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[Working Title] 2013 Catalogue Launch – Goodman Gallery , Johannesburg

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2014|

CATALOGUE LAUNCH
[WORKING TITLE] 2013

AT GOODMAN GALLERY JOHANNESBURG
SATURDAY 25 OCTOBER 2014 AT 11H00

PLEASE JOIN US FOR A DRINK
[Working Title] 2013 Catalogue Launch

The launch of the [Working Title] 2013 catalogue will happen at The Goodman Gallery Johannesburg on 25 November, timed to coincide with the closing day [Working Title] 2014 at Goodman Gallery Cape Town.

The [Working Title] series is focused on developing work that can go beyond the run of the exhibition, and it is important that the catalogue exist in a similar way. The texts aim to extend the questions and subversions the artists provoke as opposed to just explaining and describing the works on show.

Some texts take the form of conversations – Raimi Gbadamosi and Gerald Machona discuss the role of art in representing tragedy and violence while Haroon Gunn-Salie, Simon Castets and Hans-Ulrich Obrist discuss the role of intervention and activism in Gunn-Salie’s practice.
Other contributions like Jessica Webster’s short stories, the co–authored essay by The Brother Moves On and the Frown’s manifesto of worship – are texts which exist as self referential semi fiction.

Kalia Brooks, Adjunct Professor in Photography at the Tisch School of the Arts, explores themes of control and compassion in Tegan Bristow’s interactive video work Coming and going but never leaving. Bristow herself reviews the use of digital and online media in Cuss Group’s work Untitled (Johannesburg screen saver) arguing that medium is definitive in representing the state of South Africa’s socio-political climate. In his analysis of Vinatge Cru, anthropologist and director of the LGBT rights programme at human rights watch, Graeme Reid investigates the centrality of performance to queer visibility in South Africa. Adreinne Edwards, associate curator at Performa New York writes on Nelisiwe Xaba and Mocke van Vueren’s work Uncles and Angels, understanding the work as an experimental meditation on ritual, the feminine, technology. Working Title exists as a space where relationships between the Goodman Gallery and artists, creatives and writers can be incubated.

The catalogue launch will happen alongside an exhibition which showcases works, performances and collaborations which have happened post [Working Title] 2013. Haroon Gunn-Salie, Jessica Webster and Johan Thom – all of whom have solo exhibitions next year with the Goodman Gallery – will exhibit works which are in preparation for their respective exhibitions or which have happened in association with the Goodman Gallery.

Gerald Machona, who was awarded the [Working Title] award in 2013 will exhibit a new series of ‘dictators’ headgear’ made from his trademark medium of decommissioned currency. A film made by The Brother Moves On, which focuses on the collaborative performances done since 2013 will be screened at the gallery.

The [Working Title] exhibitions are part of an initiative by the Goodman Gallery aimed at supporting young artists, curators, independent projects and major installations and performances.

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‘ Commonwealth scholar at UP focuses on relationship between artwork and onlooker’ by Renee Conradie

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2014|

Johan Thom

‘For me, art is always about surplus value. In that sense it is a non-representational activity where one investigates and even creates new possibilities. So it’s about the attempt to look beyond what is already in existence. This is not about making “progress” in an old avante garde sense. Art is more about acknowledging that things are constantly changing and that we do not know what they may become or what exactly they are doing,’

 

Read more here: Full report here (UP news website link)

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The Winter Sculpture Fair, Nirox Sculpture Park, 10 – 11 May 2014

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2014|

Installation view of collaborative sculpture at Nirox Sculpture Park.

With Guy du Toit.

 

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‘The Bodies We Tell’ as part of The RAVY Festival 2014 at the Gallery of Contemporary Art Yaoundé

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2014|

Image

Bodies_We_Tell_Postcard_2_Final_Page_2

 

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Installation views of ‘The Animal Series, 2013 – 2014’ exhibited at Nirox Projects, Maboneng Precinct, Johannesburg

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2014|

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‘SURFACING’ AT GOODMAN GALLERY, Cape Town, 22 March – 19 April 2014

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2014|

SURFACING

OPENING AT GOODMAN GALLERY CAPE TOWN

SATURDAY 22 MARCH AT 11H00

22 March – 19 April 2014

 

 

CANDICE BREITZ | KUDZANAI CHIURAI | MOUNIR FATMI | KENDELL GEERS | HAROON GUNN-SALIE | ALFREDO JAAR | WILLIAM KENTRIDGE | LIZA LOU | MIKHAEL SUBOTZKY | JOHAN THOM

 

Surfacing is a group exhibition which allows for an exploration of the transient space between destruction and (re)construction. The exhibition aims to bring to light the fragments and residues that remain after destruction, and linger beneath a new form. In the preface to the 1961 edition of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre writes “violence is man re-creating himself.” Although Sartre speaks of violence as a necessity for overthrowing colonial power, “no gentleness can efface the marks of violence; only violence itself can destroy them.” This exhibition understands Sartre’s notion to address culpability, selfhood and violence and trauma involved in the process of becoming, scrutinizing and (re)creating.

Click here for more information and images

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BEN URI Gallery & Museum presents: STILL FIGHTING IGNORANCE & INTELLECTUAL PERFIDY Video art from Africa

Posted in News, tagged , on March 4, 2014|

STILL FIGHTING IGNORANCE & INTELLECTUAL PERFIDY

Video art from Africa

Curated by Kisito Assangni

 

13-30 March 2014

 

BEN URI MUSEUM

108a Boundary Road

LONDON NW8 0RH

UK

www.benuri.org.uk

http://sfip-project.blogspot.com

 

PV: 13th March | 6.30pm

Panel discussion: 17th March | 6.30pm

 

Including:

Said Afifi (Morocco) | Nirveda Alleck (Mauritius) | Jude Anogwih (Nigeria) | Younes Baba-Ali (Morocco) | Rehema Chachage (Tanzania) | Saidou Dicko (Burkina Faso) | Ndoye Douts (Senegal) | Kokou Ekouagou (Togo) | Mohamed El Baz (Morocco) | Samba Fall (Senegal) | Dimitri Fagbohoun (Benin) | Wanja Kimani (Kenya) | Nicene Kossentini (Tunisia) | Kai Lossgott (South Africa) | Michele Magema (D.Congo) | Nathalie Mba Bikoro (Gabon) | Victor Mutelekesha (Zambia) | Johan Thom (South Africa) | Saliou Traoré (Burkina Faso) | Guy Woueté (Cameroon) | Ezra Wube (Ethiopia).

The program was previously presented at Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden; Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland; Torrance Art Museum, California, USA; National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow; Motorenhalle Centre for Contemporary Art, Dresden, Germany and Lucca Museum, Lucca, Italy.

 

Associated events:

Thursday 13th March: Exhibition Private View
Join us from 6.30pm for the opening of the new exhibition.

Monday 17th March: Talking Art
This discussion event will explore the current exhibition of African video art by 21 African artists. 
Speakers include: David Glasser, Ben Uri Chair; Kisito Assangi, Exhibition Curator; Yvette Greslé, Arts Writer and PhD candidate, History of Art, University College London and Marie Rodet, Lecturer in African History, Convenor Film and History, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
To book your place, please call Laura Jones on 020 7604 3991

Tuesdays 18th and 25th March: Life Drawing Classes
Life drawing classes for all levels, within the exhibition space. For more details, click here.

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Nirox Projects presents: New works from the Animal Series, 2013 – 2014 by Johan Thom with Willem Boshoff, David Koloane, Diane Victor, Bevan de Wet & Guy du Toit

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , , on February 7, 2014|

New works from the Animal Series 2013 - 2014

New works from the Animal Series 2013 – 2014

Nirox Projects at Arts on Main presents a new series of works from the Animal Series by Johan Thom. Central to this series of works is Thom’s ongoing investigation of his own material encounter with an African elephant skull.

The exhibition is divided into three bodies of works: etchings; drawings and sculpture. Over the period of eight months Thom produced a set of five large-scale etchings in collaboration with Willem Boshoff, Diane Victor, David Koloane and Bevan de Wet. In collaboration with Thom, each artist was invited to create an aesthetic response to the elephant skull: Thom would first work on the plate by for example making a full body print or scratching the plate’s surface with the elephant skull. After this, the plate was given to the collaborating artist to work over and layer by adding further marks, visual or conceptual elements, drawing from the encounter with the elephant skull.

The exhibition also includes a set of charcoal and mixed media drawings that remind of Rorschach patterns. These observational drawings appear almost ghost-like in their rendering of the three-dimensional shape of the skull in shades of white upon blotches of ordinary blackboard paint.

Also showing as part of this exhibition is a bronze and mixed media sculpture produced in collaboration with Guy du Toit.

The artist wishes to thank the Nirox Foundation for their generous support throughout this project and the Artist Proof Studios.

Opening Sunday 16 February @ 12:00

Exhibition runs until 9 March 2014

Dimensions: 42 x 29,7 cm

Dimensions: 42 x 29,7 cm

For more information, please contact Neil Nieuwoudt on T: +27 (0)11 7887902 | M: +27 (0)72 350 4326 |

E: neil.nieuwoudt@gmail.com

______________________________________________________________

Nirox Projects | 264 Fox Street | Arts on Main | MABONENG PRECINCT |

Johannesburg

www.niroxarts.com

______________________________________________________________

ALSO SEE: Animal – a new series of works | May – July 2013

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HOUSEBOAT #1 performance in Antwerp 30 January 2014

Posted in News, tagged , , , on February 7, 2014|

“I am the director (we must have direction beyond the mere fact of our course, of our direction, our charter, the map and the stars we follow)”web-2014-J-Thom

Photographic still from HOUSEBOAT #1

Performance on 31 January 2014 in Antwerp as part of the exhibition ‘Nomad Bodies’ curated by Elfriede Dreyer with glass sheet, flour and honey.

This work is part of a new series of works by Johan Thom centred on exploring the notion of the ‘houseboat’. To be clear this is distinct from the more commonplace concept of the ‘boathouse’ (a boat on water that doubles as a human habitat).

In this sense the houseboat signals a rethinking of the ordinary house as being a stationary built environment inhabited by individuals, families and so forth.

In this series of artworks the notion of the house as an ordinary private dwelling is displaced in favour of a more open-ended understanding: the house become a space through-and-by which real and imagined journeys into the world are undertaken on a daily basis. The house now becomes something like a ghost ship – a simultaneously ethereal & concrete framework that accompanies and informs ones myriad interactions with the surrounding world. The houseboat is never left behind as one travels into world but an every present reality in ones daily life.

For Houseboat #1 my voice became a virtual ‘speaking of’ the houseboat and its crew as they journey into the world. For me, these multiple voices are the material embodiment of the interactive relationship between the houseboat, the various individuals that inhabit it and the world they encounter on their journey.

At the end of the performance I simply let go of the glass sheet.

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On performance, costume and identity in art

Posted in News, tagged , , , , , , on December 24, 2013|

“I dislike the uncritical celebration of form that often accompanies the idea of outrageous fashion and costume as some kind of new-found freedom of identity” Johan Thom

Quoted in the article ‘Welcome to the cabaret of art’ by Sean O’ Toole and published in the Mail and Guardian.

Artists are dressing up – or undressing – to make a point about who they really are. But is the spectacle more than just cheap drag?

Full article here:
http://mg.co.za/article/2013-10-11-00-welcome-to-the-cabaret-of-art

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