The Joburg Ballet is proving yet again why it is considered the country’s largest and most prestigious professional ballet company, with its latest offering, the classic Don Quixote.
The romantic comedy is masterfully staged at the Joburg Theatre through vibrant costumes and scenery transporting the viewer into the world of 17th century Spain.
Don Quixote tells the story of a Don who is obsessed with finding adventure. On his quest for this adventure he meets the beautiful Kitri who is in love with a poor young barber, Basilio.
Kitri’s father does not approve of the match and has more ambitious marriage plans for her. The Don decides that Kitri is worth of his protection from all who may harm the young lady.
Prima-ballerina Burnise Silvius lived up to her reputation of being a vision of perfection, with every delicate move she made in the lead female role.
Jean Carlos Osma, as a toreador, and Javier Monier as a street boy, were notable as standout performers.
But despite the visual perfection of the dancers, their performances were not matched by that of the sound technicians at the theatre.
At times the music was too soft and transitions between tracks, usually seemless, were obvious to the audience. The sound issues were clearly distracting and broke the “illusion” of the imaginary world created through the performance.
Despite this though, the show remains a must see, and ends its run this Sunday, September 13.
Globally acclaimed South African artist Penny Siopis opened her latest exhibition Time and Again at the Wits Art Museum on Monday. A retrospective view on Siopis’ 30 years of artwork, Siopis remains relevant and inspirational.
RETROSPECTIVE VIEW: Exhibition-goers take a closer look at one of Penny Siopis’ works at the Wits Arts Museum in Braamfontein. Photo: Katleho Sekhotho
“Oh there she is,” says Rankin-Smith. “It’s wonderful to welcome Penny Siopis back to her second home.”
“Penny” is globally-renowned artist Penny Siopsis who on Monday opened a celebration of three decades of her work at an exhibition at the Wits Art Museum (WAM).
The evening was buzzing with many trying to get Siopis’ attention.
I was able to speak to her for just a few moments before she had to dash off. Kind and sweet, it was the first time I was able to put a face to the woman who had been an essential part in my visual arts learning in high school.
I want to dedicate the exhibition to my partner, my husband Colin Richards, who died very tragically and suddenly in 2012
Indeed the exhibition was focused around her many years of artwork, but more importantly her artwork was a commemoration to her late husband Colin Richards.
“I want to dedicate the exhibition to my partner, my husband Colin Richards, who died very tragically and suddenly in 2012, said Siopis. “He’s a very strong presence in the exhibition as he would be, and he’s also a very strong presence in the book that’s been published to coincide with the exhibition.”
Fellow artist Clive van den Berg introduced Siopis with the words, “Penny it gives me such profound happiness to celebrate with you, in loved ones present and absent, the results of 30 years of work.”
I first encountered the mythical idea of pink pinky as a child and then seeing that depicted in Siopis’ Pinky Pinky series of hand printed lithograph’s felt familiar.
As Van den Berg says: “So when we look at Pinky Pinky paintings or the so-called cake paintings, Penny’s method has already created a bridge for our understanding even before we think of their imagery.
”Similarly if we look at the history paintings which were formed by cutting and pasting illustrations from history books , the method, the sharply cut edges, the disjuncture of scale of association and narrative, tells us viscerally what she is doing before we put into words their basic premise.”
During her opening speech Siopis gave a heartfelt recount of the years of artwork that had finally lead her here:
“I also want to say that Clive has a very special meaning in my life, we were best friends when I first started out in Durban, we taught together … That was the time I made Queen Cakes and some of the earlier cake paintings. So to start this exhibition effectively in 1980 with the Queen Cakes and have Clive open the exhibition, and have Fiona here at WAM, putting a whole show together, is very, very special to me.
“So it’s this whole personal angle which is quite different,” she said.
Sipois said the exhibition includes her work up to 2012, when her husband passed away.
“There have been no works on this exhibition since he died. So for me the physical objects in this space mark his presence as much as my memory of him, and those who knew him at Wits would recognize in the exhibition.”
