ANIMAL FARM. TWO words which conjure up a quirky engagement with political horror, as they refer to one of the more important tracts of contemporary literature. Peter Mammes, in his current exhibition, It’s Already Too Late Once the Soldiers Have Arrived, touches on the kind of wisdom and […]
A SUBURBAN VERANDAH IN Johannesburg in the 1960s. The chairs are of a circular wire design, with criss-cross patterns on the seats, the table top, fashionable at the time. The space is harsh, defined by the Highveld light. The furniture stands without occupants. Waiting. The narrative that this […]
IN 1970, AN extraordinary poem by South African poet Douglas Livingstone saw light of day. Gentling a Wildcat is a profound contemplation of the meaning of life as observed through a feast, conducted with frenzy by insects on the body of an animal. It’s about death viewed through […]
MEDITATIVE ENERGIES CAN be found in the most unexpected of places and often one needs just to still one’s inner noises and there it is, before you. There’s just one day left of Tamlin Blake’s extraordinary current solo exhibition, but it’s certainly worth changing your plans for. A […]
WATCH OUT FOR the goosebumps that will plague your skin and soul and motivate you to move from one work to the next in Trans, an extraordinary exhibition put together by Brazilian curator Daniella Géo and featuring works that take the notion of the prefix ‘trans’ and splay […]
YOU MAY FIND it difficult to believe that the glossy corporateness of the Standard Bank Gallery in central Johannesburg could be challenged to its very core. There are only a few days left in the Johannesburg season of the exhibition of Igshaan Adams, the 2017 Standard Bank Young […]
IF YOU ARE of a certain era, you hear the name ‘Clementina van der Walt’, and think immediately of a very specific type of ceramic object which became classically the work of this South African potter in the 1990s. They were bold and kind of clunky, they featured […]
THERE ARE ONLY a few days left in the season of arguably one of this city’s most important and best curated exhibitions. On Common Ground, put together by seasoned photographer Paul Weinberg, aligns and contrasts selected works of two of South Africa’s photographic giants – David Goldblatt and […]
SHE WAS NOBODY. That is, until she met and married mining magnate Sir Lionel Phillips, and gave life to the possibility of the Johannesburg Art Gallery – amongst other things – which became central to much of her life’s ambition. Lady Florence Phillips is an icon in historical […]
WHY IS IT an instructive exercise to look at the work of artists related to one another? Does it have to do with heredity and perceptions of where the so-called art gene lies? Or maybe you’re looking for where the works cleave together, and see that they come […]
Geoff Sifrin
Robyn Sassen
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