Mikhael Subotzky

In early 2008 Mikhael Subotzky moved to Johannesburg. He has subsequently continued with two long-term projects which are of independent concern, but which have both been influenced by his new context – the backdrop of the city of Johannesburg.

These two projects are presented here as work-in-progress and will both be realised as full exhibitions and publications in the coming years. The first, for which the artist was awarded the 2008 W. Eugene Smith Memorial Grant, is a continuation of what has already been a five-year interest in crime, social marginalisation, and the public and private institutions of punishment and security. This investigation started in 2004 with Die Vier Hoeke (The Four Corners), and was continued in subsequent years with the Umjiegwana (The Outside) and the Beaufort West series’. In this exhibition, Subotzky presents new works which extend these series’ into new environments. Loosely focusing on the lifestyle of fear in South Africa, these works explore both the reality and the concept of security in contemporary society. Presented mainly at the Goodman Gallery’s new project space at Arts on Main, they include new large-scale photographs which extend the artist’s formal vocabulary, as well as older photographs which are exhibited here for the first time.

The second new body of work is being made in collaboration with British artist Patrick Waterhouse. Subotzky and Waterhouse met while on residency together in Italy. They started collaborating in mid-2008 on a project that is geographically located in Berea’s Ponte City building. This icon of the Johannesburg’s skyline has long been a symbol for the city itself, and the crucible of its citizen’s imaginations. Since its inception in 1976, the best and the worst of Johannesburg have been projected onto the building, and built into its mythology. Combining photography, historical archives, found objects, and interviews, the work spans the pre-history of the building, its spectacular decline, and recent attempts at its transformation. The building is cast as the central character in a tangled narrative which reflects Johannesburg’s magnetic pull on the social and mythical lives of those who come to this place from all over the country and all over the continent.

At the Goodman Gallery’s Jan Smuts location, Subotzky and Waterhouse present a series of photographs made in the building, a new five-metre panorama, and a book dummy installation. The book dummy provides context to their broader engagement with the history of the building and their ongoing relationships with some of its residents. Inscribed by hand with the artist’s notes, this dummy combines the photographs that are on display in the rest of the exhibition with the archival and found documents, and represents the artist’s attempts to organise and find narratives in the wide range of images and sources that they have collected.

Subotzky was included in New Photography 2008: Josephine Meckseper and Mikhael Subotzky at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His first monograph, Beaufort West, was published the same year and his work has been widely exhibited and collected. He is the winner of the 2009 Oskar Barnack Award, the 2008 W. Eugene Smith Grant, and the 2008 ICP Infinity Award (Young Photographer). This is his third solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery.

In early 2008 Mikhael Subotzky moved to Johannesburg. He has subsequently continued with two long-term projects which are of independent concern, but which have both been influenced by his new context – the backdrop of the city of Johannesburg.

These two projects are presented here as work-in-progress and will both be realised as full exhibitions and publications in the coming years. The first, for which the artist was awarded the 2008 W. Eugene Smith Memorial Grant, is a continuation of what has already been a five-year interest in crime, social marginalisation, and the public and private institutions of punishment and security. This investigation started in 2004 with Die Vier Hoeke (The Four Corners), and was continued in subsequent years with the Umjiegwana (The Outside) and the Beaufort West series’. In this exhibition, Subotzky presents new works which extend these series’ into new environments. Loosely focusing on the lifestyle of fear in South Africa, these works explore both the reality and the concept of security in contemporary society. Presented mainly at the Goodman Gallery’s new project space at Arts on Main, they include new large-scale photographs which extend the artist’s formal vocabulary, as well as older photographs which are exhibited here for the first time.

The second new body of work is being made in collaboration with British artist Patrick Waterhouse. Subotzky and Waterhouse met while on residency together in Italy. They started collaborating in mid-2008 on a project that is geographically located in Berea’s Ponte City building. This icon of the Johannesburg’s skyline has long been a symbol for the city itself, and the crucible of its citizen’s imaginations. Since its inception in 1976, the best and the worst of Johannesburg have been projected onto the building, and built into its mythology. Combining photography, historical archives, found objects, and interviews, the work spans the pre-history of the building, its spectacular decline, and recent attempts at its transformation. The building is cast as the central character in a tangled narrative which reflects Johannesburg’s magnetic pull on the social and mythical lives of those who come to this place from all over the country and all over the continent.

