In approaching Sure Thing! – a solo exhibition by Cape Town-based artist Mitchell Gilbert Messina at blank projects, I’m drawing from Lawrence Weiner’s sentiment: “The only art I’m interested in is the art I don’t understand right away. If you understand it right away it really has no use except as nostalgia.” The exhibition, which…
The rise of Velma Rossa and Oliver Asike (or Papa Petit) is Africa’s quintessential internet success story of the fashion and art world. The duo goes by the name 2manysiblings and the prosperity they’ve managed to gleam between sharing their outfits on Tumblr in 2013 and now, having featured in Vogue, styling some of the…
A sprawling metropolis flanked by two bodies of water. A costal tide sweeps in from the Gulf of Guinea while the adjacent tautological Lagos Lagoon lies far more still. Lagos Island, centered between the two, will host the second edition of the Biennial for Contemporary Arts later this month. It is set to open on…
Living and working in Detroit, Michigan, Ashley Cook received her MFA from HEAD-Genève in Switzerland. Persephone, presented by Hamtramck, is her first solo exhibition in the US after her return from Europe. Hamtramck is an artist collective that makes use of ceramics to open up multidisciplinary collaboration from their studio and gallery in Hamtramck, Michigan….
[Sara Baartman] is a grand ancestor for every black woman who has ever felt othered, degraded, hyper-visible, yet invisible. – Lebo Mashile Venus vs Modernity comes at a time where GBV (gender-based violence) has become a national and governmental concern in South Africa. Depicting the life of Sara Baartman, the play chronologically delves into the…
“Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena and Ziki long for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness…
Alka Dass is a multidisciplinary artist from Durban working with sculpture and painting. Her work acts as a reflection on personal histories as she sets out to communicate her anxiety as well as desire as a South African Indian woman and the cultural understandings and aspects attached to this identity. Her work can be understood…
Plastic pollution monsters. They’re near, Very near, In fact… They’re already here. – Luke Rudman Forests ablaze turned ashen decay. Gills smothered; scales tarred by a congealing oil spill. A gasping breath leaves lungs half-filled. On the brink of destruction – once considered scare-tactic-rhetoric, now a reality. In response to the environmental crisis, Port-Elizabeth-based artist,…
William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Casey Rae, University of Texas Press 2019 The American novelist, William Burroughs was one of the preeminent cultural outlaws of the twentieth century. He was best known for works like Junkie, Queer, The Naked Lunch, Nova Express and Cities of the Red Night, deranged…
Warther Dixon (Cait Warther and Wendy Dixon) is an artist duo based in the Bo-Kaap making site specific installations, sculptures, films and photographic prints. Individually, each of the members bring something remarkable to the table. Wendy’s toolkit comprises of strategic branding and product design while Cait’s consists of philosophy, lighting design and photography. The duo…
“We are three independent curators with a combined local and international experience of more than 20 years in the contemporary art world,” reads the press release for the inaugural UNDERLINE show. Having taken place from the 12th – 15th of September 2019, at the Museum of African Design (MOAD), UNDERLINE is a new annual curatorial…
Collective mourning, one might call it. When grief overwhelms, congeals. Beyond the incessant waves of anger are the depths of pain. A whisper once murmured reverberates into a crescendo of, femicide is a fucking reality: Uyinene Mrwetyana, Jesse Hess, Leighandre Jegels, Janika Mallo, Lynette Volschenk, Meghan Cremer and countless others buried beneath name-less statistics. In…
