Paco Barragán -You started writing about art already back in 1984, initially with Arts Magazine in New York, then with Artscribe in London and Flash Art in Milan. What do you remember of those days in terms of art writing?

Barry Schwabsky -I was educating myself in public. Luckily it was probably a small public. Personally I would be afraid to reread the things I wrote during my first couple of years as an art critic. But those were the years dominated first by Neo-Expressionism, then by Neo-Geo, neither of which I was very sympathetic too, so at least I got a quick training in independence.

P.B. -But what are the important differences? Possibilities to publish, pressure in terms of time… I mean that many young curators and art critics today find it very normal to take the plane and go to London, Basel, Venice, and so on, which before was practically impossible and really expensive. Also, I remember I had to send the articles three weeks before over the post and get those big photographs. So, I would like to hear what has changed in your opinion.

B.S. -In that sense, nearly everything. When I was editing Arts Magazine, between 1988 and 1992, we still had to paste up the pages by hand… The whole way of working with a magazine is totally different and of course much quicker now. But I think you are wrong to bracket curators and critics. Most critics are local, they travel very little because they are not paid enough. I don’t know who pays for the curators! But even if they travel more widely, the results are not necessarily to the benefit of the curators. The curators all know more or less the same things, while the critics may have deeper local knowledge (and the limitations that come with it). Take Jerry Saltz for example. Not that he doesn’t travel, of course, but the way he’s taken on a role that he’s created for himself as a voice of the New York art community-most curators don’t aspire to root themselves in a specific metropolitan situation in that way.

• Complete interview: Art Pulse

Take a look inside Vitamin P2 in this demonstrative video:

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Book details

• Vitamin P2 by Barry Schwabsky
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780714861609
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It’s not a mistake to see a shape in the cloud. That’s what it is to be alive with your eyes open; to be constantly, promiscuously, putting things together. – William Kentridge.

William Kentridge is one of the world’s leading contemporary artists. His work spans many genres – film, printmaking, books, tapestry, sculpture, and opera and theatre design – but all of these are linked back to the discipline of drawing, which for Kentridge is ‘thinking aloud’, that he finds the most direct way to address ‘an art (and politics) in which optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay’. With over a hundred illustrations, this survey by author and artist Kate McCrickard is an ideal introduction to his diverse achievements.

Book details

• William Kentridge by Kate McCrickard
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781854379726
  Buy now from David Krut Publishing!

Muholi’s art is a form of social commentary on the way in which sexuality is dealt with in South African society, particularly the prevalence of homophobia and – at its extreme – corrective rape. Muholi is also involved in several collaborative projects, all with the focus on educating and encouraging an open dialogue on sexual identity:

She’s worked in as many social projects supporting her cause as she’s held exhibitions and despite some stumbling shows no signs of slowing down. Instead (a sharp and out-spoken lesbian herself), she welcomes all controversy as an access point for dialogue.

“I don’t know what the big hullabaloo is all about,” she says, referring to the frequent storm surrounding her work. “If anything, I wish I could just sit down and have a one-on-one with individuals who are against what I do and make them understand where I’m coming from. I don’t ask for people to tolerate me or my work – they are all entitled to their own opinions and that’s enough for me.”

It’s no secret that in 2009 the then Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, chose to walk out on an exhibition featuring Muholi’s photography, saying it was “immoral, offensive and going against nation-building”. Muholi delves very little into the 2009 incident and rather asks that the minister be respected for her opinion.

• Complete interview: The New Age

Book details

• Zanele Muholi: Faces and Phases by Zanele Muholi, edited by Michael Stevenson and Federica Angelucci
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9783791344959
  Buy now from David Krut Publishing!

Kohler and Jones will speak about their productions, including the award-winning War Horse which was recently made into a movie by Steven Spielberg, and the “significance of animal characters in a theatrical context”.

The lecture will be preceeded by a short performance, entitled “I love you when you are breathing”, in which Kohler and Jones will demonstrate how breathing is central to the art of bringing puppets to life. Don’t miss it!

