ROJO®magazine website will not be updated starting June 1st as we will be working fulltime in a major usability and code upgrade. At the same time ROJO®nova website will be launched, to introduce to all ROJO® fans the newest and biggest ROJO® event ever, that will totally take over MIS Sao Paulo for 7 weeks of non-stop art action. Only for the happy, the gifted, the curious and the open minded.
®artspace Cape Town
Whatiftheworld. First Floor, 208 Albert Rd. Woodstock 7925. Cape Town. South Africa.
talk: +27 (21) 448 1438 online: www.whatiftheworld.com
Multifunctional creative artspace & gallery in Cape Town.
Opening hours: Monday to Friday 10.00h to 17.00h, Saturday 10.00h to 14.00h
In association with:
01.04.2010 - 01.05.2010
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present the second solo exhibition by Jan-Henri Booyens titled Tectonic. Booyens (b. 1981) is a fast-rising, young South African painter imbued with a distinctive artistic vision. After his successful debut solo exhibition _ The Matt Sparkle_ at Whatiftheworld in 2008, Marilyn Martin (former director of the SA National Gallery) wrote that his works were “unashamedly modernist in intention and execution”.
Martin added: “A member of the visual art collective Avant Car Guard, his is a fascinating and vibrant take on contemporary abstract painting. Booyens presented a microcosm of history and new possibilities. Some works harked back to the approaches of the 1960s and 1970s, while others combined painterly brush strokes with hard-edged lines, floating shapes and calligraphic marks. He succeeds in challenging the two-dimensionality of the surface and creating dynamic visual and spatial tensions”.
Tectonic will again reveal Booyens’ modernist view of his landscape. The works will tease viewers with presentations of the seemingly chaotic (and fragile) or the seemingly structured (and rythmic) patterns and elements of his landscape. His preference for large scale canvasses allows the sheer physicality of his painting style to emerge fully, side-by-side with Booyens’ very personal use of colours and hues.
In association with:
03.02.2010 - 27.03.2010
Whatiftheworld / Gallery presents "Paradise Apparatus", a new solo exhibition by Julia Rosa Clark. This show concludes a trilogy that included the acclaimed Hypocrite’s Lament (2006) & Fever Jubilee (2007/8). Continuing her exploration of our intricate and fraught relationship with Nature, Paradise Apparatus explores the sensations and mysteries of chemistry, perception and colour as they relate to the search for fulfilment with references to aspects of science, alchemy, theatre-craft and art making.
Overwhelming at times and intentionally experiential, Clark’s installations are made up of two- and three-dimensional elements that spill and spread throughout the gallery space. Made up of a universe of materials from traditional to profane the artworks reflect Clark’s continued process-driven experiments and her work with space, analogy, accumulation, repetition and co-operation. For this exhibition she has primarily used paper and found objects to create a curious interplay between various spaces.
In association with:
01.12.2009 - 23.01.2010
For its final show of 2009 Whatiftheworld / Gallery is pleased to present a major group exhibition titled Holiday. Featuring a selection of signature works from emerging South African artists, the exhibition opens up and explores the underlying link between these contemporaries. Whilst each work represents the conceptual concerns of the individual artists and can be evaluated independently, the grouping of artworks also encourages the viewer to engage in the interaction of the works. Linked through their use of recycling and remixing of found objects and images, each with their own origin, stories and complexities, the works engage with an array of pertinent critical issues.
In association with:
01.10.2009 - 21.11.2009
As a follow up to his critically acclaimed debut solo exhibition, Whatiftheworld is pleased to announce a new solo presentation by up-and-coming young painter Andrzej Nowicki. Nowicki makes paintings and drawings that create parallel universes where people and objects multiply and metamorphose into ever more strange visions. His disquieting dreamlike tableaux combine the seductive allure of a fairy tales with the perverse playfulness of Surrealism and the insight of speculative fiction to create disordered narratives.
