Joburg’s best bookshops My favourite of all is Boekehuis: Boekehuis, corner Lothbury Road and Fawley Avenue, Auckland Park, 011 482 3609, Mondays to Saturdays 9am-6pm In addition to its wide range of Afrikaans books, the discerning reader can find books which cover topics from cultural studies to history to literature, and much more besides. Boekehuis […]
Read More »ONLY IN SOUTH AFRICA ….. I have a school friend called Carol who has lived out of the country since the mid 1970s but has returned often since the 1990s. Recently her mother died. She had been living at a frail care facility down on the southern Cape coast and had been looked after with […]
Read More »Kippie Moeketsi by Guy du Toit and Egon Tania A bronze sculpture of a lone man seated on a chair and holding his precious saxophone, was unveiled on 25th September. Located outside the ‘original’ Kippies Jazz club in Newtown, and designed by Guy Du Toit and Egon Tania, a second empty chair encourages the spectator […]
Read More »GRAHAMSTOWN ARTS FESTIVAL 2010 Project 2010 [Issue 157] reports: ‘National Arts Festival organisers are in the throes of putting together a massive programme to coincide with the 2010 World Cup. The Herald reports that the 2010 festival in Grahamstown has been extended to 15 days from the normal 10 and the hopes are that soccer […]
Read More »ALEXIS PRELLER RETROSPECTIVE Don’t miss the major retrospective exhibition of Alexis Preller’s work which opened last night at the Standard Bank Gallery in Joburg CBD. Attended by several hundred people, the exhibition was opened by Esme Berman, well-known researcher on South African art, who co-curated the exhibition with Karel Nel (artist, curator, collector and teacher). Some 60 works […]
Read More »ALEXANDRA TOWNSHIP Alexandra Township, commonly known as Alex is a mere 4 km from the heart of the wealthy CBD of Sandton. Home to some 350-400,000 people it covers an area of about 28 square km. (Compare this to Soweto’s +/- 150 sq kms and ca 1.7 million people.) Present day Alex is divided roughly […]
Read More »TRADITIONAL BEADED CLOTHS FROM LIMPOPO PROVINCE I have had the privilege of being provided with beautifully handcrafted cloths, intricately decorated with beads and safety pins to sell to guests. Through a guest staying here at the guest house I met up again with Mbhanyele Jameson Maluleke, whom I had first met whilst I was still at […]
Read More »WALTER SISULU BOTANICAL GARDENS Yes we are spoilt. South Africa faces so many challenges, challenges with which both locals and the rest of the world are ALL too familiar. However a day like this last Sunday makes up for a lot. In the spring, SAPPI a very large paper making public company, generously sponsors concerts […]
Read More »The ‘house with the sewing machine’: Lilian Ngoyi’s house in Soweto Kim Miller, assistant professor of women’s studies and art history at Wheaton College in the States, is currently researching visual representations of women political activists in South Africa both during and after the struggle against apartheid. When in Johannesburg on her research trips, Kim […]
Read More »KIM SACKS GALLERY Kim Sacks, who is a potter, a teacher, a facilitator and much more besides, has developed a gallery which sells a range of exquisite artefacts. These range from historical to contemporary, and include functional objects used in a traditional context (milk gourds, head rests, stools, sticks, clothing regalia, etc.) and objects like […]
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