This is the season and if you are remotely interested in cutting edge work, it’s here, in WOODSTOCK now.

STEVENSON

Check out STEVENSON’s summer exhibition on till 11 January –  A Sculptural Premise. Some 25 artists “explore our understanding of our three-dimensional reality through contemplations of space, volume and sculptural form across a range of mediums.”  There is figurative work, conceptual, video, photographic, monumental, domestic scale… some famous names and instantly recognisable work, others less well-known but all to this leading gallery’s high standard. Jane Alexander, whose  work Untitled recently sold for a record-breaking R5,5m at auction in November – has a 2008 figure,  anonymous, draped  in white and mounted high… nun-like, mysterious.  Steven Cohen’s Coq/Cock is to be seen in a video with a Parisian setting, his high heels and vulnerability lending pathos to the inevitable authoritarian intervention. This show is truly a smorgasbord – if your taste is for ephemeral, do you try a soufflé as in Igshaan Adams’s suspended fabric work or do you go for the sharp metallic tang of Wim Blom’s raptor?  More acute, sculptural  edges may be found in Serge Alain Nitegeka’s series of paintings. Textures, stitching, a wide range of materials to sculpt and carry the artists’ message. So much to enjoy!

BLANK PROJECTS

And across the road, BLANK PROJECTS opened on the same night – and also runs till 11 Jan – with an intriguing collection of works by the gallery’s artists entitled This is the Thing. One or two of the exhibitors  also have work at Stevenson  but the pieces, on the whole, are smaller in scale as suits this niche gallery. There is still space in the linking white cubes to show a dozen or more artists and a simple four-page catalogue gives pics, prices and detail of the works on view and some that are tucked away. No labels on the walls, you’ll need to refer to the printed sheets. All the works are dated 2013 and are “bound by an emphasis on process and materiality, placing the object, the thing, at the centre of our attention” as the catalogue puts it.   Art Week Cape Town actually ended on 7 December but this event, sponsored by the National Arts Council, BASA, VANSA and CADT with openings great and small plus studio visits in and around the city and Khayelitsha has attracted much interest and put the spotlight on art.