Event details

• Date: Thursday, 23 February 2012
• Time: 5:00 PM for 5.30 PM
• Venue: Hiddingh Hall,
  University of Cape Town
  Hiddingh Campus, Orange Street,
  Cape Town | Map
• Queries: 021 480 7156; fin-gipca@uct.ac.za
  www.gipca.uct.ac.za

Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of the Handspring Puppet Company present GIPCA’s first Great Texts/Big Questions lecture for 2012.

With reference to Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation, these awardwinning puppeteers will divulge details of the influences on their work, and the influence that they have had, in turn.

Grandin is a high-functioning autistic who has written with great insight into the way animals and autistic people think. She explains how the malfunctioning fore-brain present in animals and autistics can in fact be an advantage, leading to a kind of ‘extreme perception’. Kohler and Jones will talk about the influence Grandin’s book has had on their work, explaining why
they enrole their audiences as ‘autistics’ and what the implications of this way of regarding an audience are for their philosophy of the theatre.

• Complete press release (pdf download)

Book details

• Handspring Puppet Company (hardcover) edited by Jane Taylor
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780981432854
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

• Handspring Puppet Company (softcover) edited by Jane Taylor
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780981432830
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Read her review of Victor’s work:

When Diane Victor first started making smoke drawings, it was to direct attention to victims of violent crime. The medium was ideal for this purpose; the transparent brown residue the smoke imprinted on the paper articulated the spectral presence of the disembodied heads of deceased victims. The burning candles which she used to scorch the paper’s surface evoked rituals to remember the dead.

More pragmatic concerns may have also informed her use of this unconventional medium. In 2006 she was a finalist for the now-defunct Sasol Wax Art Awards, which demanded that artists use wax in creating art for the competition exhibition. Working with wax may have been a crippling limitation for most of the artists, but it seems to have set Victor’s aesthetic on a new path.

• Complete article: Incorrigible Corrigal

Book details

• Diane Victor – Burning the Candle at Both Ends by Karen von Veh
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958497534

• TAXI-013: Diane Victor by Karen von Veh
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958497589

A selection of Diane Victor’s more recent wost will be on display throughout the month of February at David Krut Projects on Jan Smuts Avenue and at Arts on Main in Joburg’s Maboneng precinct.

The exhibition showcases a selection of Victor’s prints, created at the David Krut Prints Workshop as well as some of her work featured at the recent UJ exhibition, Ashes to Ashes and Smoke to Dust.

The exhibition will be on show from the 4th of February 2012.

• Exhibition details: David Krut Projects

Book details

• Diane Victor – Burning the Candle at Both Ends by Karen von Veh
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958497534

• TAXI-013: Diane Victor by Karen von Veh
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958497589

Image courtesy David Krut Projects

The team at David Krut Print Workshop is currently printing and editioning a new series of linocuts by William Kentridge which will form part of the artist’s upcoming exhibition in Australia. There are almost 60 prints to be created, with many of the images iterating recurring themes in Kentridge’s work:

David Krut Print Workshop at Arts on Main has launched into 2012 full speed ahead with printing and editioning the latest series of linocuts by William Kentridge. Many of the prints will become part of an upcoming exhibition in Australia this year. With almost 60 linocut prints to create, the DKW team and Kentridge’s assistants have pulled out all the stops to get this series done.

Many of the images are recurring themes in Kentridge’s art and stage productions, such as the cat, trees, coffee pots and the nude. The focus on the linocuts seems to be experimentation with how little visual information one can give and the viewer, but still construct form or meaning from the marks. While some images are more obvious, others disolve into Japanbese Ukiyo-e brushstroke-inspired suggestions.

• Complete article: David Krut Projects

Book details

• William Kentridge Prints by Susan Stewart, William Kentridge
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958486040

• William Kentridge Flute by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958497541

Scribd.com book preview:

William Kentridge Flute

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Photo courtesy David Krut Projects

Von Veh is President of SAVAH (the association of South African Visual Arts Historians), and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Visual Art, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, at the University of Johannesburg. Her particular interests are in contemporary South African’s woman’s art, gender studies in art history, and, lately, the transformation of religious icons in contemporary art. On these topics she has presented many conference papers, both locally and internationally, and contributed articles to local art history journals.

