2023/2024
2024
Jonathan Freemantle has a deeply grounded posture through which it becomes easy, almost playful, to speak about transient moments, discoveries and journeys - from magnificent summits to difficult concepts such as shame.
The artist as his artworks seem to transport a frequency; performative traces of when one stands amidst giants, balancing on uneven ground, ones own body a miniature compared to the elemental forces and the moment when the steps of ones feet and the mechanical breathing synchronise with the rhythm of nature and when one can trust that however insignificant, a part is a part.
“The beauty is that we don't really need to know who we are. We are just dancing in this kind of joyful delight” as Jonathan will say later on is one core aspect I see in his art - a practice of mark making and a composing of said transience into tangible stories.
-photographs ©Brett Rubin
2023
Nisha Merit
Yolanda Kaddu-Mulindwa
Zara Julius
Zayaan Khan
Lindiwe Mngxitama
Nolan Oswald Dennis
Tomke Braun
Kathy-Ann Tan
Mahret Ifeoma Kupka
Magnus Elias Rosengarten
2023
published in:
Lost Libraries, Burnt Archives edited by Sindi-Leigh McBride and Julia Rensing
Danielle Bowler, Nicola Brandt, Sophie Cope, Dag Henrichsen, Duane Jethro, Atiyyah Khan, Bongani Kona, Lerato Maduna, Portia Malatjie, Sindi-Leigh McBride, Nisha Merit, Santu Mofokeng, Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja, Jade Nair, Masande Ntsanga, Koleka Putuma, Julia Rensing, Lorena Rizzo, Ruth Sacks, Niren Tolsi, Eugene van der Merwe, Lady Skollie, Carine Zaayman
Lost Libraries, Burnt Archives reflects on the 2021 fire at the Jagger Library at UCT. It holds myriad questions and stories about other fires / libraries / archives / exhibitions.
2023
2023
A working group from the network engaged in an anonymised, spontaneous writing exercise as a method to express a collective thought on curatorial solidarity. The varying fonts in the text are an acknowledgment of the different temporalities in which the interventions took place, highlighting the continuous process of the conversation.
The group included Clementine Butler-Gallie (Berlin), Sofia Steinvorth (Lisbon), Kwasi Darko (Ghana), Nisha Merit (Johannesburg/Berlin), Lara Koseff (Johannesburg), Florence Devereux (London), Emmaus Kimani (Nairobi).
2022
The rural village, named after the eponymous seaport city in Germany, is steeped in colonial history. German soldiers who had been enlisted by the British to fight in the Crimean War in the nineteenth century, were instead re-routed to the Eastern Cape to create a settlement that would serve as a buffer between the Xhosa peoples and the British occupying forces. While little is left of the German settlers' legacy, its contemporary gestalt shows a conjuncture of colonial and Apartheid spatial planning, cultural influence and forced disparity and an age-old, richly symbolic Xhosa cultural landscape. (...)
Images ©Anthea Pokroy/Keiskamma Trust
2022
12th Berlin Biennale
The artist list reflects on the paradox of visibility and invisibility within the establishment such as a biennale, largely eschewing marquee names. Situated across six venues, the curatorial strategy of repetition emphasises the non-linear reading of history and its contemporary interpretation; at the same time one tends to spiral down complex concepts of colonial heritage, past and present iniquities, modernity and racism through visualised data points, the female gaze on accounts of social justice to environmental realities. “The place to which we have arrived today is not by chance: It is the result of historical formations constructed over centuries” reads its statement. (...)
-artwork details of 12th Berlin Biennale
2022
Based on this, they have produced a limited edition which drops this week! Contact them directly on instagram @magolide.co or email: magolide.co@gmail.com
“Formed in 2019 by Adilson De Oliveira (b.1998) and Mzoxolo Mayongo (b.1986), the Magolide Collective is concerned with transforming a barrage of collected reference material – historical narratives, cultural events, and academic texts – into visual renderings that incorporate performance, digital and video media, and more traditional disciplines like printmaking. The duo names this act ‘visual alchemy’, a notion related to their moniker: ‘Magolide’ is a colloquial Xhosa term describing someone with gold (teeth, chains, watches) and also references the socio-political histories of Johannesburg, a city literally built on gold – and on the labour of black migrant workers.” (...)
‘Magolide Moon Landing', Limited Edition Poster's. 2 colour screen-print on Bohem Off White 285 GSM paper, with an AR intervention
(2022). 42 x 59,4 cm's. Edition of 25.
(2022). 42 x 59,4 cm's. Edition of 25.
2021
in conversation with Salma Tuqan
onine - London & Johannesburg
A key component, the collector oscillates between a strong voice and a secret player. The first attribute that comes to mind when thinking of the collector, is having the means to do it - financially and spatially. But taking a closer look, draws a complexity full of questions and opportunities. From concepts of the custodian, philanthropist, space maker or incubator - the collector comes with many trades and varied reasons to collect. (...)
2021
Johnson Artur was born in 1964 in Bulgaria to a Ghanaian father and a Russian mother, who raised her. She was educated in Germany and now resides in the UK. Bulgaria is located at the eastern periphery to the Balkans, a satellite state to the Soviet Union before its collapse in the 1990s and became a member state of the European Union in 2007. Although the Cold War is long over, today’s Russia and the EU (by virtue of geographic proximity and shared history) are continuously negotiating their presents, power and representations through ideologies often carried out and questioned through the arts. (...)
2020
So wurde »bitte nicht rauchen« von »bitte nicht telefonieren« abgelöst. Davon mal abgesehen, tendieren Theaterbesucher*innen in eine stille Konspiration der Theateretikette zu verfallen. Ähnlich wie die Kirche oder das Museum bietet das Theater eine Lesart der Zugehörigkeit, in der die Verteilung der Rollen klar definiert ist – Grenzen mit Komfort. Passend zum Titel der Aktion »Erster Europäischer Mauerfall« war der Ausgangspunkt der Reise am 7. November 2014 das 1952 umbenannte Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, unter der Intendanz von Shermin Langhoff. (...)