Schema

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26 November 2015 — 16 January 2016

Zander Blom Wim Botha Edson Chagas Ian Grose Samson Kambalu Mawande Ka Zenzile MOSHEKWA LANGA MITCHELL GILBERT MESSINA MELEKO MOKGOSI Serge Alain Nitegeka ODILI DONALD ODITA Deborah Poynton Robin Rhode Hans Richter Viviane Sassen Guy Tillim

In understanding the impulse to create an illusion of space out of nothing, I like the comparison with music: it's easier to understand because music does not 'exist', it's entirely a construct made by our brains. A bit of paint on a flat canvas is the same thing but somehow it is harder for us to accept as a construct because a painting is fixed in time, whereas music passes. And this fixity in time seems to make it more real than it is. – Deborah Poynton

Our third summer exhibition to reflect on the construction of imagery, Schema considers the nature of perspective and perception. In accordance with the Greek word for ‘shape’ or ‘plan’, which refers to the way the mind makes a structured order out of what we see, the works on this exhibition imagine many different ways of seeing space, depth and surface illusion. So compelling is the human predisposition to see the world in three dimensions that the mind constantly fools the eye into decoding flat stimuli as having depth.

The device of perspective to manipulate this human habit has governed ways of representing and seeing in the Western world since its discovery in the early Renaissance, so much so that we easily overlook that it is only a schema. At the time when optics, geometry and mathematics were ‘discovered’ and integrated into painting, it was advocated as an ultimate truth, an inescapable law, allied to ideas of progress, newness and improvement. Perspective was embraced because it described the world via a formula, according to a rational, repeatable and easily learned procedure, corresponding to the Enlightenment thinking of its time, where everything could eventually be explained scientifically and not just in religious terms. The world could be reduced to an image.

With perspectival painting, the eye of the beholder became the image’s place of departure. John Berger, in Ways of Seeing, articulates the narcissistic sense of control as we stand at the centre of the picture we are looking at. As he writes, the convention of perspective – which is unique to European art –

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centres everything on the eye of the beholder, it is like a beam from a lighthouse – only instead of light travelling outwards, appearances travel in. The conventions called those appearances reality. Perspective makes the single eye the centre of the visible world. Everything converges on to the eye as to the vanishing point of infinity. The visible world is arranged for the spectator as the universe was once thought to be arranged for God. The novelty and complexity of single-point perspective, applying mathematical precision and optics to create the illusion of depth, initially illustrated the virtuosity of artists, until this way of seeing became the convention. For German art historian Erwin Panofsky, this dogma of geometric correctness saw the ‘objectification of the subjective’. In his view, the vision of the world offered by exact perspectival construction was alluring, but in fact remained a ‘systematic abstraction from the structure of the psychophysiological space’.

We remain conditioned by this construction of space and it is now the default way of seeing, to the extent that it is a challenge to un-see it. An example is Robin Rhode who exploits this way of seeing in his wall drawings yet simultaneously is also interested in the idea of further dimensions: The object that was drawn always symbolised a kind of object of desire, and the scenario was an extension of a dream of a desire to a dimension that you could place yourself inside. That is how I understood my drawing field. I refer to the space in which the body is engaging with the drawings as a kind of drawing field that can extend not only to the artist or the performer but also to the audience.

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After 19th century academy painting reached a height (or depth) of perspectival perfection, the Cubists rearranged pictorial space into something far from the presumed accuracy of an eye or a lens, more akin to our ways of seeing than those permitted by optics and geometry.

From these artists onward, the realisation that three-dimensional space is only a pervading schema has made many artists curious of other traditions of art, which have found alternative ways of depicting space without pervasive perspectival demands. The aesthetic conventions of Mughal painting, Japanese prints and the art of Africa in particular have been liberating, as described by the Malawian-born artist Samson Kambalu: The problem of representation has never been a problem in African art because we never had the Renaissance … The art that I grew up seeing in Malawi … had a different conception of art. So when I started asking what art speaks to me, I was no longer interested in the question of representation and its long history in Western art.

