South African Art Now by Stevenson

SOUTH AFRICAN ART NOW

Front cover: Zanele Muholi, Martin Machapa, 2006 (p24)

SOUTH AFRICAN ART NOW 29 November 2006 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 6 January 2007 All works are for sale

MICHAEL STEVENSON Hill House De Smidt St Green Point Cape Town 8005 PO Box 616 Green Point 8051 South Africa tel +27 (0)21 421 2575 fax +27 (0)21 421 2578 info@michaelstevenson.com www.michaelstevenson.com

WIm BOTHA CONRAd BOTeS TRACy PAyNe BeRNI SeARle deBORAH POyNTON ZANele mUHOlI SAmSON mUdZUNgA dAvId gOldBlATT ANTON KANNemeyeR gUy TIllIm PIeTeR HUgO mUSTAFA mAlUKA NICHOlAS HlOBO HylTON Nel

WIm BOTHA b. 1974 Tête d’un homme 2006 Artificial marble and gilt 29 x 27 x 29cm Calamity 2006 Glazed ceramic, Rhodesian teak parquet blocks 140 x 140 x 30cm

Botha was the Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art 2005. His work has featured on a number of international group exhibitions in the past year, including Africa Remix which is currently installed at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and culminates its tour at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2007. His third solo show at Michael Stevenson is scheduled for January/February 2007. Tête d’un homme, through its fusion of art historical and popular religious prototypes, brings together contradictory and incongruent elements that recall Botha’s recurrent concerns with morality and mortality. The subject, head tilted to the side and eyes blank, seems resigned to his fate as both victim and aggressor. Calamity resonates with similar concerns while suggesting a stronger narrative element. Does it represent the aftermath of a devastating and climactic sequence of events? Botha presents only extracts and abstracted moments of situations rather than elucidating circumstances. But he invariably embeds meaning in his choice of materials: the associations of shards of glazed ceramic, parquet flooring made from Rhodesian teak, artificial marble and gilt offer intimations of the artist’s simultaneous engagement with the particularities of his own – and our – contemporary world.

CONRAd BOTeS b. 19 9 Pietà 2006 Installation including 15 roundels, oil-based paint on glass Dimensions variable Right: work in progress Following pages: details of roundels

Botes thinks of his work as a postmortem of the society and culture in which he grew up. As a white Afrikaans boy coming of age in the late 1970s and 80s, his imagination is embedded with the evils of apartheid, its obsession with power and repression, the violence and anarchy of the times and, of course, the moralising role of the Dutch Reformed Church. He makes these overbearing themes his own by using a comic aesthetic and (dark) humour to reflect on the continuing contradictions in our society. The very title of his ongoing collaboration with Anton Kannemeyer, Bitterkomix, encapsulates the bittersweet sensibility that runs through his work. He frequently makes use of the unusual technique of reverse glass painting, and the roundels incorporated into this work are painted in this manner. In this melancholic new installation, Pietà, the artist has taken the archetypal theme of the mother and dying son and made it contemporary. An enormous sinuous wall painting functions as a skeleton for the work, and the 15 roundels are scattered across its surface. The disparate iconography of the roundels disrupts and fragments the customary allegories associated with this religious imagery, and the artist leaves us to create our own narratives and associations between the elements. Since Botes graduated with an MFA from the University of Stellenbosch in 1997, he has exhibited regularly in South Africa and Italy. He was the winner of the Absa l’Atelier competition in 2004, and a residency at the Cité International des Arts in Paris was part of the prize. His work was included on the ninth Havana Biennale in March 2006 and is on the current exhibition, Africa Comics, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. His first solo show at Michael Stevenson is scheduled for May 2007.

TRACY PAYNE b. 1965 Yellow Monk 2006 Japanese ink, watercolour and blusher on 300g Canson Montval paper 100 x 76cm

These seven portraits are part of Payne’s work-in-progress for her next solo show, scheduled for mid-2007. Her current paintings are inspired by the Shaolin monks of China. The artist recalls watching the video Shaolin Wheel of Life for the first time, before seeing the monks live in performance: ‘I was transfixed. Here were men so strong, yet their bodies looked soft and their faces serene … It is as if I had found a new beginning, a place of forgiveness and sacred appreciation of “man”.’

