Chris Roper: On show in Cape Town The Association for Visual Arts, or AVA as it’s more popularly known, has got three distinct exhibition spaces on its premises in the trendy Church Street Mall. Their habit of showing three different exhibitions in the respective spaces means that the viewer is often forcibly made aware of […]
The University of Pretoria’s celebrated Van Tilburg collection may have been stolen from Dutch Jews, writes Bart Luirink In 1951 Jacob van Tilburg, a Dutch art collector, managed to transfer 91 cases with valuable art pieces to South Africa – a remarkable effort for somebody who, three years earlier, had been sentenced for collaboration with […]
Greg Bowes Dance music tour In what promises to be one of the dance events of the year, a veritable who’s who of commercial and underground dance musicians and DJs have been assembled for this year’s Camel Experience. The series of parties – this year subtitled, for reasons unknown, Quadropheria – begins in Cape Town […]
Women artists are taking control over their bodies and becoming overt exhibitionists. Joan Smith investigates Two women, two photographs. One shows a model in a dark tunic, her face turned blankly away from the camera, her raised hands holding apart the edges of a fur cape that frames the luminous V of her cleavage. In […]
The National Party tabled a motion in the National Assembly this week (which, needless to say, was defeated) condemning our publication for what it described as an “untrue, vicious and malicious article in an attempt to smear the leader of the official opposition”. The motion was the latest in a series of attempts, mostly by […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby The Super 12 is heading inexorably towards a conclusion and, while the whole country may be looking for scapegoats to explain the dismal efforts of South Africa’s regional selections, the whole country doesn’t have to find a solution. Nick Mallett does. But given the weight upon his coat-hanger shoulders, the big man […]
Alex Dodd On show in Johannesburg He thinks it was Andy Warhol who said it. Something like, if you can’t appreciate the beauty in a Coke can what’s the point of being alive right now? “You’ve got to be able to appreciate the beauty in the world around you – just the way it is,” […]
Deborah BosleyGAGLOW by Esther Freud (Penguin, R62,95) It is not always easy to find the novel that will draw one willingly into its narrative and engage us consistently to the final page. Rarer still is the book in which we taste every morsel of food, feel each chill wind and the reproach of a sideways […]
They’re a dance band who don’t dance, recording stars who rarely record. Yet their sound is everywhere, writes Lindsay Baker What with one thing and another, Massive Attack have taken their time. Their three albums to date have taken as long to appear as The Beatles’ entire recording career. But, gradually and quietly, their sound […]
Suzy Bell `Have you heard there’s a female Muslim artist in Durban making porn art?” I heard someone say. So I scooted off to the University of Durban-Westville to meet the Durban arts graduate, Asiya Swaleh. The artist was, at first, quite measured in her response. “People may come to my exhibition purely to be […]