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'Madiba art' is unfashionable
Yuill Damaso's Night WatchPredictably, when an image of Madiba’s corpse entered the public realm it wasn’t well received. Yuill Damaso’s contentious painting, Night Watch, which showed the late former...
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When the Party is Over: Athi-Patra Ruga
UnozukoIn the wake of Madiba’s passing it is probably a good time to meditate on that paranoid right-wing myth dubbed The Night of the Long Knives. The phrase is appropriated from the name given to a...
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Best of 2013
A still from Breitz's The Rehearsal from The WoodsBest solo shows: (In no particular order)Candice Breitz: The Woods (Goodman Gallery, Joburg)This was the most polished, and complex, solo exhibition I...
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Animal Attraction
Alexander's Infantry with BeastIt is the all too familiar human elements present in Jane Alexander’s hybrid sculptures that unsettle viewers, rather than the animal ones. This surprising observation,...
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Behind closed doors: Gabrielle Goliath
Lucy from Faces of People who may or may not be victims or perpetrators ofdomestic violenceSilence is one of the hardest qualities or conditions to articulate. How do you evoke an absence when the act...
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Empty Vessels: Walter Oltmann
Some of Walter Oltmann's sculptures could be museum artefacts pertaining to an alien culture. Or even costumes from a sci-fi movie such as Neil Blomkamp's District 9, where alien insect-like beings...
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Apartheid Revisited
Okwui Enwezor pic by Mary CorrigallOkwui Enwezor wants to show me some of what he terms “breadcrumbs”. By this, the Nigerian-born internationally acclaimed curator means the overlooked details embedded...
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Trading Places: Cape Town Art Fair
Tom Cullberg's Local Noise‘Have a glass,” bellows Howard Bilton, pulling a bottle of white wine from an ice bucket. We are sitting under the VIP tent (it’s more modest than it sounds) at the Pavilion,...
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The politics of apolitical fashion
David Tlale's fashionable take on a public protest pic by Simon DeinerNelson Mandela Square in Sandton is an odd phenomenon. Not only is it an architectural or spatial peculiarity with all its nods to...
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A sense of belonging: Zanele Muholi
Ayanda Moremi & Abakhaphi II. Kwanele Park, Katlehong, 9 November, 2013By Zanele MuholiIt is not unusual for the subjects of photographs or artworks to attend the opening nights of the exhibitions...
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Working it Out: Simon Gush
A replica of the Mercedes-Benz that was gifted by the company's East LondonPlant in the late nineties. pic by Masimba SasaConfirming South Africa’s supposed status as the “protest capital of the world”...
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Neither hair nor there: Nandipha Mntambo
Destinies EntwinedMuch of Nandipha Mntambo’s practice has circled bullfighting. Like a matador she has tackled this topic from a variety of points of view, imagining herself as the toreador and the...
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Fashioning the Rainbow Dream
Mary Sibande's A Terrible Beauty is Born (2013)The one enduring motif that emerged from the 1938 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme (International Surrealist exhibition) at the Galerie Beaux-Arts...
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The In Crowd
Marcus Neustetter's Cave Installation 1 pic by Mike Turner Just beyond a makeshift parking lot filled with luxury vehicles are an architectural rendition of Nelson Mandela’s prison cell and a mock...
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Architectural Ambitions: Hobbs & Jag
Hobbs's leaky roof in the Meyer Pienaar extension of JAGA leaking roof is not interesting. That is unless it is located in a place where leaks are unexpected, like the interior of a public art museum...
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Mind Control: Roger Ballen
Roger Ballen has an office. Of course, this makes practical sense; as an internationally recognised artist with museum and commercial shows running concurrently throughout the world, he requires...
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Alien Landing: Performance & Machona
Uri Afronaut (2012)Art and performance are apparently locked into an abusive relationship. Or so observed Malik Gaines: "art stays for the sex, the good times, the feeling of being alive- but it won't...
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When visuals fail: Marikana and art
JUST as the Marikana Commission has presented a long process of unearthing what took place during the massacre of striking miners in Marikana, artists have also taken time to respond to it.Perhaps it...
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A festival of contradictions: NAF 2014
Baker's Wrecking at Private Siding 661 (2010-2011) pic by Paul GreenwayIn the dark and damp underbelly of the Settler’s Monument, an austere face-brick landmark set in the mountain overlooking...
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Monumental Experiences: Kukama at NAF
Donna Kukama buries my monument pic by Bongiwe MchunuI’M NOT going to forget this scene. It’s raining and Donna Kukama is on the ground digging a hole with a pair of scissors. The hole or quasi-grave...
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