In association with:
02.09.2009 - 26.09.2009
Rowan Smith’s new body of work considers the effect that space flight and expansion has had, and continues to have, on the public and scientific imagination. A lonely, though beautiful and thought provoking exhibition, If you get far enough away, you’ll be on your way back home is a fitting and worthy sequel to Smith’a highly successful debut, Future Shock Lost.
In association with:
05.08.2009 - 29.08.2009
As a follow up to the critically acclaimed solo exhibition “…of bugchasers and watussi faghags,” Athi-Patra Ruga’s upcoming exhibition at Whatiftheworld, titled “…mr floating signifier and the deadboyz,” continues to expand on the themes introduced by the Artist’s chief protagonist Beiruith. Through the use of craft, performance, video, sculpture and photography, this body of work investigates ideas of displacement and dislocation in relation to constructs of gender, race, identity and sexuality. Combining images and popular iconography, Athi-Patra Ruga interrogates the problematic concept of the Utopian ideal within a Western art historical context.
In association with:
16.04.2009 - 16.05.2009
Black – the colour at one extreme end of the scale of greys, opposite to white, absorbing all light incident upon it.
White – the achromatic colour of maximum lightness; the other extreme of the neutral grey series; the complement or antagonist of black.
Combine these and the works produced are at once elegant and bold; exuding beauty and strength and at times are even a little sinister.
Artists: Pierre Fouché, Carol Ann Gainer, Nigel Mullins, Cameron Platter, Kevin Brand, Wayne Barker, Mxolisi Sithole, Stuart Bird, Dianne Victor, Cara van der Westhuizen, Justin Fiske, Donovan Ward, Minnette Vari, Jane Eppel, David Brown, Lynette Bester, Hentie van der Merwe, Michael Smith, Robert Slingsby and David Brown.
In association with:
25.02.2009 - 11.04.2009
Fahamu Pecou, born in 1975, is an American painter based in Atlanta, Georgia whose intention is to comment on contemporary and hip-hop culture while simultaneously subverting it to include his ideas on fine art.
Pecou's first international solo, "Coming From Where I'm From" provides a snapshot into the artist's thinking and processes. The exhibit features work from various collections in Pecou's NEOPOP series. "Monkey Biznezz: The Kingest Con" and "Olympic Torches" represents Pecou's most recent solo exhibit "Stunt'd Like My Daddy", a collection of works which confronts the inherited and adopted stereotypes of black masculinity in contemporary popular culture. Other works in this exhibit chronicle Pecou's use of pop culture marketing and media tactics as a means of subverting the art establishment.
Pecou's self-published FAHAMENON will also be featured. The catalogue presents Pecou's NEOPOP series in a magazine format along with essays and articles by noted critics and writers as well as original works in the form of "ads" which will be displayed as a part of the exhibition. Additionally, the exhibit will feature Pecou's 2008 video "Wanna-Be", which displays his acerbic and witty observations on culture's obsession with fame and reality TV.
In association with:
28.01.2009 - 21.02.2009
Celebrated Venda artist, Noria Mabasa, exhibits new works in clay and wood at Bell-Roberts Gallery. The themes of these works are conceptually rooted in Venda mythology and clay works combine female forms and faces with traditional pot forms. Mabasa runs an art school in Venda from where she instructs her students in the dying art of clay-pot and sculpture making. She started working in clay in 1974 and, motivated by a dream, two years later became the first Venda woman to work in wood. She has exhibited both locally and abroad.
In association with:
03.12.2008 - 17.01.2009
This body of work, entitled Pieces of 8, uses as its source of reference various elements found on mother boards (resistors, capacitors, diodes and anodes) to represent fruit-like objects attached to tree or shrub-like forms which are also sourced from circuit integrated systems. Through these works the artist evokes biblical references like the burning bush and the tree of life.
In association with:
03.12.2008 - 17.01.2009
Prospects of Babel brings together the work of Pullitzer winner Greg Marinovich and Leonie Marinovich. This work is result of their collaboration with 5 other photographers for a book of the same title, exploring life in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Concentrating on two interlinked themes – money and God, Greg's work captures the sense of the foreboding that underlies almost all interactions in the volatile DRC. Leonie on the other hand captures two aspects of the DRC with her compelling work on mineral diggers as well as street life on the teaming streets of Lubumbashi.
