Carla Busuttil

Goodman Gallery Johannesburg
7 April – 28 April 2016

In her latest solo exhibition, Carla Busuttil reflects on the parallel themes of growing wealth inequality and information abundance. Concerned with a global shift toward increasing wealth and technology-based isolation, Busuttil seeks to uncover and skewer the historic and present day foundations of this observed trend.

Taken from one of her paintings, the title Choice. Click. Bait. refers to modern methods of delivering and receiving information. With multiple 24-hour news networks, social media, free daily papers, and the infinite expanse of the Internet, we have almost unlimited access to information about the world we live in. And each source competes for our attention. Yet this access does not always result in clearer understanding, or a more informed outlook. Instead we experience a sense of confusion induced by the incessant blur of conflicting data. Yet the act of painting, by definition, slows this fast-paced consumption of imagery, information and pressing concern. The interaction between Busuttil’s painted and digital worlds forms the visual backdrop to much of Choice. Click. Bait.

South Africa is used as a starting point for investigating the impact of increased global wealth inequality. The tendency towards societal retreat is explored in an ongoing project realised in collaboration with fellow artists, Chris Saunders and Gary Charles. Modelled around a fictional company, Mosquito Lightning, the work evokes the present-day obsession with private policing in South Africa. The project explores the realities and absurdities related to an industry many have come to accept as normal, or everyday. “I see these companies as a device, or totem, reflecting one of our most important contemporary socioeconomic issues – inequality and the wealth gap,” says Busuttil. The project is represented in the show through installation, replete with company branding, advertising, fabricated uniforms, a website, social media, photo, video and a secured area with sentry shed and boom. The work is a result of research conducted into the private security industry; engaging with firms, undergoing training regimes, and appropriating the real-life visual language and marketing messages for their own creation, Mosquito Lightning.

In addition to present day concerns, Busuttil seeks to explore historical foundations that may serve to expand upon current debate. Through paintings and film, Busuttil directly questions the legacy of British colonial action in Africa – an unresolved debate, as evidenced recently by the emergence of the #rhodesmustfall movement. Busuttil states, “My work deals with the politics of power. The content of my work tends to reference historically charged spaces. Issues around race, gender, status and nationality are key to our understanding of how power can be used to shape and control societies.” Through the use of masks and crude, often humorous, imagery, Busuttil seeks to neutralise the characters that appear in her work. This process allows for the distortion of identity, and the erosion of potential sources of classification. “I feel it allows the viewer to get closer to the subject matter”.

Although she is branching out in new directions – installation, conceptualism, as well as performative video work – Busuttil’s exhibition Choice. Click. Bait. centres on her inimitable style of painting. “Painting remains my default mode,” Busuttil says, “and regardless of what other avenues I investigate, painting seems to be my route in and route out.”

Carla Busuttil (b.1982, Johannesburg, South Africa) completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools, London following a degree in fine art at University of Witwatersrand. She has held solo exhibitions in London, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Milan and Seoul, and has featured in major exhibitions including Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery, London and British Art Now at Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Her work is included in the Deutche Bank Global Art Collection, Saatchi Collection, Kabin Collection, and the Franks-Suss Collection, London. Busuttil also features in the recent publications 100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson), Painting Now (Thames & Hudson) and Picturing People (Thames & Hudson). She lives and works in Oxford, UK.

Goodman Gallery Cape Town is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by South African-born and UK-based artist Carla Busuttil. In her first exhibition in Cape Town, titled Post-National Bliss, the artist imagines and explores the rituals and conflicts of a fictional world perpetually on the brink of chaos.

Busuttil writes: “This world is flat, and its inhabitants are a generation lost: unhinged aristocrats, powerless lawmen, scoundrel children, otherworldly victims – all lurching towards some unrecorded fate. It is a time after history. Left in the wake of this carnival of unseen faces lies a dystopian vacuum consumed by superstition and fervour. This imagined future (or alternative present) is a world derived from history but extrapolated to an exaggerated end.”

In Busuttil’s vivid and unsettling canvases and watercolors, figures and images from the edges of historical and current events are edited, divorced from prior context and re-imagined in a different world where new histories are allowed to emerge. In an accompanying video piece, titled No More History, figures from this world recur and jostle for attention. The mask appears as a motif throughout the exhibition, acting alternately as a disguise, a symbol of identification, and an object that bestows power, and freedom.

