy, a city boy. I am used to things in the city. It is a relief to be here away from the city. The air is different here. Francis now has installed the old press; it seems part of the environment. Why I like coming here is because we focus on stone lithography, which is more traditional. This is one the main reasons I like coming here, I like the stone. We go back in time to make stuff the traditional way.

Nadège: Tell me what are your main influences in your work now?

Mongezi: I studied abstract, I used to paint and to make representational works, but I grew up with a lot of musicians listening to jazz. I would be in my studio listening to music, most of the time, loud. At some point I was working and suddenly my mind shifted. Instead of just working listening to music, I did something with regard to what the music was doing to me right then. I wanted to translate this and that’s why I started creating abstracts. I always wanted to do music and painting, I wanted to incorporate both into my work. Music is also about feelings and I want to express this.

Mongezi: Where I grew up also influences me. I grew up in a small town that used to be a small mining town in Benoni, east of Johannesburg. My personal history, my family history, the history of the town, the South African history, these are main influences which have got me to where I am now. Even though my work has changed from the representational, it still has the same content that I started with. The mining, the history, the displacement and the migration, these are all issues translated into abstraction. These are issues I still think about and it is something I am still exploring.

Nadège: What about the places where you work?

Mongezi: I like to work in different places, different places produce different works. Here at Atelier le Grand Village it is quiet. The environment dictates what kind of work comes out. In Jo’burg, it is busy. Currently I am working from Cape Town but I never work only from one place. All my works from the past five or seven years come from different places: Jo’burg, Cape Town, Atelier le Grand Village in France, the Netherlands and the United States. My family also live in several places. I can go to see my grandmum and then decide to go and see my cousins or my friends. That’s why my works deals with the movement, the mapping.

Nadège: Can you explain the titles of your art works?

Mongezi: There is something poetic about them. There is so much meaning in my titles. How do they come up? Sometimes it comes up with the objects I am working with, something I have seen. Sometimes a sound in the surroundings. It’s about how I feel about the work and other things that happen. My work can be about my history, but it is also about ideas that I have, that happen. There are so many things happening in my mind while working. Because I don’t work on one piece each day, the next day I can feel differently. My mind is occupied with lots of thoughts.

There is this title ‘Roundabout idiot’ – I was travelling with Francis in Angouleme and there were many roundabouts. When we came back to the studio, I was working on a stone lithograph which required so many layers in order to appear complete. I felt like I was going round and round, like an idiot. Just a simple thing and that’s how that title came about.

There is ‘La forme des choses à venir’ from a stone lithograph created in 2015. This means ‘The shape of things to come’ and is adapted from one of my favourite jazz composers, Ornett Coleman. This is my first stone lithograph ever made in France, when I started working with Francis. It was like a new start of things.

Nadège: Do you think about a body of work before coming to Atelier le Grand Village, or do you let your instinct guide what you create?

Mongezi: I realise that if I work instinctively, the work has more feeling. If I think too much before, it become a bit stiff. It could be nice but you don’t really feel the movement, the flow, it is more spontaneous. It is also having to do with TRUST, trust your instinct, be yourself. I felt I should sketch, but finally thought it’s not right for me. If I instinctively do everything, I feel something. I don’t know what it is. I give a few minutes and then it just goes POP. It’s about how I feel in the moment when I am working, how I feel right now. I think I have more a recipe for working, but I don’t think I have a formula because then my work would all be the same. I always try to discover new things when I’m working.

It’s not only about painting or making something that I know, it’s also about discovering new things like a shape, or a mark. Its more about searching. My works are like maps, searching where you are going, allowing yourself to receive things, allowing yourself to be exposed to something new. Instinct is important. You have a map, you are going to a place you don’t know, maybe you have to jump or to swim, and you are scared but you do it. The map was right, and you look at what you discover. Open yourself up to your inner self, this is the unknown of your inner being, the other aspect of yourself that you don’t know. To see the unknown, you need to open up, and evolve so that we can be better people – the self-discovery, and it goes forward.

These feelings you cannot ignore and this reflects in the work. Tomorrow I might feel differently and then I reflect on my mood yesterday. So, the next day, the map will be different. Feeling is important. You just let yourself free, you don’t dance for people, you dance for the inner self.

Nadège: You won recently this prize at the INVESTEC Cape Town Art Fair, then you have 1:54 in London with Atelier le Grand Village, Lagos Art Fair, plus other residencies and shows planned after that. How do you feel about all this and these expectations?

