Alex Sudheim
African Art Centre, first floor, Tourist Junction, 160 Pine Street. One of Durban’s top contemporary art galleries hosts a showcase of KwaZulu-Natal artistic talent titled Asibuke Abantu: Looking at People, an exhibition featuring the work of 31 invited artists. Some of the artists are well-known painters Sfiso ka-Mkame, George Msimang, Carl Roberts and Kehle Ngobese, whose work Seeking Special Permit deals with indignities suffered by men seeking work in Durban in the days of the dompas. Other works also explore this theme, such as The Artist’s Life by Isaac Sithole, African Hero by Armstrong Masondo, My Mother’s Kitchen by Alson Ntshangase, Three Generations by Musa Mgabhi and Spirit of the Nation by Sfiso ka-Mkame. An arresting exhibition richly varied in subject and medium and worth a visit, Asibuke Abantu runs until Saturday September 22. E-mail: afriart1@ iafrica.com. Tel: 304 7915.
Bayside Gallery, Bat Centre, Durban harbour. On show at this tranquil dockside gallery is Black and White, an impressive cornucopia of contemporary South African craft work. Some of the ceramicists featured include Rodney Blumenfeld, Martha Zettler and Bea Jaffray, as well as the Potters Shop. Jewellers Marlene de Beer, Nicola Savage, Kubendrie Asim Kumar and Chris de Beer have produced handcrafted jewellery to fit the theme. Amanda Marais’s black-and-silver cutlery and Kerryn Greenberg’s beaded collage panels also form part of the show. Also on exhibition are works by renowned fibre artists Odette Tolksdorf and Margaret Ruxton. The gallery is open from 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Sunday. Tel: 368 5547.
Artroots Gallery, 50 Florida Road. This appealing gallery and shop offers a range of contemporary and traditional fine art and artefacts for the art and decor market. The gallery also contains a fine collection of works by top painters, sculptors and ceramic artists and this month features the works of two of KwaZulu-Natal’s favourite painters, Sfiso ka-Mkame and Zamani “Romeo” Makhanya, both of whom work in oil pastels. Ka-Mkame’s idiosyncratic works, recently shown in Johannesburg, feature people dressed in garments made of fabrics patterned in Central and West African styles. He also has a range of smaller, brightly coloured works, which, Picasso-style, use masks as their central motif. Makhanya has developed a stylish technique in his new oil pastel works, whose eye-catching vibrancy is awash with colour and movement. Tel: 303 5176.
Democratic Gallery, Bat Centre, Durban harbour. Opening here on Friday September 14 at 6pm is an exhibition of works by Vusimuzi Mbatha, who lives and works at Table Mountain, Mkhambathini, a rural area adjacent to Pietermaritzburg. Dreaming of being a motor-vehicle designer he started exhibiting and selling his model cars made out of scrap metal at the Tatham Art Gallery in 1995. He has since received commissions from corporate companies as well as the Russian embassy. Last year he participated in the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia. Tel: 332 0451.
Durban Art Gallery, City Hall, Smith Street. The gallery holds four exhibitions in its grand colonial environs with different end dates. Lines of Violation: Comfort Women Survivors is an intriguing multimedia installation that features drawings on perspex sheets of the hands of 52 “comfort women”, young women from the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea and Holland who were victims of the Japanese military policy of forcing young women into sexual slavery in occupied territories during World War II. Accompanying the drawings are recordings of each woman relating her tale of horror and how it impacted on her life. The exhibition is on show until September 20, as is the compelling photographic exhibition Imperial Ghetto by Omar Badsha. This revealing photographic diary features the people and events encountered by Badsha in the Grey Street area, which grew in the heart of the then colonial and later the apartheid city of Durban. The show’s title is an ironic play on the fact that the labyrinth of streets at the heart of the ghetto were named by the colonial administration after Queen Victoria, her children and leading members of the imperial establishment. Recently opened to coincide with the World Conference against Racism is the impressive Art against Apartheid exhibition, which features works by 80 internationally acclaimed artists and contributions by renowned poets, writers and philosophers. Included in the show are works by Malangatana Ngwenya (Mozambique), Erro (Iceland); Richard Hamilton (United Kingdom) and Patrick Betaudier (Spain). The exhibition runs until October 20. On show until November 30 is Soul of Africa, a marvellous selection of African artefacts with a spooky slant on masks and fetish symbols from the impressive Han Coray Collection of African art. Tel: 311 2264.
