Subscribe to our newsletter for our must-see exhibitions, artists, events and more here
Shop William Kentridge Prints here

Clive van den Berg / Soundings, In Passage / 2011

01 October - 29 October 2011
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

In Soundings, In Passage – a solo exhibition of recent work at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg – Clive van den Berg explores new as well as familiar terrain. Characteristically, he is not bound by medium, presenting monoprints, paintings, as well as a large-scale sculpture. Many of these works – both physically and conceptually – are the result of time spent in the United States, where van den Berg was awarded a Smithsonian Artist Research fellowship, and worked at the LeRoy Neimen Center for Print Studies while on a residency at Columbia University in New York City. In the catalogue Clive van den Berg: Unlearning the Grounds of Art (published by Goodman Gallery on the occasion of Soundings, in Passage), Rosalind C. Morris refers to Clive van den Berg’s insistence “that he is seeking a new kind of language, that he is attempting to break syntax without relinquishing its necessity." Morris continues to to explain that the "enormous range of works, the multiplicity of media, the vacillation between saturated colour and simple lines in monochromatic prints, the darting between allegory and abstraction: these tensions and polarities arrest and then excite the viewer, who encounters in the artist’s abundant new offerings the residue of earlier concerns but, equally, the determined departure from them. The title of the 2011 show gives voice to that mobility, and suggests an exploratory moment. But with its improbable invocation of the practice of maritime measurement (in relation to an corpus that is primarily concerned with the earth, the underground, and the landscape of a landlocked city, Johannesburg), we are alerted to the fact that this exploration requires something more than the well-trained eye. We must find our way, or plumb the depths, feelingly. Not with sentiment, but with a kind of heightening of the senses, and, more importantly, a re-oriented vision.” Clive van den Berg is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and was born in Zambia in 1956. He is an artist working in various disciplines. Besides his studio practice he devotes much time to the curation and design of heritage projects, sometimes on his own and sometimes through trace, a company comprising professionals from different disciplines, including architects, historians, writers and artists. They design, research and curate exhibitions, public art projects and museum developments. Many of these are projects of redress, activating reflection on the past and future envisioning. These include The Worker’s Museum and Women’s Gaol in Johannesburg and he is currently working on the exhibit design for Freedom Park in Pretoria. His art has been shown around the world – in South Africa, Berlin, Charleroi, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, New York, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo, London and Stockholm. It has also earned him several major prizes, including, internationally, a Civitella Ranieri fellowship and a Smithsonian Artist Research fellowship.

Artworks

Oil on canvas
45.5 x 60 cm
Unavailable
Watercolour on paper
29 x 21 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
200 x 150 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
Work: 35 x 27 cm Frame: 51.5 x 44 x 3.5 cm
Unavailable
Watercolour on paper
29.5 x 21 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
60 x 45.5 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
Work: 60 x 48 x 4 cm Frame: 63.4 x 48 x 4.5 cm
Unavailable
Watercolour on paper
29 x 21 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111 x 76 cm.
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
60 x 45.5 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
Image: 30 x 21 cm Work: 76 x 56 cm
Unavailable
Jetutong wood with pigment & wax
Work: 92 x 123 x 8 cm
Oil on canvas
60 x50 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
101 x 75 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
60 x 45.5 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
22.5 x 30.5 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
Image: 38.8 x 29.5 cm Work: 75.5 x 56 cm
Monoprint
Paper: 76 x 56 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111 x 76 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111x 76 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
60 x 50 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
Image: 30 x 21 cm Work: 75.5 x 56 cm
Oil on canvas
75 x 101 cm
Unavailable
Wood jelutong with pigment and wax
176 x 70 x 60 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
220 x 150 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111 x 76 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111 x 76 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
60 x 50 cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
60 x 46cm
Unavailable
Oil on canvas
Work: 60.5 x 50 cm Frame: 63 x 52.5 cm
Oil on canvas
101 x 75.5cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111 x 76 cm
Unavailable
Monoprint
111 x 76 cm
Unavailable
Oil on Canvas
250 x 151 cm
Unavailable

About

Clive van den Berg image

Clive van den Berg

Clive van den Berg (b. 1956, Zambia) is an artist, curator and designer, who works on his own and in collaboration with colleagues in a collective called trace, whose primary activities are the development of public projects. He has had several solo exhibitions in South Africa, and his work is regularly exhibited abroad. His public projects have included the artworks for landmark Northern Cape Legislature and, since he has joined the trace team, museum projects for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Constitution Hill, Freedom Park, the Workers Museum, The Holocaust and Genocide Centre and many other projects.

Van den Berg has much experience working on large-scale institutional projects with teams representing diverse constituencies: urban planners and policy makers, architects, landscape designers, museum curators, historians, community liaison officials and representatives of local and national governments. In the Northern Cape, for example, where he worked with the Luis Ferreira da Silva architects, he pioneered a new strategy for integrating forms of the local landscape and indigenous aesthetics into the overall building design, while also training local artisans as part of a skills transference project aimed at long-term sustainability. The result is a world-renowned and uniquely South African state edifice: a monument to the people of the Northern Cape.

Download full CV