By Our Own Hands by Thebe Magugu — Magugu House, Cape Town
Innovative South African designer Thebe Magugu recently partnered with Mount Nelson, a Belmond Hotel in Cape Town, to unveil Magugu House Cape Town.
As a platform for fashion, art and creative exchange, the dynamic concept store launches its inaugural exhibition, “By Our Own Hands”, running until the end of April.
The exhibition gathers the powerful works of Zanele Muholi and Zizipho Poswa with Magugu’s exploration of fashion as ritual practice. The interaction of these works reflects a form of authorship, healing and resistance through the artists’ approaches to material as the carriers of lineage and self-sovereignty.
“By Our Own Hands” is on view at Magugu House in Cape Town at Mount Nelson, a Belmond Hotel, until end-April. The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-6pm. No reservations required.
Was Here by Guy Simpson - Goodman Gallery, Joburg
Presented by Goodman Gallery in Joburg, Guy Simpson’s “Was Here” exhibition brings together a small but powerful group of paintings tied to Simpson’s witnessing of Joburg’s shifting suburban landscape.
The shift included generational changes in belief, belonging and identity; religious and ethnic enclaves tightening after extensive relocation; and the shrinking of diasporic communities.
“Was Here” ultimately maps this changing terrain through paintings of decaying interior and exterior walls, where peeling paint and ruptured plaster operate as inadvertent urban archives.
The exhibition has been running from January 31 and ends on March 7 at the Goodman Gallery in Joburg. The gallery is open from 8.30am to 5pm Tuesday to Friday and 8.30am to 2pm on Saturdays. Entrance is free.
Love in a Turning World by Penny Siopis – Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
“Love in a Turning World” by Penny Siopis foregrounds the idea of love in a solo exhibition presented by Stevenson. In a world in flux, the exhibition presents love as a disposition instead of a pictorial subject in which love is positioned as a way of being in relation to others and the non-human.
Speaking to the process of transformation in her materials and the turbulence of contemporary psychological and global states, Siopis notes, “A cruel world we are in,” and it is hard to see sometimes how traumatic rupture is also a condition for the birth of the new. Open form is suggestive, hopefully, of this. We see what we see as pigments explode and come together. Anything is possible in the imagination. Antonio Gramsci’s famous line feels resonant here: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.”
“Love in a Turning World” has been on at the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town from February 7 and ends March 21. Entry is free.
African Refugia by Paul Augustinus – Everard Read Gallery, Joburg
Presented by Everard Read in Joburg, “African Refugia”, an exhibition with a series of works by Paul Augustinus, explores his engagement with Africa’s remaining untouched wilderness areas.
Representing the refugia that are vital for biodiversity and ecological continuity, Augustinus captures dynamisms, subtle tensions and rhythms of landscapes that have endured, largely untouched by humankind, across his portfolio.
Viewers are invited to reflect on their relationship with the natural world as Augustinus’s use of oil paint creates a visual experience that conveys both the intimate qualities and expansive scale of these otherworldly places.
“African Refugia” has run from February 26 and ends March 21 at the Everard Read Gallery in Joburg. Entry is free.
Afropop – The Melrose Gallery and Art of Contemporary Africa (AOCA), San Francisco
Celebrating the multiplicity of pan-African art, “Afropop”, the Melrose Gallery and AOCA’s exhibition defines “pop” not as superficiality, but as accessibility and cultural vitality, highlighting practices that are materially inventive, conceptually rigorous and visually compelling.
Furthering the pursuit of celebrating African expression, artists span across generations, geographies and artistic mediums to reflect the complexity of contemporary African artistic practice, featuring artists such as Ayanda Mabulu, Aza Mansongi, Akilah Watts, Noria Mabasa, Willie Bester and others. The exhibition asserts itself and Africa as a central and active contributor to global contemporary art.
The exhibition has run from February 12 and ends March 29 at the Minnesota Street Projects in San Francisco. Entry is usually free.
