“A living legacy”, curated by Bongi Bengu and Nathi Gumede

Exhibition title: “a living legacy”
Exhibition venue: Kizo Art Gallery (Upstairs Gallery)
Exhibition launch date: 1 September 2008 at 6:30P.M.
Exhibition closes: 30 September 2008
Artist names: Sam Nhlengethwa, David Koloane, Pat Mautloa, Helen Sebidi, Dinkies Sithole, Nontobeko Ntombela, Johan Thom, Colbert Mashile, Themba Shibase, Sharlene Khan, Sifiso KaMkame, Gabi Nkosi, Esther Mahlangu and others

A living legacy is the biggest and significant curated heritage exhibition in KZN. The exhibition is part of a larger heritage festival under the hospices of Kizo Art Gallery with a title “Umgido, KZN Heritage festival”.

The exhibition intends to investigate the legacy and the contribution of experienced artists (deceased or alive) as to how this legacy moulds the practice today. Art as in many other industries here in South Africa is not immune to the history of this country and the project will look at the link between the practices then and how it influences the industry today.

Are artist today able to create art without the need to reference history of South Africa, i.e. apartheid and its legacy?

KZN as a province has contributed greatly to the creative industry of South Africa and an exhibition like this is appropriate for Durban as it will also investigate how many of the more established artists are still practicing in Durban and what legacy they are leaving behind.

For more information contact:
Bongi Bengu
Tel: 0826770634
Fax: (011) 8386791
Email: bongibengu@gmail.com

Dinkies Sithole: Shrine Rituals

Bag Factory Artist at the Nando's Project Room # 2

Opens: Tuesday 5 August 2008 at 6:30 pm
Closes: Sunday 13 October 2008

Dinkies Sithole is the second artist in he current incarnation of the project room now appropriately called the Nando's Project Room. Sithole is a Soweto-born artist whose work traverses painting, sculpture, performance, video and other media.

The current installation is called Shrine Rituals and comprises a series of shrines made out of discarded materials. The objects in these shrines are re-invested with energy and potency. Here the scientific conception of energy meets the more universal idea of energy as something more metaphysical. For instance, many people in South Africa don't discarding their personal affects for fear that these objects might be used to bewitch the owner. Similarly different belief systems such as Yoruba cosmology where every object has a 'life force' or "ase".

In these shrines the batteries, which are products of science, are not out of place with the miniature Buddha's, rosaries, bottles of 'umuthi' and the coloured string, often used by ZCC adherents for protection.

Sithole works bring together different beliefs both old and new, belief in science and in spirits, religion and animism. But is that not the beauty of art: that it allows for the reconciliation of these seemingly antagonistic beliefs?

Rites of Fealty/ Rites of Passage

The Bag Factory presents:

Rites of Fealty/ Rites of Passage

A one-night exhibition of performance art

Date: 18h00, Tuesday, 29 July 2008

Venue: Bag Factory Gallery, 10 Mahlatini Street, Fordsburg, Johannesburg

The Bag Factory’s About Art program presents ‘Rites of Fealty/ Rites of Passage’, a one-night exhibition of new performance artworks by a group of emerging South African artists. The exhibition follows an intensive 10-day workshop in performance art presented by Johan Thom. The workshop was structured as a non-hierarchal laboratory, with each of the artists selected for participation already having established a visible presence in the South African cultural sphere. Artists like Ismail Farouk, Anthea Moys, Kemang wa Luhere and Murray Turpin all share in a multi-disciplinary approach to artistic expression, freely mixing elements of fields as far as urban geography, digital sound sampling, video, public performance, dance and theatre into their oeuvres.

New works have been commissioned by each of the participating artists.

Artists include:

Bronwyn Lace, Nadine Hutton, Anthea Moys, Mlu Zondi, Ntando Cele, Rat Western, Ismail Farouk, Murray Turpin, Kemang wa Luhere, Dinkies, Sithole, Johan Thom

The theme ‘Rites of fealty/ Rites of passage’ stresses the transformative capacity of art where the artwork is envisioned as a rite of passage through which both artist and viewer may plot alternatives to existing modes of relating to our familiar surroundings, ordinary social interactions, physical gestures and use of language. In this way art may act as a gateway that embodies the possibility for personal and societal change through direct action and physical participation.

The workshop and exhibition is made possible by:

The Ford Foundation

The Bag Factory

Special thanks to the Nirox Foundation

The exhibition is curated by:

Johan Thom

Bronwyn Lace

Contact details:

info@bagfactoryart.org.za (email)

+27 (0)11 834 9181 (tel)