Motsebetsi ya Motsho “Black Labour” (Supa Market) by Cillie Malan
OK I’m a lazy shit who is mostly cutting and pasting a press release; but am crazy with finishing up ‘stuff’ cuz we leave in 8 weeks(!), and I can’t believe how little press there has been on New Signatures! Who is this Cillie Malan, and why have I heard no opinions on the work? Admittedly, I found the line to view it a bit too long at the opening (lots of VIDEO, but at least these guys, as opposed to the L’Atelier, provide -albeit extremely minimal- equipment for the artists), so will have to go back to see it before it comes down. Anyone? Anyone? My longtime crush (and a judge) Jo Ractliffe says, "‘I like that the work is both diagrammatic and educationalist, but still has a comic undertone." Good for him. (Sean Slemon is pissed they doubled the prize money this, instead of last, year.)
Tidbits from the press release:
The judging panel voted to award two runner-up prizes. Gina Kraft and Rat Western, both from Johannesburg, received R15 000 each. The judges were struck by the haunting and emotional beauty of Kraft’s performance art piece, Untitled, which has a relevance to the relationship between East and West today. Western’s video installation, Untitled, was praised for the sophisticated manner in which it explored themes of urban living.
Kraft is a Wits student, and Rat is an alum (she studied in the first year of the Digital Arts MA where, pity for her, I was still getting my teaching chops. She says I wasn’t too bad, but I’m not so sure). Congrats! More:
Two merit awards of R5 000 each were awarded to Angeline-Ann Le Roux for her work titled A place called home and Olaf Bisschoff with Jean Marais for their work titled CONTAIN.
Their new "Acknowledgement Awards" also went to some familiar names. Musha Neluheni won a small prize last year and had a recent show at ArtSpace, Bronwyn Lace was a YAP participant, and founding co-editor at SAartsEmerging, Ismail Farouk is Rat (merit winner’s) partner that had a great show I wrote about recently as well as being a merit winner in New Sig last year, I don’t know Elmarie Pretorius and Franya Botha but really liked the former’s work (didn’t see the latter’s), Nomthunzi Mashalaba (aka ‘Toonsie’) is a great young p-town artist I know through Abrie -and you can look for a feature on her work on SAarts soon- and Thabang Richard Lehobye just made some funky @$$ s#!t….
