June 22, 2004
By Chandrea Gerber
Andre van Vuuren at Zuva Gallery
Currently showing at Zuva are works by renowned SA painter Andre van Vuuren
Zuva Gallery, in the exclusive Melrose Arch shopping and restaurant precinct, exhibits some of the most important up-and-coming - as well as established - African and international artists in an elegant and modern environment.
The gallery is the only in South Africa to have a sister gallery in America: many of the shows open here before moving to the award-winning Zuva Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The exhibition space, one of the most elegantly designed contemporary spaces in the country, provides a platform for artists but allows them to maintain their individuality.
"My galleries in Johannesburg and Scottsdale are devoted to highlighting world-class contemporary work for the true individual and not the mass market", says Michael Obert, the Yale-educated curator and owner of the Zuva galleries.
On at the moment is 'Abstracts on Paper', a collection by Andre van Vuuren, a renowned South African painter. Van Vuuren - best known for his landscape work, which has been exhibited since the 1970s - has been on show at major venues here and abroad.
The exhibition, fluid and beautifully executed, reveals a side of Van Vuuren that is rarely seen, says Obert.
Visitors can browse Zuva Gallery in between mingling with Johannesburg's finest in Melrose Arch.
'Abstracts on Paper' is on from 17 June until 6 July at Zuva Gallery, 14 The High Street, Melrose Arch. It is open from 10am to 6pm daily.
For more information contact Michael on 011 684 1214, email him at johannesburg@zuvagallery.com, or go to the Zuva Gallery website.
Manfred Zylla at Gallery Momo
Momo Gallery, a contemporary art space in Parktown North, is hosting Manfred Zylla's 'unauthorised', a retrospective exhibit of his large-scale drawings from the 1980s that powerfully represent the military's role in upholding apartheid.
Zylla's work criticises the socio-economic system of the 80s and the "grey people who controlled it".
Zylla - who had hung his work at the third South African literature conference in Bad Boll, in West Germany, in 1988 - "sacrificed his images as 'art works' to make way for the people".
He wanted the viewer to interact with his art on a physical level and so encouraged comments on the face of the works. The works now contain bold, angry comments such as: "Why waste this face."
Gallery Momo is perfectly situated in the blossoming art centre of Rosebank.
Manfred Zylla's 'unauthorised' will be on until 5 July at Gallery Momo, 52 Seventh Avenue, Parktown North.
For more information contact Nikki on 011 327 3247, email her at nikki@gallerymomo.com or go to www.gallerymomo.com.
Michael MacGarry at the Premises
Exhibition at the Premises
The Premises, the gallery at the Civic Theatre precinct, is hosting 'Modern amusement: or until the world improves'.
In this exhibition Michael MacGarry - a visual artist and graphic designer who also manages the Premises - reviews events in Africa through text-based fictional narratives and comparisons.
The intention, he says, is to provide a mobile, public study - where a gallery visitor can sit and read the publication 'Modern amusement'. It has been set up so that the visual and auditory surroundings enhance visitors' experience of the text.
Central to this, says MacGarry, is a "conceptually motivated exclusion of materially manifest artworks". The text presents concepts: "a catalogue to an exhibition which does not materially exist, nor is likely to".
MacGarry says 'Modern amusement' intends to function like an album produced by a recording artist - "a singular, packaged resource and entertainment product for personal or mass consumption".
The space contains a bright yellow stage, on which an Edwardian study desk sits. Here visitors can read the publication or listen to MacGarry's self-interview.
'Modern amusement: or until the world improves' is on at the Premises at the Civic Theatre in Loveday street, Braamfontein, from 10 July until 24 July. The Premises is open from noon to 5pm, Tuesday to Saturday.
For more information contact the Premises on 011 877 6859 or go to the gallery's website: onair.co.za/thepremises.
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