Mature Monk Smiling and Crying Crying Monk Downward-looking Monk 2006 Japanese ink and watercolour on 300g Canson Montval paper 100 x 76cm each

It is the interplay of masculine and feminine principles fundamental to the martial arts tradition that Payne has sought to convey in the responsive and sensitive medium of watercolour. In these portraits, the dualities inherent in sexuality, emotion and states of consciousness linger, as they do in the dictums of martial arts:

Crowned Monk 2006 Japanese ink, watercolour and blusher on 300g Canson Montval paper 100 x 76cm Golden Boy 2006 Japanese ink, watercolour and gold sheen on 300g Canson Montval paper 100 x 76cm

Over the past five years, Eastern spirituality has been a consistent thread through Payne’s work. After visiting Tokyo in 2002, her imagery mused on the Buddhist concept of samsara or conditioned existence. In her paintings of this time, images of kinbaku, erotic rope bondage, were entwined with the cherry blossom as reminder of the hope that lies in the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth. In her kaleidoscopic paintings exhibited at Michael Stevenson in September and December 2005, her women were freed from their bonds and were overlaid with the forms of first spring and then summer flowers.

Have no stance but every stance Exist like the wind and be unpredictable In defence be like the virgin, in attack be fierce like the tiger The outside is fierce, the inside is calm Make noise in the east and attack from the west Show up and hit down Be as hard as iron yet soft as silk Be heavy like iron and light as a leaf In 2006 Payne’s work was included on the travelling exhibition New Painting (which showed at the KZNSA Gallery, Durban; Unisa Art Gallery, Pretoria; and Johannesburg Art Gallery) and on Second to None at the Iziko South African National Gallery.

BeRNI SeARle b. 19 4 Suspend 2006 4 film stills Lambda prints 28 x 46cm each Edition of 3 + 1AP

Searle held her third solo show at Michael Stevenson in September/October 2006, presenting her new threechannel video work Night Fall and related prints. Subsequently, survey exhibitions of her work have opened at the Contemporary Art Museum of the University of South Florida, Tampa, and at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (curated by Clive Kellner and running until 28 February 2007). A book, Berni Searle: Approach, with essays by Kellner, Laurie Ann Farrell and Gabeba Baderoon, was published to coincide with the three exhibitions. Night Fall, to which this new stills series is related, places Searle on top of a huge mound of grape skins discarded during the process of making wine. On one screen she lies on her side with grape skins steadily pouring onto her from a funnel above; on another she first floats above the mountain in a pristine white dress, then tumbles dangerously down its side, her dress becoming increasingly stained with purple juices. The piece reflects tangentially on the troubled, exploitative history of wine-making in the Western Cape, but is equally a quiet and profound meditation on the relationship between the body and landscape. As is the case with all Searleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent video works, the effect is surreal, liminal, the events taking place at the edges of our perception and imagination. In addition to her solo shows, in the past year Searle has exhibited on Venice-Istanbul, a selection of work from the last Venice Biennale at Istanbul Modern; Photography, Video, Mixed Media III at DaimlerChrysler in Berlin; and 2006 Contemporary Commonwealth at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, among other shows. Upcoming exhibitions include Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, and The Eye Screen or The New Image at Casino Luxembourg â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Forum of Contemporary Art.

deBORAH POyNTON b. 1970 Diptych 2006 Oil on canvas Two panels, 150 x 250cm each Right: detail

Poynton resists the viewer’s desire for a resolved narrative in her paintings. The situations she sets up provoke questions and ask for explanations: who are these people, where are they and why are they there? Her stance is ambiguous, and the paintings’ titles do not satisfy our desire for information. They may allude to the vulnerability and dislocation that appear throughout her work but increasingly they are matter-of-fact, as in Diptych. Perhaps this is because the imagery evolves as the work progresses; it is not preconceived from the beginning. Poynton notes: ‘The way paintings happen is just like how life happens. You plunge in with something, following on from an idea. You must take care not to kill the idea by going too far too soon. There are gratifying coincidences. Trust is required. You think you are making choices, usually because you don’t want to go in certain directions. You feel fearful, shameful, bored, hopeful. You do things because you have to, because one thing follows another, because time goes by. You envision consequences. When you look back, it’s all different to what you thought it was at the time.’ In January/February 2006 Poynton held her third solo exhibition at Michael Stevenson, which comprised a series of four paintings, each 2 x 6m. In July 2006 Poynton undertook a residency at Mikael Andersen’s studio house outside Copenhagen, and a large triptych was included in a three-person show at his gallery in August. Her next solo show is scheduled for June 2007 at Warren Siebrits in Johannesburg.

