NEWS FLASH! WALKABOUT by Gail Dörje on the 3rd and 4th of June at 11am and 12pm/ Let’s Make It Reals ends the 11th of June
WHERE: The Cape Gallery, 60 Church Street, Cape Town 8001
Let’s Make It Real at The Cape Gallery is a significant overview of the work of black artists that speak the unedited truth of life in the townships and are testament to the successful intervention of the mentorship programs that took their innate talent to the next level.
Today it seems that it was inevitable that the rapid urbanization of the rural black population of South Africans in the late 1980s would ferment change and fuel political activism that ended Apartheid so establishing the democracy we enjoy today.
Educators have sought to nurture and mentor the visual arts and redress the dire poverty of township life. They have looked to bridge the fault lines and inequalities of the Apartheid era, asserting the common humanity of the diverse South African communities, endorsing by the concept of ‘Ubuntu’ – ‘I am because we are”. The visual arts have the capacity to make the condition of the people they depict real and observable, to speak the truth to power. In the 1980s culture was weaponized in the fight against Apartheid.
Initiatives throughout South Africa were led by prominent South African visual artists and educators seeking to redress the grossly inadequate provisions of the Bantu education syllabus. Cecil Skotnes at the Polly Street Art Centre in Johannesburg and Visual Arts group Nyanga in Cape Town, Gavin Younge; Jane Alexander; Michaelis UCT, at C.A.P.- the community Arts Project in Cape Town, Bill Ainslie who fostered the Thupelo Workshops, Sivuyele College, Rorke’s Drift, Barbara Pitt at The Foundation School of Art in Cape Town. Their initiative has been sustained by gifted artists and educators, Sue Williamson who published the art of the township artists under the title of ‘Resistance Art’, Mario Pissarra, Rob Robson and many others.
Gerald Tabata
Today, the established artists whose works are on show at ‘Let’s make it real’ are testament to the successful intervention of the mentorship programs that took their innate talent to the next level. Many of them were trained at CAP, The Foundation School of Arts, The Visual Art Group in Nyanga or Rorke’s Drift Art Centre in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Some of these artists have also participated in the Thupelo workshops at Greatmore Studios. Early pieces in the collection on show date back to the 1990s. Billy Mandindi and Solomon Siko are no longer alive. We have included two younger artists; Boyce Magandela and Meshack Tembani because their work carries a similar narrative and content.
More than explicit, these works speak of the plight in the overcrowded townships, of the struggle, the joy of the jazz concerts and Friday night dances, drinking at the shebeens. They speak the unedited truth of life in the townships.
LIST OF FEATURED ARTISTS in Let’s Make It Real
Tyrone Appollis Sandy Esau David Hlongwane Patrick Holo Thami Kitty Luthando Lupuwana Boyce Magandela Billy Mandindi Shepherd Mbanya Vuyisani Mgijima Xolile Mtakatya (see lead photo) Selwyn Pekeur Frank Ross Solomon Siko Velile Soha Gerald Tabata Meshack Tembani Mandla Vanyaza Timothy Zantsi
WHAT: Let’s Make It Real
WHERE: The Cape Gallery, 60 Church Street, Cape Town 28001
WHEN: Opening First Thursday, May 5. On show until 11 June. Gallery Hours: Mon to Fri: 09h30 to 16h00, Sat: 10h00 to 14h00
INFO: T +27 21 4235309 | E web@capegallery.co.za | Visit
The Cape Gallery [09]
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