Mongezi: It is overwhelming. It is like a pressure but I don’t like to feel it is like that. I just want to feel, have time to just ‘flan’. I know the dates and I like the pressure but I don’t like to panic. Yes, it is so many things, but all great things. I’m glad and happy. I have worked hard, and I’m recognized. I just have to do it, I chose to work hard, I strive to excel, so if you want to be on top you must know it’s hard. You must face the music. I appreciate everyone that I’ve worked with and that have supported me. Also giving me the platform to showcase my work. I keep doing better that I was doing some years ago.

Nadège: When did you start to work on printmaking?

Mongezi: It’s more than ten years. Making prints is part of me, I cannot live without it. I always have the need to make prints. For me printmaking is not about taking my paintings and translating them into prints. If I paint something, if I do a print, it is what it is. They are separate. If you talk about printmaking, you are not doing a reproduction. Some clients are not really well informed about printmaking. They do not understand the complexity, the work and the inspiration that goes into them. You will not find a print that resembles my painting.

Nadège: I am proud to be representing you with Atelier le Grand Village at 1:54 in London in October, with Diane Victor and Bambo Sibiya.

Mongezi: I’m honoured to be part of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair London 2019. We will see what the works comes out for this during this residency at Atelier le Grand Village. I am looking for a twist, I think it is going to be exciting.

Nadège (to Francis van der Riet, Director of Atelier le Grand Village): When and why did you choose to work with the artist Mongezi Ncaphayi?

Francis: It was 2014. Mongezi Ncaphayi was the winner of the Gerard Sekoto prize in South Africa. I was interested in this prize and the people who won it. Mongezi is also a printmaker. His works were unusual because they are abstract. South African artists tend to be, on the whole, figurative. I had seen Mongezi’s etchings and I thought they had potential and I approached him to propose that we work together at the studio and that he learn stone lithography. I knew he had not done any stone lithography previously. I also appreciated Mongezi’s sense of spontaneity, the combination with music and the way he uses colours. In stone lithography, colour can be important and it is very well suited for that.

Mongezi accepted the invitation and it started from there. The more we work together, the more there is a synergy between us. He’s comes back regularly in the studio.

Nadège: How did it initially work out?

Francis: We started two works and this evolved into a larger body of works. He liked the process of stone lithography. Here at Atelier le Grand Village, I showed him books from others artists, abstract artists/printmakers such as Hans Hartung and others who work at the studio as well. I think the combination of stone lithography with the surroundings of the studio helped him to free up his way of working. It was fairly precise and the stone forced him to free up, to be more spontaneous.

The stone does not forgive so you have to go ahead and just do it. I think that helped him to progress towards his paintings. Here at the studio he accomplished a large body of work which was subsequently exhibited for a solo show with ABSA in South Africa.

Nadège: Tell me more about 1:54 in London this October?

Francis: 1-54 discovered Atelier le Grand Village last year. They were surprised to find us in this remote corner in the south-west of France, and to find artists they knew about had come to work here. They came to visit and consequently invited us as a ‘special project’ for the London 1:54 Art Fair in October this year. I suggested we exhibit Mongezi together with Diane Victor and Bambo Sibiya. On show there will be printmaking works, mainly stone lithography. We are very focused on reviving the art of stone lithography here. We also do mono prints, lino prints and we like to combine the different media. There will also be a few other works on display that have been created by the artists during their stay here at Atelier le Grand Village, notably the smoke drawings of Diane Victor.

Nadège: What about the other artists that come to Atelier le Grand Village?

Francis: I like to think that the studio has created for itself its own portfolio of artwork from the artists that have been here. It is important for the studio to have a rich diversity, and so it needs different types of work. We have figurative, abstract, black and white, colour, loose and exact registration, landscape, portraits…. Amongst our abstract artists there is Valentin Stefanoff from Paris, the Franco Brazilian Celia Eid, and Mongezi from South Africa. That gives the richness to the studio. Hence the studio also influences the artists that come here. That’s exciting. You feel that the artist and the studio give and take with each other. The one give inspiration from the other and vice versa.

Nadège: You are also a lithographer?