Elizabeth Gordon Gallery, 68 Windermere Road. On show in this stylish, upmarket contemporary art gallery is a range of new works from a quartet of top local artists. Peter Freeman’s impressive black-and-white urban and rural landscape photographs are accompanied by Astrid Dahl’s innovative ceramic works, David Wheildon Oosthuizen’s mixed-media creations and Heleen Verwey’s evocative abstracts. Tel: 309 4370/1.
Kwa Muhle museum, 130 Ordnance Road. On show until the end of October is the profound and gripping exhibition The Politics of Space: Apartheid Architecture, Urban Design and Spatial Policy. The exhibition examines the use of architecture, urban design and spatial policy in the implementation of apartheid. The exhibition uses text, documents, photographs and artefacts (including apartheid signs) to show the way in which apartheid was implemented, drawing mainly on the history of Durban. The exhibition also examines the resistance to apartheid and the way in which the oppressed claimed spaces within the city to demonstrate their opposition to racist and oppressive laws. Tel: 311 2223.
Menzi Mcunu Gallery, Bat Centre. Opening on Friday September 14 at 6pm is an exhibition featuring the work of Zamokwakhe Gumede, who, after meeting Sister Johanna at Mariannhill Mission, undertook a three-month carpentry course. Sister Johanna also introduced him to sculpture by reading biblical stories to him that he had to illustrate in sculpture. His works depict themes of everyday life experiences. He works with indigenous wood from the Drakensberg. He was among the first artists included in the artist-in-residency programme at the Bat centre. More information: Tel: 332 0451.
NSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood. Three exhibitions run concurrently. See Art Pick of the Week. Website:www.nsagallery.co.za. Tel: 202 2293.
Thekwini Business Centre, 127 Alice Street. The tales of anguish and woe embodied in the memory cloths created for Amazwi Abesifazne: Voices of Women by South African women whose lives were touched by the trauma of the apartheid era form a striking collective record of the personal pain experienced by so many in the past. Asked to stitch, embroider and sew a cloth depicting The Day I Will Never Forget, since May 2000 several hundred women have captured their memories in simple, figurative vignettes whose ingenuous shapes and colours are heartbreakingly at odds with the story they tell. The memory cloths are on exhibition and for sale until September 30.
Art pick of the week
Current exhibitions
NSAGallery
With its clean, minimal lines and cool, modern design, Durban’s NSA Gallery is one of the city’s most significant and prestigious contemporary art centres. On show in the Main Gallery until September 19 is One Continent, Many Facets, a glittering showcase of new South African diamond-jewellery design. Last year mineral giant De Beers commenced its fourth Shining Light awards, for which entrants were asked to draw inspiration from the rich symbolism of Africa to produce innovative and progressive pieces of diamond jewellery. The results exceeded expectations. The NSA Gallery showcases this brilliant collection, which features pieces by Kim Goosen, Comine Venter, Riette Voster, Sid Forman, Neena Rama and Ella Mentis, among others.
In the Mezzanine Gallery until September 22 is a compelling photographic installation by top South African photographer Val Adamson, well-known for her skill in photographing dance and drama. Commissioned for the South African Women’s Arts Festival 2001, the work is dedicated to women and thematically explores “women through the ages from day one onwards”, and seeks to represent the beauty in women’s shapes through life’s changes. In her prints, Adamson explores new ways of presenting photographs and experiments with unusual new media.
Adorning the Park Gallery and the walls of the Arts Caf until September 22 is the Rotary Art Exchange Exhibition, which opens on September 16 at 4pm. Early this year the Rotary Club of Durban organised an art exchange between local school children and their peers in Portugal, the motivation being to encourage youth to become aware of children in other countries. Four Durban schools corresponded with “art pals” in Portugal and explored themes such as Our Community, The Environment and Peace.
More info: Tel: 202 3686 or www.nsagallery.co.za. Alex Sudheim