Writing Art History Since 2002
A throw of the dice will never abolish hazard, Mallarme remarked. A game of chance cannot override chaos. Portrait of Mongezi Ncaphayi. Photographer: David Altman This conclusion, which will surely irk those in love with fixed …
Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher who threw himself out of his apartment window, reminds us that we cannot judge a life by how it ends. Similarly, one cannot read a life solely through how it …
In 2021, at the Nirox Foundation – located at ‘The Cradle of Humankind’ in South Africa – we see the manifestation of a global counter-intuitive project. Pitted against perversity, in search of tomorrow’s health today, …
Only Connect! Ashraf Jamal reflects on monumental sculpture exhibition at Nirox Read Article
The title of Serge Attukwei Clottey’s recent solo show – ‘Beyond Skin’ – at the newly opened Simchowitz Gallery in LA, is baffling. Whether it is smart or merely provocative is hard to tell, especially …
Beyond Skin? Ashraf Jamal reflects on Serge Attukwei Clottey’s recent solo Read Article
Roos’ pieces reflect on Africa’s historical co-dependence on global superpowers and how histories are constructed and written in our emerging inter-connected world cultures. ‘The East is a career, Benjamin Disraeli declared. An imperialistic vision, it …
The East is a Career: Ashraf Jamal explores the work of artist, Nicola Roos Read Article
Juan Stockenstroom is no Jean-Michel Basquiat wannabe, though the comparison is unavoidable. The difference, however, lies in the way in which Stockenstroom occupies space. Basquiat arrives at the butt-end of Abstract Expressionism, in the slipstream …
A Bunch of Doughnuts: Ashraf Jamal reflects on the work of Juan Stockenstroom Read Article
The Billy Monk Collection A sexually fluid bouncer who worked in the nightclubs of Cape Town’s dock area in the 1960s, Billy Monk was able to capture the lives of people redeemed from apartheid’s scrutiny, …
Eastcoast Gold – Robyn Denny’s latest series of work on exhibition with Berman Contemporary – challenges the documentation of single narrative stories and reimagines the multifaceted history of the East African coast. “The sense …
Ekow Eshun in conversation with Ashraf Jamal Mikhael Subotzky, Traffic Light Encounter (detail), 2004. Inkjet print mounted to Diasec with frame, 60 x 60 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery. Ashraf Jamal: …
It Ain’t Where You’re From It’s Where You’re At Read Article
Pieter Hugo, Lao Nian Er, Beijing, 2015-2016. C-print, 137 x 103 cm, Edition of 7 + 2AP. Image courtesy of the artist. At the Kunstmuseum in Wolfsburg, Germany, Pieter Hugo, at 40, is presenting …
