when cities collide

So, Joshua Goldberg (our visiting digital artist in residence) is nearly over jetlag after a really fun night at Carfax last night (er, two nights ago now, as I took a while to blog this). Christo and my students from Wits Digital Arts flexed some VJ / live visualisation skills, and I have to say that given this was their first stint, they did a bit of alright! Josh also gave a preview of his “improvisatory abstract animation” with his homemade (open source, and free!) software, dervish, and it was hot.

But then yesterday, I decided to start showing Josh a little of our SA pride, by bringing him to solo exhibitions by two of our most prolific, living South African artists.

kentridge: preparing the flute, at the goodman gallery

I’m speaking, first of course, of William Kentridge, and his current solo exhibition (opened yesterday) at the goodman gallery. Believe it or not, Josh had never heard of him, and knew nothing about his work. This show, which shows sketches and projections that were Kentridge’s preparation for his version of Mozart’s Opera, the magic flute, was as articulate and stunning as ever. There were a couple of projections in his signature style (with more bodies and flesh as they go along), but the real treats were the archival remnants and sketches, some of which Josh related to watching quark patterns in microscopes, but ones which disable us from doing anything other than searching for meaning.

We’ll have to go back when there is not a traffic jam.

minnette vari at gallery momo

And then we headed over to gallery momo to see the Minette Vari show I had yet to see. Her famous art south africa cover work was being shown (it was a little washed out from the light, but I got to see this stunning piece at the KKNK earlier this year), as well as several beautiful screenshots as lambda prints. New to me, was the above piece, a circular, abstract animation-like video work of utter beauty.

I think we got Josh off to a good introduction of contemporary South African art, and he really loved it. More to come….