Cape art picks: December 10 2010

Michael Stevenson’s annual summer exhibition rejects the big group show formula in favour of a diverse selection of solo shows by some of the gallery’s most topical artists.

• Anton Kannemeyer grabbed the headlines earlier this year after his exhibition Pappa in Afrika sparked a heated debate on satire and racism. His recently completed Alphabet of Democracy series promises to add plenty of fire to the media inferno. Zanele Muholi also sparked controversy when then Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwane deemed her works “pornographic”. She literally keeps the tongues wagging with ‘I am just doing my job”, a single photograph that offers a feisty feminist retort to the Black Empowerment businessman Kenny Kunene’s sexist sushi and nipple nibbling R700 000 40th birthday bash. Also showing work is Serge Alain Nitegeka the winner of the 2010 Tollman Award for Visual Art as well as Claudette Schreuders who debuts new sculptures ahead of a solo exhibition in New York.

  Michael Stevenson Gallery, Ground floor, Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Until January 15.

• In the often cynical art world, the year-end art school graduate exhibitions are a rare delight, an opportunity to view fresh work as yet unsullied by market constraints and art world politics. The Michaelis School of Fine Art is legendary for producing talent. Aside from grooming luminaries such as Lien Botha, Brett Murray, Thembinkosi Goniwe and Berni Searle, the school has provided Cape Town with some of its most infamous provocateurs – from Ed Young to Barend de Wet. Recent graduates who’ve made it big include Nandipha Mntambo, Mikhael Subotzky and Hasan and Husain Essop. So who are the future hotties? The 2010 Michaelis School of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition promises to offer up the answers. Michaelis Galleries, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, 32 – 37 Orange Street, Gardens. Until December 21. Also opening is Gradex ’10, the final year exhibition by visual art and design students from Stellenbosch. A student-led initiative, it taps into the drive towards creative industries with an innovative selection of works by Jewellery Design, Fine Arts and Visual Communication Design graduates. University of Stellenbosch Department of Visual Arts, Victoria Street, Stellenbosch. Until December 12.