Carla Busuttil was born in 1982 in Johannesburg, and lives and works in Oxford in the UK. Her work has been featured on numerous group exhibitions around the world, including Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery, London and Saatchi Adelaide, and she has held several solo shows in the UK. Busuttil will begin a residency at the NIROX Foundation in November. Post-National Bliss is her second solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery.

Exhibition opens Saturday 2 November at 11H00
Public walkabout with the artist Wednesday 6 November at 11H00

Berlin-based and South African born painter Carla Busuttil will present her first major solo show in her home country at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg. Fast establishing herself in Europe and the United States, Busuttil has gained attention through her bold use of colour and brushstroke, depicting curious figures that embody and fuse manifold histories of conflict. In Exit Mode, she returns home to exhibit a series of paintings that traverse her exit from the country, and what she discovered when she left.

A dedicated painter, Busuttil’s point of departure and ultimate concern is always her medium. “Within my work, it is the quality of painting that matters,” she explains. “Content is secondary – always secondary. I am not interested in constructing images that shock or dictate, and doubt whether painting, or any other medium, retains the power to do so.” For the artist, it is not only the medium of paint that is crucial, but the hue that it manifests – and the essential poignancy of this manifestation. Singular and outlandish characters, each one defined by its ascribed palette, inhabit her canvases. “Colour plays an important role in both the process and outcome of my work. Colour guides emotional response – it can bind a painting. As with Matisse’s use of single-hued blocks, I find colour a superior stand-in for detail. And this is how my figures develop.”

At the same time, Busuttil admits that external references are unavoidable, quoting Candice Breitz: “If we consume something, we have to shit it out”. Busuttil expands on this by saying “and to shit, we must consume. So, content there must be.” While she works with photographic sources commonly found in library archives or newspapers and magazines, Busuttil explains that she merges “features from a number of photos (possibly spanning both era and geography) in order to construct a single painting, or single character. And, despite this collection of sourced material, the final canvas seldom resembles the photographs used. The result is more a process of working towards a strong painting, constantly degrading the weight of the foundation imagery. That movement towards a final image is driven emotionally, rather than intellectually. Colour and brushstrokes pull towards the desired result.”

On the surface, Busuttil’s paintings may appear as confrontations of contemporary politics, yet this is not her binding intention, but rather something more intuitive. “In many cases, the images I choose are those of recent war or conflict. For some reason, I find it easy look at images of violence. Perhaps most people do. It is just not easy to admit. Having said that, anything from Victorian clergy to modern day sportsmen could catch my attention. I choose images through instinctual immediacy, composition and feeling – without pre-intended message or meaning. I do not commentate, or intend to commentate. Yet, the themes of violence and power seem to regularly surface.” She continues to explain that “this process of source-gathering can result in my playing games with the underlying imagery – like some visual strand of ‘God Monopoly Charades’; placing seemingly non-connected historical events and figures alongside one another and seeing what kind of dialogue results. I think, if we draw a line through diverse histories, we could find commonalities – something that reveals a bit more about what it is to be human.”

While the title of the show – Exit Mode – stems from a conversation about immigration, Busuttil explains that it has an open interpretation. “This broad potential application, its ambiguity, is what I like about it. For example, in the context of American foreign policy, it could stem from the desire to extract forces from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq – operations for which strong arguments had previously been put forward. Or, within a failing relationship, it could describe the state of mind of the partner with the ‘itchiest feet’… Exit Mode can be applied universally and operates like an instinctual switch – a defence mechanism that clouds thought, destroys objectivity and slays optimism.” At the same time, in reference to her leaving South Africa, Busuttil questions: “Did I experience a kind of Exit Mode?”

Carla Busuttil was born in 1982 in Johannesburg and lives and works in Berlin. Busuttil received a BA (Hons.) in Fine Art at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, followed by her Masters in painting at the Royal Academy Schools, London (2005-2008). As well having work featured on Newspeak: British Art Now, at the Saatchi Gallery, London (2010), and Saatchi Adelaide (2011), Busuttil’s paintings have been seen on various group exhibitions and fairs in Europe, the United States and Asia. She has won numerous awards including the Jerwood Contemporary Painters Prize 2009 and the Deutsche Bank Award 2008. She has held solo shows in London at Gimpel Fils (2009) and Josh Lilley Gallery (2011).

Goodman Gallery Cape Town
2 June – 20 July

In 2016, Goodman Gallery celebrates its 50th anniversary – five decades of forging change through artistic production and dialogue, shaping contemporary art within and beyond the continent. From early June, we will host major exhibitions between our Johannesburg and Cape Town galleries featuring significant work, installations, interventions, performances, a video and talks programmes.

