18 July 2012. Madiba?s ninety fourth birthday. The day of the announcement of the 2012 Absa L?Atelier and Gerard Sekoto Awards. These awards have been a feature of the South African art scene for 27 years now and they are made for a single work. All eighty five exhibitors get to have their works seen by the general art public and featured in the lovely catalogue. The ten finalists get R2 500. The four merit award winners each get R25 000. One of these merit award winners gets to win the Gerard Sekoto award. The winner of the Gerard Sekoto award gets the merit award amount of R25 000 plus an opportunity to learn French, then to go to Paris for three months to do a residency there. The winner of the L?Atelier award wins R110 000 and gets to go to Paris for six months to do a sabbatical there and to have a solo exhibition at the Absa Gallery some time after his or her return to South Africa.
I get see the exhibition of works by eighty five young (21-35) South African artists from all over the country. More importantly I get to meet all ten of the finalists selected by Dirkie Offinge and his team of adjudicators. They are Mandy Johnston, Elrie Joubert, Nina Liebenberg, Heidi Janice Mielke, Mbavhalelo Nekhavhambe, Mahlomolo Nkosi, Bamanye Nqxale, Bambo Sibiya, Karin Smith and Andrew Sprawson.
I start my interviews with Andrew Duncan Sprawson. His work entitled ?Car Guard? is a ballpoint pen drawing of Main Street life drawn from a photograph taken in Maboneng, Johannesburg?s downtown art precinct. Sprawson speaks about rejuvenation and decay and his love of sparse and cold landscapes. I stare at the work and it speaks to me of an aspect of Johannesburg I often pass through, but don?t often see. He also has another set of three drawings entitled ?Brixton? on display.
Andrew Sprawson?s ?Car Guard?.
The next work I visit is that of Elrie Joubert. It is entitled ?Selective Unveiling?. It is a curiosity cabinet of her personal collected objects from the family farm. It is her private collection made public. Insects, bones, ?bits? of things are all displayed on a light table. It has a microscope so people can examine it more closely. That is attached to a projector so everyone can see what is being examined. The whole thing is quirky, clever and lovely. I tell Joubert that my late father would have loved her exhibit and awarded her the top prize without even bothering to see the others.
Elrie Joubert?s winning work, Selective Unveiling
I move on. Heidi Janice Mielke has a photograph of a shorn and butchered sheep. It is the metaphorical sacrifice to violence. Entitled to remind us of innocence ?Have you any wool? is not an easy work to view.
Heidi Janice Mielke?s work, ?Have you any wool?
Mvavhelelo Nekhavhambe has two works out of the eighty five on display. He hails from Thohoyandou. Only his video work ?Conversations with a dead tree? makes it to the top ten, but that doesn?t mean the other is not interesting. True of all the others that didn?t make it to the top ten. The work is just under five minutes long and it shows Nekhavhambe engaging with the tree.
Mbavhalelo Nekhavhambe?s ?Conversations with a dead tree?
The next work I visit is ?Coir? a work by Mandy Johnston. This young Johanesburg based artist is the only one of the finalists whose work is already known to me. Earlier this year I attended her solo exhibition, ?Subject to Change?, at ROOM. Johnston has a particular love of working with various materials and coir is both a depiction of coir and created by painting with a paste made of burnt coir.
Mandy Johnston?s ?Coir?
Nina Liebenberg?s ?Forest? is a series of imagined cross sections of trees created by using Echinaea augustifola tea. It is quite fascinating to hear Liebenberg speak of this, especially the dendrochronological readings by an eminent scientist who was eventually persuaded to enter into the fantasy. Liebenberg also spoke to me of the research which turned up the information that caterpillars which eat Echinacea leaves don?t go on to develop into moths or butterflies.
Nina Liebenberg?s ?Forest?
Karin Smith has cast ten bronze antelopes which she originally created out of found objects like twigs, berries and bark. Entitled ?Tread Carefully? these little works are na?ve, fragile and delicate ? everything the classic bronze cast statue is usually not. Smith has worked with contemporary jewellery technology to create these imaginative creations.
Karin Smith?s ?Tread Carefully?
Bamanye Nqxale from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape has a work entitled ?From the burning man series, Saphela?. ?Saphela? means ?our end?. He is examining the concept of xenophobia subsequent to the 2008 xenophobic attacks. He challenges the assumptions by some South Africans that every South African feels the same way. His work is a self-portrait, albeit an abstract one, and it speaks about destruction and decay.
Bamanye Nqxale ?From the burning man series, Saphela?
Bambo Sibiya has two works hanging adjacent to one another. The work which made it to the final ten is entitled ?Mama Uyimbokodo III?. It speaks about women as the bedrock of the nation, their strength and dedication. Sibiya pays tribute to all the single mothers and all the role models known and unknown who have made an impact on his life. These include famous singers, famous artists, polititians and ordinary women who have overcome extraordinary odds.
Bambo Sibiya?s ?Mama uyimbokodo III?
The last interview I conduct is with Mahlomolo Nkosi, an Artist Proof Studio graduate from Katlehong on the West Rand. His work is a linocut, the original, not a print, entitled ?My First Bridge to Johannesburg; My Last Bridge to go Home?. He shares with me at a very basic level about the difficulties of making a living through art as a young and relatively unknown artist. He is working as a signwriter for Fruit & Veg City, as well as doing some more creative tattooing. He points out that he needs to pay his bills. I empathise. I express the thought that the L?Atelier Awards are the catalyst for young artists to come to the attention of gallerists, collectors and arts writers. He nods.
Mahlomola Nkosi?s ?My first bridge?
Now for the actual awards. My late father?s choice would have been spot on. Elrie Joubert, the Bloemfontein farm girl, won the Absa L?Atelier award with ?Selective Unveiling?. The Gerard Sekoto award went to Bambo Sibiya with his work ?Mama Uyimbokodo III? (the catalogue and wall title say ?Uyimbohodo? but Sibiya points out that this is an error). Merit Awards went to Nina Liebenberg, Heidi Janice Mielke, Bambo Sibiya and Mandy Johnston.
The winning work, ?Selective Unveiling? by Elrie Joubert
The exhibition is open to the public from 19 July 2012 and it will run at Absa Gallery until 23 August 2012. Absa Gallery, Upper Ground Level, Absa Towers North, 161 Main Street. Members of the public are requested to bring their ID books along for parking and entry purposes. There is a catalogue available for sale detailing all the works and listing the winners.
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Multi-skilled, trained theologian (Christian), administrator and journalist, I conduct weddings, funerals and facilitate spiritual growth workshops. Theatre, music, dance and visual arts are my passions. I have been making my musical musings, theatre talks and dance dialogues public since February 1999 when I acquired access to the internet. Books are another passion, and I have a particular interest in South African ecology and history.
Source: http://artscomments.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/elrie-joubert-wins-coveted-absa-latelier-award/
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