Francis: I am the master printer of this studio, Atelier le Grand Village. I started the studio around ten years ago but I have been interested in lithography for a long time. Once I had set up the studio I realised that I should share it with other artists. I grew up in Zimbabwe and in South Africa, and it seemed obvious to invite people from there. They love to come here. I think it helps that I understand where they come from and that they feel comfortable here. That’s important.

Nadège: How do you work with Mongezi?

Francis: We work as a duo. I do a certain amount of printmaking. As Mongezi adores printmaking, he participates as well in the process. Above all he creates the drawings on the stones, but he helps as well with the graining of the stones and the rest of the printing process. The studio has a collection of inks, and we dialogue about the different colours. The garden is also very inspirational for the colours we use here.

Nadège: So, you work a lot with the surroundings and the garden?

Francis: Very much so, I think the colours are inspired from here, depending of course what time of the year it is. Mongezi has been here at different times of the year, including winter. This is a big influence, and I would like to think that he could not produce the same type of work somewhere else. I think you can see which works of his come from Atelier le Grand Village. Mongezi and the other artists feel at home here. It’s not about coming one time but more about building a relationship. Printmaking, especially stone lithography, needs time.

Atelier le Grand Village will be presenting new works from Mongezi Ncaphayi, Diane Victor and Bambo Sibiya during 1.54 Contemporary African Art Fair 2019 in London. Please contact Atelier le Grand Village for further information or visit 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London (3-6 October 2019).

Atelier le Grand Village
7, le Grand Village
16310, Massignac
www.legrandvillage.net
instagram: atelierlegrandvillage

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In addition to the 45 international galleries exhibiting at the upcoming seventh edition, 1-54 will feature an expanded selection of Special Projects.

Mary Sibande : I came apart at the seams in partnership with Somerset House

After successful solo exhibitions of Malick Sidibé, Hassan Hajajj and Athi-Patra Ruga, 1-54 once again partnered with Somerset House to present I Came Apart at the Seams, an exhibition of new and celebrated works from one of South Africa’s most prominent contemporary artists Mary Sibande. In her first solo UK exhibition, Sibande presents photographic and sculptural works which explore the power of the imagination and righteous anger in shaping post-colonial identity in South Africa. Following the journey of Sibande’s alter-ego, Sophie, as she transitions through time, colour and form, the artist looks at the body, and particularly the way in which it is clothed, exploring it as a site where history and its legacies can be contested and redressed. The exhibition will open concurrently to the fair and running through 5 January 2020.

Nando’s in partnership with Spier Arts Trust

Nando’s, 1-54 Silver Sponsor, will present work for sale by four Southern African artists in partnership with Spier Arts Trust: Nelsa Guambe, Sepideh Mehraban, Qaqambile Bead Studio and Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta. It is with great pleasure that the fair partners with Nando’s, whose patronage of contemporary Southern African art, both enables career development opportunities for artists and the curation of Nando’s body of work. By allowing artists to focus full-time on their artistic careers with the potential to earn a regular income, Nando’s is making a difference in people’s lives while growing their body of high quality Southern African contemporary art.

1-54 Lounge by Distill2710

Again this year, the fair’s lounge will become an immersive experience inspired by the unique concepts in Yoruba heritage and African art, presented by Distill2710, the design studio and consultancy by Tola Ojuolape. Blue Cloth will look at Nigerian textiles and the craftsmanship they entail as a background and source of inspiration, influenced by the works of Nigerian pioneering artist, Chief Nike Okundaye. Distill2710 will create a communal space for gathering in the heart of the fair, exploring the art of textiles by showcasing and displaying traditional Nigerian Adire Batiq & Indigo dyes, the West African tradition thought to be at least a thousand years old.

Aïda Muluneh : Water Life by Wateraid in partnership with Somerset House

Engaging in issues of water scarcity and ecological emergency, photographer Aïda Muluneh presents a new series of work commissioned by WaterAid and supported by H&M Foundation. The Afrofuturist tableaux of images were shot against the extreme backdrop of one of the driest places on earth, Dallol, in the Afar District of Ethiopia. Reflecting on her travels across the country, Muluneh looks at the number of women who travel on foot carrying heavy containers of water. Each image in this body of work responds to the challenge of water access, exploring it as a social issue directly impacting rural regions and the development of whole communities.

