Cape art picks: October 14 2011

Peter Clarke’s retrospective shares the spotlight with work from a promising young talent.

■ To say that Peter Clarke’s retrospective is timely is a bad but useful pun. A legend on the Cape Town scene, Clarke’s work has never really been given the exposure it deserves, yet his optimistic celebration of life in all its aspects is relevant to a time too often dominated by pessimism and complaint.

Listening to Distant Thunder: The Art of Peter Clarke tells the story of Clarke’s work over the decades. It includes his early paintings and prints that display his fascination with the detail of everyday life, works from the late 1960s that refer to the trauma of forced removals from Simon’s Town and the ambitious paintings he began making during his trips overseas in the 1970s. These big-hearted, all-embracing paintings prove Clarke’s continuing relevance.

Iziko SA National Gallery, ­Government Avenue, Company’s Garden, Cape Town. Opens October 20 and remains on show until February 2012. Tel: 021 467 4660. Website: www.iziko.org.za.

■ Heidegger is famous for asking the question of the meaning of being in relation to objects. Whereas phenomenology describes things in terms of their appearance to consciousness, Heidegger noted that things primarily do not appear in consciousness; instead, they withdraw from view into invisible usefulness. The chair under your bum, the newspaper in your hands, the eyes with which you read are generally hidden unless and until they malfunction.

In his new exhibition, Hoist, young upstart Jared Ginsburg invites us to engage with Heidegger’s meditation by relieving objects of their utility. Using a cable and a winch he hoists, then suspends, selected objects in the gallery space, jogging familiar associations and prompting an alternate engagement.

Blank Projects, 113-115, Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Until October 29.