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The Johannesburg
Art Gallery
and the Goodman Project Space are each hosting part of an exhibition by local
and international artists that explores identity and difference.
THE context of the xenophobic violence that swept across Johannesburg last year and
the ripple effects of the world economic crisis are explored in a new
exhibition of works by young local and international artists.
From a Cape Town collective called the Gugulective
Called Us, meaning "we", and comprising new work, the show
came about through a conversation about the artists' diverse contexts and with each
other around the complexities of difference and belonging. It seeks to find out
how the substance contained in "us" is often less fixed than is constantly shifting,
fluid, unstable.
"They [the artists] won't represent or portray this violence
directly. Rather the works explore various notions of group identity and
difference, more through how one's self-image develops in relationship of
belonging to a group," explains Bettina Malcomess, a writer and artist, and a
curator of the show.
The aim of the exhibition, she says, is to bring young and
more experienced artists together to make works that respond to the question of
group identity in contemporary society, where belonging and identity are often
such difficult questions and are constantly in transition.
Us will open with a selection of new performance work,
sculptural installations, paintings, photography and a video, each exploring a
point of view "as unique as the show's many us's".
It takes place at two different venues - the Johannesburg
Art Gallery (JAG) and at Goodman Project Space, at Arts on Main.
It opens at the JAG on Sunday, 20 September at 4pm, and Saturday, 26 September
at the Goodman Project Space at noon.
There will be a series of walkabouts and a discussion of the
show by curators Malcomess and Simon Njami, the founding editor of Revue Noir
and curator of Africa Remix. The first walkabout is on 26 September from 11am
to noon and the second is on 11 October from 2pm to 3pm; both are at the JAG.
The discussion is at the Goethe Institute Project Space, also
at Arts on Main, at 2pm on 26 September. It is
followed by a walkabout at the Goodman Project Space from 4pm to 5pm with
Malcomess and artists, with the performance work from the opening night by Zen
Marie and Donna Kukama.
Exhibiting local artists come from Johannesburg,
Durban and Cape Town;
international artists are from Cameroon,
France and Switzerland.
They include a Cape Town
collective called the Gugulective, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Donna Kukama, Mikhael
Subotzky, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Bili Bidjoka, Laurence Bonvin, Dunjia Herzog,
Andrew Putter, Themba Shibase, Kudzanai Chiurai, Zen Marie and Bridget Baker, among
others.
The JAG exhibition is supported by the Goethe Institute and Prohelvetzia;
and the Goodman Gallery Project Space exhibition is supported by the Goodman
Gallery.
The Johannesburg Art Gallery
is in Klein Street,
on the corner of King George
Street, in Joubert Park.
Arts on Main is a collection of spaces on the corner of Main and Berea streets in the CBD, on the
eastern edge of Jewel
City.
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