Gauteng art picks: November 5 2010

Cape Town based artist James Webb opens his first two solo exhibitions in Johannesburg.

• After an intense run of international exhibitions and residencies, Cape Town based artist James Webb opens his first two solo exhibitions in Johannesburg on the same night, November 10. In a show titled Terms of Surrender, which opens at the ABSA Gallery at 6.15pm, Webb presents three works made since winning the ABSA l’Atelier Award in 2008. These works, which were collectively produced across four cities – Cape Town, Johannesburg, Berlin and Madrid – are, according to the artist, ‘a meditation on territory, history and culture”. Opening at Goethe On Main at 7.30pm is a new project titled Aleph. This work examines the phenomenon on glossolalia in the context of religious experience.

• The Johannesburg Art Gallery’s new Curator of Contemporary Art, Nontobeko Nntombela, makes a guest appearance on the commercial gallery
  scene with a curated project at the Goodman Gallery’s Project Space at Arts on Main. Titled Layers, this exhibition features paintings, video and sculptural installation by Yvette Dunn and Nothando Mkize. Ntombela aims to shift the discursive focus on woman artists in South Africa from obsessions with identity issues to a more expansive view of creative potentialities. Layers is the first in a series of small project exhibitions which Nontobela hopes will
  result in a more extensive exhibition on this theme.