In Context
Ghada Amer
Joël Andrianomearisoa
Kader Attia
Bili Bidjocka
Willem Boshoff
Mounir Fatmi
KENDELL GEERS
Candice Breitz
Loris Cecchini
Reza Farkhondeh
Jenny Holzer
William Kentridge
Thomas Mulcaire
Robin Rhode
Mikhael Subotzky
Hank Willis Thomas
Minnette Vári
Michelangelo Pistoletto
William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx
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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.
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WILLEM BOSHOFF BIG DRUID IN HIS CUBICLE
The partners of In Context present the inauguration of Willem Boshoff Big Druid in His Cubicle on Thursday 10 June at 18h00 for 18h30 in the Nirox Foundation Project Space at Arts on Main.
Big Druid in His Cubicle was first performed at Art Basel in 2009. In this work, Willem Boshoff takes up occupation as the Druid in the Nirox Foundation Project Space where he will live for four weeks. He will leave only to do his daily Druid Walks along Main Reef Road, every morning from 8 am to 10 am. He will return to the gallery to assimilate and discuss insights gained on his walks along the world’s longest city street.
During his four-week sojourn, the Druid will be writing his dictionary What Every Druid Should Know. He will also be making art works, discussing his views on the world and life in general, and talking about what it means to be a Druid. He may be visited in his Cubicle daily from 10 am to 4 pm, except for Mondays.
The Druid will have on display some of his diviners’ articles, various interesting objects, as well as his art works (many of which are available for sale).
Big Druid in His Cubicle is part of In Context, a series of interventions and exhibitions that engage with the city of Johannesburg.In Context Opens
Arts on Main saw over 600 visitors on 23 May 2010 as In Context launched with an overwhelming reception. The show was opened with an introduction by Liza Essers and a key note address from Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, Paul Mashatile.
Mashatile reflected on the relevance of the exhibition to Johannesburg, and Arts on Main in particular, commenting that ‘this exhibition provides a platform for our artists to explore in some detail the complex concept of “home” as it relates to identity, belonging and acceptance. It is therefore significant that this exhibition is taking place in the City of Johannesburg, which in many ways represents a melting pot for diverse cultures. It is also significant that we open this important exhibition at Arts on Main, which is the hub for Johannesburg’s creative community to develop and share ideas.’
There was a general sense that, with the compelling mix of local and international artists presented in the large scale show, In Context maintains the approach of a biennale, which the city of Joburg has not seen since its last Biennale in 1997.
In Context runs at Arts on Main until 17 July 2010, with additional events at the Apartheid Museum and Melrose Arch.Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait
In 2005, artists Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon took a crew of world-class cinematographers and cameramen to a La Liga soccer match. They set up seventeen cameras around the pitch and for ninety minutes they focused on one player only, the dynamic French-Algerian Real Madrid player Zinedine Zidane. The result is a mesmerising portrait of a world-class athlete, a celebrity soccer star, and a highly disciplined individual. Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait has been widely acclaimed as a film for our time not only about soccer, but about celebrity and about what it means to be in the public realm. The film is an extraordinary study in concentration and absorption, or what Douglas Gordon describes as ‘an exercise in solitude.’
Zidane will both surprise and entrance you. It includes ninety minutes of up-close footage of Zidane ‘at work’, as well his enigmatic voice-over describing the extraordinary experience of playing soccer at the highest level.
Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait is part of In Context, a series of exhibitions and interventions that engage with the city of Johannesburg during the 2010 Soccer World Cup. In Context can be viewed at a number of venues in Johannesburg, but in particular at Arts on Main in the Johannesburg CBD. In Context runs until 17 July.
FIRST SCREENING
THURS 17 JUNE
17H30 FOR 18H00
90 MINUTES
MELROSE ARCH PIAZZA
SUBSEQUENT SCREENINGS
30 JUNE 17H00
1 JULY 18H00
4 JULY 18H00
5 JULY 12H00
8 JULY 18H00
9 JULY 13H00
MELROSE ARCH PIAZZAWalker / Kentridge / Marx opens at the Apartheid Museum
Goodman Gallery and the partners of In Context present the sculpture World on its Hind Legs by William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx and two films by the American artist Kara Walker, 8 Possible Beginnings or: The Creation of African-America, a Moving Picture by Kara E. Walker and …calling to me from the angry surface of some grey and threatening sea. The event will launch at the Apartheid Museum at 16h00 on Thursday 8 July 2010 and will run until 17 July 2010.
World on its Hind Legs was born out of a long collaboration between Kentridge and Marx when they were commissioned to produce a public sculpture for Johannesburg. They settled on the site at the foot of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge and began work on what was to be come a mammoth eleven-metre work called Fire Walker (on view in a smaller version at the In Context exhibition at Arts on Main). Working in a similar vein, Marx and Kentridge approached World on its Hind Legs as a fragmented sculpture, first constructed as a maquette made out of torn sheets of paper and cardboard. This element of the work remains visible in the finished object with its broken steel outline that is resolved into a readable image from two vantage points only. The image itself, a world on large, striding but geometrically constructed legs, originates in Kentridge’s drawings for an Italian newspaper in which he addressed the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1935.
Kara Walker’s two films present, on one hand, the visual antithesis to World on its Hind Legs: where the sculpture is monumental, the films are intimate and fragile. But on the other hand, her works communicate, not by any design on the part of the artists, an array of themes that coalesce in the context of the Apartheid Museum. This venue adds a significant voice to the conversation that these three artists are engaged in, documenting as it does, in both its architecture and its exhibitions, the history and consequences of apartheid. Walker’s films are presented in a secluded and intimate round theatre space but within very close proximity to exhibitions in the museum.
Walker/Marx/Kentridge is a rare opportunity to view, in the extraordinary context of the Apartheid Museum, works by three artists who share a profound commitment to addressing history and context in their work.
Both Kentridge and Marx will speak at the opening event.