Studio Kameni

Studio Kameni aims to explore, discover and give new life to the photographic archives of Michel “Papami” Kameni, who documented the rapid evolution of postcolonial Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, from 1963 onwards. The images will be shown publicly for the first time, showcasing Michel “Papami” Kameni’s intimate study of the relationship between the photographer and his subjects, hailing from all social circles and varied cultured backgrounds. Through these images transpire the dreams and aspirations of a nation in transition, new musical influences, a westernised fashion and an evolving fusion of tradition and modernity.

Atelier le Grand Village : Bambo Sibiya, Mongezi Ncaphayi & Diane Victor

Atelier le Grand Village, a residency space located in the South of France, dedicated to the artistical revival of stone lithography will showcase work by three major artists who feature in public and private collections in South Africa and abroad. Bambo Sibiya’s multiples, rich in stylistic detail and texture, will be shown alongside abstract prints by Mongezi Ncaphayi and Diane Victor’s manière noire, ash and smoke artworks which deal with the taboos of South African society, and social and political life tainted with violence, corruption and social disparities.

C& Artist’s editions: Kapwani Kiwanga

As part of its C& Artist’s Editions project of specially-commissioned works by collaborating artists, C& will present a series of small sculptures by Kapwani Kiwanga, which reference the French colonial urbanist Hubert Lyautey’s proposition that a measurement of 500ft should be placed between native and European areas. He did so during the International Congress of Urbanism in the colonies which was held in Paris, France in 1931 in conjunction with the Colonial Exhibition taking place in the city. Published notes from the Congress included the recommendation by Lyautey, who was particularly influential on the urbanisation of Morocco. His proposition came to be known as the Lyautey doctrine.

Thread: Silva Rosi & Anne-Marie Akussah

1-54 will also welcome a Special Project by Thread, a cultural centre and artist residency programme in Sinthian, a remote village in eastern Senegal. Thread will showcase Presenting cultural connections which highlights the work of two young London-based artists; photographer Silvia Rosi and painter Anne-Marie Akussah who, during their residency at Thread, have explored ideas around identity and migration, and whose subjects are linked to their own West African heritage.

Versant Sud: Leikun Nahusenay

VERSANT SUD will present a solo exhibition of works by Ethiopian artist Leikun Nahusenay, created during his two-month residency in Marseille. Nahusenay will also create an in-situ artwork, live during the fair. VERSANT SUD offers a programme of residencies and artistic exchanges in two geographical areas, the southern region of France and African capital cities. The residency program helps to reveal talents, allows for the professionalization of artists, connects artists with collectors and plays a key role in enabling mobility. VERSANT SUD was launched in 2018, with its first program dedicated to Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia.fefeef

Artskop3437 is media sponsor of the London 2019 edition of 1-54

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair 3-6 October 2019, Somerset House, London Somerset HouseStrand, London WC2R 1LA

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We have come a long way since the days when abstraction was a sore thumb in the South African art landscape and the stakes were higher for black artists on whom the burden of responsibility for more representational art was imposed. In our contemporary moment, we can now witness adiversity of styles and approaches to art in ways that aren’t only reflective of our time and place, but also indicative of a relief from any kind of superego imposition on what is appropriate, and what is not.

Abstract art has been one of the vehicles with which artists have used their rights to refuse certain forms of co-optations, representation, and identity. While a form of social commentary through a refusal, it must be said that this [refusal] didn’t at all mean that these artists weren’t concerned or critical about the state of the world.

Today, new forms of representational expectations are enforced, and artists from marginalized societies are urged to once more stage their marginality and exclusion by representing, performing and speaking to their backgrounds. To opt to disengage, retreat or to flee can be a form of expressing valor, for those (as Sun Ra would say): “who wish to be attuned/To the vibrations of the outer Cosmic Worlds,”
Artists like Mongezi Ncaphayi insist on speaking to the world, but not necessarily in the languages and forms that are convenient to our tastes and expectations. They tap into the recesses of their souls, to the nothingness of the cosmos, to determine their ways.

The language of abstraction in Mongezi Ncaphayi ’s work is a journey that vacillates between the real and the ethereal. Its exploratory thrust investigates the realness of the artistic materials at its disposal; with materials that are conventional but subjected to a process that never guarantees predictable outcomes. Left to chance, this unknowable fate opens the paper or canvas to be more than a substrate but also a site of exploration; a map from which we seek and discover the unknown via the chitchat of the paint, the ink scissors, brush, the cut-offs, and the water.

