{"id":1117,"date":"2006-03-14T15:08:34","date_gmt":"2006-03-14T13:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/14\/norman-catherine-now-and-then-the-jag\/"},"modified":"2006-03-14T15:08:34","modified_gmt":"2006-03-14T13:08:34","slug":"norman-catherine-now-and-then-the-jag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/14\/norman-catherine-now-and-then-the-jag\/","title":{"rendered":"norman catherine: now and then @ the JAG"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"norman<\/a>Yeh, I totally forgot that I had these images on my camera; I had gone down to help Khwezi Gule out with some computer trouble at the Johannesburg Art Museum (yes, I am the default art-geek for all Macs in the fine art scene of Jozi), and then did a quick run down to see the Norman Catherine exhibition.<\/p>\n

My feelings on NC are always different, depending on my mood. Sometimes I find him frightening, other times, hilarious, and on more than one occasion, boring. Those first two I think would make him happy, but I’m not so sure about the last issue. Still, it was nice to see so much of his work, which is always well-executed, in one place, especially when that place is his home country. Below are some quotes I found online, then a pic of some stuff from the front wall of the gallery show I took these shots at. Good run of solos at JAG this year, for those who have not yet noticed – my faves so far are\/were Kentridge and Goldblatt….<\/p>\n

From the-artists.org:<\/p>\n

\n

In 1969 he held his first solo exhibition consisting of oil paintings on wood, bone, wire and an assortment of found objects. His art has since undergone several metamorphoses, from the pristine airbrush paintings of the 70s to the frenzied, ritualistic mixed media works of the early and mid 80s; the wire sculptures and tin can works of the late 80s, and the primitive-futuristic paintings of the early 90s which provided the seeds for his pre-millennial menagerie of anthropomorphic beasts. In the thirty years spanning his past and present output, Catherine’s visual trademarks have included rough-edged comical and nightmarish forms, rendered in brash cartoon colours. His idiosyncratic vision – a combination of dark cynicism and exuberant humour, as well as his innovative use of everyday materials, has secured his place at the forefront of South African contemporary art.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From cama.org.za:<\/p>\n

\n

For Norman Catherine, the crudity and sophistication of an artwork stem from ‘the mixture of the primitive and the futuristic’. Through these imagined timeframes, Catherine accesses his wild dystopian vision of the present. His paintings and figures are darkly comic, bold and lurid in execution. ‘There’s an angst in my work that will never go away,’ says Catherine. ‘It was there before I knew anything about politics, really.’ <\/p>\n

Catherine’s qualification is critical. The fact that South Africa has changed has done little to soften his ‘black side’, but a mutation has occurred. Gone are the ‘raw expressions of fear and fury that allow no catharsis’: John Howell’s observation made in Art Forum<\/em> (Dec. 1986) was a response to Catherine’s searing earlier mixed-media works with titles like Suicide<\/em>, House Arrest<\/em> and Intensive Care<\/em>. For Catherine, the dulled sense of crisis and despair, spawned by the States of Emergency imposed on the country by the apartheid government in the ’80s, has fallen away. What has surfaced in its place is a growing awareness of inner-city psychosis caused by escalating violence, the burgeoning underworld of gangsterism and crime, and the spread of corporate corruption and subterfuge. This urban rot Catherine sees as being not limited to Johannesburg, but part of a national and international pathology. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tand the show:
\"norman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeh, I totally forgot that I had these images on my camera; I had gone down to help Khwezi Gule out with some computer trouble at the Johannesburg Art Museum (yes, I am the default art-geek for all Macs in the fine art scene of Jozi), and then did a quick run down to see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,24,25,2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-flickr","category-reviews","category-south-african-art","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-i1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":591,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/04\/22\/watercolours-and-works-on-paper-warren-siebrits\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":0},"title":"watercolours and works on paper @ warren siebrits","author":"nathaniel","date":"22 April 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"kentridge's UNTITLED watercolor concertina, circa 1991 First, I gotta say that the siebrits site is just about finished, and it's already looking pretty classy... I like it when SA arts go live for the rest of the world to find! Woot. Second, as usual, Warren et al have put together\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":475,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/10\/10\/derridean-illlogic\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":1},"title":"derridean illlogic","author":"nathaniel","date":"10 October 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing exists outside of the text - the purest of pharmakons. Jacques Derrida, father of deconstruction and one of my favorite post-structuralist philosophers, died from cancer at the age of 74 on Friday night. Although always controversial, to me, Derrida was one of the new philosophers who actually lived in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":173,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/09\/29\/1st-bkaa-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":2},"title":"1st BKAA up","author":"nathaniel","date":"29 September 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"stuttering is now set up at The Brett Kebble Art Awards and is in the process of being judged. If in Cape Town, it officially opens on Wednsday (we find out the results at a fancy shmancy dinner on Tuesday) and it then remains for 10 days. There is some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "me"","block_context":{"text":"me","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/me\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1281,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/25\/the-upgrade-johannesburg-and-the-wits-digital-soiree-present-catherine-henegan\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":3},"title":"the Upgrade! Johannesburg and the Wits Digital Soiree present: Catherine Henegan","author":"nathaniel","date":"25 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"the Upgrade! Johannesburg and the Wits Digital Soiree present: Catherine HeneganDada goes digital - Media Art in a Theatrical SpaceAmsterdam-based multi-disciplinary artist, Catherine Henegan, is the director of The Shooting Gallery, the controversial performance\/media art work currently showing at The Market Theatre. Aided by a computer and a projection screen,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1776,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/18\/myartspace-undergraduate-scholarships\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":4},"title":"MyArtSpace Undergraduate scholarships","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 January 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"myartspace.com announced the top winners of their 2008 Undergraduate Scholarship Competition this week. The site and blog have been amazingly supportive of emerging artists with their community, interviews\/blog and competitions over the last 2 years since their inception. I myself have become more and more involved with them (after an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":917,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/18\/the-upgrade-boston\/","url_meta":{"origin":1117,"position":5},"title":"the upgrade! boston","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 November 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I gave a talk at the the upgrade! Boston last night, which took place at the experimental art interactive gallery space. (Thanks to Jo green and Turbulence for setting it up!) Check out the link to see the pretty cool GlowLab exhibition (which I guess, in theory, I'm a part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}