Rainforest: formally known as The Project Room
by Gordon Froud
On returning to
Through his activities at gordart Gallery, Gordon saw a lack of spaces for young and recently graduated artists, platforms that could function as entry points into the Johannesburg Art Scene. Gordon’s post at the University of Johannesburg also showed him that artists fresh out of tertiary institutions do not always have the quantity of work for large solo exhibitions, or the finances to cover those costs. His gallery’s mission was thus extended to deliver exposure for such unknown artists to the art buying public at large.
In Jan 2006, gordart Gallery opened a more intimate ‘white cube’ adjacent to its main exhibit space. ‘The Project Room’ was named after its function, a room set aside for Gordon’s project of furthering younger, new and disadvantaged artists. Just this month, The Broking for Good foundation, an outreach arm of the NOAH brokerage firm, joined forces with gordart Gallery and signed an agreement to cover The Project Room’s exhibition costs for the foreseeable future. This collaborative project space will henceforth be called Rainforest – A Room to Breathe.
And speaking of partnerships, the Rainforest feature will be appearing bi-annually here on SAarts. This first precis is slightly more narrative-based, followed by artist statements from their past six months of exhibitions, but for a sampling of the more quirky writings of Gordon Froud you can expect on this site in the future, see his short piece on Bennie’s Games - currently on show at Bell Roberts in CT, but viewed in Oudtshoorn - at the bottom of this text…
Overview of exhibitions:
January 2006:
Sandra Hanekom
The word “deur” in Afrikaans has two primary meanings – a physical “door” and “through”. It is the idea of “living through” – both for the person’s depicted life and for Hanekom reanimating, re-actuating and re-examining a life.
Hanekom’s portraits in pencil and pinpricks depict female historical figures, some great, some obscure; their life-stories have influenced the way Hanekom relates to the world and her perception of herself. The exhibition was as much documentation of fame and infamy as a personal reflection.
February 2006:
Laure Djourado (Paris)
Laure Djourado addresses issues of presence in relation to the body and time. This series of works attempts to push the limit between private and public, intimacy and exhibition. The body “poses” - exposing itself, outside normative frameworks, suspended in a window of space-time. Skin appears textured, corporeal and powdery.
February 2006:
Solomon B. Tlhagwane
This series of works is made from a collection of cell phone photos shot by various people in their own explicit and implicit places (forbidden and non-forbidden) and moments, which provide us with an echo of our everyday lives. These are then gathered and put into new narratives by Tlhagwane, highlighting the usage and impact of cell phone photography on analogue and digital photography. In Cell - phone photography, the idea of publication is replaced by privacy, which makes for less inhibited, and slightly more risqué images. This was one of the first Cell-phone photography exhibitions to be held in SA.
March 2006:
Vusi Beauchamp and Eric Rantisi
The exhibition investigated the subtle power of colonial paternalism that uses language as a means of consigning the ‘other’ to the margins. This exhibition suggested that this colonial worldview is perpetuated today, in a modern, urban, post-apartheid South Africa, that the fear of young black men has its roots in a colonial discourse of the other. The artists also launched their controversial black comic book ‘Kafferparadys’ at this show.
April 2006:
Lukas Thobejane
Lukas has been working as a self-taught artist for a few years now, specialising in wooden carved images in Stinkwood. He has used the tradition of wood carving to hone his skills and with the works for this show has moved his subject matter into a more contemporary vein incorporating modern logos and objects such as cell phones in the works.
May 2006:
Michelle Harris
“From the Pink Velvet Pussy, with love”
“From the Pink Velvet Pussy, with love” celebrates the fantastic life of the Pink Lady, a powerful female archetype created by the collective consciousness of the male species. Here, photographic documentation of her Johannesburg, Cape Town and Swaziland adventures are shown, in an installation of dream and memory objects, detailing the fears and fantasies of the Pink Lady.
June 2006:
Ruhan Janse van Vuuren and Francois Visser - “Deluge”
An exhibition of sculptures, the work on display is figurative, narrative, representational and symbolic, and highly crafted in a number of materials such as: bronze, aluminium, ceramic, steel and cement.