At the Goodman Gallery’s Jan Smuts location, Subotzky and Waterhouse present a series of photographs made in the building, a new five-metre panorama, and a book dummy installation. The book dummy provides context to their broader engagement with the history of the building and their ongoing relationships with some of its residents. Inscribed by hand with the artist’s notes, this dummy combines the photographs that are on display in the rest of the exhibition with the archival and found documents, and represents the artist’s attempts to organise and find narratives in the wide range of images and sources that they have collected.

Subotzky was included in New Photography 2008: Josephine Meckseper and Mikhael Subotzky at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His first monograph, Beaufort West, was published the same year and his work has been widely exhibited and collected. He is the winner of the 2009 Oskar Barnack Award, the 2008 W. Eugene Smith Grant, and the 2008 ICP Infinity Award (Young Photographer). This is his third solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery.

In early 2008, Mikhael Subotzky moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and since his move has been at work on two long-term projects. While independent, the projects are both influenced by Subotzky’s engagement with the city of Johannesburg. They are presented as works-in-progress, eventually to be realised as full exhibitions and publications.

The first body of work continues a long-held interest in crime, social marginalisation, and the public and private institutions of punishment and security. This investigation started in 2004 with Die Vier Hoeke (The Four Corners) and continued in subsequent years with Umjiegwana (The Outside) and Beaufort West. In this exhibition, Subotzky presents works that extend the three series into new environments. Loosely focusing on the lifestyle of fear in South Africa, the images explore the vexed and many-layered concept of security in contemporary society.

The second project, begun in 2008, is a collaboration with British artist Patrick Waterhouse – whom Subotzky met while on a residency in Italy. The work is located in Berea’s Ponte City building, an iconic structure in Johannesburg’s skyline that has long been a symbol for the city itself. Opened in 1976, Ponte has come to represent the best and the worst of Johannesburg, and has generated a particular mythology of city life.

Subotzky and Waterhouse combine photography, historical archives, found objects, and interviews to create a body of work that spans the pre-history of the building, its spectacular decline, and the recent attempts at its transformation. The building is cast as the central character in a tangled narrative about Johannesburg’s magnetic pull on people from all over the continent.

Mikhael Subotzky’s work has been widely exhibited and collected. He was included in New Photography 2008: Josephine Meckseper and Mikhael Subotzky at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and his first monograph, Beaufort West, was published the same year. He received the 2009 Oskar Barnack Award, the 2008 W. Eugene Smith Memorial Grant, and the 2008 ICP Infinity Award (Young Photographer). This is his fifth solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery.

Us is a show of new work by younger and more established local and international artists around the theme of group identity, whether nation, culture, class, gender, sexuality or race. This show emerges out of the context of the xenophobic violence in South Africa last year, as well as the ripple effects of the world economic crisis. There was an open call for artists to develop new work in conversation with their diverse contexts and each other around the complexities of difference and belonging. The show explores how the ‘substance’ of any US is often less fixed than constantly shifting, fluid and unstable. Taking place at two venues, the show opens with a daring and original selection of new performance work, sculptural installation, painting and photography, each exploring a point of view as unique as the show’s many Us’s.

Artists include Cape Town based collective, the Gugulective, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Donna Kukama, Mikhael Subotzky, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Bili Bidjoka, Laurence Bonvin, Dunjia Herzog, Andrew Putter, Themba Shibase, Kudzanai Chiurai, Zen Marie, Bridget Baker and others.
The show is curated by Simon Njami, founding editor of Revue Noir and curator of Africa Remix, and Bettina Malcomess, a writer and artist.

The show takes place at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, in partnership with the generous support of the Goethe Institute, as well as Prohelvetzia, and the Goodman Gallery at the Goodman Gallery Project space at Arts on Main.

