YOU CAN TELL important things about the influence a person had on the world by the way in which a memorial speech or a tribute, after he or she dies, ends. Generally, at a gathering of colleagues, family and friends, there would be some speeches about the contribution […]
STARE INTO THE harsh winter light outside for a second or two and then close your eyes, tight for another second or two. That afterimage that has burnt itself into your eyeballs is what contemporary American philosopher Timothy Morton mooted an electric peanut, and this is the focus […]
THERE’S A POTENT and muscular articulation of joy as you enter the gallery space for the Stevenson Gallery’s celebration of its 15th anniversary. It’s difficult to pinpoint why this happens because contemporary artwork is traditionally not happy but contemplative, not easy but sophisticated and often very self-focused. The […]
IT WAS APARTHEID’S jester Pieter-Dirk Uys who some years ago famously cited the shenanigans of the state as being the best possible script writers for his work. He wasn’t alone. Playwright Mike van Graan doesn’t miss a beat in using every dirty nuance and crass irony dished out […]
A MAN SITS casually but alert in an improvised barber’s chair. He and the barber behind him focus on an unseen mirror and that look they have conjures up the whole context of having your hair cut. This is arguably as iconic Dorothy Kay’s 1953 self-portrait of the […]
YOU MIGHT BE urged to giggle at a chap made of an old rusted colander and some cotton reels, or a female angel with fish bones as wings, mooted ‘fish wife’, considering the gesture to be comic, perhaps for children. But when you engage closer with the body […]
A MIX OF unadulterated capriciousness, fragility that makes you frightened to breathe too hard counterpoised with functional robustness, and a storytelling quirkiness that shimmers, not to mention monumentality to make you laugh: this is what you get to experience with the work of potter Carolyn Heydenrych. Over 30 […]
IT TAKES A great deal of wisdom to make a film as beautiful as Chappaquiddick. It has to do with an understanding of the fact that the story was told by history itself in 1969. It also has to do with an understanding of the texture of the […]
YOU MIGHT SIGH audibly with a feeling of satedness if not blatant boredom, when you think of the idea of the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s life being celebrated this year. What more could be said about this icon who defined so much for so many? The question seems […]
IN THIS WORLD where political correctness is invading expression like a disease, Madame is a nifty foray into the self-focused, idle and rather stupid rich, which is carefully written, beautifully cast and really funny and pointed. It’s a celebration of beauty that doesn’t kowtow to market-related bland norms […]
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