In Francois’ use of symbols is well considered and relates to a stream of signs and symbols of a well-established data base. His figures are not idealised, but rather generalised, and each figure may be seen as a reflection to a diversity of viewers.
When looking at Ruhan’s work, an intense empathy for the unsanitised, mundane and flawed is revealed. Ruhan’s figurative sculptures reflect a realism, not of the pretty or face-lifted but of lives lived, ‘real’ people in surroundings that seems to be an extension of themselves. Rich surface-detail and hundreds of seemingly random objects can be seen as physical manifestations of histories lived or memories from age-numbed fingers and minds of the figures.
from words by
KEVIN ROBERTS
July 2006:
Louis Minnaar - “Circus”
The artist’s work is inspired by, among other things, childhood memories, fantasies, images and characters from old TV programs or picture books. Visual experiences are filtered, dissected and put into a blender along with newly informed fantasies and experiences that are reapplied to characters, or representatives of non- informative, non- sensible hyper entities. Characters are simply put onto a stage as visual entertainment for audiences to acknowledge or deny.
Colin O’mara Davis writes: "Put simply, Louis is odd. His work is odd."
July 2006:
Rosemarie Marriott with Bob Cnoops “Glaukus”
A single new sculpture representing the figure from Greek Mythology who as a fisherman ate St John’s Wort and dove into the sea to become ½ human ½ fish and was then able to make predictions. Glaukus is also the title of an Afrikaans poem by D J Opperman about this oracle. The sculpture will be shown alongside interpretive photographic prints by Bob Cnoops based on the sculpture.
August 2006:
Brenden Gray “Free for All”
This body of work originated from a visit the artist paid to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. The artist took a series of photographs of the museum structure and displays, capturing its “staged memories”. He then reconfigured these through the process of collage and etching. What results is an exploration of how public, “historical” images are commodified, privatised, and converted into new forms of capital in a post-apartheid context. The body of work is an act of resistance to the closure and passivity the museum expects from the viewer.
September 2006:
Lothar Böttcher, Ignus Gerber & Justice Mokoena
“The lighter side”
In Lothar Böttcher’s sculptures glass becomes the focal point. Through glass the artist aims to manipulate and in a sense capture light. He attempts to make the viewer aware of the surroundings within the glass. Creating lenses, he offers a point of view (abstractly), changing perspective and observation of the contiguous space.
Böttcher asks whether we really observe or understand our role in the world around us due to filters like beliefs and personal experiences. Everybody has a unique point of view. The variables are infinite.
“Without light there is no subject. Without subject (particles and waves) there will be no light. Call it the “Ubuntu” of the Universe. There’s a funny side to existence if one thinks of everything as black and therefore invisible, until there’s light! Until it happens…” – Ignus Gerber
“Sound is capable to create various environments transporting the listener into a virtual world. Sound cannot only be heard, but can be felt and even seen, creating all kinds of possibilities. Just close your eyes and see the light within”- Justice Mokoena
Mokoena is strongly influenced by his ancestral background and native language, Lobedu. Since his youth he has been fascinated by various sounds from all walks of life. The artist attempts to use these sounds to communicate to others his perspective in life and a unique cultural background.
September 2006:
Mary Sibande
“My madam’s things”
This installation is the representation of the fantasies of a class of women, suppressed by and invisible to the more privileged who they long to be like. The boutique setting, coupled with the artist’s extravagant shoes don’t sit well together and evidence the gap between a woman’s fantasy and reality - the fine line between beauty and grotesqueness.
It is about trying too hard to fit in, in somebody else’s shoes, and as a result looking like a clown. Issues of society and advertising manipulating, persuading and distorting our perceptions interest Sibande greatly and she explores this through her work.
All that Glitters – musings on Bennie’s Games
It was with great glee that I was enticed to spend time in the underbelly of the world that has come to be known as Bennie’s Games. From my arrival at the Klein Karoo Nationale Kunste Fees 2006, cheesy posters beckoned and called like elicit women of the night for my attention. They literally leapt off of streetlamps and dustbins, urging me to visit what was obviously a den of iniquity – Bennie’s Games - presumably set up by locals to show an out-of towner a good time. Imagine my disappointment when I made my way down the high street assisted by street medication so freely available at this type of festival and was in fact guided by notices into what was quite plainly a synagogue!