Mongezi Ncaphayi ’s paintings, largely minimalist, vacillate between collages and painting using the wet-on- wet technique. Wet-on-wet refers to a procedure based on water based pigmentations, whereby a watery pigment is applied on top of another in a semi controlled way, causing a complex and rhythmic orchestra of painterly effects. These images tend to resemble a topographic layout, a blurred form of mapping out. Here the art object becomes a cartographic sign in which we trace the labyrinth of self-developed shades, rendered elegantly and seemingly effortlessly. This is something Mongezi Ncaphayi extends on in the current exhibition.

Of the seeking or the finding continues on this trajectory into the abstract and incorporeal worlds, embracing serendipity and improvisation. Mongezi Ncaphayi has the unexpected relentlessness of a seeker. The title of the current exhibition is pulled out of a poem by African American poet and writer, Langston Hughes called Old Walt. In the two stanza piece Hughes employs the rhythmic and repetitive language that loops, rocks and sways back and forth.

Old Walt Whitman Went finding and seeking, Finding less than sought Seeking more than found, Every detail minding Of the seeking or the finding.

Athi Mongezeleli Joja

The loneliness that characterizes Old Walt’s journey, the movement that portrays his endless pursuit and impossible satiation, inspecting every crevice “pleasured equally/ in seeking as in finding,” is an apt description of Ncaphayi’s process. The solitude, the movement and pleasure that pervades ’Hughes’ poem is analogous to Ncaphayi’s own satisfaction in the enriching procedure of searching and spontaneity.

This is “poetry coming as blues and the blues coming as poetry” as Jayne Cortez once said. Music haunts, which is to say, it hones in on and harnesses Ncaphayi’s art. The current works are somewhat musical, not only because they follow a kind of theatrics of the muse or musing, but because they also entail a great deal of “play.” As a saxophonist himself, Ncaphayi somewhat employs the notion of play in the very development of the pieces. This sense of play also affects the way our eyes receive the subtle and runny palette, making the art works lighter and inviting to the eye. The shapes, lines, dots, and other interrupting but subtle features of these beautiful images extend this sense of play, without being frivolous or necessarily decorative.

This is a body of work that asks of us to think about forms of embodying freedom, as elusive, fantastical and tenuous as that might be. It’s a collection that explores issues of time travel, spatiality (literally and imaginatively), beauty and play. Mongezi Ncaphayi’s Of the seeking or the finding concerns itself with issues of spiritual freedoms, material exploration, and virtues of human exploratory practices.

Text by Athi Mongezeleli Joja

To be seen until 5th of June 2019
At SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg

1st Floor, The Trumpet
19 Keyes Avenue
Rosebank
2196
T: +27 (0)10 594 5400

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In the middle of the Charente Limousine countryside, two passionate artists have set up their workshops. The exhibition offers a dialogue between the lithographic works created by Francis van der Riet and international artists at Atelier le Grand Village and the textile designs of Côme Touvay.

Francis van der Riet, a master printer, founded Atelier le Grand Village which gradually became an ideal workshop, combining presses and state-of-the-art tools. He invites artists in residence to the studio to produce lithographic prints. The exhibition presents an overview of the lithographic works created at Atelier le Grand Village over the past ten years by international artists such as :

Diane Victor (South Africa)

Diane Victor lives in Gouteng, South Africa. In 1988, she was awarded the prestigious “ABSA Atelier” prize and became one of South Africa’s most respected artists. His work is in numerous private and public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. Her contribution to the art of stampmaking in South Africa is immense and she teaches it in several fine arts schools.

NINA Kovacheva (Bulgaria)

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, NINA lives and works in Paris. She is the winner of several international prizes, including the 2002 UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts (with Valentin Stefanoff). She exhibits her works in France, the United States, China, Germany, Austria and Bulgaria. His works are present in several important collections: the Esterhazy Collection, the European Bank, the National Women’s Museum in Washington, the National Library of France, the National Art Gallery in Sofia… NINA Kovacheva is a versatile artist. She draws on the resources of video, photography and drawing, among others. NINA shows a constant interest in the body as an evasive object and its conflicting aspects: men and women, nature and culture, life and death.

Valentin Stefanoff (Bulgaria)

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Valentin lives and works in Paris. He is the winner of several international prizes, including the 2002 UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts (with NINA Kovacheva). Valentin exhibits his works in France, the United States, China, Austria and Bulgaria. His works are present in several important collections: the European Bank, the MoCA in Taipei, the Horsecross Collection in the United Kingdom, the Museum for the “New Arts” in Detroit, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Galerie d’Art Nationale in Sofia.