Ashes to Ashes and Smoke to Dust is a body of work divided into two exhibitions. The first is a church window installation of smoke on glass which is ideally suited to the elongated format of the UJ Art Gallery. Burdens and Offerings forms the first part of the show with its religious undertones, created solely on drawings made in candle smoke. Victor says, “My images attempt to explore the metaphorical burdens people attach to themselves and drag through their lives as proof of their positions as scapegoats and martyrs.”

After visiting an exhibition, called Vaudou, at the Foundation Cartier in Paris earlier in the year, she became fascinated with the West African fetish effigies from collections of Jacques Kerchache (1942–2001). She goes on to say, “I responded to the psychological implications that these bound and burdened figures evoked, transferring them into our obsession with contemporary fear and indulgences.”

Offerings, which extends from the series of glass drawings exhibited at the Nelspruit abattoir. Much like Brief Lives this new series of portraits include images of domestic meat animals which aim at exploring ideas of innocence and sacrifice. The second part of the exhibition is the continuation of the process of working with smoke and ash where she is furthering her exploration into the potential of book ash as a drawing material. The ash drawings featured here are sourced from specific “lost words” from documents and texts which are burnt, dusted and fixed onto paper.

Much of this publication and the work created for the exhibition, Ashes to Ashes and Smoke to Dust, was compiled and created on a very tight schedule. Diane Victor dedicates a great deal of her time to teaching between Rhodes University and the University of Pretoria. In addition to this her travel schedule often runs straight into her next exhibition. For an artist that rarely has a moment to herself, she has managed to create a prolific body of work that is unfailingly compelling. The aim of this publication is to document and discuss the work she has created over the last three years since TAXI-013. In that time Diane Victor has created over 200 artworks and has been involved in almost 50 exhibitions in South Africa and abroad.

Book details

• Diane Victor – Burning the Candle at Both Ends by Karen von Veh
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958497534
  Buy now from David Krut Publishing!

Blue Cityscape – David Koloane

According to an article in the City Press, fine artists Johannes Phokela, Charles Nkosi and David Koloane are leading the call for the establishment of a South African equivalent of New York’s famed Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

The proposed “Kasi Moma” would start out as a travelling exhibition with a focus on township art post-Sekoto, as this type of art, argues painter Isaac Sikhakhane, is greatly undervalued:

A group of significant South African fine artists led by Johannes Phokela, Charles Nkosi and David Koloane are calling for the establishment of a South African version of the Museum of Modern Art in New York – featuring four periods and sub-genres of township art.

Initially this “Kasi Moma” will be mobile. The artists envisage that their coup de grâce will be an initial travelling collection of works of this genre, based on loaned and donated works of art. They hope to interest curators in hosting the exhibition in all major urban centres – including a stay of the works at the Union Buildings and the Presidential residence Mahlambandlovu next year.

• Complete article: City Press

Book details

• TAXI-006: David Koloane by Veronique Tadjo
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958449625
  Buy now from David Krut Publishing!

• Johannes Phokela: I Like My Neighbours by Paul O’Kane and Bronwyn Law-Viljoen
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780981418827
  Buy now from David Krut Publishing!

Photo courtesy David Krut Projects

The book, entitled Burning the Candle at Both Ends, is being launched to co-incide with the conclusion of Victor’s Ashes to Ashes and Smoke to Dust exhibition which opened in November last year. Victor will take part in an informal panel discussion at the event, in which members of the audience are invited to share their own views on or engage with topics surrounding the second instalment of her work.

The end of the exhibition will be formally marked on Wednesday, 25 January, with a final closing ceremony at which Victor will sign copies of the book.

Event Details: Book Launch

• Date: Saturday, 21 January 2012
• Time: 11:00 AM
• Venue: UJ Art Gallery,
  Cnr Kingsway and University roads,
  Auckland Park | Map
• Queries: Annali Cabano-Dempsey, 011 559 2099

Event Details: Closing Ceremony

• Date: Wednesday, 25 January 2012
• Time: 6:00 PM
• Venue: UJ Art Gallery,
  Cnr Kingsway and University roads,
  Auckland Park
• Queries: Annali Cabano-Dempsey, 011 559 2099

Book Details

• Burning the Candle at Both Ends by Diane Victor

• TAXI-013: Diane Victor by Karen von Veh
  Book Homepage
  EAN: 9780958497589
  Buy now from David Krut Publishing!