Chris Roper
3rd I Gallery, 95 Waterkant Street. Telling Tales is a group exhibition of narrative art work, art based on the classic theme of telling a story. The exhibition showcases art in a wide range of media and includes work by artists such as Lien Botha, Kevin Brand, Randy Hartzenberg, Peter van Straten, Arlene Amaler-Raviv and Dale Yudelman. It’s on until Friday September 21. Tel: 425 2266.
Arts Association of Bellville, Library Centre, Carel van Aswegen Street, Bellville. Headspace/.com features the work of painter and graphic designer Andr Naud. According to the gallery, “Naud’s works reflect an incisive discourse with cross-cultural appropriation, capturing the transitional visual fusion of South African multicultural pluralism.” Also see ceramics, paintings and wire and paper sculpture from students of the school of art and design at the Boland College, Paarl. Both shows run until September 29. Tel: 918 2301.
Artscape Theatre Centre, 1-10 DF Malan Street, Foreshore, Cape Town. To commemorate the Year of World Mental Health and to highlight the global burden of mental disorders, Artscape will host the Mental Health Arts Festival organised by the Western Cape Department of Health in conjunction with the Association for Visual Arts. The festival begins on September 16 at 5.30pm with Brainstorm, a group show in the theatre foyer that includes the likes of Cobus van Bosch, Arlene Amaler-Raviv, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Beezy Bailey, Jill Trappler and Mandla Vanyaza. In the same venue you can see art works created by “mental health consumers” during an art workshop facilitated by Jill Trappler. Both shows run until September 30. There are also a number of lectures and performances that will take place at the On the Side venue. September 16 at 7.30pm: Andrew Lamprecht talks on Art and Madness; September 17 at 7.30pm: Angelo Gobbato talks on operatic treatments of the theme of psychiatric illness; September 18 and 20 at 8.30pm: Theatresports engages the world of the mind; September 19 at 7.30pm: Madly Entertaining, a play by Paul Leger; September 21 at 7.30pm: Jeroen Kranenburg in Some Mornings, It’s Just Not Worth Chewing through the Leather Straps; September 22 at 7.30pm: Weave, a Cape-based black women writers’ group, presents Journey to Self. More information: Tel: 424 7436.
Association for Visual Arts, 35 Church Street. Larry Scully’s 70th solo exhibition consists of six large oil paintings, semi-abstract in style, that are informed by the landscape of the Cape, especially by the sea. Scully describes them as “visual music”. Also on is Mike de la Harpe’s The Improbability of Flight, a collection of metaphorical spaceships, flying machines, wrecks and parts thereof, and Russel Sacks’s The Street, the Universe and the World, “full-frame images, using natural light, of a variety of peoples and subjects”. Tel: 424 7436.
Bang the Gallery, 21 Pepper Street, Cape Town. See Uwe Pfaff’s new works in brushed stainless steel, suggesting myths, legends and tall tales. Tel: 422 1477.
Baxter Theatre, Main Road, Rondebosch. From Suzy Bell, the wacky woman who organises Durban’s monthly Red Eye @rt event, comes the Code Pink party. There are loads of fun, pinkish things happening, including Peet Pienaar in a performance piece entitled daddybuymeapony, a Farm Fresh installation from the Mother City Queer Project, as well as film art by hot young filmmaker Berlin East. My, my; after YDETAG last weekend, and now this, art will soon be more funky than music. It happens on Saturday September 15 from 10pm. Cost is R20 at the door. Tel: 082 897 8256.
Bell-Roberts Contemporary, 199 Loop Street. Bonita Alice’s Giving and Not Giving is a solo exhibition in media including oil painting and wood carving, as well as site-specific works. Until September 15. Tel: 422 1100.
Caf Manhattan, 74 Waterkant Street. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who’s the Fairest of Them All?” is an exhibition of designer-framed mirrors produced by Recycled Republic of Hout Bay. Each piece is individually handcrafted in wood and sheet aluminium with the look ranging from deco to industrial. Tel: 421 6666.
Chelsea Gallery, 51 Waterloo Road, Wynberg. See a joint exhibition by Marie-Claire Yung Hing Nosmas and Erik Schnack. Yung Hing Nosmas is a multimedia artist from the South Pacific island of New Caledonia. Her relief sculptures, evolved with the technique of drawing into sheet metal using a cutting torch, report on themes that are close to her heart, such as the sea, rebirth, life, motherhood and death. Schnack, a multimedia artist from Namibia, uses metals, wood and found materials to reveal a secret society, invented and inspired by rural African and South Pacific art. Works on display are relief sculptures and functional art with humoristic intent. Until September 22. E-mail: chelsea-gallery@ mweb.co.za. Tel: 761 6805.
