implicit art

You can tell I’m uber uber busy (who isn’t? But I still used to make time for blogging…) when I am not only posting very infrequently, but also mostly / only in response to comments left here (and it’s not as if my comments section is very forthcoming). Last week it was something on my Northern Ireland holiday in response to Laine. And now, artthrob editor Michael Smith asks - after chiding me about MWEB / artthrob down time - for some news. And he called me Sterny. Which is frakkin hilarious, on so many levels.

Admittedly, most news these days is dissertation-related, and / or not yet announcement-ready. There are a handful of exciting shows potentially forthcoming for me, but the operative word is potentially, and so I don’t want to make them public just yet. I am 5 weeks from a too short visit to Joburg and Cape Town - just a holiday, which I’m thrilled over - and then, after a 2-day stop in NYC to see family and hit galleries for a day, I start my new job at UWM’s Peck School of the Arts. See more on that here. I’m actually on track to have a draft of said dissertation in before I leave Dublin, which is startling for most people, myself included (I’ve been working on it less than two years). The original proposal is here, and we’re lookin at 230 or so pages of academic text and case studies (5 chapters, intro, conclusion; this doesn’t include the bibliography or any of that extraneous stuff yet).

Confirmed shows include a group one in Pretoria with some older prints, and a new commission for Carine Zaayman’s NRF-funded project at the Michaelis Gallery at UCT, Jozi and the (M)other City. The latter show features work by myself, Ralph Borland, Nicola Grobler, Stephen Hobbs, Svea Josephy, Marcus Neustetter, Johan Thom and James Webb, creative writing by Sean O’Toole, and a catalogue with an essay by Zaayman herself. I’m very excited about the work I’m doing, as it’s a huge departure for me both conceptually and aesthetically - more of a performative and sociopolitical intervention than anything else - and is specific to a South African context and art world. The exhibition and catalogue and web site will all see documentation-as-art, so I don’t want to give too much away just yet, but the title may clue you in a bit: Doin’ my part to lighten the load… I will post upcoming international stuff when it’s confirmed.

In press news, there’ll be a full feature on me in the Winter issue of Printmaking Today, which is pretty exciting, and it also looks like I’ll be one of the featured artists in the sequel to Richard Noyce’s Printmaking at the Edge, by the same author and tentatively titled Printmaking Beyond the Edge, due for release in early 2010.

On a final note, I wanted to mention that I went to see Ralph Borland (fellow South African artist and Trinity grad student) and Julian Jonker’s Song of Solomon at the Project Arts Centre here in Dublin last week.

 A computer program samples many versions of the song ‘Mbube’ (the source of the song ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’) to form a continually-changing audio collage that questions notions of intellectual property and the processes of cultural production.

Although the original work was intended as a looped installation, this version was a 20-minute performance that did not disappoint. I have to say that the above statement reads like it could potentially be interesting, but might be better in concept than in practice. NOT TRUE. And the work was exceptionally potent as a performance, in the dark, sitting centered between the speakers, and as a common experience between all those present. It was a moving tribute and memorial which I’d sit through several more times, given the opportunity.

That’s all I got for now.

Marcus Neustetter and my net.art project / turbulence commission circa 2005, getawayexperiment.net, has been written up on the project page for artthrob this month, by their newly appointed new media editor, Chad Rossouw. Link.

First, a congratulations to Chad on his new position - I’ve read some of his writings and know he can be very thoughtful and interesting, and I’m glad to have his expertise covering and furthering new media art in South Africa.

I was admittedly surprised to see getawayexperiment.net reviewed by artthrob (again). Not only is it a relatively older work - by net.art standards, anyhow… although, in fairness, it is currently on web exhibition at Greylock Arts in the states, so I can see why Chad came across it and may have wanted to give it some attention now - but it was also already written about, more extensively, on Artthrob’s project page in Feb 2005, by Carine Zaayman. I know Ed Young may have started this trend when he decided he needed to let SAartsEmerging know how much they now suck after a good first year (Ed maintains this original goodness before the suckiness, and this site was also first more positively covered by Zaayman on the same page as Ed’s review - and also a site I used to be involved with; Linda Stupart’s adjoining bloggy piece, around Art Heat’s conception time, is worth mentioning here, too…), but if it’s not a new work you want to write about - and especially because the work has not changed, as opposed to in Ed’s case - then at least a little nod and link to Carine’s original (and much longer and more positive) review by Chad could have been included (Ed fails here, too; and is less generous than either Chad or Carine; and also oddly claims the site is easy to ignore while simultaneously writing the third artthrob piece about it). They are all in the same publication after all, so an ongoing discussion would be appropriate. (Those are some long sentences there, with lots of parenthetical thoughts in both brackets and dashes. Sorry, that’s just how it goes some times….)