Almost a century since modern art exploded the act of looking – exemplified in this exhibition by the inclusion of early 20th century experimental films by the German artist Hans Richter, who posed critical questions about the construction (and refusal) of spatial illusion – art is unhindered by dogmatic rules of image-making. In the words of the painter Deborah Poynton: I am always fascinated that when we look at an image, we take it as fact, as an actual thing. Fact not only that it depicts something ‘real’ but fact that our interpretation of its meaning must be true too. For me, an image is just a

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dance, a play of light and colour and shape - it is entirely ephemeral. That is its magic, that is its relief. It is NOT real, NOT something that needs to be processed through the usual channels, assessed, categorised. It can be allowed to exist almost like a natural visual phenomenon, like a mirage or the northern lights. An image for me is a spectacle, an entertainment, a holding place in time, a mystery.

Prescriptive visual traditions have prevailed in South Africa for the past century, at first in a parochial denial of modernism, and later in response to the unequivocal social concerns that contemporary art sought to foreground. The contemporary idioms that reveal and question the elements of perception in the interpretation of visual phenomena have often gone unnoticed. In the context of contemporary idioms, Schema seeks to convey the liberation of seeing and perceiving space both with and without the mediating prescriptions of perspective.

References Deborah Poynton in conversation with Federica Angelucci, Stevenson, Johannesburg, 2015 Robert L Solso, Cognition and Visual Arts, 1994 John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972 Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, 1991 Samson Kambalu, Nyau Cinema, 2015 Deborah Poynton, public talk on Scenes of a Romantic Nature, Stevenson, Johannesburg, 2015

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Robin Rhode Restless Mind 2009 9 framed C-prints 51.2 x 70cm each Edition of 5 + 2AP

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wim botha Prism 15 2015 Bronze with wooden pedestal Bust: 67 x 32 x 37cm Overall height: 171,5 x 32 x37 cm Edition of 3 + 2AP Prism 18 2015 Bronze with wooden pedestal Bust: 68 x 35.5 x 39cm Overall height: 173 x 35.5 x 39cm Edition of 3 + 2AP

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Installation view with works by Odili Donald Odita, Wim Botha, Serge Alain Nitegeka and Robin Rhode

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Edson Chagas Untitled (Bar area, Nacional cine Teatro, Luanda, Angola) 2011, C-prints Image and paper size: 80 x 53.3cm each Editions of 3 + 2AP

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GUY TILLIM Addis Ababa 2015 Diptych Pigment ink on cotton paper

Niger St, Addis Ababa 2015 Diptych Pigment ink on cotton paper

Small format: Image: 44 x 59cm each Paper: 48 x 63cm each Edition of 5 + 1AP

Large format: Image: 108 x 144cm each Paper: 112 x 148cm each Edition of 3 + 1AP

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hans richter Rhythmus 23 1923 35mm film transferred to digital HD Duration 3 min 29 sec Courtesy of the estate of Hans Richter

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Robin Rhode The Moon is Asleep 2015 Super 8mm film transferred to digital HD Duration 1 min 50 sec Edition of 5 + 2AP

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Robin Rhode Untitled/Trees 2015 Pastel on canvas 154 x 215cm

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ZANDER BLOM Untitled [1.740] 2015 Oil on linen 239.5 x 170cm

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wim botha Still Life with Water 2015 Wood, bronze, oil paint, glass, mirrors, fluorescent lights Dimensions variable

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Viviane Sassen Pick ‘N Pay 2013 C-print 60 x 40cm Edition of 5 + 2AP Overleaf Wail 2012 C-print 37.5 x 25cm Edition of 5 + 2AP

Nelson St. 2013 C-print 60 x 40cm Edition of 5 + 2AP

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samson kambalu Limelight 2015 Digital video, colour Duration 32 sec Edition of 1 + 1AP

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ian grose Corner spirit 3 2015 Oil on linen 33.5 x 28.5cm Nothing on the painting board 2015 Oil on linen 30 x 24.5cm

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deborah poynton Point, Line, Plane 4 2015 Oil on canvas 190 x 230cm Overleaf Point, Line, Plane 6 2015 Oil on canvas 190 x 230cm

