In 1986, South Africa was still eight years away from the end of apartheid, and though opposition to the racist ruling system had been mounting for decades, the government continued to suppress rebels and dissidents. Yet that same year, the exiled Afrikaner writer and artist Breyten Breytenbach, a vocal critic of apartheid, returned to South Africa to accept a literary award. It was his first visit to his homeland after being granted early release from a nine-year sentence there on charges of terrorism.
South Africa
Posted inOpinion
Why Grammar Matters in Street Art
Street artist Above intended to make a strong anti-blood diamond statement with a mural on the facade of Johannesburg’s largest diamond exporter but it just sounds sexist.
Posted inArt
District 9 Movie Prop As African Fetish Object
MIAMI — With all the visual overload and glimpses between suited shoulders it’s hard to find something that resonates amongst the Lego blocks of art fair booths at the main fair of Art Basel Miami Beach. With over 260 galleries and over 2,000 artists of which I probably saw half and absorbed a twentieth, it feels like an accomplishment to come away with an artwork that truly resonates days after.
Posted inNews
World’s Oldest “Artist Studio” Discovered in South Africa
An exciting find in Blombos Cave east of Cape Town, South Africa, is believed to be the world’s oldest art studio.
Posted inArt
White Male Artists Get Introspective in South Africa
When Apartheid was abolished in 1991, probably the worst thing to be symbolically in South Africa at the time was a white male, as it embodied everything associated with being the oppressor. With the abolishment of Apartheid came a number of important more subtle shifts.
Posted inArt
Art From The Developing World: A Bargain Basement?
Artists who live and make work in regions that have little to no art infrastructure often have the freedom to be creative, experimental and reactive without the boundaries that accompany exhibiting work in formal spaces. But there’s also a significant divide between achieving a sustainable art career at home and reaching the point of exhibiting and selling one’s work in the global art market.
Posted inBooks
Contemporary History Through Prints
The goal of MoMA’s Print & Illustrated Book department’s latest show entitled Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now, is simple: to explore how various printmaking techniques have been used in South African art since the 1960s, when the museum first began collecting African art.
Posted inArt
Failing Better: William Kentridge’s Drawing Lessons
William Kentridge was a failure. By his own account, the South African artist racked up a long list of impressive defeats before succeeding as a draftsman and animator. Before the opening of his current retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art Kentridge gave a lecture on “Drawing Lessons” at the New York Studio School.
Posted inNews
Oldest Graphic Design Found, Islamic in Detroit, Mexican in LA
… P.S.1’s Brooklyn is Burning event gets out of control last weekend … #class gets invited to Pulse … a HUGE statue of Amenhotep III is discovered in Luxor, Egypt … Milan Fashion Week includes protestors peeved at Anna Wintour’s quick ditch.
