Prickly paintings
From Paul Kruger to Che Guevara, Thabo Mbeki to the Taliban, designer stubble to lefty bristles, beards have always been potent containers of meaning.
In his 18th solo exhibition, Pogonology, Malcolm Payne cultivates this history to present a series of bold graphic paintings premised on the aesthetics and significance of facial hair. Name dropping everyone from “Kurt” (Cobain?) to (Marquis?) “de Sade”, coupling unlikely bedfellows like “Einstein & Jesus” and “Buddha & Plato” and even evoking a few bearded ladies and “beavers”, Payne weaves a prickly web of imaginary connections and razor sharp comments.
Seductive and disconcerting in equal measure, devilishly deadpan yet wryly intelligent, Pogonology promises to provoke plenty of chin scratching. Until March 19. Blank Projects, 113-115 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town.
Live Art Infects the City
Wedged, as it is, between the art elite and the man on the street, social development and radical politics, urban theory and gentrification, public art is a thorny issue in Cape Town. Who does it serve? Who does it reach?
What does it communicate? Those are just a few of the challenges Infecting the City festival takes on as it infects our streets. Using performance and live art as its primary medium, this year’s festival aims to celebrate the rich variety of culture “treasures” found in the Cape — from monuments and natural resources, to the array of rituals, dances and street culture that form part of our heritage.
Based at a new hub on the Cape Station Forecourt, but extending out into the CBD and surrounds, it presents a lively program that refuses the division between high and low art to accommodate live photography and Indian Sari-Wrapping, Xhosa Stick-Fighting and mobile choreographic interventions, Drum Majorettes, opera performance, sangoma rituals and much, much more. Cape Town Station Forecourt, February 21 until February 26. Visit www.infectingthecity.com for more information.