Cape art picks: March 18 2011

Roelof Louw shows a series of screen prints that draw on classic Pop Art strategies to explore contemporary effects of power, which are increasingly inseparable from the new virtual worlds of our rapidly changing image/ information culture.

• Taking its title from Beat Generation author, William S. Burroughs’ classic novel, Naked Lunch, the exhibition employs the “cut-up” technique to mirrored the workings of our advertising drunk, junkie consumer brains. Commercial icons like cowboys, cigarettes, crisply laundered white shirts, champagne bottles and luxury-liners are inter-cut with images of cultural and political figures such as Burroughs, Grace Jones, Herman Goering and more, to create what Louw describes as, ‘beautiful visual aphorisms of desire and despair.” Louw, whose work is included in the permanent collections of London’s Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, has exhibited extensively worldwide and at various galleries throughout South Africa.

  34FineArt, Second Floor Hills Building, Buchanan Square, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock. Until April 23.

• The design world’s answer to cult singer Perry Farrell’s infamous alternative 90s music fest, Lollapalooza, the Toffie Pop Culture Festival is three day whirlwind of exhibitions, workshops, presentations and partying. Curated by Peet Pienaar’s design agency The President and hosted in both Cape Town and Buenos Aires, this annual event returns with an even hipper line up than last year. Forget the increasingly corporate Design Indaba as you slouch through talks and presentations by twenty four talented South African creatives including Andrew Putter, Brandt Botes, Frauke Stegmann, Francois Burger, Tumi Molekane and more, as well as a selection of international guests such as Argentinean filmmaker Javier Lourenco and designer Michael Spahr, an artist, filmmaker and storyteller from Switzerland. In between bloody your mind on daily boxing matches; feed your creative spirit with ‘inspiration tables” by Kobus van der Merwe, Dokter & Misses, David West, Barend de Wet, Sangoma & Photon Foundation, Iziko Museums and more; visit A Word Of Art’s ‘Adidas Originals Exhibition” with live painting by Boamistura and relax with food, beer and music.

  Cape Town City Hall, Opposite the Grand Parade, Darling Street, March 24 to 26. Visit http://toffiepop.blogspot.com for the full programme and tickets.