ZANele mUHOlI b. 197 Martin Machapa 2006 Lambda print 100 x 76.5cm Edition of 5 Black Beulah Too Beulahs 2006 Lambda prints 76.5 x 100cm each Edition of 5 each

Muholi’s solo exhibition Only half the picture, which showed at Michael Stevenson in April 2006 (and was co-published in book form by Michael Stevenson and STE), has subsequently travelled to the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg and the Afrovibes Festival in Amsterdam. Also in 2006 Muholi showed at the Vienna Kunsthalle project space, and group exhibitions included Olvida Quien Soy – Erase me from who I am at the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Second to None at the Iziko South African National Gallery. Her work will be included in an upcoming exhibition of contemporary South African photography at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK) in Berlin in January 2007. She was the winner of the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2005 and received the first BHP Billiton/Wits University Visual Arts Fellowship in the latter half of 2006. Her work is included in Vitamin Ph, recently published by Phaidon. Since Only half the picture, Muholi has been working simultaneously on a number of series including portraits of black lesbian families that refute the stereotype of the nuclear family, and portraits of gay boys and dykes that confront our notions of gender classification. A performative thread has always run through Muholi’s imagery, and these portraits, taken recently in Johannesburg, celebrate sexuality and momentarily set aside the judgmental attitudes toward gay and lesbian life that continue to prevail in South Africa (and Africa).

SAmSON mUdZUNgA b. 19 ‘Fundudzi in Honolulu Hawaii’ 2006 Wood, cowhide, fabric, paint, polish, wheels 331 x 63 x 82cm ‘Mmbe Ngwa Venda’ 2006 Wood, cowhide, fabric, paint, polish, wheels 205 x 80 x 75cm

Mudzunga lives in the Nzhelele valley in Venda, a region in the northern part of the Limpopo Province. Once or twice a year he undertakes a performance to send a completed drum into the world, and his drums and performances over the past decade have become increasingly elaborate. Usually, after his ‘burial’ inside the drum and reappearance in different attire, a huge feast commences, organised by his wife Dorcas. Mudzunga transgresses conventional conceptions of contemporary art practice. He shifts effortlessly between urban white-cube gallery spaces and the rural landscape of Venda, each of which has its own distinct, and different, expectations, values and practices. He is a provocation to his Venda community because he undermines and subverts their traditional customs, yet he also challenges the self-referential western art world to question its assumptions about the making and exhibiting of art as well as performance. He co-opts figures in the art world – art historians, curators, critics, dealers, collectors, museum directors – to support and realise his work, and resists classification as either an artist with pronounced tribal or ethnic associations or a conventional art school trained artist. Muzdunga exhibited for the first time in 1988, at the age of 50, when he showed his figurative sculptures in Johannesburg. His ever-larger drums, in ever-more imaginative forms distinctly unlike those of the traditional Venda drums, started evolving in the mid-1990s, and he presented his first performance in 1996. In 2006 Mudzunga held a solo show at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York (see catalogue no 20, published by Michael Stevenson). He performed at Jack Shainman and at the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, where the group exhibition Personal Affects: Power and poetics in contemporary South African art opened in February. In the latter performance, Mudzunga’s ‘burial and rebirth’ were followed by his diving into a pool on the grounds of the museum – a reference to Lake Fundudzi. The shark drum, ‘Fundudzi in Honolulu, Hawaii’, was made in response to this visit, and featured in an episode of the television documentary series Headwrap for which Mudzunga collaborated with Nicholas Hlobo.

Stills from SABC1â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Headwrap episode featuring Samson Mudzunga, Nicholas Hlobo and the shark drum

dAvId gOldBlATT b. 19 0 On the farm Rooinek, Seweweekpoort, Western Cape. 18 February 2006 Remains of long-drop lavatories built for the ‘closer settlement camp’ of Frankfort, Eastern Cape. The 5000 members of the black farming community of Mgwali were to have been forcibly removed and resettled here after their land was declared a ‘black spot’ by the apartheid government in 1983. However, the people of Mgwali resisted strongly and in 1986 the removal scheme was dropped. The lavatories were gradually stripped of their usable building materials by people in the area and all that is left now are concrete bases over some 1500 anatomically shaped holes in the veld. 22 February 2006