In association with:
In cooperation with:
29.10.2008 - 28.11.2008
Convoluted Involvement is ABSA L'Atelier Award 2007 winner Pierre Fouché's second solo exhibition at the Bell-Roberts Gallery, following 2006's The Distance Between Us. The exhibition is the result of 6 months spent at the prestigious Cité Internationale des Arts as part of the L'Atelier prize. Convoluted Involvement can be viewed at the ABSA Gallery in Johannesburg from 10 – 26 September 2008, before it travels to Cape Town to be exhibited at the Bell-Roberts Gallery.
In association with:
23.09.2008 - 24.10.2008
The themes around which this exhibition is constructed are vast in their range, but Mullins brings them into a smaller, or at least, more bite-sized proportion by applying them metaphorically to the everyday imagery that he has selected and by keeping our gaze shuttling between micro- and macroscopic views. One is prompted to not only contemplate meaning in the larger context, but to continue to find points of focus in our day-to-day existence is both possible and compelling.
In association with:
In cooperation with:
13.08.2008 - 19.09.2008
This exhibition surveys current developments in South African printmaking and its dramatically expanded significance in the digital age. Featuring established and emerging printmakers, the exhibition explores the redefined notion of the archive as a result of the computer and new ethics and attitudes regarding images and objects.
In association with:
25.06.2008 - 08.08.2008
Through various material processes, the tension inherent in the relationship between meaning and matter is explored in this exhibition featuring new works by artists including: 2008 Mercedes Award winner Kevin Brand, Lynette Bester, Phillipe Bousquet, Jacques Coetzer, Svea Josephy, Nigel Mullins, Norman O’Flynn, Tanya Poole, Lyndi Sales, Amelia Smith, Anthony Strack, Johan Thom, Cara van der Westhuizen and the African-American artist Fahamu Pecou.
In association with:
07.05.2008 - 31.05.2008
Brand's new Bell-Roberts exhibition consists of unique wall-pieces that explore the boundary between low-relief and painting. Working in such media as painted wood, Perspex, and pressed aluminium, Kevin Brand takes his inspiration from simple every day objects and reinterprets them. In his hand, egg-cartons, cardboard boxes, and lego-like churches, sky-scrapers and factories are re-invented into formal compositions.
In association with:
02.04.2008 - 26.04.2008
Stitches 2008 is a group of collages that strategically juxtaposes provocative images from the printed media. These works are the result of scarbrough's twelve-year search for printed imagery reflecting the state of today's society. Employing virtual and traditional collage techniques, Scarbrough digitally manipulates images, which he ultimately cuts, pastes and stitches together. This re-contextualization creates a unique and often disarming narrative.
Vernissage Wednesday 02.04.2008 from 16.00h to 20.00h.
In association with:
05.03.2008 - 29.03.2008
Jane Eppel had her debut exhibition at the Irma Stern in May 2006. Orient'ation: bearing east reflected her travels from Mumbai to Kyoto with a series of evocative, meditative paintings. Her second solo show, Sanctum, explores notions of homecoming, of roots/routes and of hallowed space through personal iconography. Sanctum seeks a sense of refuge and location in anxious times.
In association with:
06.02.2008 - 01.03.2008
The moment of death is significant as a transient period, a passing over. In this body of work Lyndi Sales investigates the subject of transcendence from a personal perspective. The aeroplane journey acts as a metaphor for departures and arrivals. Flying becomes symbolic of transition, transcendence and a state of unpredictability. The tunnel of light scenario and the vortex are explored as a portal between the known and the unknown. In this site the positive and negative is considered as a void (emptiness) and a space (presence) that defines the separation from one realm to another. TRANSIenT is Lyndi Sales' second solo exhibition at Bell-Roberts Contemporary.
In association with: