Two of the relatively few joys of remaining in Johannesburg over the festive season are that the streets are virtually empty, and the halls of the ubiquitous shopping malls echo like mausoleums.
Unfortunately, the same goes for the city’s art galleries. After December 16, the art scene vanishes down the same wormhole that seems to swallow up all the people, and re-emerges, like the people, somewhere closer to the ocean.
Though Durban’s art scene operates over December at the same sleepy hum as it does throughout the rest of the year, Cape Town’s gallery’s are abuzz with blockbuster exhibitions that charge right through until January, pausing only briefly for Christmas and New Year.
Some of the highlights of Cape Town’s December art feast include a showing of Roger Ballen’s Boarding House, a well-known series of painterly photographs, taken since 2000, that reimagine life inside a three-storey boarding facility nestled between Johannesburg’s mine dumps. Boarding House runs at the Iziko South African National Gallery until January 27 2011, alongside another large photography exhibition, Borders, which is a recurated selection from the 2009 Bamako Encounters Biennale of African Photography.
Having enjoyed pride of place at the Johannesburg Art Gallery during the Fifa World Cup in June and July, Borders seems to trace the presence of foreign tourists in South Africa, as it relocates southwards for Cape Town’s annual transformation into a European enclave.
Photography continues to dominate Cape Town’s culture museums in a major exhibition of photographs by David Goldblatt, Kith, Kin and Khaya, running at the South African Jewish Museum until January 7. This follows Goldblatt’s critically acclaimed appearance at the Jewish Museum in New York earlier this year with a solo exhibition, South African Photographs: David Goldblatt.
The prevalence of photography over this festive season probably has less to do with the assumed accessibility of this artistic genre than with a resurgence of critical interest in photography among South African artists, curators and writers. The Johannesburg Art Gallery has just opened an exhibition of rare photographs by the late Ernest Cole and still hosts an extensive group
retrospective of photographs documenting the past 60 years in South African history. The recent release of author Ivan Vladislavic’s latest novel, Double Negative, with a book of photographs by Goldblatt, has brought the genre of photography into even sharper focus in the public realm.
Should you, like me, find yourself alone on the Highveld swigging at the lees while the bubbly flows at the party down south, setting out on a final Gauteng art trawl before December 15 is the most sensible way to secure your holiday art fix. The newest addition to the Goodman Gallery’s artist profile, Stefanus Rademeyer shows Resonant Structures, an exhibition of sculptural works and digital prints until December 16.
One day earlier, December 15 is the last day to see James Webb’s solo sound installation project, Aleph, at Goethe on Main. Closing on the same day is Pieter Hugo’s latest solo project, Permanent Error, hosted at the pristine new Brodie/Stevenson gallery at 62 Juta Street.
For a day away from the city, the Nirox Sculpture Park is well worth a visit, and currently hosts an outdoor exhibition by Spanish artist Eric Pladavell titled The Mystery of the Elements. The Nirox Sculpture Park is situated in the Cradle of Humankind, just a stone’s throw away from more than 40 fossil sites, the Sterkfontein Caves and occasional country roadside diversions such as biltong stalls and dirty cafés selling stale slap chips. Like everything else in Gauteng, though, the fun ends on December 15.
Visit www.niroxarts.com for details and to book a visit.