IZIKO SA NATIONAL GALLERY
Government Avenue, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001
www.iziko.org.za
Tribute: Until 31/03/2021
Tribute is an active display where learners and teachers can interact with artworks especially chosen to support their classroom practice. All artworks on show are selected from the Iziko South African National Gallery’s Permanent Collection. Interaction with the original works stimulates a dynamic learning situation in which learners are able to find parallels with their own lives and locate themselves within the trajectory of South African (art) history. Tribute aims to facilitate an active engagement between artists, art educators, art historians and curators, with the aim of stimulating learning, respect, enjoyment and fresh visual expression.
Drawing From The Collection: Until 20/09/2020
Drawing from the Collection showcases the variety of drawings and works on paper from the Permanent Collection of Iziko South African National Gallery (ISANG). Comprising an eclectic number of unknown and prominent visual artists working in different styles, the show stretches across history and countries to provide an overview of drawing as a medium. Since the dawn of time, drawing has been and still is a vital and central component of visual art.
The exhibition aims to show the strengths and qualities of paper as the medium, comprising of charcoal, watercolours, pen and pencil drawings. It demonstrates the open nature and complexity of the often overlooked and undervalued medium of drawing, which is often regarded as a form of draft rather than a fully realised work. In many ways, drawing offers an undiluted and immediate form of expression, most effective for representing an artist’s ideas.
HENTIE VAN DER MERWE (b.1972, South African) Pegasus 2003 Red watercolour paint on paper Acc. No: 2008/45
Matereality: Until 02/08/2020
Matereality presents a survey of emerging and established artists in the 21st century who use particular media in deliberate, surprising and innovative ways. While focused primarily on South African art, it also highlights some examples from the rest of the continent.
A work of art can never be separated from its physical material and this inescapable truth has been subject to investigation for a long time. Contemporary artists are continuing this exploration in new, exciting and, often, urgent ways that lend insight into their reality, and, in turn, challenge traditional notions around what materials are suited to art-making.
In a time of mass production and consumption, mixed media artists are the ultimate recyclers, living in a world of endless art supplies and possibilities. The works in this exhibition will give a sense of some of the approaches explored. Some artists employ industrial materials and methods, while others adopt craft skills, or put throwaway consumer products to new uses. In other cases, artists use the more traditional materials in pioneering ways.
Matereality unpacks how artists have used materials, whether directly or indirectly, to raise questions about larger societal concerns. The exhibition depicts, among many realities, climate and environmental issues, consumerism, technology, globalisation, xenophobia, migration, religion, beauty, gender, sexuality, and politics. In an increasingly digitised world, honouring the materiality and physicality of a work is also a return to the tangible and real.
The imaginative use of materials reminds us that in a time of increasing ecological challenges and decreasing resources, it is even more important than ever for us to reimagine and re-contextualise the material world around us.