Point, Line, Plane 5 2015 Oil on canvas 190 x 230cm Installation view

Point, Line, Plane 2 2015 Oil on canvas 190 x 230cm Point, Line, Plane 3 2015 Oil on canvas 190 x 230cm

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hans richter Rhythmus 21 1921 35mm film transferred to digital HD Duration 3 min 27 sec

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samson kambalu Slow Hand 2015 Digital video, colour Duration 29 sec Edition of 1 + 1AP

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GUY TILLIM Ras Biru St, Addis Ababa 2015 Diptych Pigment ink on cotton paper

Minilik Square, Addis Ababa 2015 Diptych Pigment ink on cotton paper

Small format: Image: 44 x 59cm each Paper: 48 x 63cm each Edition of 5 + 1AP

Large format: Image: 108 x 144cm each Paper: 112 x 148cm each Edition of 3 + 1AP

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serge alain nitegeka Field Configuration XXIV 2015 Paint on wood 208 X 148 X 3cm

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Mawande Ka Zenzile Ingqami (The end of an ideology) 2015 Rocks, enamel plates, hammer and sickle Dimensions variable

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Installation view with works

by Wim Botha, Hans Richter, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Odili Donald Odita, Guy Tillim and Mawande Ka Zenzile

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ian grose Loom 1 2015 Oil on linen 173.5 x 134cm Loom 2 2015 Oil on linen 173.5 x 134cm Loom 3 2015 Oil on linen 173.5 x 134cm Overleaf Loom 4 2015 Oil on linen 173.5 x 134cm

Loom 5 2015 Oil on linen 173.5 x 134cm

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MELEKO MOKGOSI Democratic Intuition, Philia 2015 Oil on canvas 228.5 x 284.5cm

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samson kambalu Lizard 2015 Digital video, colour Duration 35 sec Edition of 1 + 1AP Overleaf Tap 2015 Digital video, colour Duration 39 sec Edition of 1 + 1AP

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hans richter Filmstudie 1926 35mm film transferred to digital HD Duration 3 min 48 sec

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moshekwa langa For John 2009 Mixed media on paper 152 x 103cm For Nicholas 2009 Mixed media on paper 152 x 103cm

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serge alain nitegeka Silence: Studio Study XV 2015 Paint on wood 120 x 120cm Overleaf Silence: Studio Study XVI 2015 Paint on wood 120 x 120cm

Silence: Studio Study XVII 2015 Paint on wood 120 x 120cm

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Viviane Sassen Alpha 2011 C-print 80 x 65cm Edition of 8 + 2AP

M 2012 C-print 60 x 40cm Edition of 5 + 2AP

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moshekwa langa The Horror of the Shade 2007 Mixed media on paper 107 x 69cm PhĂŠnomene 2008 Mixed media on paper 106 x 78.5cm

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Robin Rhode CMYK 2015 Triptych C-prints Each panel 82.6 x 82.6cm Edition of 5 + 2AP

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ZANDER BLOM Untitled [1.757] 2015 Oil on linen 198 x 140cm

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odili donald odita New Form 2015 Acrylic on canvas 225 x 200cm Overleaf 2nd and 3rd Degree of Separation 2015 Acrylic on canvas 125 x 150cm

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samson kambalu The Wall 2015 Digital video, colour Duration 39 sec Edition of 1 + 1AP

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Installation view with works

by Wim Botha, Hans Richter, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Odili Donald Odita, Guy Tillim, Mawande Ka Zenzile and Samson Kambalu

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MitCHEll gilbErt MESSiNA My First Game 2015 Computer game Dimensions and duration variable

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Cape Town Buchanan Building 160 Sir Lowry Road Woodstock 7925 PO Box 616 Green Point 8051 T +27 (0)21 462 1500 F +27 (0)21 462 1501 Johannesburg 62 Juta Street Braamfontein 2001 Postnet Suite 281 Private Bag x9 Melville 2109 T +27 (0)11 403 1055/1908 F +27 (0)86 275 1918 info@stevenson.info www.stevenson.info November 2015 Š 2015 for works: the artists Design Gabrielle Guy Installation photography Mario Todeschini