Summer Show of significance
SUMMER SHOW Die Kunskamer Until the end of April DANNY SHORKEND reviews
DIE KUNSKAMER is open for viewing for the Summer Show 2016/2017.
Combining old masters with some younger, significant artists, this exhibition is a tribute to and expression of South African artists.
Charlotte Schachat continues the legacy of the gallery by showcasing a number of important artists.
There are some exceptional works on offer. Some of the highlights are Maggie Laubser’s Mother and Child – direct, sensitive and perhaps somewhat Fauvist-inspired; Irma Stern’s sketchy yet expressively tantalising narrative in Seated Couple; and Cecil Skotnes’s signature incised drawings, wellworked painted fields and energised space, almost Gauguin-like, and often incorporating mixed media elements such as brass .
But there is more: Eduardo Villa’s modernist sculpture The Gladiator is cubist-like, fragmented and yet oozes elements such as power, a sense of abstract and reductive analysis.
It is a kind of still-life celebration of the figure in motion; it is a capturing of movement in eternal stillness.
Other sculptures, such as Bill Davis’s soaring and elongated figures are equally strong, and their smallish size only adds to their magical quality as they express the limits of the materials used, such as ivory and mahogany. There is a sense of the ineffable about these works.
I also enjoyed Malcolm Payne’s Proto-Rhino. In this odd relief of sorts, there is a sense of chemical and scientific secrets being revealed and yet potentially lost as the rhino is threatened to the point of extinction.
Will the African giant survive in the future and will scientific knowledge be used for social upliftment?
The sense of skilful virtuosity of the artist’s hand is reiterated in his mixed media work on paper, where various printing techniques iterate a spiral theme.
Again, there is a strong cerebral approach, as the various twisted spirals appear to recall perhaps that the notion of time is not linear but cyclic, and that history repeats itself – begins at an origin and then repeats a certain process only to recall the initial phase in the sequence.
One might suggest the ongoing presence of an underlying order as applied to matter within the context of time, as its energetic phases appear to follow immutable laws as it forms, reforms and evolves within time and space.
Jillian Edelstein’s photographs are also compelling. An artist who has sold at the Royal Academy in London and at Sotheby’s in Paris and elsewhere, her remarkably crisp and life-affirming photographs appear to “sell” the story of plenty even if in modest, rural settings.
Nature forms a powerful backdrop to the central figures and militates against an increasingly depersonalised, digital and superficial modern world, in some respects at least.
The fact that the show includes a body of work from last year’s show does not detract from its significance and curiously makes the additional acquisitions that much more appetising, if one can describe it so.
I enjoyed seeing Scully’s work once again, what I call his circular works; the enigmatic, secretive and alluring world of Eris Silke that she creates in her painting-objects; newer versions of quintessential Slingsby – that very original series of charcoal and chalk pastel drawings of faces; and Esther Mahlangu’s abstract-decorative Ndebele paintings.
Not to mention Beezy Bailey’s The Magi, a highly accomplished painting in my estimation, as well as Norman Catherine’s figurative, sculptural manipulations with their quirky, humorous tinge.
Charlotte Schachat’s keen eye continues the legacy of her late husband and art doyen.
She has formed an important collection of South African artists.
While the exhibition may not question boundaries or incorporate new media and the like, its traditional, one might say classical approach, is nevertheless an important argument against rampant “anything goes”.
Die Kunskamer brings together a treasure of artworks that are certainly not fly-by-nights. One experiences the art within a domestic environment that accords with Charlotte’s long-standing love of art, a context perhaps removed from institutional bureaucracy and the arguably sterile environment of the commercial gallery space.
For viewing, please call either 021 439 6572 or 021 434 9529.