'Twas a busy week last week. Plenty of shows on, plus I'm making progress on the Relaunch of ArtHeat (keep your eyes open for that in the coming month: Big Party in the works). This is keeping my brain in a mush-like state, hence the general round-up.

In news, James Webb won ABSA l'Atelier, although it has been almost impossible to find this out. Very quiet web presence. Congratulations to him, though. I liked the Auto-hagiography work. The Gerard Sekoto prize went to Retha Ferguson, and I cannot find the winning work on-line. Or again, much presence at all.

Maybe next year, South Africa will have grown some black artists.

Monday saw the opening of Scratching the Surface Vol 1, at the AVA. Independently curated shows make me happy, and the quality of the last two shows at AVA show this well, Baring by Eunice Geustyn was good (not reviewed here owing to aforementioned mush), and this one by Gabi Ngcobo and Mwenya Kabwe of manje-manje projects, was complex and interesting, and at times frustrating and bleak. Good ingredients. I'm writing a full review elsewhere, so I can't say too much more, so here is a review by Miles Keylock.

Tuesday featured Rowan Smith's Future Shock Lost at Whatiftheworld. Think Arcade Fire's Neighbourhood #2 (Laika), but less whiny. A must see show. Again, I can't say too much more at this stage: the downside of being a rock star.

I dropped by the Bell-Roberts to catch the tail-end of their inaugural show, Between Meaning and Matter. Being a mostly oooh-look-who-we-got-in-our-stable-show, the title was on spot: it didn't mean much nor matter much. There was some really delicate sculptures by Philippe Bousquet, nice and unmonumental, and a funny video by Fahamu Pecou. My only regret is that I appeared to have missed a video by Jaques Coetzer, whose work I enjoy.

Labels: ava, Bell-Roberts, Gabi Ngcobo, mwenya kabwe, rowan smith, south african art, What if the world