Opening: 20 September 2009. JAG. 4pm

Opening: 26 September 2009. Goodman Project Space. Arts on Main. 12pm

A series of walkabouts and discussions of the show will be held by the curators.
Walkabout, Sat 26 September, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 11am-12. Bettina Malcomess and Simon Njami.

Discussion: at the Goethe Institute Project Space, Arts on Main, 3pm.

Title: Support group for those who feel they don’t belong – a discussion of difference in contemporary art. Hosted by the Gugulective.

Walkabout, Sun 11 October, 3:30 – 4pm, Johannesburg Art Gallery. Bettina Malcomess

Walkabout, 4pm – 5pm, Goodman Project Space, Arts on Main: with Bettina Malcomess and artists, showing performance work from the opening night by Zen Marie and Donna Kukama.

Sphères 2009 Galleria Continua / Le Moulin

Joel Andrianomearisoa / Kader Attia / Willem Boshoff / Chris Burden / Angela de la Cruz / Carlos Garaicoa / Claire Gavronsky / Kendell Geers / Liam Gillick / Frances Goodman / Mark Handforth / Camille Henrot / Carsten Höller / Ann Veronica Janssens / Christoph Keller / Joseph Kosuth / Ange Leccia / Claude Lévêque / Pierre Malphettes / Thomas Mulcaire / Hans Op de Beeck / Nathaniel Rackowe Anselm Reyle / Ugo Rondinone / Bruno Serralongue / Rose Shakinovsky / Sudarshan Shetty / Nedko Solakov / Katja Strunz / Mikhael Subotzky / Sun Yuan & Peng Yu / Gavin Turk / Minnette Vari

Opening during the FIAC, Saturday, 24th of October 2009.
Preview from 12h00 – 14h30, brunch on the river bank.

For the second edition, the Spheres project re-involves the participation of several contemporary art galleries of international dimensions prompted by one desire: to join their diverse forces and energies to develop a shared exhibition – a new kind of exhibition experience – with no submission to any restricting theme. The Galleries will present artists from the five continents, whose works will be installed in and will relate to various parts of the exceptional complex. In doing so, they will engage with the rich history of the site.

24 October 2009 – 30 May 2010

Participating galleries:

AIR DE PARIS
GALLERIA CONTINUA
GALERIE KRINZINGER
KAMEL MENNOUR
ALMINE RECH GALLERY
ESTHER SCHIPPER
GOODMAN GALLERY

In Context presents a diverse group of international and South African artists who share a rigorous commitment to the dynamics and tensions of place, in reference to the African continent and its varied and complex iterations, and to South Africa in particular. The works – wide-ranging, frequently provocative – engage with a number of pressing questions about space, context, and geography.

In this gathering of artists – envisioned as a series of conversation and engagements – the question of context is posed once again, but problematised in various ways. The terms ‘local’ and ‘international’ are given new emphasis (especially at this juncture and in the context of one of the largest sporting events on the planet) and the following questions are posed: What does it mean to be a local artist in this age of the global? Do African artists wish to continue speaking of context? How do artists of the African Diaspora reflect on their distance from and proximity to home? Where is home? How have some artists living in Europe and the Americas inherited and absorbed an African heritage or sensibility, even when they have not visited the Continent? Have we reached a point in the story of contemporary art in which the term ‘African artist’ can be dispensed with or do we still require it as a marker of distance from Europe and North America? To what extent does the global art market rely upon or exploit the term to sell art in Europe and North America? Is there thus a distinction to be made between the way in which African artists represent themselves and the ‘Western’ reception of contemporary art from Africa?

Rather than present only artists from the African continent in this project, In Context also considers the works of artists who, though they may have some interest in South Africa, have not visited the country or anywhere else in Africa. Their connection to the continent might be one they have inherited from the history of slavery, or from the displacements of Diaspora and exile. The aim is to generate conversations between works and even to assess the relevance of the questions we have raised in the face of the works themselves. We may find ourselves entirely surprised by the answers. We hope to be provoked, to open engagements that overturn the concerns and themes we have offered, that render them more rather than less problematic, or that dispense with them altogether. We may indeed find that individual practice casts an entirely different light on the question of context.

