During the month of September AVA Gallery will be showcasing four exhibitions covering ideas on time, memory, history, sound, culture and symbiosis.
- In the main gallery Nadja Daehnke’s solo show, Equals & Averages, a challenge to the cultural fantasy of normality;
- Diphthong by Mikhail Petrakov studies the translation of sound to visual;
- Vuyisani Mgijima’s Kuyasa records and reflects the daily lives of South Africans living in a post-apartheid country;
- Kim Gurney’s Pulse investigates the importance of a beehive and the ecosystem therein in relation to human sociology.
Nadja Daehnke, Equals & Averages, AVA Main Gallery
Time, history, memory haunt Nadja Daehnke’s exhibition Equals & Averages. These works reflect the relentless passing of time; and yet each moment is revealed as omnipresent as history works its effect.
Memories, necessarily re-imagined, hold us in their grip. The exhibition speaks of a memory of what has-been and what will-be, forever deferring the present.The title of the exhibition suggests rationality: a weighing and comparing. Yet this rationality here erupts into a melee of emotion and obsession. Disembodied figures and especially the silhouetted Man mock a cultural fantasy of perfect (and perfectly moral) normality that he represents.
Equals & Averages is composed of fragile surfaces. This material decay echoes the entropy of an ‘everyman’, who not so much progresses through time, but anxiously attempts to hold history and memory static, providing himself with evidence of status and unquestionable context.
The exhibition is accompanied by furniture by Lim.
PHOTO: Nadja Daehnke, Untitled (leaning back), 2017, Transfer on sized 400gsm Atlantis 100% cotton-rag paper.
Mikhail Petrakov, Diphthong, AVA Long Gallery
Diphthong is a vowel sound in which the tongue changes position to produce the sound of two vowels.
The Diphthong exhibition is an experiment in translating the sounds of the world into the visual realm through photography. The visuals allow the viewer to derive meanings through interpreting the shapes on a conscious and subconscious level.
Mikhail Petrakov, Twice in a Full Moon, Photography.
Vuyisani Mgijima, Kuyasa, AVA Mezzanine Gallery
Kuyasa is an exhibition by Vuyisani Mgijima. Reflecting daily life in Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain, recording realities of post-apartheid daily life experienced by many South Africans. The paintings include references to unemployment, education, play, conflict and cultural life as observed but often unseen on the edge of Cape Town.
Vuyisani Mgijima, Ibohokwe ngeye Siko 2016 Mixed media on board.
Kim Gurney, Pulse, AVA Media Room
This micro exhibition comprises an experimental film and a series of 10 related drawings. It is largely inspired by bees, which have a special role in the ecosystem as vital pollinators in a human food production chain in addition to their cultural and other symbolic value.
Kim Gurney, Pulse (2016), photographic stills from time-lapse film
WHERE: AVA Gallery, Church St, Cape Town 8001
