Kind of modelled on the Turner prize, this competition works by open nomination for mid-career South African artists, then 10 semi-finalists are chosen by committee based on their work to date, 5 out of those will get a R20,000 budget – from proposals – to make a work or series (the stipulation from their funders being the piece or pieces have something to do with wax: be it medium, process or concept), and finally a winner gets about R130,000 at the launch of said culminating exhibition.<\/p>\n
Last year’s show had mixed reviews, some criticising many of the pieces as fairly lame (tho everyone agreed that winner, Jeremy Wafer, had a very moving piece), others saying it was a schmoozfest for the elite. Me? I thought that given how little support there is for the arts in SA, how much money was thrown at it, how it was NOT engulfed by PR to fix a wrong-doing, like the Kebbles, and finally, how well it ran for its very first year of life (more than we can say for aforementioned Kebbles), it was great that it happened, and am glad to see it only get better from here on out. (Tho I also have higher hopes for Clive van den Berg’s – the second curator of the Kebbles – new project with Spier.)<\/p>\n
Sasol’s semi-finalists were announced yesterday, and it’s an impressive list:<\/p>\n
Sue Williamson, Prof. Keith Dietrich, Lien Botha, Avasone Mainganye, Noria Mbasa, Andrew Verster, Mbongeni Buthelezi, Wayne Barker and Walter Oltmann and Usha Seejarim.<\/p>\n
Could be a really interesting year for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kind of modelled on the Turner prize, this competition works by open nomination for mid-career South African artists, then 10 semi-finalists are chosen by committee based on their work to date, 5 out of those will get a R20,000 budget – from proposals – to make a work or series (the stipulation from their funders […]<\/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":[6,8,2,19,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-re-blog-tidbits","category-south-african-art","category-stimulus","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-mQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1385,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/19\/sasol-wax-2007\/","url_meta":{"origin":1416,"position":0},"title":"Sasol Wax 2007","author":"nathaniel","date":"19 December 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sasol wax art award 2007 Call for EntriesSasol, the world's largest producer of wax, has announced the launch of the Sasol Wax Art Award 2007. This award is aimed at established, professional artists resident in South Africa and seeks to reward innovation and excellence in the visual arts. \u00a0Artists will\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":1316,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/12\/va-various-art-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1416,"position":1},"title":"v\/a (various art) (updated below)","author":"nathaniel","date":"12 September 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry for the lack of posting lately, everybody. As promised a few weeks ago, things are crazy with the big move, and finishing up all the things I need do here in Joburg. It looks like, however, I may have a couple of takers for my blog, which means Joburg\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"jeremy wafer @ sasol wax (highlighted by gerhard marx)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/88\/241278660_8e4dfed23a_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/17\/absa-and-gordart\/","url_meta":{"origin":1416,"position":2},"title":"ABSA and Gordart","author":"nathaniel","date":"17 March 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Stephan Erasmus - tree of sorrows (detail) My flickr has some nice photos of Vusi Beauchamp and Eric Rintisi at gordart (who promise a new website soon), as well as two of my fave works from the ABSA L'Atelier (joburg entries). I think a good compromise between both spaces was\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":13,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/02\/21\/new-channels\/","url_meta":{"origin":1416,"position":3},"title":"new channels","author":"nathaniel","date":"21 February 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Today is the New Media New Channels competition exhibition at Vega, here in Johannesburg. marcus and I were among the judges; some interesting work considering how little exposure there is to digital art in Africa. I'm hoping the site will migrate to showing the finalists, as opposed to the competition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art and tech"","block_context":{"text":"art and tech","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art-and-tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1307,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/29\/jeremy-wafer-takes-sasol-wax-award\/","url_meta":{"origin":1416,"position":4},"title":"Jeremy Wafer takes Sasol Wax Award","author":"nathaniel","date":"29 August 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Will have to blog more about this later in the week (probably weekend), as it was such a commendable show of great work by some of SA's best, and sometimes underappreciated, artists - but that's for when my time winds down a bit. In the meanwhile, you heard it here\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":104,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/23\/art-fun-happens-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":1416,"position":5},"title":"art + fun happens here","author":"nathaniel","date":"23 June 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"To Sir, With Love (part of serial faces; pix available) has officially been chosen as part of the WAM festival's Wax in Art Exhibition. Can't wait to see the other work! Already finished reading the new Harry Potter, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of Book 6. Nicole and I\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":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","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=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}