Cape art picks: May 30 2011

Zwelethu Mthethwa captures the essence of masculinity in his new exhibition The Brave Ones.

• ‘I am not interested in the church per se, or in the ritual… For me the young men were just amazing because of the clash of identities. You know, where does the bowtie come from, why are they wearing the bowtie during the day? Why do their shirts look like women’s blouses with frills? It’s fascinating.” With these words acclaimed painter and photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa captures the essence of his new exhibition The Brave Ones. This new photographic series shows ceremonially dressed Zulu boys and men from the Shembe religious community. Mthethwa’s focus however is not ethnographic or anthropological. Rather than highlight Shembe religious practice, Mthethwa engages its aesthetics, isolating his subjects from the context of the church and posing them against the starkly beautiful landscape of Kwa Zulu Natal.

  The result is a bold, visually engaging exhibition that owes as much to fashion photography as it does to documentary practice in its radical presentation of identity, culture, society and masculinity. Also on show are images from Mthethwa’s The End of an Era, an exercise in ‘still life” photography set in Johannesburg’s hostels for migrant male labourers.
  
  iArt Gallery, 71 Loop Street, Cape Town. Until June 29.

• Remember Pi, the psychological thriller that established Darren Aronofsky as a director to watch in the 90s? In the film, Maximillian “Max” Cohen (Sean Gullette), the story’s protagonist, is a number theorist who believes that everything in nature can be understood through numbers. Stefanus Rademeyer is an equally smart, though fortunately less mad artist. For his first solo exhibition at Goodman Gallery Cape – titled Resonant Structures, Rademeyer has developed algorithms that describe the inherent form and intricacy of various natural structures, which are then translated into the visual realm using digital processes. Unlike Aronofsky, whose stark black and white noir aesthetics presented a dark image of a world on the verge of chaos, Rademeyer engages the creativity of maths, using ‘generative algorithms” to create boundlessly engaging and eloquently beautiful objects and digital drawings.
  
  Goodman Gallery Cape, 3rd Floor Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Until June 18.