/ 30 June 2011

Durban art pick: July 1 2011

Recently opened in one of ­Durban’s top contemporary art galleries is the solo exhibition by Frances Goodman

? Frances Goodman creates atmospheric installations that cross the boundaries between visual and media arts. On the surface, her work looks at the everyday obsessions and ­superficial behaviour — the fanatic exercise ­culture, immutable conventions of marriage and beauty — of the South African middle class, yet what she actually explores is the ­coping mechanisms that a ­socio­economic class of people has developed to prevail in a highly materialistic ­contemporary society. The media’s ­pervasive focus on the body and beauty creates an all-encompassing economy of desire in which the ­luxury of time and money inevitably leads to obsessive self-indulgence.

KZNSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road, Durban. Until July 23. Visit www.kznsagallery.co.za.