Goldblatt is the recipient of the 2006 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. An exhibition of his work, curated and organised by the Hasselblad Center, opened in conjunction with the award ceremony in Göteborg, Sweden, in late November 2006. He was also a festival artist at the Rencontres d’Arles in France in July with an exhibition curated by fellow photographer Martin Parr, who also edited a new book on his work (David Goldblatt: Photographs, Contrasto, Rome, 2006). Goldblatt exhibited Some Afrikaners Revisited at Michael Stevenson in October/November 2006, and a new book of this series will be published soon (Umuzi, Cape Town, 2007). Goldblatt’s colour photographs are an ongoing exploration of the intersections between people, values and land in post-apartheid South Africa. He first published works from this series as Intersections (Prestel, Munich, 2005) and a selection of more recent colour images appears in the book accompanying the Hasselblad Award (David Goldblatt, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2006). In these photographs Goldblatt focuses on the expansive South African landscape, often incorporating elements that remind us of the lingering idiocies of apartheid and the ironies of the new South Africa. Two recent photographs included in this catalogue – Remains of long-drop lavatories built for the ‘closer settlement camp’ of Frankfort, Eastern Cape ... and Remains of children’s households in a game called onopopi … – reflect on the failed social engineering of apartheid and the waste of ill-considered schemes. Nature and man slowly erode the edifices built in places where people refused to live, and the remains are sad and elegiac. In On the farm Rooinek, Seweweekpoort, Western Cape …, Goldblatt looks at our intervention and settlement in an arid landscape of the greater Karoo. A roughly made square stock enclosure, a long-drop and patches of green fields remind us of the harsh and precarious existence that constitutes life in this extreme landscape.

Pages 38-39

Remains of children’s households in a game called onopopi, and the shells of incomplete houses in a housing scheme that stalled. Kwezinaledi, Lady Grey, Eastern Cape. 5 August 2006

A scaled-down replica of Krugersdorp’s Paardekraal Monument which commemorates the rising of the Boers against the annexation of the South African Republic by Britain in 1877, given by Krugersdorp to Graaff-Reinet on the occasion of that town’s 200th anniversary; and figures from children’s stories celebrating Christmas. In the time of AIDS. Graaff-Reinet, Eastern Cape. 15 January 2006

Pigment ink on cotton rag paper 112 x 138cm each Edition of 10 each

Pigment ink on cotton rag paper Diptych, 112 x 138cm each Edition of 10

ANTON KANNemeyeR b. 19 7 Alphabet of Democracy 2005-6 27 pieces Mixed media on paper, framed Various dimensions

Kannemeyer, along with Conrad Botes, has been at the forefront of introducing a comic and satirical aesthetic to South African art. They were the co-founders and are the ongoing co-editors of the Bitterkomix series, which started in 1992 and has become revered for its subversive stance and dark humour. The gallery recently hosted the launch of The Big Bad Bitterkomix Handbook (Jacana, Johannesburg, 2006) which offers an overview of the past 15 years of the series and of the artists’ works. Kannemeyer completed an MFA at the University of Stellenbosch in 1997 and lectured there periodically until recently. During 2006 he undertook a residency at Art Omi in New York. His work has been exhibited extensively in South Africa and internationally, and is included on the current exhibition, Africa Comics, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. The artist has been working on the Alphabet of Democracy for the past year, and this is the first time the full A to Z has been exhibited (although different versions of letters will continue to be added). In this series Kannemeyer subverts the narrative, history and myth of the ‘rainbow nation’ with acute humour and critique. A is for Aids B IS VIR BOKKE! C is for Complaining D is for dancing ministers E Electro-man says: Live better electrically F is for (crying) Farmer G is for God H is vir Hansie I is for INNOCENT! (I’m innocent!) J is for Jack Russell (lying with dead farmer) K is for Kissing L is for Leader M is for Mugabe N is for nincompoop O is for Orlando Pirates P is for Premier Morkel Q is for Qantas R is for rainbow nation S is for suicide T “Tjorts, manne, hier gaan hy!” U is for unexpected growth in the property market V is for victim of vigilante justice [two pieces] W is for wet-bag suffocation technique X is for xenophobia Y is for yobs Z is not for Zuma, but for Zapiro

gUy TIllIm b. 19 Jean-Pierre Bemba, surrounded by his bodyguards, walks into an election rally in central Kinshasa, July 2006 Archival pigment ink on 300g cotton paper 91 x 133 cm, edition of 5 + 2 AP 72 x 49.5 cm, edition of 8 + 1 AP Mai Mai militia in training near Beni, eastern DRC, for immediate deployment with the APC (Armée Populaire du Congo), the army of the RCD-KIS-ML, December 2002: Portraits I – XVI Archival pigment ink on 300g coated cotton paper 85.5 x 59cm each Edition of 5 each