Perceptions of graffiti in Johannesburg range from it being beautiful artworks to malicious damage of property. Removal of graffiti is a difficult process and where to draw the line between vandalism and art is often difficult to find.
STREET ART: Graffiti on the corner of Henry and De Korte street, Braamfontein done by graffiti artist Rasty and crew. Photo: Samantha Camara
Hanre Heunis spends his time removing graffiti from other people’s property. The managing director of a local graffiti removal service, Heunis believes there is an artistic side to the practice of street art. He says many property owners think that graffiti is vandalism because they did not choose to have their walls defaced or tagged (when a new graffiti artist spray-paints their name on a wall to practice and develop their own style).
Property owners who have been the victims of repeated tagging often remove the tags because it makes their business premises look unprofessional or decreases the value of the property. “There is a fine line between being artistic and repeat tagging,” said Heunis.
There is a high concentration of graffiti in the inner city and removing it is a highly-skilled, specialised and expensive process, says Heunis. It involves chemical testing, high pressure water tanks and newly developed products that often need to be imported from the United Kingdom due to a lack of local manufacturing. Removal is also extremely labour intensive as more porous surfaces require more applications.
But perceptions are shifting especially when artists ask for permission, according to Vorster, an ex-Witsie who did his honours in Fine Arts. “If you wake up in the morning and someone’s tagged your window it sucks … get permission and do your art … you’ll be surprised how many people say yes.”
Graffiti artists find it exciting to work illicitly at night but it often means that the quality of the work decreases because there is less time and more pressure to get the work done in a short amount of time, according to Vorster.
The other side of the (street art) coin
ADDING COLOUR: Comic style graffiti done by American graffiti artist, Pose in De Korte street, Braamfontein. Photo: Samantha Camara
In Johannesburg there are a few designated walls for street art on Barry Hertzog Avenue and Empire Road but Brian* says these walls are mostly used for graffiti style advertising and the limited amount of wall space restricts the art.
One of Vorster’s first tags was a Vodacom telephone box, he saw it as a victory when the box was removed. Vorster now gets permission for his work and is often commissioned to do murals. One of his commissioned pieces was removed for safety reasons because people were constantly taking photos at the wall, which made the owner feel unsafe.
Brian* says he doesn’t mind his art being removed: “It [the art] has its lifespan. It doesn’t faze me, I just need to do more. For every one that is taken down, I need to put up another one.”
UNSETTLING HISTORY: Cedric Nunn posing with some of his photographs from the Unsettled exhibition on the opening night. Photo Sibongile Machika
A black-and-white photographic exhibition highlighting the struggle of the Xhosa people opened at Wits Art Museum (WAM) this week.
The photographs, by acclaimed South African photographer Cedric Nunn, depict landscapes and buildings where key events took place.
The exhibition reflects the story of the Xhosa people that managed to resist British and Boer domination for 100 years in the Eastern Cape. The people in his portraits are the descendants of active participants in the wars and negotiations of that time.
“All this before the Shaka reign, yet history does not remember the Xhosas with the same glory.”
Nunn started his career documenting the realities of apartheid. His work mainly focuses on social change with particular interest in rural communities and issues. But reflecting a 100-year journey authentically was difficult. He said he focused on landscapes because land has an amazing ability to hold time. Black and white photography simply enhances that effect, said Nunn.
“This is an incredible story,” said Nunn. “That’s why I was drawn to it. Often people forget to see the good. Here is a nation that resisted British rule for 100 years,” Nunn said.
They had a dignity and code of conduct that carried them throughout the nine wars that played out at the time. “All this before the Shaka reign, yet history does not remember the Xhosas with the same glory,” said Nunn.
He said he felt a deep connection to this story because he is a descendant of a British settler who went on to marry a Zulu woman at time when it was seen as the ultimate taboo. More importantly this is a South African and that’s why it matters to him.
This project took three years to complete and was funded by Mellon Senior Scholar funding from Rhodes University. The scholarship allowed Nunn to be entrenched in the Grahamstown community while doing his work. Most of the pictures were shot in film so it took months before he could see the results of his work.
“More importantly this is a South African and that’s why it matters to him.”
