I unfortunately had to miss the show at Kwa Mlami, as I had made previous plans to eat seafood: a hard toss up, but my belly won. So, I won't be able to provide any criticism of the images below (as some people are asking for). However, discussion is welcome on these hallowed pages, so if that's something you are willing to do, let's go. I'll put some thoughts in the comments section.

On the other hand, I did manage to get to the first part of the show, Upstairs Downstairs, at the AVA on Monday. My first reaction to the idea of the show was jaded horror mixed with mild cynicism: the concept of place/space in South Africa seems a battered old horse, and the idea of interventions into the Space of the white cube a well-ridden whore. I'm still in two minds as to whether this reaction was valid or not. Many of the works, by some of my favourite contemporary young Cape Town artists, were excellent. Just nothing really surprised me. And the dialogue between space (as in gallery) and Place (as in the politicised outside world) was a bit non-existent, with artists either playing to one theme or the other, not much chatting in between. The curation also seemed a little soft, which I think had something to do with the curator, Bettina Malcolmess, commissioning new works from the artists. This allowed some odd elements to slip into a strongly themed show, such as the work by Jake Aikman, Nandipha Mntambo, and Renee Holleman, all individually quite interesting but I struggled to make the mental links (I was also pleased to see Nandipha working in a new media and I'd be interested to see what comes of it). Another curatorial error was allowing Ed Young to play squash on Dan Halter's work. I'm all for interventions, and this was kinda conceptually valid and funny. The problem was that Dan got pissed and removed his work, undermining both works and leaving a corner of the gallery looking a bit silly. Grand gestures of intervention just don't work in our small space, where messy outside things like personal relationships get tied into the interpretation.

What I was really hoping to see, considering the oh around 300 years of traumatic history, was some more ball-busting politicised work. The Gugulective managed this, with their shack interior turned on it's side The Building is the Man, the fetishing of the black man is sticky territory but was turned completely upside down with their mirroring of the whole show in Guguletu. This I felt was a real examination of space and place, and something which they are getting right. The seafood however was very good.

My favourite work on the show, although marred by a silly obscure title, was Douglas Gimberg and Christian Nerf's ladder propped in the entrance of the gallery. Parked firmly in the Space intervention camp, it sprinkled bad luck on every gallery-goer pressing to get in and out. Something which we all could use a bit more of.

Labels: ava, Bettina Malcomess, Upstairs/Downstairs

I'm glad I arrived two hours early for the Guguletu leg of Upstairs/Downstairs, a group show curated by Bettina Malcomess. There was writing all over the ground, which was already being worn away by the busy traffic of artists putting up the show. The first part I read said "One has to be an artist to survive as a poor person. You have to imagine space where there is none."

The Gugulective have constantly reimagined this space, the Kwa Mlamli shebeen, as an exhibition space, and persisted in having shows here in their own neighbourhood rather than being pulled into the centre of town. The context of Guguletu has thus been successfully maintained as integral to their work.
There was a lot to see, as this show included not only 8 Gugulective members, but also a lot of the artists who participated in the town leg of the show (exhibited at the AVA).
So instead of trying to do justice to the variety of interesting stuff on show, I will just say that I thought this constituted a good moment in the art life of Cape Town. It felt like some progress had been made in communication across the divides which still fracture our society as South Africans.

Labels: Bettina Malcomess, Gugulective, Upstairs/Downstairs