Born in Swaziland in 1982, Nandipha Mntambo graduated with a Masters in Fine Art (with distinction) from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in June 2007. In 2005 she was the recipient of the Brett Kebble Art Awards Curatorial Fellowship, and in 2006 she was one of five young artists selected for the MTN New Contemporaries exhibition curated by Khwezi Gule at Johannesburg Art Gallery. Recent group exhibitions include Beauty and Pleasure in South African Contemporary Art at the Stenersen Museum, Oslo (2009); .za: giovane arte dal Sudafrica, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena (2008); Apartheid: The South African Mirror at the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona (2008); and Olvida Quien Soy - Erase me from who I am at the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas (2007).
Titled Umphatsi Wempi – loosely translated as ‘the general charged with overseeing a battle’ – the exhibition comprises several new sculptural works as well as video, photography and drawing.
Central to this body of work is the concept of the boundary, particularly as something that constantly shifts and mutates, that is never fixed or static. The boundary between corporeal awareness and revulsion is explored through the artist’s use of raw cowhides, tails and ears, which are cured and sculpted. In Penis Vagina – One-Man Capsule (2009), the boundary between the need to fight and the need for protection is also apparent. Like Mntambo’s earlier piece uMcedo (2009), this work offers a space that one may enter for protection and perhaps preparation, only to emerge when one is read...
Michael Stevenson is pleased to present Disguise: The art of attracting and deflecting attention. The exhibition will mark the opening of the gallery's new premises in Woodstock, Cape Town, on Thursday 15 May, and the gallery's fifth birthday celebrations.
In popular culture, the archetypal disguise is Superman's pair of glasses, which turn him into Clark Kent. This particular case reveals something: often that which is disguised is hidden in plain view. Everyone familiar with the movies or comic strips has wondered, at some point, why Lois Lane does not recognise that her two love interests are one and the same.
The implications of outward appearance are amplified in the case of Africa and its diaspora because of the historical significance of skin colour. Perhaps as a result, there is a profound engagement with d...