Nunn said he hopes to leave a positive legacy for young South Africans and his exhibitions are one way of doing it. Unsettled depicts an important time in South African history and showcases the strength, dignity and humility of the Xhosa people which Nunn said he could still experience 150 years later.
Unsettled: One Hundred Years War of Resistance by Xhosa against Boer and British is showing from the 10th March to the 12th April 2015. WAM is open to the public Wednesday – Friday between 10a.m and 6p.m.
HOME DÉCOR: Masters Students Jamy-Lee Brophy and Megan Heilig exhibit recreations of the home environment at various venues in and around campus. The displays are part of their new project which focuses on creating what they call ‘institutions’, which explores and examines what we as multicultural beings experience as an institution and the effects of this experience. Photo: Provided
You’ve probably seen the stack of bricks arranged outside the Wits School of Arts, the Great Hall and other random places around campus and been curious and confused about why they’re there.
As part of a new project, Wits Fine Arts students Jamy-Lee Brophy and Megan Heilig have collected unused bricks from campus and around Braamfontein and built small-scale structures they call ”institutions”.
The project focuses on exploring and examining the idea of what different institutions, especially homes, mean to us in Johannesburg and as students on campus.
“We’re questioning the ideas of institutions, and how institutions reinforce ideologies and constructions and we try and challenge them,” said Brophy. “We have collected bricks … and what we do from this is basically try to build an institution, one that can create a conversation in different spaces and one that’s kind of transitory.”
Heilig added: “I think an institution is an experience, so in everyone’s lives we experience things such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, cultural background, and all these things amalgamated within the city and especially in Johannesburg.”
Brophy and Heilig collected the bricks for free from people who wanted to get rid of them, but they also “stole” materials some of them from campus. Heilig said they stole materials because Wits wouldn’t give them funding for their project.
The duo also want to challenge and question the idea of claiming space on Wits campus. The current installation placed outside the Great Hall, which appear to be a pile of bricks, is seen as a “cornerstone”, the implication that there’s an institution outside of another institution. They move the bricks around to rebuild these institutions in various locations so that people will start talking about it and about why they’re doing it.
The focus of their project is somewhat political, and they look at political parties as institutions in themselves and what they represent or how they misrepresent. They created the Halfa Pitchca Party, which is their own organisation and which helps them examine the idea of the relationship between politics and art.
“I think that art is political, and that what’s happening here can be political and it can be social, and it can relate to other people,” said Heilig. “This thing is not just about art for art’s sake, we’re not painting to look how nice paint looks on a canvas, that’s not what all people do here.”
They want to encourage other students on campus to go to exhibitions held at places like the Substation and the Wits Art Museum and know that art is for everybody and something everybody can relate to. Their current project is a way of getting out on the streets and getting talking.
“We want people to know about it [exhibitions],” said Heilig. “We don’t want it to be this underground thing where only if you’re cool and in with the art kids you can come and check out their stuff, that’s bullshit. We need something fresh, something new, and we want to open up spaces in the city on the street and have spaces that we create, especially in the city.”
The exhibition, From Sitting to Selfie, creates a history of the phenomenon of taking ‘selfie’. Photo: Tendai Dube.
The ‘selfie’ has had such an impact on society that the word itself is now part of the dictionary. To capture the history of the phenomenon, the Standard Bank Art Gallery is currently hosting the exhition the From Sitting to Selfie. The exhibition showcases the origins and history of the phenomenon, often seen to be the result of social media and camera phones.
“There is a lot of variety, it covers a long period of time”, said Sue Isaac, gallery administrator. The exhibition showcases 300 years of South African portraits, dating back to the 1617 with two portraits by Cornelis van der Voort, Portrait of a Gentleman and Portrait of a Lady.
The collection is proof that the obsession with one’s image has been around for much longer than Instagram selfies.
Capturing a moment in time is not necessarily external; art was created from a retina image from a visit to the optometrist. Another of metal carved into a skull by laser.
One of the more lighthearted time-stamps is a self-portrait of Mikhael Subotzky by Marc Nicolson after being stung by a bee in 2004.