Titled New Revolutions, our programme will include prominent international and African artists – each part of the Goodman Gallery’s history, present and future – engaging with the idea of perpetual change, alternative independent movements and the reinvigorating of ideology based upon mutable historical realities. The project as a whole will consider Goodman Gallery’s history as an inclusive space, as well as its approach to showing contemporary art that shifts perspectives and engenders social transformation.

New Revolutions recalls the fulcrum of activity into which the gallery was borne 50 years ago: revolutionary fervour, the gradual decolonisation of African countries and radical responses to the status quo. Locally, the gallery maintained a responsibility to show work by South African artists as museums served the agenda of the discriminatory government. By transcending its role as a commercial space Goodman Gallery rose to prominence as a progressive institution. And, while South Africa was deep in the throes of a draconian era, figures within the fight for African independence trail-blazed the struggle against apartheid. This exhibition reflects on how the events in Africa then, still play a part in the conceptual thinking of artists now. And, beyond that, how artists have responded to new forms of economic colonisation, migrancy, as well as radicalised reactions to economic inequality and lingering institutional racism.

By considering how the roles of artists cross into the realm of activism and socially transformative endeavours, New Revolutions explores historical and contemporary tensions and movements that are unfolding in Africa and around the world, through the panorama of contemporary art.

The 2016 anniversary programme highlights Goodman Gallery’s ongoing affiliation with artists who explore the power of dissent and the importance of alternative factions and cross-disciplinary collaborations in order to engender change and encourage dialogue. A non-chronological, intergenerational but conceptually linked collection of artworks from the 1960s to the present will focus on the spirit of protest, resistance, and revolution, and the way in which South Africa, and Goodman Gallery in particular, has offered an important platform from which to explore such approaches.

The Artists

On the occasion of its 50th anniversary Goodman Gallery takes pleasure in announcing new partnerships with some of the world’s most significant artists – Sonia Gomes (Brazil), Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola), Shirin Neshat (Iran) – revealing new directions in the gallery’s programme. Locally, we announce the representation by Goodman Gallery of Tabita Rezaire and The Brother Moves On. In addition, the exhibition will include work by international artists Kapwani Kiwanga (US) and Jacolby Satterwhite (US).

New Revolutions will provide an opportunity to exhibit those who have worked with the gallery for decades including William Kentridge, David Koloane, Sam Nhlengethwa, David Goldblatt and Tracey Rose, and some of the most influential younger voices in contemporary art including Kudzanai Chiurai, Hasan and Husain Essop, Mikhael Subotzky, Gerald Machona and Haroon Gunn-Salie. The show will also include artists who have been integral in the gallery’s transformation over the past decade, including Ghada Amer, Candice Breitz, Alfredo Jaar, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, and Hank Willis Thomas. Performances will be presented by local innovators, Nelisiwe Xaba and The Brother Moves On.
Beyond this, the iconic significance of the gallery, and the historical moment necessitates that certain artists whose ideas and actions impacted on society, and on the course of art history, be included. Artists like Walter Wahl Battis, Cecil Skotnes, Ezrom Legae, Leonard Matsotso and Sydney Khumalo are exhibited as part of our endeavour to show how the regeneration of ideas – and the gallery as a repository of change – is not confined to epochs.

With New Revolutions we invite you to celebrate with Goodman Gallery as we pay homage to artists who have shaped the landscape of contemporary art in Southern Africa. These include artists based on the continent, those of the Diaspora, our northern counterparts who have been distanced from sub-Saharan Africa and those from outside of Africa whose work explores territory such as unequal power structures and socio-political constructs.

New Revolutions is curated by Liza Essers and will take place throughout the month of June at our Johannesburg and Cape Town galleries, and with a special selection of works for Art Basel from 16 June to 19 June.

Goodman Gallery Cape Town
23 July – 29 August

Broomberg & Chanarin / Carla Busuttil / Nolan Oswald Dennis / mounir fatmi / Kendell Geers / David Goldblatt / Haroon Gunn-Salie / Alfredo Jaar / William Kentridge / Kapwani Kiwanga / Liza Lou / Gerald Machona / Lorna Simpson / Mikhael Subotzky / Hank Willis Thomas / Jeremy Wafer

Edge of Silence is a group show featuring artwork by some of Goodman Gallery’s leading contemporary artists.

The title is taken from a light box with transparency created by Alfredo Jaar that illuminates the words ‘OTHER PEOPLE THINK’, a quote from the youthful writings of John Cage in which Cage “affirms silence as an opportunity to learn what other people think.” Jaar’s light box follows this practice with a kind of silence opens up a space for listening by disrupting our thoughts and perceptions, inviting us to step outside ourselves.

