Artists composite poster for CO/MIX)Saturday, July 2, 2011
First day in Grahamstown – my 25th festival (24th covering it as a journalist) and the weather was clear. As always, I’m staying at my husband’s cousin’s farm a mere 10 minutes drive from the city centre. So I am extremely fortunate to be able to go back home to a warm room with my mini office set up on an antique desk, a warm bed to look forward to as well as a rapturous welcome from a massive German shepherd and two collies!
A great start to the day – and to the festival itself – was a quiet chat over tea and coffee with good friend Sershan Naidoo from the National Lottery. Not to talk business, of course, but to catch up on what levels of theatre we’ve both seen recently and what either of us has booked for the festival.
Then it was up to the Monument to collect some ClassicFeel magazines (for which I write a monthly column) to build up a stock to offer at my presentation on Stable Theatre at the Hands On! Masks Off! Programme on Tuesday at 14h00. (It’s at Eden Grove, if anyone’s in Grahamstown at the moment) The new Centre Manager, Thanduxolo Zulu, will also be with me to answer any questions.
As I walked into the Monument, I bumped into Andy Mason (formerly of Durban, now in Stellenbosch) who reminded me that his works and those of many other cartoonists are on display upstairs in the CO/MIX: Comic Art/Mixed Media 2011 exhibition.
No time like the present and the schedule permitted the time, so up I went. I was utterly intrigued and impressed by the works on offer from some of South Africa’s sharpest and most analytical visually-oriented minds, including the fearless Zapiro. Presented by the Centre for Comic Illustrative & Book Arts at the University of Stellenbosch in association with the National Arts Festival, it features 26 South Africans and four international artists - each of them involved in some aspect of comic art and sculpture. I must say, though, that I’m still not quite sure of the message presented by the main focal point - a double bed with elegant cushions and quilt, minus one leg and suspended by a jack!
On the same floor are two other exhibitions: re.sponse and The Arena Exhibition of Exhibitions. Both of these appear on the new Arena Programme which bridges the gap between the Fringe and the Main Festivals.
Presented by the National Arts Festival in association with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, re.sponse is a fascinating exhibition where students/artists with strong connections to the School of Music Art and Design engage with artworks drawn from the permanent collection at the Museum. They were invited to select an artwork from a “menu” of works and to produce one of their own, in response. This is a thought-provoking exhibition and well worth seeing.
The Arena Exhibition of Exhibitions offers a selection of some of the work to be exhibited on the Fringe at this year’s festival, an innovative idea which allows the viewer to select the works of artists they like and to source their individual exhibition venues.
Now in its second year, this exhibition is a highly valuable project to (as the programme explains it) “help festival goers make sense” of the vast number of artists and artworks that make up each year’s collection of visual art on the Fringe.
Then came the highlight of the day – and predictably of the festival itself – Neil Coppen’s Abnormal Load. Neil is last year’s winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Drama which gives him the opportunity to present a production on the following festival, ie this one. The review can be seen at http://news.artsmart.co.za/2011/07/abnormal-loads.html
Festival Director Ismail Mahomed also had some pertinent points to make in his Letter to the Editor and this can be seen at http://news.artsmart.co.za/2011/07/abnormal-loads_04.html
Posts
