The Jozi contemporary art shows to put on to-do list
Three shows well worth a tour of ‘alternative’ viewing spaces and contemporary art are on view until end of August
A raft of new contemporary art shows opened around Joburg this week, all in spaces that also speak about where the current urban art scene is at, outside the larger commercial galleries.
By now relatively well established in its Braamfontein art hub space in Juta Street, Kalashnikovv Gallery offers an eclectic group show of four artists — two based in SA and two in the US. The exhibition featured an opening performance by Kalashnikovv gallerist MJ Turpin, whose sculptural installation dominated the Covid-restricted floor space at the gallery. Covid-19 also put paid to the plans for the physical presence of US-based contributing artists Louis de Villiers and Richard Hart. De Villers contributed works on paper in a variety of media, including signature gold leaf, which meditate on a post-internet social media driven culture in works influenced by his background as a graphic designer and mural painter. Hart’s work is more painterly, his Afrofuturist canvases presenting abstracted views of an imagined postcolonial spiritual belief system. By quite extreme contrast, the last artist on show, Jodi Windvogel, is a documentary photographer whose work on the show continues her concerns with documenting displaced SA communities.
Enterprising Joburg artist Banele Khoza has been at the forefront of a new vogue in SA contemporary art, fuelled by the move to viewing and buying online during the Covid-19 pandemic, for artists to run their own alternative exhibition and gallery spaces. Bkhz Studio is Khoza’s new project space in the prestigious Keyes Art Mile complex in Rosebank, following on his long-standing gallery space in Braamfontein’s art hub. Judging by the throng at the opening day, the new show of photographic collages by fine art photographer Lunga Ntila, entitled God Among Us, is a roaring success. Ntila’s work is marked by storytelling, identity and deconstruction, and brings an interesting tactility and use of perspective and dimensionality to her use of collage in the photographic medium.
All three shows are on view until at least the end of August, and are well worth a tour of “alternative” viewing spaces and contemporary art in the city.