Cape Town art picks: September 10 2010

The message is the medium in two new exhibitions at Michael Stevenson.

• Despite his frequent forays into conceptual art, installation and film, performance and drawing, Johannesburg-based artist Zander Blom’s work is always essentially about painting. ‘There are few things as gratifying as waking up to the smell of linseed oil and paint,” he writes. With that in mind he brushes aside clammy discussions about the imminent death of the medium with an exhibition that acknowledge the theoretical disputes, but refuse to shut out the possibility of a receptive, physical response, in terms of surface as much as subject matter. Blom’s exhibition shows alongside American DJ-cum-artist, DJ Spooky’s new installation, Kino-Glaz. Here, the infamous ‘Subliminal Kid” turns his attention to film, presenting an audiovisual rescoring of Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s 1924 film Kino-Glaz (‘Cinema Eye’). Vertov pioneered a range of cinematic techniques including double exposure, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, etc, and Spooky explores these through diverse sonic interpretations. Michael Stevenson Gallery, Ground floor, Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Until October 16.

• William Scarbrough continues his complex engagement with narratives of violence, signification and ethics as presented in the global media in Forgotten. The exhibition takes the form of an installation in two parts that traces the tragic coincidence of two events in New York City. In a tightly woven circular narrative that exploits contingency and chance, Scarbrough presents a complex labyrinth of information that upends our conception of a single, isolated, objective history. As Scarbrough writes, ‘You cannot seek coincidences; you can only stumble upon on them. But sometimes, just once in a great while, they are so monumental that books are written, stories are told, as we stand in awe as fate has its way.” Serialworks, Unit F404, Woodstock Industrial Centre, 66 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Opening September 11 at 6pm until October 9, with viewing Thursday to Saturday from 11am to 6pm or by appointment.