Some winter exhibitions
There are several exhibitions currently showing (or about to be opened) that are not to be missed.
Structures at JCAF until 15th November
Housed in a beautifully repurposed industrial building in ForestTown isJCAF [Johannesburg Contemporary Art Foundation] It does not own or house an art collection but mounts carefully curated annual exhibitions according to a three-year theme. The current theme is Worldmaking and Structures is the second in the trilogy of exhibitions around this theme of Worldmaking. Structures is the second in a trilogy of exhibitions around the theme of Worldmaking. The overarching theme of Worldmaking refers to the way in which we make meaning of the spaces around us through symbolic practices: symbolic practices which include words, numbers, visual images, sounds and in the case of this exhibition: Structures. Viewing the exhibition is by appointment only and slots fill up VERY fast. You can book on-line or phone +27 (0) 10 900 2204. Structures shows until 15th November. Don’t miss it. It’s an extraordinary exhibition.
Weird, Wonderful, Quirky & Peculiar at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts at WAM until 29th August
All the exhibitions at the JGCBA are breathtaking. And this exhibition, which centres on Salvador Dalí’s 1973 Dix Recettes d’Immortalité (Ten Recipes for Immortality), is no exception. In response to this work by the Dali, the famous Surrealist, the curators have chosen books that reflect the unusual, the humorous, the odd and the ironic. There are examples of asemic writing, cryptic symbols, books that can’t open, visual-verbal puns, and, as with all the JGCBA exhibitions, a variety of unconventional book forms exploring meaning through visual contradictions and delightful play.
One Million Years strikes a chord with me as I struggle to come to terms with what I think of as “overcountable” numbers. In each of the 2 volumes, year dates are printed in chronological order in 5 blocks on each page. Each block of the 5 blocks has 10 rows of 10 columns, so each block has a century of year dates making 1000 years on each double page. The first book Past (the top book in the image above) is dedicated to “all those who have lived and died” and covers the years 998,031 BC to 1969 BCE while the second book entitled Future, dedicated to “the last one”, begins at 1969 and ends with the year 1,001,992. In the current exhibition, the book at the bottom of the photograph is opened on the pages which show the dates 2001 – 3000. This means that our current year, 2025, is included on line 3 of page 2 of 2001 pages, which sure puts us in our place in this vast magnitude of time. This particularly, considering that Homo Sapiens emerged some 300,000 years ago. The 22 missing years between the two books ie 1970 to 1992, indicate the years during which Kawara conceptualized and produced the work. Another sobering period of time, for slightly different reasons!.
A few days ago, I came across another concretization of almost inconceivable figures represented by the rudimentary conversion of seconds into these larger units of time:
- One million seconds is roughly equivalent to 12 days
- One billion seconds is roughly equivalent to 23 years
- One trillion seconds is roughly 32,000 years
This makes me even more disillusioned when I read that 1.2 trillion rand is spent annually on gambling in South Africa. But I digress.
Paul Weinberg’s Between The Cracks at Wits Art Museum until 26th July
Weinberg is one of the founding members of Afrapix, the photographic collective that gave birth to the so-called “Speaking Out” generation – a group of South African photographers who, in the 1980s, made it their mission to document the brutal realities of apartheid, and to bring these images to the public both locally and internationally. The highpoint of his political photography came from February to May 1994, when he was commissioned by the Independent Electoral Commission to cover its work and document the process of South Africa’s first free elections. Love his story about how a US civil rights lawyer tried to get a photo-op with Madiba as he cast his ballot!!
While much of Weinberg’s photography documents political events, he also ranges far more broadly. He is renowned for an autobiographical journey to his hometown in Going Home (along with Santu Mofekeng) and his family roots in Dear Edward. He has worked with the San, captured local fishing around Kosi Bay and tackled issues of land, dispossession and increasing urbanization. Anton Harber noted astutely in his conversation with Weinberg at the Love Books launch of the book Between the Cracks, that in whatever context, Weinberg uses his lens to “bear witness without shouting”. In this exhibition we see rural communities, forgotten towns, portraits of individuals whose names we may never know but whose presence is compelling and poignant, a reminder of those on the margins and of the “cracks” in the dominant story of South Africa,
So take the time to wander and ponder this exhibition. In an era of instant imagery and fleeting attention, Weinberg’s work insists on duration, depth, and dignity.
Joni Brenner Impact: Origins Centre, Wits. Until 16th August
Also showing until mid August, is Joni Brenner’s Impact at the Origins Centre. As with all Brenner’s work, this exhibition is meticulously conceived, beautifully curated and conceptually dense. Joni has been drawing skulls for at least two decades – in fact Liz at Lancaster is the proud owner of a small watercolour skull by Joni. In Impact, it is the nearly 2.5–2.8 million‑year‑old Taung Child skull (Australopithecus Africanus) which is the main focus. However Joni notes: “[this body of work] is not a set of images of the Taung Child, but rather an exploration of the feelings provoked by the small skull, the enormous impact it had on the way we understand our human origins, the drama, chance and loss that underlies those scientific gains.” Impact features an exquisitely beautiful, professionally cast replica of the fossil alongside watercolours, clay and plaster sculptures, bronze skulls and a film‑based clay‑slamming performance. In broad terms these works explore themes of “fragility and survival, destruction and creation, uncertainty, loss, pressure and chance”. The exhibition runs until 16th August 2025 at the Origins Centre. There is a very interesting indepth interview with Brenner in the fabulous Johannesburg In Your Pocket
Coming Up at the Origins Centre at Wits: Isabel’s Hofmeyr’s The Secret life of Plants until 6th September
Isabel has been experimenting with ecoprinting for some time. At the end of 2024 I attended a fabulous workshop where Isabel guided us through this process of eco-printing. Eco-printing is a technique where plant material (leaves or flowers) is bundled into a cloth which is then steamed or boiled to release the plant dye, so creating a contact print on the cloth. It is a somewhat alcehmical process as, apart from the boiling and steaming in various vessels, and the transformation from one material to another, the exact outcome cannot be pre-determined. So there’s a level of wonder and excited expectancy as the result is “revealed”. But Isabel will have way more interesting insights and rigorously informed ideas when she gives her opening lecture on 26th July. This is a talk and an exhibition NOT to be missed.