Jo Ractliffe, from her Real Life series, at Warren Siebrits gallery, Johannesburg
The beautiful and amazing Jo Ractliffe exhibits yet another beautiful and amazing show at Warren Siebrits this month. The show opened on Tuesday eve (I had to go and leave early, since I teach those nights) to a crowd of interested and excited artists, scholars, art appreciators and your other usual suspects.
The show is a follow up to her last Selected Works 1982-1999 exhibition at Siebrits, which focused solely on black and white, while this is color images and a video installation (Love, Death, Sacrifice and so forth, 1999). It leaves out some of her more famous pieces to make room for new work: Real Life (as above).
The Real Life series began as a bit of ‘an aside,’ maybe a joke, for Jo, when she was working on something else. It consists of images revealing garden-based plastic figurines, and surburban skies, at night and with a flash, printed on polished plastic. The finished works are obvious, ironic, funny, and would look great in my flat.
Man, she is so clever.
Also shown are some provocative strips from her Johannesburg Inner City Works collaboration. Obviously, I believe Jo’s exhibitions to all, always be, must sees.
