Wednesday night was one of those: twenty different openings but very little fun. Well three to be precise. We started at Bell-Roberts to get some of that fine fine Lourensford wine, which for some reason they've been stocking lately, and discovered some art inside. It turned out to be a series of paintings called Detached, by Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, an artist from PE. It was kind of hard work, as I couldn't really squeeze out a theme, except some vague, tame urban issues (poor people, abused people). And also, even though the work had a bright graphic beauty, the painting itself was pretty shallow and clumsy. Maybe that's just what you get when you use acrylic. There was a good dose of bizarre humour, such as a man with a little dummy peepee, and a goat sucking a woman's breast, but it wasn't enough to keep me inside. I then had an argument with my girlfriend if the woman we had passed was Eris Silke, without realising she had come back outside and was standing behind me.


A quick run past Erdmann, but a long and boring speech was under construction, so onwards to blank, to see Gabi Ncgobo's Unwel’olude. Another show which left me a little conflicted. I liked the hair, which was used to form these very strong iconic images, a Pierneef (the centre piece), as well a bible, a gun, a bottle of Johnny Black and a penis. All which made niceish metaphors and questions(a hairy Pierneef? What does it mean to make a Pierneef out of black people's hair? Are we replacing the people in this picture bare of any humanity? A hairy revolver? What does this mean? etc). Until, on the third wall, there was three hairy ties, on glitter backgrounds. Qua? It stopped making sense, why those particular materials were being used. The hair is a good tactile material, but at what point does it become a signature style, bald of real significance.

Labels: Bell-Roberts, Blank, Gabi Ngcobo, Mxolisi Sapeta