IN THE LIGHT OF PLAY

(Pic: “Oil Embargo on South Africa” by Monique Pelser, courtesy of the artist)

Exhibition of contemporary African women artists for Durban Art Gallery.

The Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos) will present to a Durban audience its inaugural special projects initiative, In the light of play, which opens at the Durban Art Gallery on March 11.

This is an exhibition organised by Nigerian curator Bisi Silva consisting of works by acclaimed contemporary African women artists; Berry Bickle (Zimbabwe) Sokari Douglas Camp (Nigeria/UK) Helga Kohl (Namibia) Bongi Bengu (South Africa), Pinar Yolacan (Turkey) and Monique Pelser (South Africa).

In the light of play is a loosely curated exhibition which eschews a prescribed framework that highlights multiple connections, interconnections and even disconnections in the work of individual artists. Through this format the exhibition communicates the way in which artists are dealing with some of the salient issues in contemporary society as they affect us individually and collectively; culture and tradition, identity, memory, presence and absence, the body, consumption and commodification as well as social injustice. The artists work in a diversity of media including sculpture, painting, photography and mixed media articulating a myriad of contextual and aesthetic concerns.

Curator Bisi Silva is the director/founder of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos and an independent curator. Among her projects includes co-curator, Dak’Art Biennale (2006), Democrazy:Three solo exhibitions and a publication (2008), Like a Virgin… Lucy Azubuike & Zanele Muholi (2009). She is a curator of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Greece in May 2009.

Carol Brown, project/curatorial consultant and former director of the Durban Art Gallery, has collaborated with Bisi Silver to bring the exhibition to the Durban Art Gallery as a preview to the Joburg Art Fair in April.

The exhibition will be on view at the Durban Art Gallery from March 11 to 27. More information from Carol Brown on 031 202 3072.