21Column – S’x – Intraparadox

Vol.1 No.6 – 13 December 2024

[A]s the year draws to a close and we enter into a reflective mode, it is noteworthy to take stock of what is going on in the artworld. This year’s edition of the SASOL New Signatures Art Competition Exhibition has come and gone and we saw an interactive piece by Miné Kleynhans take the first prize. Over 1000 entries were recieved for the 34th edition of this annual art competition. With articulate as its slogan, there were quite a few works that reeked of interactivity in that show. I could not help it during a few guided tours that I had the pleasure of conducting but wonder; whilst viewing the work en masse, whether there was an implied message to the artworld to start making and promoting works that could involve physical interaction on the part of the audience. One of these works was Reinhard Giezing’s Fluidity in solidity a two piece conceptual sculpture that married wood and metal to produce a sculpture that reacted to nudges and touches. Just not in the global theatricals spectale recently witnessed with Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, when crypto founder, Justin Sun; its collector chomped on it. Talk about concepts. A story is thrown into stalk relief here when one reflects on the consumption of art as a concept. Uhm, I mean as far as the Comedian is cocnerned the artwork was a physically pallatable entity. And it is now gone. What is’t that we remain with historically speaking? I have my own ideas but let’s not get sidetracked.

Reinhard Giezing’s Fluidity in solidity

Part of SASOL New Signatures Art Competition Exhibition feature was the solo exhibition of Nosiviwe Matikinca titled Ukungalingani Kwezemfundo (Educational Inequality) which tackled the challenges faced by learners in public schools from underprivileged backgrounds. The exhibition consisted of an installation titled Yizohlala Nam (Come sit with me). The installation consisted of eight school desks with carved desk tops and more than thirty ceramic slip cast school shoes representative of the economic standing of various learners in our ailing public schools. Forming part of this solo exhibition was a three relief series aptly titled Ndicela Undiboleke (Please borrow me) representing stationaries such as mathematical instrument set, pencils, ballpens and rulers. The overall show was complemented by five embossings echoing the rellief series, titled Ndilinde iGrant (I am waiting for the government grant). This exhibition succintly extended the theme we saw last year when Matikinca won the first price with the work, Ndiziphiwe (They were given to me).

The other significant development is the recent ABSA L’atelier awards announcement that Kutlwano Monyai is the winner of its Groub B Category this year. Excuse my ignorance, I am still yet to reach-out to the artist and get a sense of what this award really means. From the whiff I got after going on the prowl internautically is that it has nothing to do with the Gerard Sekoto Award. It is an ambassordorship of some sort with an art practice professional development perk tied to it. Hopefully, we will get more details in the new year. I think it is a deserving feat for Monyai and congratulations are in order. She is one of the most active artists I know. Amongst her numerous commitments this year she curated the exhibition Crossroards / Tsela tse Pedi, which was installed at The Viewing Room Gallery, Brooklyn Circle, this past autumn, 13 April – 14 May|

[A] few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a walkabout of the exhibition Plurality which is on at the Javette-UP Art Centre, the Bridge Gallery. The show is on till 14 February 2025. Curated by Wayne Matthews, it brings together works of about twenty-four art lecturers at the University of Pretoria. The walkabout which was presented by Teboho Lebakeng and some of the exhibiting artists elucidated on the conceptual grounding of the work on display as much as it reflected on the media used in the realisation of these works. As Lebakeng moved us through the exhibition he made connections between the works and the exhibition title that frames this group exhibition.

*Plurality Exhibition, The Javette-UP on through 15 February 2025*

Earlier on at the start of the walkabout, during the viewing of the video installation, Bat Behaviours (2024) by Nicola Grobler, wherein she is shown struggling to negotiate a Monkey Bar in what seemed to be part of a jungle gym, as if sensing our subdued struggle to decode the peformance, Lebakeng remarked that the aim of the exhibition was not geared towards the commercial side of the visual art objects on show but rather, the exhibition ought to be seen as a collective representation of the ongoing varried researches that the exhibiting lecturers are preoccupied with in their various academic endeavors.

In a sense this remark, besides erecting part of the framework within which the work could be viewed, paved a way to Grobler’s discussion of her work. Grobbeler’s artisitic practice is centered around multispecies entanglements within urban spaces, and with regards to this work on show she remarked that she was emulating the way a particular species of bats rest (as we know bats rest hanging upside down) and that the process was not an easily achieveable feat. It took her four months to acquire the posture of hanigng upside down. In her artists statement regarding this work Grobler indicates that, the work seeks to comment on both the physiological determinants and the commitment required from humans to meaningfully engage with more-than-human species.

The other part of the framework within which the work can be viewed is the pervasise plurality of meaning that we weave when engage with artworks. And as such, works that form this exhibition by artists, just to name a few, such as Johan Thom, Cazlynne Peffer, Magdel van Rooyen, Shehnaz Mahomed and Philiswa Lila are not dresswed down in straight jackets but rather the curatorial approach is such that the viewer’s reading is encouraged to pull meaninngs polysemically (if there is such a word) to varried meanings from the body of work on show.

