South Facing exhibition to usher in Johannesburg Art Gallery’s reopening
JOUBERT PARK – Johannesburg Art Gallery to reopen its doors to the public after a three-month closure with an exhibition which tackles structural frailties.
The South Facing exhibition by Mozambican-born University of Cape Town (UCT) graduate, Angela Ferreira, will herald the re-opening of the iconic Joburg Art Gallery on 7 May, following a three-month temporary closure to the public due to renovations.
Born in 1958 in Maputo, Mozambique, Ferreira grew up in South Africa and obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT. Ferreira, who now lives and works in Lisbon teaching fine art at Lisbon University, will hold her maiden solo exhibition at a public institution in South Africa.
The exhibition will include recent and previously unseen work as well as a new commission in response to the gallery’s Meyer Pienaar extension.
According to Amy Watson, curator for the South Facing exhibition, the extension – built in 1989 during the latter apartheid years – was intended to create a more accessible public threshold between the original neo-classical colonial-era building and Joubert Park which is adjacent to the gallery. However, inherent structural problems resulted in the gallery’s temporary closure on 1 February, which according to Watson, provided an opportunity to re-examine the relationship between an institution once regarded as a symbol of elitism with its emerging multi-cultural post-apartheid urban context.
“Continuing an oeuvre of architecturally-responsive critical artworks, the commission draws on the visual history of the construction processes of the extension, particularly the contentious barrel-like copper-vaulted roofs, extending Ferreira’s ongoing investigations into colonial-era mining in South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” she explained.
“Ferreira’s primary area of investigation has been the translation of modernism in the African-colonial context, and the complex social, aesthetic and architectural legacies of the modernist project. Furthermore, her practice draws its visual criticality from her dual African-Portuguese identity, and the resulting body of work is rooted in South Africa, Mozambique and Portugal,” Watson added.
“The Joburg exhibition intends to connect these three spaces and provide an opportunity for audiences to engage with the artist’s multidisciplinary research-based practice.”
South Facing by Angela Ferreira will be on show from 7 May to 30 July at the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Edited by Stacey Woensdregt