All that being said, I can’t deny that Chad’s criticism has merit. While I stand by the strength of both the concept and its resulting pages for getawayexperiment.net (and Chad seems to like this, too), I think that the lack of a large number of participating artists uploading their own images once the work was launched comes precisely from the fact that the world the piece creates is extremely idiosyncratic - his point. While I don’t generally think this necessarily a bad thing in the art world, this particular piece is meant to be both about participation and empowerment, and so while it represents those concepts well, as an interactive work, it does not initiate them, in the literal sense, as much as it could.

I think the piece, overall, is successful in creating various dialogues around these issues, as is evidenced by these two texts, and another by Eduardo Navas. But I appreciate Chad’s fair review and feedback when it comes to getawayexperiment.net’s shortcomings, and am looking forward to more of the same from him - whether about my own work, or those of other South African artists.

via atjoburg:

Upgrade! Johannesburg is proud to present:

The Art of Sound - James Webb presents his major gallery installations and
radio projects

James Webb is a leading South African sound artist with a growing
international reputation. He will discuss the challenges of his large-scale
sound installations including Prayer (2002); The Black Passage (2006) and
Autohagiography (2007); his collaborative radio projects including A
Compendium of Imaginary Wavelengths (2004) and works in progress such as
Beau Diable (2007).

The Digital Soiree
Friday 16 March 15:00 - 17:00
Convent Seminar Room
University of the Witswatersrand
Johannesburg
All Welcome!

Read the profile of James Webb by Carinne Zaayman on Artthrob.

^{diane victor @ fried contemporary}

Made it to the Roles/Robes opening at Fried in P-town a few nights ago, and it was a strong show - I can’t believe that place has been around for an entire year now, and it is really going strong (huge turn out, for a starving audience of Cont-Art lovers up thar).  Check out my flickr for pix of works by Wilma Cruise, Carinne Zaayman and Diane Victor. Diane’s works (detail pictured) really stole the show - extremely rich and textured, not to mention fragile, drawings she produced using the smoke from lit candles. Not only did these blow me away, but according to her, these were a rush job, and her Goodman exhibition (opening this Saturday) puts these works to shame. Maybe see you there….

^{RC2 by Jose Ferreira}

As covered by Carine Zaayman on Artthrob, the Very Real Time project launched its second phase at the Drill Hall (Point Blank Gallery, downtown Jozi) this past weekend, hosting, "Two panels of selected speakers… chaired by Gregg Smith and … an intervention by Johannesburg based artist, Jose Ferreira."

Ferreira’s RC2 (courtesy of the artist):

This work consists of a series of journeys and a garment. Appearing to be an ordinary overall, it unfolds and translates into various forms, provoking unusual relationships. It is at once a vessel for shelter, a protective unit, and gatherer of ephemera. … The focal point of the work is to extricate new readings of social interactions in this urban context that may have become accepted, habitual and even suspicious. The work is an exploration of urban survival, self-preservation, and a dreaming of possibilities. … My intention is to make a work that embraces the multiplicity of an urban Johannesburg experience.

 

Read and see more.

am down in the mother city again,
i have given up on hassling and flowing and have to sit my ass down.
oh yes before i forget i will become a Joburg later this month, please people bring me a cake and red wine to make me feel welcomed.
so to the dudes in Jozi, whats up?

it seems that heads are heading to cape town this weekend for the sessions ekapa.
will be coming out from my hide out to join the masses this summer and will try to get some pics whilst there.
i don’t know about the Jozi dudes but cape town seems to be getting a lot of slices of the art world of mzantsi.
is cape town the new big thing and are cape town artist now the big deal? Are cape town artists and galleries in?all eyes on ekapa!!

Nice li’l article on p-comp in South Africa by Carine Zaayman in Artthrob this month. Granted, I’m more than biased, since it’s mostly about Ralphy Borland and me, but it’s really cool to see such a staple arts publication making a statement like that. Must read if you have no idea what the title of this post means….

With regards to finding info on p-comp in SA, Ralphy Borland’s site has way more than mine, but I gotta give props to Tom Igoe, and the book he wrote with Dan O’Sullivan for getting started. If in Natal, no need to feel left out — Colleen Alborough has a beautiful p-comp installation up at KZNSA for another few weeks! She used the aforementioned book (with a little help from Borland) to teach herself how to hook up alarm-based motion sensors to her computer , and use them as triggers for projected animations and sonic treats.

And speaking of community, I am still taking guest bloggers on: contact me if you are interested in writing on this site. No restrictions on anything other than image sizes! Oh, and no porn or torrentz (I’m not The Man, please be reasonable)…. Would love to get some SA peops outside of the Gauteng area for a change (tho am still accepting writers IN that area).

w00+

(and the blog me)

Nathaniel arrived in Cape Town on Friday for a week of lectures at Michaelis. We are looking forward to his lectures very much, but its not all work! Yesterday, I took him for the obligatory drive tour of the peninsula.

Images from Nathaniel’s trip in Cape Town:

Nath stares at the Sentinel, and the Sentinel stares back

Nathaniel and the non-aggressive whale, part I

Nathaniel and the non-aggressive whale part II: “I shall call him squidgy and he shall be mine!” (OK, Nath!)’

Thanks Nathaniel, Cape Town is your friend.