Dr Esther Mahlangu at work |Image courtesy of the artist and The Melrose Gallery

[A]rtnounced – No news is old news…

> After launching in Cape Town, at the National Gallery, with a run from 18 February to 11 August 2024, the ambitious Then I Knew I Was Good at Painting: Esther Mahlangu, A Retrospective Exhibition is now on at the Wits Art Museum through 17 April 2025. This exhibition is an exhaustive look at the life of this remarkable elder, influential artist and global icon. As per press release statement released prior to its debute in the Cape, when the show concludes in Gauteng it will leave our shores for the United States of America. At the moment South Africans still have the opportunity to immerse themselves into the ouevre of Dr, Mahlangu that ranges from the ndebele decal of the iconic BMW 525i, through beadworks, sculpture, ceramics and acrylic Ndebele Asbtract paintings [retrieve press release].

> Almost to a year since joinging Gallery Momo, Phoka Nyokong's hold no punches exhibition, Confrontation, is on till 15 December at that gallery. Working on a scale ranging from 91 x 92 cm to 380 x 247 cm this exhibition positions African fugurines / scukptures and masks to comment on unresoled issues of collonial legacy particularly on those at the recieving end. It is quite interesting how symbols such as the deker / sword and the gun are juxtaposed with teh butterfly and religion to create tension in the overall feel and look of this intellectually challenging exhibition. That sums up the tip of the icebeg of the content of some of the works on show. Technically speaking, Nyokong's painting is playful but nouances his maturity in painting in pieces such as the name sake of this show Confrontation (2024) and Discovery of Ancestral graffiti on a Night at the Museum of fools (2024) which you won't be blamed if you might read it as a link to Nyokong's ABSA L'Atelier solo exhibition title, Museum of New Hymns for the Confused, 2023. See image [2] below. During my viewing of confrontation I had a flashback of my interview with the artist in early spring of 2023. Aptly titled Hymnotic Pierce, in that interview Nyokong was very vocal about Africa's past and the injustices suffered at the hands of the West.

> Nelson Makamo's exhibition Maru Ke ao a tla le Pula which is on at BKhz is a techinically pleasing exhibition to see for anyone who has followed Makamo over the years. There were some pieces which I could not help but associate with the proprietor of the space wherein this artist's latest offering has been installed. I hope it is an error on my part and that there is no collaboration whatsoever between the two artists. If there was it wouldn't be an issue. Actually it would have perhaps been a feat to propel this exhibition deeper into the art interested public. There is just one work which really opened up possible vista's for me, see image[1] below in this section.

> The 12th edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair will take place from 21 to 23 February 2025. In this upcoming edition of the fair, for the first time, galleries from Tokyo, Kampala and Kuwait City will participate. Furthermore, as per press briefing, the 2025 edition will feature 30 first-time exhibitors, the largest group of new galleries in the event's history. [retrieve press release].

finally 

> The latest Ocula Newsletter announced that Zeitz Moca's Koyo Kouoh has been appointed to curate 2026 Venice Biennale. This is a big deal in that in its inception since 1895, Kouoh is the first African woman appointed by the Biennale board to lead the lauded exhibition.

Images referred to:

**[1]** Nelson Makamo. *Untitled* *(2024)*. Oil on canvas. 150 x 300 cm

**[2]** Phoka Nyokong. *Discovery of Ancestral graffiti on a Night at the Museum of fools (2024)*. Oils on canvas. 114cm x 198cm

@Pretoria Art Museum

Judith Mason (1938 – 2016)

[T]he Judith Mason (1938 – 2016) exhibition is one of the exhibitions that the Pretoria Art Museum has installed to close-off 2024. Amongst these exhibitions are the returning works of Alexis Preller (1911 – 1975) from the Norval Foundation, Cape Town, viewable in the North Gallery and the Michaelis Collection which is viewable in the Henry Preiss Hall. For the Mason exhibition, 17 artworks have been put together from the permanent collection. These consists of paintings, drawings, silkscreen prints and a tapestry. It is worth noting that the works on show were produced during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, a vibrant period in Mason’s art practice. And that this body of work have come to being part of the permanent collection through direct acquisitions between 1960s and 1980s and the PELMAMA donation which was recieved in 2009.

[retrieve artist brief bio here, courtesy of the Pretoria Art Museum]

Bingeworthy

[S]hould you find your self with more time in your hands; with all the hype around artificial intelligence becoming a stable diet lately, you may find this animated series interesting . Pantheon is a breath of fresh air in its twist and invention of the concept of uploaded intelligence and an imagining of a possible future. Ere ke eme gona fa (this is as far as I am willing to go) in my sampling.

4&half Post'highdeF points out of 5 - we loved it. 

[S]treamer: Netflix