New Botha Sculpture Underscores Public- Sector's Need to Play Catch-up in Public-Art

On Thursday the 25th of March, a new sculptural installation by Andries Botha was dedicated at The Hudson, a recently erected office building in De Waterkant on the edge of Cape Town's central business district. Entitled, Latitude 33º55'S. Longitude 18º 22'E, the work was commissioned by The Hudson's developer Gerald Phillips.

Western Cape 2008 Absa L'Atelier opens with little fanfare

The Absa L'Atelier awards figure prominently in the lexicon of sought-after credentials for the South African artist. For that reason, it is surprising that the March 19th opening of the 23rd Absa L'Atelier Regional Exhibition at art.b Gallery in Bellville was a modest affair, attended by only an estimated eighty visitors. Art.b officials in fact indicated that this year's Absa L'Atelier was less of a draw than their other exhibitions.

An Interview with Andy Goldsworthy

"This is a really unusual trip for me," stated Andy Goldsworthy, an English sculptor and land artist, while visiting South Africa briefly in January. "Until I have made a work outside, I really haven't arrived in a place. And I haven't made a work here, so as far as I am concerned I am not in South Africa yet."

All Smoke and Mirrors

Diane Victor's recent exhibition at Goodman Gallery Cape, once again demonstrates her ability to combine flawless technical skill with boundless imagery and sharp messages, while still looking very current. Comprising 65 individual works, Victor's All Smoke and Mirrors at Goodman is made up of five distinct series of drawings, etchings, and embossings.

Talking Heads

Brett Bailey and Jay Pather organized a program of interdisciplinary works for the 2008 Spier Performing Arts Festival, which they staged in non-traditional venues throughout Cape Town. Their emphasis on the interdisciplinary peaked with the Festival's grand finale, Talking Heads, directed by Bailey. Tapping into the fascination many local visual artists hold for the archive, Bailey chose an archive, Cape Town's historic Centre for the Book, for his "living archive", Talking Heads. Its contents, a collection of forty "experts from a wide range of fields", were installed respectively at forty café tables with black table-cloths and polished brass numbered disks in the Centre's main hall.

The viewing list

Art appreciation is an embodied experience, full stop. A picture in a magazine does not equate with a physical object in a gallery. A review, no matter how finely crafted, cannot substitute for the experience of looking. But we cannot be everywhere all the time, which partly accounts for the massive publishing industry that has grown up around art. The printed word here is dangerous, particularly when it manifests as opinion. All too often opinion, the rocket fuel of the art world, is treated as fact. Living in a society that constantly looks for affirmation and insight to some imagined centre – Johannesburg, Cape Town, London, New York – the risk this opinion poses is amplified.

Learning to Breath

Lerato Shadi's performances are proclamations sent to the universe. By Sean O'Toole

The Freedom to Dream

Is it possible for public art projects to address issues of social and cultural justice? Yes, argues Zayd Minty in his profile of doual'art, a Cameroonian public art organisation