“It’s like looking at Facebook, I just don’t get it [selfies]”, said Linda Engelbrecht, an art aficionado who visited the gallery. “I can’t imagine why people would want to publish bad photographs of themselves”, she added.
Curator Barbara Freemantle explained that sitting portraits in the past were done to “best capture the essence of another human” while selfies are “a memento or to document the photographer’s own presence at a particular occasion.
“I think it’s just a popular fad at the moment which I think will run its course, maybe not because we are all pretty egotistical, so perhaps it won’t”, said Isaac.
The exhibition ends on September 6 and is held on the corner Simmonds and Frederick street.
HEALTHY ART: Victoria Hume explains to Drama for Life about how to integrate music and art into medicine. Photo: Ilanit Chernick
Art and medicine combined can be used as a tool to heal people, Victoria Hume told members of Drama for Life (DFL) recently.
DFL is trying to close the gaps between these two fields by incorporating art into medicine and bringing this into South Africa’s public health system. They are currently working on a project about using drama and its techniques to educate the public about diabetes.
Musician and artist Victoria Hume spoke to DFL on Monday about using music, singing and breathing techniques to help patients who are dealing with “complex conditions” such as diabetes and those who have been through “traumatic healthcare experiences”.
She also focused on how to “make hospitals a centre of community”.
“It’s about building relationships between South African institutes like Drama for Life and Baragwanath.”
DFL and Hume have collaborated on this project to educate the public about “drawing attention” to things that are “little known” about medical conditions like diabetes.
Hume also told Wits Vuvuzela that despite the economic problems in South Africa’s public health system, it is still possible to implement drama and music techniques into our hospitals without just “sticking pictures over cracked walls”.
“It’s about building relationships between South African institutes like Drama for Life and Baragwanath [Hospital] for example” she said.
DFL are currently training students in drama therapy and techniques and Hume said it is “important to train them in this type of context as well”.
Barbed wire stretched across a portion of wall and a ceiling-high “bouquet of security cameras” are just some of the installations produced by Amber-Jade Geldenhuys.
A piece in Amber-Jade’s collection, CCTV cameras showing how security plays a big role in our every day lives. Photo by: Zelmarie Goosen
At her Masters exhibition, opened at the Substation on the Wits Campus on Thursday, Geldenhuys, a fine art student at Wits focused on the issue of “securitization” of the homes that South Africans have come to think of as normal.
In the exhibition running until 18 March, she hopes to make visitors aware of the South African obsession with safety.
“We create these elaborate constructions, and they always go without any questioning [or] second thought, so it’s interesting to start to think of ways to push those boundaries and maybe… find a way over the walls,” Geldenhuys said of her work.
Crime in South Africa
According to official South African Police Service statistics released by the Institute for Security Studies, incidences of robbery increased 4.6% (or by 4 685 cases) from 2012 to 2013 and instances of residential burglary increased 6.8% to a total of 262 113 incidents, meaning there was an average of 720 house burglaries each day.
Jeremy Wafer, Geldenhuys’ supervisor described the exhibition as interesting because it attempted to display something so often considered threatening into something beautiful.
“I think she’s working with really interesting themes, themes that depict all of us living in a big city like Johannesburg, with issues of what it means to be in secure homes, of security and at the same time overturning that to some degree,” Wafer said.
“[Her work] is a bit like our homes: spaces of comfort, and in these spaces you also always feel anxious whenever you hear a noise and you rush out to see what’s going on, and it isn’t just a class thing, everyone experiences what’s going on and has anxiety, ” he added.
CRAFTY SYMBOLISM: Onlookers were drawn to the Faces and Faces wall, full of black and white photographs taken by visual artist Zanele Muholi. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
Walking onto the eerily silent ramp that leads to the new exhibition at the Wits Art Museum, one is met by death. Small mounds of sand stand,holding up colourful wooden crosses that have dates of birth and death written on them.These graves that lie in glass containers are in the Zanele Muholi’s Mo(u)rning section of the exhibition.
The next piece of the collection, Faces and Faces catches the eye immediately as a wall of black and white portraits look one in the eye. There are some gaps between some of the photographs by Muholi which speak to the nameless but dated graves.