Sleeping, a recurring motif in Kentridge’s work, is used as a metaphor for a state of self-imposed blissful ignorance in which the outside world may be forgotten as the sleeper closes herself off into her internal world. This notion, coupled with the fragility and transparency of glass, evokes a dangerous situation leading to a painful, if not actually destructive, moment of awakening and recognition in Kentridge’s series of prints Sleeping on Glass.

Liza Lou’s Untitled bead canvases emphasize repetition, formal perfection, and materiality, but thrives on the tension between silent beauty and the presence of traces of bodily residue in the beaded strips that establishes many of the social themes, such as uncelebrated women’s work, that underpin her work.

Works on exhibition reference cultural moments and artistic practice that is at times interrogative, celebratory, or a means of bearing witness. Yet in all instances they complicate and remediate so as to bring about a new framework for understanding or experiencing that which exists already.

Artists include Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Carla Busuttil, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Mounir Fatmi, Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Kapwani Kiwanga, Liza Lou, Gerald Machona, Lorna Simpson, Mikhael Subotzky, Hank Willis Thomas, and Jeremy Wafer.

Goodman Gallery Johannesburg welcomes you to 2012 with Advance/… Notice, an exhibition of new works by a dynamic group of contemporary artists from around the world. As we advance into a new calendar year, this exhibition gives notice of innovations from some of our artists who are already familiar to you, and of our new ventures into an intellectual exchange with artists with whom we are excited to work for the first time. This show will also give audiences a preview of what is to come, as many of the featured artists have solo shows planned for 2012 at Goodman Gallery spaces and other prestigious South African institutions.
Advance/… Notice introduces newly perfected techniques or processes for some of our well-known artists, such as platinum photographic prints by David Goldblatt, and a completely new turn of direction and field of interest for African American artist Hank Willis Thomas, who first exhibited with us on In Context in 2010, as well as for Sigalit Landau, the acclaimed Israeli artist we co-hosted at last year’s Venice Biennale. These international savants are joined by South African artists such as Hasan and Husain Essop, Moshekwa Langa, Mikhael Subotzky, Sue Williamson, William Kentridge, Rosenclaire, and Frances Goodman revealing either brand new works, or works not yet seen in Johannesburg. Also featured are works by Kendell Geers, whose retrospective exhibition will open at IZIKO South African National Gallery in late March 2012.
Our first show of the year seems an apt time to introduce the novel and the unexpected in the work of a number of artists and to also welcome prominent figures including Liza Lou, a world-renowned American now living and working in KwaZulu Natal; South African Candice Breitz, now resident in Berlin; Chilean-born New Yorker Alfredo Jaar; London-based Iranian Reza Aramesh, as well as Carla Busuttil – a young South African artist based in Berlin who is well-established in the United Kingdom, but has never before exhibited in her home country.
Liza Lou presents a work titled Gather Forty, one of a series of forty individual sculptures made from gold-plated beads that have been expertly threaded onto four hundred individual pieces of stainless steel wire and bound in a sheaf – continuing the shift of the beadwork medium from craft to conceptual art. Alfredo Jaar, internationally recognised artist, filmmaker and architect, celebrated for the public interventions he has created all over the world, shows From Time to Time, a panel of nine Time magazine covers focusing on Africa that either feature animals or malnourished Africans – revealing how the rest of the world often encapsulates its second largest continent. Breitz, who opens a major survey of her work titled Extra! at the Standard Bank Gallery this February, presents The Character, a video installation filmed in Mumbai that seeks to understand the role and influence of child characters in mainstream Indian cinema through interviews with a group of young moviegoers. In Action 78, Aramesh uses familiar scenes from news footage of the first Gulf War to restage, re-present and destabilise any easy readings of the conflicts we think we understand. Oil paintings by Busuttil offer a sinisterly-executed perusal of the exploitation of power and cruelty.
We are also very pleased to present for the first time the work of Nelisiwe Xaba, who will be presenting an interactive dance and video collaboration with Mocke J van Veuren at Goodman Gallery Projects in February. The crossover into visual art is exciting new territory for this renowned performer/dancer.
Goodman Gallery hopes you will join us to be inspired, challenged and excited by this exhibition and its promise of advances in the visual arts of South Africa. We trust you will find the exhibition gives notice of an innovative and exciting programme for 2012 in Johannesburg and Cape Town.