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)

Invitation to Deposit Work at Joburg Art Bin

Empty Office invites collectors of local art to deposit pieces from their private collections into the Joburg Art Bin at the Bag Factory for “creative recycling” between the 18^th of July and the 1^st of August 2008.

A team of artists, in consultation with the collector depositing the work, will dismantle the work and use the physical detritus to develop proposals for public artworks to be installed in Johannesburg. The collector who deposits work will play a critical role in deciding what site the art work will be reconfigured for.

The central idea behind the project is to invite collectors to democratize their art collections by donating pieces of it to the public realm. Empty Office argues that because of the increasing commercialization of the visual arts, cultural production is essentially becoming privatized and controlled by capital. The project is radical in the sense that it asks collectors to depart with work they may treasure in order to invest in the idea of art rather than material instances of it. There are many reasons why an art collector may feel motivated to donate work to the Joburg Art Bin: they may feel that a piece is obsolescent, reached its sell-by date, that it is ideologically problematic, that it has potential to be shared with a broader community, or a collector may just be curious about what happens to piece of art that they own is dismantled by another visual artist.

We are interested in how art objects are remotivated in new contexts, specifically in how the lives of objects change as they move from the private into the public domain. In this sense, the project is neither nihilistic nor anti-aesthetic but rather celebrates the contribution that artists make to culture, by asking artists to materially intervene directly on the artworks that collectors have donated to the Joburg Art Bin.

Participate in maintaining the dynamism of contemporary culture by depositing a piece from your private collection at the Bag Factory at our opening event at 17h30, Friday the 18^th of July 2008.

Filter: An Evening of Video at The Bag

The Bag Factory presents FILTER, the results of a one-night exhibition of video art works by young South African artists including:

Lawrence Lemoana, Mary Sibanda, Shane De Lange, Jan-Henri Booyens, Lerato Shadi, Rob Steenpoorte, Rika La Grange, Eric Rantisi, Bongi Bengu & Nadine Hutton.

This event showcases the outcomes of an extensive introductory workshop in Video Art co-presented by Garreth Fradgley and Johan Thom, at the Bag Factory during November 2007.

Date: 18h00, Saturday, 1 December 2007
Venue: Bag Factory Gallery, 10 Mahlatini Street, Fordsburg Johannesburg
Contact: +27 (0)11 834 9181
Web: www.bagfactoryart.org.za
A cash bar will be available

The Bag Factory gratefully acknowledges the kind support of the Ford Foundation, The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, and
Digitalfilm (Jhb) for making the workshop and the exhibition possible.

Registration for Market Photo Workshop Closes this Month

Bag Factory Residents Exhibition and Walkabout

The Bag Factory Residency Artist's Exhibition featuring Ricky Burnett, Chike Chinazom and Anannias Dago opened on the 17th of September and was followed by an artists' walkabout on Wednesday the 19th. Both events were well attended.

Some images from the show:

David Andrew in front of a work by Chike Chinazom

Admiring Ricky Burnett's work

Detail of work by Chike Chinazom

Africa Remix: 5th and Final Panel Discussion

Museums and Exhibitions in Africa

Saturday 29th September 12pm - 2pm

Johannesburg Art Gallery

Mbongeni Buthelezi at Seippel JHB

Mbongeni Buthelezi - childhood

at Seippel Gallery Johannesburg

main exhibition hall

on Thursday 20. September 2007, 16h30 – 18h30

Duration of the exhibition

21. September 2007 – 02. February 2008

Opening hours

Tue–Fri: 12h00 – 17h00, Sat: 11h00 – 15h00,

and by appointment

+27-(0)11 40 41 421 · Cell: +(0)76 916 0157

jhb@seippel-gallery.com · www.seippel-gallery.com

William Kentridge's Magic Flute - Shadows in the Age of the Enlightenment

Prof. Jane Taylor will be giving a talk on William Kentridge’s Magic Flute for anyone wanting a quick catch-up before going to see the show. The talk is entitled William Kentridge’s Magic Flute: Shadows in the age of the Enlightenment. All welcome.

Date: Thursday, 6 September 2007

Time: 18:30

Venue: Appollonia Theatre, Wits School of Arts, East Campus

This event will also mark the launch of the new joint MA between the Wits School of Arts and the Wits School of Literature and Language Studies. The MA is designed for students with an interest in graduate study in the interdisciplinary conjunction of arts practice, literature and cultural theory.

R.S.V.P: Natalia Fiandeiro – 011 717 4613
E-mail: natalia.fiandeiro@wits.ac.za

Johannesburg Art Gallery - Digital Africa Panel Discussion

Africa Remix Artists Visit The Bag

On the 24^th of June Africa Remix, the exhibition curated by Simon Njami, opened at Johannesburg Art Gallery. The show features 137 art works by 85 artists from over 25 countries on the African continent and it’s diaspora. The show was first exhibited in 2004 at the Museum Kunst Palast, in Dusseldorf in Germany, and was considered to be the largest exhibition of contemporary African art ever seen in Europe. The exhibition then toured to the Hayward Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

The Johannesburg opening is the first time this exhibition has been shown on African soil.

As part of the opening week’s celebrations a number of the exhibiting artists who were in town and staff from the Johannesburg Art Gallery joined the Bag Factory artists for drinks, dinner and a small exhibition of recent works by the Bag Factory artists.

The Exhibition is on at the JAG until the 30^th September and a number of talks and linked events will take place during this time for more information on these please visit the Africa Remix Johannesburg site: http://www.africaremixjoburg.com/