Michael Barnes (United-States)

Michael Barnes, American artist, lives in Illinois where he studied at the Beaux-Arts. Professor at the University of Illinois, he has been teaching Printmaking since 1998. He participates in the juries of international print competitions. His works are part of several important collections in the United States, France, Belgium, Finland and Estonia. His art is conceived as a social and political critique, associating objects that surround him with imaginary characters. In the lithographs made at the Atelier le Grand Village, we find objects found in the garden and the workshop of the place called “le Grand Village”.

Aaron Coleman (United-States)

American artist, Aaron Coleman lives in Arizona. He studied at the Fine Arts School in Illinois. Professor at the University of Arizona, he teaches Printmaking. His artistic work uses stampmaking in all its forms and deals with socio-political themes. He combines comic book images and stained glass windows with hip-hop influences to challenge our beliefs and moral values. His works are part of several important collections in the United States, France, Russia and Japan.

Bambo Sibiya (South Africa)

Bambo is a South African artist from Kwa Thema, Springs near Johannesburg. He studied art at Benoni Technical College. He then trained in the art of stamp-making at the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg. Winner of the Gerard Sekoto Prize, he received a residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris. He then met Francis van der Riet and began to study lithography. The origin of the “Swenkas” dates back to the apartheid era: workers who were looking for work in big cities wanted to impress their families and neighbours by dressing in beautiful costumes and behaving with good manners when they returned home. They met to organize style contests. Swenkas follow rules such as cleanliness, sobriety and above all self-respect.

Mongezi Ncaphayi (South Africa)

Mongezi is a South African artist from Benoni, near Johannesburg. He studied art at Ekurhuleni East College. He learned the art of printmaking at the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg and then at the School of Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA. Winner of the Gerard Sekoto Prize in 2013, he is going to the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris for a residency. In 2019, he won the “Africa First Art prize”. It is on this occasion that the Atelier le Grand Village published and printed a series of lithographs.

Pauline Gutter (South Africa)

Born in South Africa, Pauline studied at the Bloemfontein School of Fine Arts in the Free State. Winner of the ABSA l’Atelier prize, she went to the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris for a residency. She then worked with the Atelier le Grand Village, which published a series of lithographs on the theme of “Post Colonialism”, a theme she also addressed in painting and video.

Celia Eid (France, Brazil)

Born in Brazil, Celia is now living in Paris. Her pictorial, graphic and videographic work is imbued with a very strong musical sensitivity. Her videos have been shown in several festivals in France and around the world. Her Internet animation, “Se tais, si ça vous chante”, won the prize for best interactive film at the Flux 2005 festival.

Côme Touvay

Côme Touvay, textile designer, specialized in both artisanal and industrial weaving, presents personal creations and research: DIAMONES an installation of 15 three-dimensional mini-textiles, “the curtain of the night” created for CODE DE NUIT, SAMA a project based on a reflection on the graphic sign, language and otherness. A collection that seeks to show the variety of forms and expressions that can be found in weaving in the broadest sense.

Touvay is a winner of the Grand prix de la création de la ville de Paris in 2006, he is also co-author of the collection Nuée for which he receives the Van de Velde prize in Belgium. He works for Hermès, Cartier, Rochas, Renault design. Professor at the ENSCI and then at the ENSAD, he now devotes himself to the creation of unique pieces on the border between design and art. His creations are the result of a work combining a wide range of materials from the simplest to the most sophisticated: straw, paper, hemp, linen, silk, metal, plastic, cotton, acrylic, ramie…

To complete this dialogue, an exceptional piece woven in partnership with the Belgian manufacturer VERILIN will be shown to the public. It is a skilful work of textile structures allowing a restitution in 70 shades of grey to reveal all the subtleties of a Diane Victor’s work. Finally, the audience will be immersed in the atmosphere of the workshops, in the presence of a lithographic press, called a horned beast, and a loom.

Exhibition “GRAND VILLAGE – Lithographies et Tissages” – lithographs and weavings –
From March 30 to June 10
Opening Friday, March 29 at 6pm
Château, av. du Général Leclerc 24300 NONTRON – France

Opening hours and days
Monday to Saturday – 10am-1pm and 2pm-6pm
Free and free admission.

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