Tillim has been photographing in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire) over the past decade. He returned there in July/August 2006 on the occasion of the country’s first democratic elections and sought to photograph the spaces around the historic event rather than the narrative of the elections. There were 33 presidential candidates, and some 3 400 candidates came forth to contest the 500 seats in the house of assembly, 800 on the ballot in Kinshasa alone. The ballot was an amazing six-page poster-size document with pen pictures of all the candidates that were hard to recognise. Ultimately Tillim produced a series of quiet single images of Kinshasa at the time of the elections, some climactic crowd scenes, and a series of diptychs of candidates in their houses paired with scenes of the streets outside. The Congo Democratic series treads the fine and teasing line surrounding images that at a first glance resemble reportage but on a closer look ‘reach eternity through the moment’, to use a well-worn phrase of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Recently Tillim revisited the contact sheets of his travels in the eastern Congo in 2002 and came across the series of child soldiers, Mai Mai militia in training near Beni ..., which he had previously overlooked. He included a different series of eight portraits of young Mai Mai militia taken outdoors in his exhibition and book Leopold and Mobutu (2004), a poignant reflection on the sad similarities between the colonial powers and the African dictators empowered by them. At the time he photographed the child soldiers they were not being used as a traditional defence militia but were being drafted into one of the rebel factions in the battle for the mineral riches of east Congo. Tillim has just been awarded the first Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography by the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. In recent months, his work has been exhibited at the São Paulo Bienal (where the Congo Democratic series was first shown); on the exhibition SLUM: Art and life in the here and now of the civil age, curated by Peter Weibel at the Neue Galerie in Graz; and on Photography, Video, Mixed Media III at the DaimlerChrysler Gallery in Berlin. His Petros Village series was exhibited at Michael Stevenson in May 2006 and concurrently at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome, as part of the Rome Photo Festival 2006. He has solo shows of the Congo Democratic series scheduled for early 2007 at Extraspazio in Rome and the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. His work is included in Vitamin Ph (Phaidon, London, 2006).

PIeTeR HUgO b. 197 Morris Toe, Monrovia, Liberia, 2006 Archaebor Kerkula, Monrovia, Liberia, 2006 Mohamed Bah, Monrovia, Liberia, 2006, II Dorwan Zagban, Monrovia, Liberia, 2006 Maxwell Dorbor, Monrovia, Liberia, 2006 Archival pigment ink on cotton rag paper 112 x 112cm each Edition of 5 + 1 AP each

Hugo’s photographs of Boy Scouts in Monrovia, Liberia, form part of his ongoing portraits series, Presence. Throughout the series Hugo presents us with images of the unexpected, capturing the seemingly paradoxical elements that colour life in sub-Saharan Africa. Here, Boy Scouts – associated worldwide with a peaceful civil society – stand proud in Liberia, a country that has just emerged from its second civil war in less than two decades and whose previous president, Charles Taylor, is due to be tried for war crimes. In such a context, boys in uniforms would usually be child soldiers, and yet these dapper scouts are practising their motto, ‘Be prepared’, and the slogan ‘Do a good turn daily’. Their uniforms are secondhand, donated by scout groups in more affluent countries, and although they are often the wrong size and come with existing badges, they are worn with pride and honour. Hugo won first prize in the Portraits section of the 2006 World Press Photo competition for one of his ‘hyena men’ photographs, also from the Presence series. He has been named the Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art 2007, and was selected for the current São Paulo Bienal. Recent group exhibitions include ReGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow: 2005-2025 at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne and at Aperture in New York, as well as Street: Behind the Cliché at Witte de With in Rotterdam; in January 2007 his work will be included on an exhibition of contemporary South African photography at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK) in Berlin. This year he held solo exhibitions at Bertrand & Gruner in Geneva, Warren Siebrits in Johannesburg and at Michael Stevenson, and he has a show scheduled with Stephen Cohen in Los Angeles in January 2007. His book, Looking Aside, is forthcoming from Punctum (Rome, 2006).

