Stevenson Cape Town presents the first exhibition in a series titled Perspectives, opening up a new aspect of shows at the gallery.
Michael Stevenson dealt extensively in 19th and 20th century South African art in the 1990s, until the opening of the gallery focusing on contemporary work in 2003. Going forward, the gallery will again present periodic exhibitions, titled Perspectives, which offer post-war South African and African works as well as more recent works by contemporary artists.
These exhibitions will be co-ordinated by Darren Levy who is a partner at the gallery. His interest in contemporary art has been long-standing, and his intention is for these exhibitions to have a quiet sensibility linking the works rather than a hard curatorial framework. In this way the viewer can experience the works individually and collectively in a way that is spacious visually and conceptually. Levy writes:
My perspectives are as collector, reader and dealer, and yours may or may not, coincide. Our prisms will be similar and different. I wish to encourage the act of looking and to personally feel the impulses and prompts of the artworks, without any prescriptions. In the words of Helen Sebidi, ‘works themselves provide the narrative’.
This first Perspectives exhibition has been built around Albert Adams’ triptych South Africa 1958-59 (Deposition), a seminal work in the history of South African art. One has to remind oneself that it was painted 65 years ago because it resonates so strongly with the works of contemporary artists like Wim Botha and Helen Sebidi. To this end, there are works by Penny Siopis, Alexis Preller, Berni Searle, Guy Tillim and Natasja Kensmil that also allude to liminal realms on the threshold of existence, and experiences and states we can sense but seldom explain.
Opening same day is a solo exhibition of new works by Ian Grose.
In this exhibition, Grose uses the leitmotif of his previous show – images of folded, patterned fabrics – as a starting point from which to explore the nature and interpretation of painting. The new works stem from an attempt to see painted images as thresholds between opposites; an integration of both aspects of ultimately reductive conceptual pairs.
Ian Grose
Grose will give a walkabout in support of the Friends of the National Gallery on Friday 25 July at 11am. Cost is R20 (members and non-members); all are welcome.
WHEN: Perspectives 1 and solo exhibition by Ian Grose open on Tuesday 22 July 2014, from 6 to 8pm. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday from 10am to 1pm.
WHERE: STEVENSON CAPE TOWN, Buchanan Building, 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925 South Africa
INFO: T +27 (0)21 462 1500 or visit