“The spaces were left there to show that they could have been a part of this section of the exhibition if they weren’t killed for being gay and lesbian,” explained facilitator Ace Kekana, whose face appears in one of Muholi’s portraits.Queer and Trans Art-iculations: Collaborative Art for Social Change is a collaborative exhibition by visual artists, Muholi and Gabrielle le Roux. [pullquote align=”right”]”…men who gang rape women, who murder lesbians, who beat their wives – they walk the streets as free men.”[/pullquote]
Muholi’s work is on the ground floor of the museum with a focus on the LGBTI community in South Africa – their beauty, their struggle, their murders and more. Muholi is not only a photographer, so her work varies and in this exhibit includes some of her bead work and a documentary film.
The most elaborate display in Muholi’s section are rosaries that hang from the ceiling. The beads in the rosaries are tennis balls and kitchen utensils. The vertical end of the cross at the end of the rosary is made from a knife which represents the violent killings of members of the LGBTI community experience, and the horizontal end from braai forks to represent the supposed hell killers think they’ve sent their victims to, or perhaps the lived hell victims endure.
This is one of the rosaries that hang from the ceiling. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
“When people kill based on gender they like to say it’s for religious reasons, these crosses represent how dangerous that kind of thinking can be,” said Kekana.
The most moving part of Muholi’s exhibited work is a wall with a number of written messages from victims and their family members about their experiences. One of the messages read: “Here in South Africa you have judges sending women to jail for stealing a loaf of bread to feed her baby, but men who gang rape women, who murder lesbians, who beat their wives – they walk the streets as free men.”
In contrast to the quiet reception on entering Muholi’s floor of the exhibition, walking down the ramp into the basement area, sounds from the television screens set up with short documentaries by Le Roux lure attendees with their mixed up buzz.
Le Roux’s collection, Proudly African & Transgender and Proudly Trans in Turkey looks at the experiences “trans and intersex people in Turkey and Africa,” said Kekana. Another facilitator, Thekwane Mpisholo is in one of the portraits put on display by Le Roux.
The painted portraits are inclusive of their “subjects” and this can be seen in the quotes the artist let them scribble on their actual portraits.
The newly launched Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, helped to find the funding for this project. “They’re the ones who helped us with the planning and funding because they (Diversity Studies) study things that aren’t ordinarily studied by other faculties – that’s how they came on board,” said Mpisholo.
There is a lot to read, watch and see at this exhibition and people can do so until March 30 2014 at the Wits Art Museum.
A crowd of eager art lovers could not resist the magnetism of the historical photographic archive dating back to the 1800’s and commemorating the 1913 Land Act.
This year marks 100 years since the 1913 Land Act was passed. The act helped to successfully disenfranchise indigenous South African’s in terms of land ownership and its repercussions are still felt today.
[pullquote align=”right”]”No single photographic exhibition could illustrate the full diversity of our complex realities”[/pullquote]
Curator of the Umhlaba Exhibiton, Bongi Dhlomo-Matloa said that the exhibition’s purpose was to help people remember their history. “Commemoration is a relative term here, we are remembering this act that left blacks with only 7% of the land,” she said. Dhlomo-Matloa coincidently wore a black and white ensemble matching the monochromatic nature of most of the photographs on display. She said it was merely a coincidence but nonetheless she carried the colours of our history around her neck and on her shoulders.
Remembering history
Next to the exhibition’s entrance was a plaque detailing the aims, limitations and history behind the curation. “No single photographic exhibition could illustrate the full diversity of our complex realities,” but this by no means, kept the artist/photographer from making an attempt to illustrate those complex realities.
This history could not only be seen, but was also heard as jazz, afro-soul and choral music ushered people up the ramp and along the walls of the gallery. It was quite jarring to hear the juxtaposition between Miriam Makeba’s voice sing Gauteng and then immediately after, a choir sing Die Stem, while standing at the wall with all the apartheid-era photography on it.