My disappointment turned to absolute delight on entering a wonderland of visible flesh bathed in the pink glow of a salacious Neon sign. I was greeted at the door by two headless figures, one male, the other female, inviting me to throw my coins into their collection boxes so as to gain access. Having obliged I ventured forth into the captivating company of Miss Pac- Man, eloquently attired in pink fish-net stockings and corset sporting a hat of artificial flowers. She introduced me to her arcade game which revealed, on winning, lit-up images of scantily clad young ladies as a reward. I glanced around to see who might be watching or able to recognize me and ambled on to the next game.
This threesome of muscular figures (proof that Bennie caters for all tastes) were a little more difficult to engage in a game as they were constantly moving their ‘oh so open mouths’ from side to side to avoid penetration. Penetration by little plastic beads that is. For this was the point of the game to score as highly in the impossible task of throwing beads or balls into the mouths of the moving figures. They sat as in holy office representing power, the first with his dollar sign bling jewellery, the second in holy garb complete with rosary pendant and the last resplendent in military uniform. An unholy trinity if ever there was one.
Turning away in disgust at my own inability to play a simple game, I noticed a table with food, ‘great I thought, I could do with a snack!’ To my horror the food was guarded by a headless full figured man and a half dog / half giraffe. On closer inspection, the man revealed that in fact food was available but like most of Bennie’s inmates, at the price of a game. This time, I had to play a game of chance like the spinning wheels of a one armed bandit hidden in the ample chest of this naked man. Any form of sexual invitation would not have even been implied as the largess of this figure ironically called ‘Tiny’ was so huge that his belly covered his genitals, leaving only the tell-tale serving tray festooned with among other things smallish pork sausages in its place.
Having had my fill, I looked around for the next port of call and found a winged pinball machine of the kind used for gambling – where the ball falls through into slots lighting up on the backboard the amounts of money lost or won. In this case instead of actual money, we are given the third eye within a pyramid as seen on the Dollar bills in the United States. Could this mean that instead of money one wins entry to a world dominating cult, wisdom or perhaps spirituality, as implied through the golden wings? I will have to wait and see. What was particularly encouraging though was the fact that there was no glass on the table, so in order to win, you had only to pick out the steel ball and roll it to a winning position – well there was no one around to see, so…
Moving on I bumped into one of the scariest characters that I have ever come across. An almost square man carrying a Perspex briefcase with a very square meal of polony sandwiches in it. His tight fitting suit made me realize at once that he was a businessman. (His manner implied that he was in fact a very good businessman, a salesman perhaps?) On pushing his lapel button, his mouth whirred into action sprouting forth clichéd statements and platitudes that is common to salesmen and door to door preachers, promising me the world. This was someone I could trust I thought and reassuringly moved on.
Moving toward the exit I encountered the proprietor of the establishment, the afore-mentioned Bennie, but he was too busy to get caught up in conversation. His well worn barstool positioned him in front of his fantasy machine where he endlessly plays video games revealing images of the encounters and fantasies that he would have liked to have participated in. Like the fake gold watch and oversized gold ring on his hand, I realize with a tremor that he is just as sad and unfulfilled as the rest of us. He sets up this parlor to entice us to find our fulfillment but is in fact an inmate of his own prison. I recall the words of a Rodriguez song where ‘the turnkey comes and locks himself on in again’.
I exit past the same headless figures that sport the same faceless expressions as when I came in and realize that I have witnessed a slice of 21st century life that holds up promise, denies us, frustrates us, makes us cry and yet makes us smile too. I leave with thoughts of what the regular visitors to the synagogue would think on encountering Bennie’s Games.
Gordon Froud.
Next month’s feature on the 18th of August: guest writer Rika Sitas looking at the work of Durban based artist Vaughn Sadie.
Labels: Rainforest
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