In Context will take place in a number of non-commercial venues and, through a series of talks, walkabouts, and panel discussions, will promote engagement both with artists and audiences. The partners in this project take seriously the need to begin a number of collaborations that can be sustained beyond the events of In Context. They also seek to reach a wider audience than the usual gallery visitors and to promote appreciation of art through unconventional interventions outside of the traditional gallery space.

This winter the Goodman Gallery will relaunch its Parkwood space, which has been extensively reconsidered, both physically and conceptually. This launch will be initiated with a group exhibition simply titled Winter Show, featuring a range of luminary-status local and international artists. The show will not only present recent works by Goodman stalwarts such as William Kentridge, David Goldblatt, Sam Nhlengethwa and Mikhael Subotzky, but will also reveal a shift in the Gallery’s approach, showcasing work from around the Continent and beyond that is both explicitly and implicitly concerned with synergies and tensions between Africa and the rest of the globe. Some of the participating international artists, such as Ghada Amer and Hank Willis Thomas, are not only being showcased by the Goodman Gallery, but are now officially represented by us.

The Winter Show will act as a confluence of the Goodman Gallery’s top represented artists, as well as artists participating in In Context – a series of exhibitions and interventions currently taking place at Arts on Main and other venues in Johannesburg. Artists such as Jenny Holzer, Amer, Willis Thomas, Bili Bidjocka, Willem Boshoff and Kara Walker will participate in both shows, with the Winter Show presenting some of their more recent work. While In Context manifests an intimate and often candid exploration of the dynamics of the African continent, the Winter Show will offer a broader conceptual platform, covering many aspects of South African, African and global landscapes and conditions.

The Winter Show will elaborate on the thorny notion of the politics of representation, which Brenda Atkinson and Candice Breitz confronted in their 1999 collection of essays Grey Areas: Representation, Identity and Politics in Contemporary South African Art. The book was a direct response to the critique of Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor, who was the creative director of the Second Johannesburg Biennial in 1997. At the time, Enwezor interrogated the practice of artists such as Breitz, Minnette Vári and Penny Siopis, intricately considering the question of ‘who has the right to represent whom?’ Now, over a decade later, accusations of misrepresentation have been revisited and reconsidered not only by Enwezor himself and those whose essays were included in Grey Areas, but by the art community at large. In Context magnifies these issues, while the Winter Show augments the dialogue, bringing new voices into the conversation.

Compelling features of the Winter Show include two of Walker’s 2009 films – which are based on narratives from archives of a bureau established in 1865 to assist African Americans with the transition from slavery to freedom – presenting the artist’s signature black-silhouette cut-out figures, which almost impossibly convey the complexities of race, gender, sexuality and power in their stilted and provocative movements. Jenny Holzer’s Purple Red Curve (2005) transmits a coalescence of master narratives through a curved electronic LED sign. Jeremy Wafer will create a site-specific wall drawing in the Goodman Gallery specifically for the show. Kentridge will present a series of new drawings produced this year as well as a maquette of the structure World on its Hind Legs, created in collaboration with Gerhard Marx. A large scale, steel version of this work will be launched at the Apartheid Museum on 8 July 2010 as part of In Context. The Winter Show will also feature an ongoing screening of all of the Goodman Gallery’s top art films by leading artists such as Kentridge and Vári.

The Goodman Gallery in Parkwood has undergone numerous physical transformations and now boasts a new showroom and a space dedicated to photographic works. We are in the process of establishing an art library accessible to the visiting public and will offer a range of educational art talks and events during the Winter Show.

With Goodman Gallery firmly established as a prestigious, world-class contemporary art institution, the Winter Show will reveal how the Gallery – beyond representing artists of the highest caliber – is dedicated to bringing an innovative programme of relevant and compelling international works to South Africa, offering audiences exposure to some of the best contemporary work being produced locally and abroad.