Die Kunskamer, 3 Portswood Road, Waterfront. Owner Louis Schachat celebrates 30 years of the gallery with an exhibition of his private works and desirable pieces for sale. These include works by Irma Stern, Gregoire Boonzaier, Adolph Jentsch, Alexis Preller, Sydney Kumalo and Hugo Naude, Gail Catlin, David Brown, Cynthia Villet, Norman Catherine, Penny Siopis and Eris Silke. Tel: 419 3226.
Evita se Perron, Elsie Balt Art Gallery, Darling. See an exhibition of new art work by Darling artist Sandy Esau, a multimedia artist who depicts vibrant, humorous and realistic suburban scenes of his local community. Until September 30. The Hello Darling Arts Festival runs until September 16. Tel: (022)492 2831.
Irma Stern museum, Cecil Road, Rosebank. Barbara Fairhead’s Word and Bead: The Presentation of a Journey ends September 15. The exhibition’s central metaphor is a journey, or as the artist puts it, “an effort to put into images and words an inner reality”. Tel: 685 5685.
Joo Ferreira Fine Art, 80 Hout Street. Works on Paper is an exhibition of etchings, lithographs, drawings and prints by various artists. Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm; Saturdays, 10am to 2pm. Tel: 423 5403.
National Library, 5 Queen Victoria Street. An interactive educational exhibition called Walking the Book will show for several months. Tel: 424 6320.
Obz Caf, Lower Main Road, Observatory. Peter van Straten shows Soul Espresso. According to the press release, “These exquisitely crafted oil paintings should do to the open mind what a double espresso will do to the body. See a child being hauled out of this reality by a jellyfish. See the skeleton of a fish at the foot of a tap in the dessert. See the house at the top of the mind, a child cooking a marshmallow by the flames of a burning monk, and soldiers stopped for one instant in their warring by a woman in a pink swimming costume.” The Obz Caf is also calling for submissions to the second Walking the Street event, which takes place from February 16 to March 16 2002. More info:Tel: 448 5555.
Sasol Art museum, University of Stellenbosch, 52 Ryneveld Street. South African Contemporary Ceramics is a collection of important South African ceramics, and includes works by Esias Bosch, Hyme Rabinowitz, Tim Morris, Andre Walford, Marietjie van der Merwe, Bill van Gilder, Barry Dibb and Hannatjie van der Wat. Until September 29. Tel: 808 3691.
Sanlam Art Gallery, 2 Strand Road, Bellville. The Sanlam Art Gallery in cooperation with the Cape Town Holocaust Centre hosts The Children’s Story, an exhibition of copies of drawings by children held captive in the Terezn ghetto in Czechoslovakia from 1942 to 1944. The gallery is closed over weekends. Tel: 947 3359.
South African National Gallery, Government Avenue, Cape Town. A hanging of selected 18th- and 19th-century works from the Sir Abe Bailey Bequest is on show. Closed on Mondays. Tel: 465 1628.
Steenbokfontein Art Studio, Lambert’s Bay. Birds in the Sky near Lambertsbaai is an annual art celebration that takes place up the West Coast, on the seaside farm of Steenbokfontein, somewhere between Lambert’s and Elands bays. Forty artists are featured, including Gerrit Burger, Colin Richards, Anton Boonzaaier and Thelma Mort. Until Sunday September 16. More information:Tel: (027) 432 2723.
William Fehr Collection, Good Hope Gallery, Castle of Good Hope. An exhibition of the works of Max Ernst can be seen. See Art Pick of the Week. Tel: 469 1315.
Art pick of the week
MaxErnst
William Fehr Collection
September 18 to October 14
This exhibition is part of the seventh German Cultural Week, an institution that has brought valuable and enticing offerings to Cape Town over the past few years.
This time around, you get to see graphics and prints by one of the chief loons of Dadaism, Max Ernst. There are 76 items on show and they are apparently “an excellent reflection on the contribution of Max Ernst as witness to the fundamental development of 20th century European art”.
Never mind the history lessons: this show should strike a bewilderingly familiar note in Cape Town, a city whose culture and boundaries are as fragmented, demented and surreal as Ernst’s work, and which once boasted a band named after his The Elephant Celebes. This is a rare chance to see the work of a leading artist who has served as inspiration to many of our home-grown conceptualists, framed by surroundings familiar to us.
The show opens at 7pm on Tuesday September 18 with introductory remarks by Neville Dubow. There’s an entrance fee of R15 for adults and R6 for kids. Chris Roper