Art that dances to the end of pain
Circa opens in Cape Town with shows by Beezy Bailey and Liberty Battson, writes Mary Corrigall
OFF BALANCE: Artist Beezy Bailey gets into the spirit of his sculpture at the Cape Town branch of Circa Gallery
‘THE world is not well,” declares artist Beezy Bailey. His prophetic statement comes weeks before the opening of his exhibition and Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections. In fact he is referring to spiritual, financial and political problems, plaguing the country, the world.
“The earth is sick and the sky is vomiting mud,” he says. He is referring to the metaphorical world that pervades a new series of paintings. The exhibition sounds gloomy, but the art and the event that will launch the new Circa Gallery in the refurbished Ulundi House on Portswood Ridge at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town will be surprisingly festive.
This is due to a number of factors, not least of which is Bailey’s solution for this “sick” world — dancing. More specifically the 1 000 Year Dance Cure which he proposes through the title of the exhibition. This idea is given expression in almost every art work. In Angels of the Night, a couple are caught up in merriment with their hands in the air.
There are ghosts spreading their limbs in another painting and black silhouetted figures up against colourful backgrounds are captured midair doing the splits. Women are depicted shaking their hips in another art work and a yellow-suited figure amuses a crowd with an exaggerated jive.
A suite of sculptures are all caught in the act of dancing too. In other words the mood that permeates Bailey’s exhibition is anything but sombre.
“Without the dark there is no light,” he observes.
The celebratory tone the exhibition evokes seems fitting — Capetonians will be happy to welcome a new contemporary art space to the V&A Waterfront, which is slowly evolving into an art node with the Everard Read Gallery nearby and the highly anticipated opening of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art scheduled for September next year.
“I’ve been eyeing out the building for years,” confesses Charles Shields, director of both Everard Read Cape Town and this new Circa space. The building was erected in 1889 as a home for the chief resident engineer of the harbour. The new gallery had to be installed in a prominent architectural landmark — mirroring its Johannesburg branch, which is a stunning circular building designed by Pierre Swanepoel from StudioMAS.
The Cape Town building is centred on restoration rather than innovation — the façade has been left intact and dry-packed stone walls have been repurposed.
This will be the third Circa gallery in the Everard Read franchise — one opened in Fulham Road, London, earlier this year — and is testament to this being the largest contemporary art group in the country. Art retail chains are a thing — Goodman, Stevenson, Momo and Southern Guild galleries are all growing branches and expanding their provincial reach. Art is a bona fide asset class and in this “sick”, choppy financial world it appears to provide some sturdy investments.
The Circa gallery brand is associated with experimental art.
“It gave us the licence to do what we like,” says Shields.
Younger, cutting-edge artists are exhibited in the Circa galleries, which is why Liberty Battson, the young abstract minimalist painter, will show alongside Bailey for the opening. A winner of the Absa L’Atelier award, Battson produces JUST FOR KICKS: ‘Present Past Accepted Dance’, 2016 art that is the polar opposite of Bailey’s. She doesn’t draw inspiration from mythical, ritualistic concerns but uses Google-generated statistics to determine her clean, colourful art, dominated by stripes FLOOD OF FEELING: ‘Ghost Dancers in the Rainlight Night’, 2016 of colour representing different phenomena.
The two artists have something in common; they use unconventional paint. Battson utilises car paint while Bailey likes to finish off some of his paintings with varnish used for doors. “It gives it some gloss and depth,” says Bailey.
Battson’s art is super slick — it is driven by facts, web data — whereas Bailey chases clouds. His painting process involves making abstract forms, the clouds, and then coaxing dancing figures from them.
They won’t only be in his painterly works; in the entrance of the gallery they will loom in the form of electric-coloured sculptures.
Caught up in this party spirit they will recall Hindu dancing rituals marked by brightly coloured powders and garments.
Echoing the paintings and sculptures will be a live performance on the opening night by the Indoni Dance Group. Choreographed by Sibonakaliso Ndaba to an unreleased soundtrack produced by Brian Eno, the performance is designed to bring Bailey’s paintings to life, evoking this healing ritual, which after 1 000 years might “cure” the world of its ills. Or at least provide some exercise.
“In our fragmented and lonely society, dance unites people,” says Bailey. Dance also allows him to revel in his love of music and a seemingly suppressed yearning to perform. “It is my nature to be a bit of a show-off,” he admits.
The Circa Gallery, at Ulundi House, Portswood Square, Portswood Ridge, V&A Waterfront, will be open to the public from November 24
The earth is sick . . . In our lonely society, dance unites people
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