Thanks to Lizza, for this fine review:

It's Biennale time again, and on this occasion the opening speech was a performance by Ronald Suresh Roberts of the speech he delivered at the launch of his book. His performance addressed the media war between the Press and the Party, in which Roberts sides with the Party. However, this performance was dwarfed by the scale of the current war in the actual media, which has reached new levels of ferocity over recent developments in the long story of the Minister of Health. All of which lent a perfect level of ineffectuality to the Biennale project. A highlight was Roberts's talent for repartee, which was put to the test by a veritable orchestra of cell phone rings going off in the vast arsenale of Blank Projects.

As we know from reading about fifty reviews on Venice in the last month, Biennale's are bound to have their celebrity moments, and this one was no exception. Besides Roberts himself, and the illustrious Mr Lamprecht who kindly stood in for Thabo Mbeki, I was amazed to see globetrotting critic Bianca Baldi looking quite well. Then celebrity chauffeur Sue Williamson cruised up to the gallery door to whisk away the artist previously known as Hairy. Almost everyone else who was there was famous in their own way. Even Max Wolpe was there.

Thanks to the organisers' sensitivity to the observance of Ramaddan in the Bo Kaap, nothing stronger than apple juice flowed, and consequently the crowd disappeared as soon as they could, leaving lots of apple juice for next time.


Check back later today, for a review of SMAC's latest offering, and the vicious bus ride of hell.

Labels: Blank, Cape Town Biennale