{"id":1350,"date":"2006-10-08T12:40:44","date_gmt":"2006-10-08T10:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/08\/saarts-emerging-exhibition-2006\/"},"modified":"2007-10-19T14:11:28","modified_gmt":"2007-10-19T12:11:28","slug":"saarts-emerging-exhibition-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/08\/saarts-emerging-exhibition-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"SAarts Emerging Exhibition, 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SAarts opening, walkabout and panels went extremely well – the former attended by at least 150 people through the course of the evening. There are walkabouts every weekend (see schedule<\/a>) for the next three weeks, and the show and catalogue look great, so I highly recommend your chaecking it out. Below are some photos from the walkabout yesterday (all under CC license and taken by Shane de Lange), and the text my opening speech on friday.<\/p>\n

Hello everyone and welcome, from myself, Nathaniel Stern, Uber-digital blogger geek who has been told he puts too many photos of his daughter on the internet, from Simon Gush, the boy wonder who turned a downtown parking garage he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s squatting in into one of joburg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most interesting contemporary galleries (if you ask me), from our newest member, Rat Western, a wonderful artist and winner at Sasol New Signatures this year, and an ass-saver when it comes to editing and designing so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to, and most of all, from Bronwyn Lace, the brains, beauty and powerhouse whose vision and determination made this show, and all its forthcoming events.Thank you all for coming, thanks to the Bag Factory, James and Koulla, their funders for the show: National Lottery Distribution Fund, Royal Netherlands Embassy, WK Kellogg Foundation, Ford Foundation \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you guys, in your eternal wisdom, gave a bunch of 20-something South African some cash to make things happen, and I hope you are pleased with the results.
\nAnd of course, thank you to all f our artists \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fantastic show. SAartsEmerging.org was dreamed up whilst Bronwyn, Simon and I were gallery-hopping the streets of Chelsea, NYC. The basic gist was that since \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcin-crowd\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 politics governed art-scenes worldwide, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d make our own in-crowd.<\/p>\n

\"bronwyn
\nbronwyn lace describes rat western’s work. from left, Simon Gush, Bronwyn Lace, Koulla Xinisteris, some guy from the press<\/sup><\/p>\n

We wanted something dedicated to creatively mediating, and critically engaging with, emerging and unknown South African artists and spaces. We never knew how successful a site SAarts would become; ironically, despite our intentions to make our own in-crowd and our tagline of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no pretense of objectivity,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve actually wound up with a very open and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mixed bad\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of a community. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obvious we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve hit on a need, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m proud to say that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve managed to keep the level of quality of our artists, and texts, very high.<\/p>\n

Basically, we team up unknown contemporary artists with writers, and promote their work through our site. SAartsEmerging.org, which is in the top 5% of most linked to blogs on the internet, is continually seeking powerful and thoughtful mediations for artists that are yet to have any in the public domain.<\/p>\n

\"panel
\npanel on spaces for emerging artists. clockwise from left: Storm Janse van Rensburg, Koulla Xinisteris, Gordon Froud, Bronwyn Lace, Dound Anwar Jahanageer, Nathaniel Stern<\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

All four of us firmly believe that the role of the artist in contemporary society goes beyond this notion of the renaissance genius in isolation; it includes teaching, mentorship, dialogue, curating and exhibiting, play, encouragement, writing, editing, re-mixing; artists are, themselves, dialectic images, in many respects, and their actions are as public figures, and established through continual giftings, of ideas, provocations, intercessions, and most of all, each other and themselves.<\/p>\n

These are the activists, the creators, the transformationists and interventionists and their palettes take many forms.<\/p>\n

Or so, as I said, we like to believe.<\/p>\n

We ourselves have learned and gained a great deal through our engagements with national artists we knew nothing about before.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/p>\n

Doung Anwar Jahangeer turns his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153work that is art\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into socially productive walkabouts, teach-in sessions and empowerment projects. His piece here is only a sampling of his amazing body of work.<\/p>\n

Colleen Alborough\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s artist book invests us in the intimacies of distance, exploring the painterly roads of South Africa.<\/p>\n

Simon Gush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s subtle but invasive interventionist fans, invoke a playfully dangerous sense of colonial habitation in Africa.<\/p>\n

And Lester Adams\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wall sculpture, made up of fur from lamb fetuses, is an uncomfortable interrogation of flesh and machine.<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"colleen
\ncolleen alborough’s artist book project<\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n

Several of our artists, have gone on to get \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we like to think, in part, thanks to our efforts \u00e2\u20ac\u201c extended press and shows outside of SAarts, and more in the public domain.<\/p>\n

By framing the framing the framing, and opening up to discussion and critique, SAartsEmering might just be, or even exceed, what we had hoped, but never knew.<\/p>\n

I see many faces of artists and writers here tonight, and I further hope that you will be involved in this public project, sometime in the near future.<\/p>\n

Thank you for coming, and enjoy the show and our many events over the coming weeks.
\n<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SAarts opening, walkabout and panels went extremely well – the former attended by at least 150 people through the course of the evening. There are walkabouts every weekend (see schedule) for the next three weeks, and the show and catalogue look great, so I highly recommend your chaecking it out. Below are some photos […]<\/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":[6,3,22,23,7,25,13,2,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-art-and-tech","category-bronwyn-lace","category-colleen-alborough","category-me","category-reviews","category-simon-gush","category-south-african-art","category-stimulus","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-lM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1341,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/03\/1341\/","url_meta":{"origin":1350,"position":0},"title":"SAarts Exhibition and Events","author":"nathaniel","date":"03 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Bag Factory presents SAartsEmerging 2006, an exhibition and series of events based on the website www.saartsemerging.org, Since January 2006 the website has featured a new artist every third Friday of each month. In celebration of our first year we will be holding an exhibition and a series of related\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/10\/grey.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/30\/ismail-farouk-and-the-parking-gallery\/","url_meta":{"origin":1350,"position":1},"title":"ismail farouk and the parking gallery","author":"nathaniel","date":"30 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"JHB626GP, on the parking gallery roof. Photo by Christo DohertyJHB626GP, Ismail Farouk's solo exhibition of a video produced for the Venice architectural biennale and photographs shot of a burning house in Ellis Park, was an amazing testament to the urbane provocations alive and well in downtown johannesburg.\u00a0 Between a great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"JHB626GP, on the parking gallery roof. 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The SAarts Emerging Exhibition: Cape Town 2007 will open on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/saartsemerging.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/highresvlogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1274,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/14\/va-various-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":1350,"position":3},"title":"V\/A (various art)","author":"nathaniel","date":"14 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Been doing filler (mostly my own stuff) for the past while on the blog, whilst on residence in Brazil, and not getting out much since going gaga over my daughter. Hit the gallery strip two days ago, tho, and as usual was pleased by the works at Warren Siebrits -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"vincent @ parking gallery, a photo by Christo Doherty","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/71\/188915341_00ff7c5c6a.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1477,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/18\/gush\/","url_meta":{"origin":1350,"position":4},"title":"GUSH","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 May 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"poster_49_51.gif","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/poster_49_51.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":570,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/18\/phone-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":1350,"position":5},"title":"phone art","author":"nathaniel","date":"18 March 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"So, my camera on my phone hates me, and it seems that I won't be posting any pictures from it any time soon. It's a real shame, too, cuz I've got some great photos of works by the likes of Simon Gush, Gerhard Marx and Theresa Collins over at the\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\/1350","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=1350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}