Photographic reality
[pullquote]“Commemoration is a relative term here, we are remembering this act that left blacks with only 7% of the land”[/pullquote] Dlomo-Matloa went on to say that these photos were used as they “are very exact” and can therefore accurately depict the reality they captured. The first colour picture seen in the gallery was on the apartheid wall, a photograph by David Goldblatt. It was taken in 1987 at a resettlement camp in the Wittlesea district of the then Ciskei.
Fourth year photography student Melissa Bennett, said she loved how the photos told a story of overcoming boundaries. She was also particularly intrigued by the way the photos had been arranged according to a historical timeline.
Dhlomo-Matloa said that the exhibition was displayed in chronological sequence laid out in a timeline to reflect how things and people changed as time went on. Although a huge amount of images were available, budget and space constraints restricted how many photographs could be exhibited.
The photography on display showcases some of the most talented photographers in the country, like Peter Magubane, Paul Weinburg and Ingrid Hudson.
After a walk about the whole gallery, the reality of our history was more than apparent. The exhibition will be on display until January 2014.
Watch the video below in which curator Dhlomo-Matloa talks about the exhibition:
THE MOVEMENT from artistic imagery to the spoken word is the reason for the significant interest in the William Kentridge lecture series currently being held the Wits theatre in Braamfontein.
Internationally acclaimed South African artist Kentridge has been hosting a lecture series since 20 June. Tickets have been sold out every night and some famous faces were even spotted in the audience.
Wits Vuvuzela spoke to Kelly Gillespie, a senior lecturer in the department of Anthropology at Wits and one of the organisers of the lecture series.
The lecture series entitled “The Five drawing Lessons by William Kentridge” draws from philosophical epistemology, knowledge and art practice.
One would not think that art would create interest in the mainstream public however from the very first evening, the Wits theatre was packed to capacity with people keen listen to one of SA’s most prolific and celebrated artists.
Gillespie added that Kentridge conducts activities in his lectures. He uses visuals and sound to break from the monotony of a lecture in order to immerse the audience in the heavy content spoken addressed in the lectures.
Gillespie said the lecture series was initially presented at Harvard University in 2012. She said that sometimes local artists tend to showcase their work abroad more often than they do locally. Kentridge is doing these lectures for the local public for free.
Kentridge is one of South Africa’s most celebrated artists. Photo: Provided
Kentridge is also a Wits alumnus. He obtained a BA degree from the university where he majored in Politics and African Studies.
His work is very content-dependent which draws on his South African upbringing during the years of apartheid. Kentridge is best known for his print work and animated films.
The “Five drawing lessons by William Kentridge” is part of the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism session on “The Life of Forms.”
Gillespie also told Wits Vuvuzela what to look out for in the coming lectures
The lecture series started on June 20 and will come to a close on 2 July.
It is expensive to check whether anti-retroviral drugs are working in an HIV-positive patient, but a new approach could halve the costs.
Doctors monitor the success of anti-HIV drugs using a “CD4 count”. The fewer CD4 cells a patient has, the more HIV has damaged the immune system.
When an HIV positive person starts antiretroviral treatment (ART) against HIV, the number of CD4 cells should increase if the ARTs are working. If the CD4 count is below 200, the person has AIDS, according to the Centre for Disease Control.
But these tests are costly and, in developing countries like South Africa, lab equipment and trained staff are limited. To address this, Wits researcher Prof Ian Sanne and a team of international researchers have suggested a new way to predict which patients are likely to have a low CD4 count.
Those patients who are predicted to have a low CD4 count can then have the test done to confirm it. Their “Prediction-Based Classification” tool correctly predicted 90% of low CD4 counts.
Their study was published the PLoS Medicine Journal in April 2012. The authors emphasise that their tool should not replace CD4 tests, but could improve the monitoring of treatment by making better use of money, staff and equipment.
“Introducing PBC will diminish the burden on poorly resourced laboratories, releasing funding to reach more patients,” Sanne told Scidev.net, a prominent science news website for developing countries.
The tool, a mathematical algorithm, could also reduce the need to repeat tests that give unexpected results. Their research also provides a basis for future studies to look at the economic and health benefits of the tool.
Sanne is the founder and director of the Clinical HIV Research Unit at Wits.
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