mUSTAFA mAlUKA b. 197 What do they know! Their chips are stacked so high against us It will pay off in the end 2006 Oil on canvas 61 x 46cm each

The point of departure for Maluka is a photograph, often torn from a fashion magazine, of a person to whom he senses some immediate connection. From this beginning he proceeds to create a character, to give him or her a personality – glamorous, beautiful, sexy, cool – and to place them in contexts that buzz and pulsate. Through the process of painting, they become intimate friends, sharing secrets and fantasies. They say things to one another (and to many other people once they take on a life of their own in the world). Maluka could not paint a sitter he knew; this would constrict his imagination, limit his fantasies with the actors he is directing. He often draws an analogy between putting on a play and an exhibition – there are reasons why the word ‘show’ is used to describe both: each requires characters, actors, a set, a script, an audience and the inevitable critics … This year Maluka was selected for the São Paulo Bienal. He participated in the residency programme hosted by Glenfiddich in northern Scotland, and his work was included on a three-person show at Mikael Andersen Gallery in Copenhagen. His second solo show at Michael Stevenson is scheduled for February/March 2007.

NICHOlAS HlOBO b. 197 Yiphathe ngembambo 2006 Rubber inner tube, ribbon on paper 71 x 99cm Ntywilela ngaphantsi 2006 Rubber inner tube, ribbon, wooden base with wheels, leather harness, wrist and ankle cuffs 146 x 105 x 280cm; installation dimensions variable Untitled 2006 Rubber inner tube, ribbon on paper 71 x 99cm Proposal 2006 Rubber inner tube, thread on paper 71 x 99cm

Hlobo has built up a distinctive body of work that engages the viewer in conversations about sexuality, masculinity, ethnicity and his heritage as a South African. To these ends he harnesses the associative potential of materials such as rubber inner tubing, leather, ribbons and soap, and adopts techniques often regarded as ‘women’s work’ including sewing and weaving. In the wall piece Proposal Hlobo playfully subverts the traditional roles assigned to genders through reference to the Zulu beaded ‘love letters’ made by young women to communicate their desires to unmarried men within the codes of a symbolic language. He frequently employs Xhosa idioms and phrases to draw attention to things that ‘people find embarrassing in society’, and the work titled Yiphathe ngembambo, ‘carry it in your chest’, implies this ‘feeling of keeping something behind closed doors’. As Hlobo say, ‘the body is like a closet, a cupboard … It is a holy place yet also a filthy place, and we choose to open our closets for people to know what resides inside.’ Like Igqirha lendlela, the work presented on last year’s season exhibition, Ntywilela ngaphantsi makes manifest ‘the baggage we carry around with us as South Africans’. The work began as a sculpture and, Hlobo says, ‘grew into something I didn’t intend’ – a performance in which the artist dons an S&M-style leather harness and cuffs and drags the sculpture behind him ‘like a horse would pull a cart’. The title means ‘to dive into the water, but also below, underneath, the private parts’ – a playful sexual reference that at the same time warns of the danger of domination as ‘the baggage becomes your master’. Hlobo held his first solo exhibition, Izele, at Michael Stevenson in August/September 2006, and has his second scheduled with Extraspazio in Rome in mid-2007. He has been awarded an Ampersand Fellowship in New York in 2007, and received the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2006 and a Thami Mnyele Foundation residency in Amsterdam in 2005. Group exhibitions in 2006 included Second to None at the Iziko South African National Gallery and Olvida Quien Soy – Erase me from who I am at the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

HylTON Nel b. 1941 A girl in nine parts 2006 9 glazed ceramic bowls Diameter 26cm each

Nel is amused by the idea of a main course served on this set of plates. Guests can choose to eat off the girl’s pink shoes or her sexy short pants, a leg or a breast, the hand holding flowers or the hand holding a shuttlecock, or ‘her face which looks a bit like Brooke Shields’. Alternatively the set can be displayed in its parts on a wall. In the past year Nel’s work was included on Table Manners: Contemporary international ceramics at the Crafts Council Gallery in London and To Hold, curated by Peter Ting, at the Farmleigh Gallery in Dublin. An exhibition of his recent work is on view at Michael Stevenson concurrent to this season show.

Catalogue no 23 December 2006 Written by Michael Stevenson and Sophie Perryer Photography by Kathy Skead Image repro by Ray du Toit Printed by Hansa Print

MICHAEL STEVENSON www.michaelstevenson.com