Published last year, Phaidon’s Vitamin P2 anthology presents an overview of “the best new contemporary painting from around the world” as selected by an international team of art historians, critics and curators.
That South African Lisa Brice is among the 115 artists selected is testimony to her immense talent. Brice is a consummate poet of the unseen. Working in a variety of media, she interprets the unreality of the world, as well as the abstraction behind the representation and vice versa. Her new exhibition is no exception. Produced over the past two years, Throwing the Floor explores the possibilities of vivid colour, how it is perceived optically and the effects of the after-image. As Coline Millard, writing in Vitamin P2, states: “Just as [Brice’s] painting hovers between figuration and abstraction, her figures occupy the limbo between the living and the dead.”
Goodman Gallery, 3rd Floor, Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, until April 14. Tel: 021 462 7573. Website: goodman-gallery.com.
â– Much has changed in South Africa since Zackie Achmat spoke at Simon Nkoli’s memorial service and announced that a protest and fast would be held on December 10 1998 to fight for access to treatment for HIV/Aids. But much has also stayed the same and the challenges of HIV/Aids treatment remain just as pressing, complex and politically charged in the post-Mbeki, post-denialist era. It is this context that provides a backdrop for The A.R.T. Show, a new visual art exhibition curated by Carol Brown and David Gere that examines HIV/Aids treatment and its representations.
An acronym for antiretroviral treatment as well as a signifier of creativity, the title provides a framework for an eclectic selection of works in a multiplicity of media. These include large collaborative works by the Art and Global Health Centre at the University of California in Los Angeles, the Woza Moya group and the Keiskamma Art Project, as well as individual works by leading artists such as William Kentridge, Clive van den Berg, Fritha Langerman, Lunga Kama and United States-based artists Sarah Anjargolian, Narineh Mizraean and Daniel Goldstein.
Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town Hiddingh campus, Orange Street, Gardens, until April 26. Tel: 021 480 7170. Website: michaelis.uct.ac.za.