With the wide eyes of a child I’m moved to wonder at everything there is to see. Art, I believe has the function to save us from disaster by creating alongside the everyday world another realm, fashioned to the requirements of the human spirit and in keeping with an inner order which is in sharp contrast to the chaos around us. It provides a kind of anchorage. I wish to make my own personal statement - tenuous though in a truly human voice.

What I wish to offer in my paintings are depictions of a reality to which the viewer can relate, through the medium of the senses, through the use of the technical resources of painting, colour, collage, etc. In other words I wish to use the canvas as a theatre of operations for the assertion of realities. Most of my images are frontal, which give them an immediacy - thus not only having an immediate and sudden effect but also to challenge the viewer who finds him/herself unceremoniously faced on a par with myself as the artist, already deeply implicated.

The space which I create is here and now, the expression of something immediate - there is no spatial or temporal distancing to create the feeling on the part of the viewer as if though he were there, or is actually there (inside the picture), not simply in front of it, a form of total participation.

In everything I demand that there be life. The possibility of existence, and then all is well: we are then not called upon to ask if the work is beautiful or ugly. The feeling that what has been created comes before either consideration and is the only criterion in matters of art.

Ivor Sias.

FUNDERS: Hivos and National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund

With Special thanks to Greatmore Studios

THE VOODOO DIVAS
Video Performance

MY LITTLE PINK BAG STORIES
by French artist FRED KOENIG
in collaboration with
South African Dancer EBRAHIM MEDELL
and South African Performers TONI MORKEL
special thanks to the EON GROUP.
on
Tuesday 12 December 2006 at 6pm
@ CAPE LAB
71 Buitengracht Street Cape Town
tel: + 27 21 448 3064

MORE ABOUT FRED KOENIG:

For the past six years, my work is what can be labeled” multimedia” combining video, photography dance and theatre. And my introduction to South Africa has been by working in Europe with the South African Choreographer Robyn Orlin and more recently I did the Art Residency at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg. I have been traveling and living in Mexico, New York, Haiti. These places have destabilized my occidental vision of the world. My main inspiration comes from the people I have had the opportunity to meet during those trips.

Their stories and behaviours are helping me to develop my various works. Through their experiences and my “observations”, I redefined myself and my research of what I should call “THE LONGING OF BELONGING”. This should sum my works. I am neither an observer nor an anthropologist, I do interact, live, participate and not anticipate. Via medium like photography, video, dance, I am bringing to an audience not only entertainment but a matter of reflection.

I have created, with the South African artist Toni Morkel, a performance group named "the VOODOO DIVAS" producing ourselves in South Africa and Berlin. I shoot and edit a film designed for this performance. We then act on a stage in front of the screen showing the film, interact with the public, we may also disappear leaving the audience in front of the picture or go on with acting on the side. The name "Voodoo Divas" is a brand name too for some of my personal works. My last creation under this label was set up for the French Institute in Haiti last June during the Art Forum AfricAmericA. It gave me the opportunity to work on several subjects such as homophobia in the Caribbean, boat-people and migration.
Let s see what will happen during my stay in Cape Town where I already started a project with the Dancer Choreographer Ebrahim Medell and the Eoan Group of Cape Flats.

Frederic Koenig - France

Labeled a mixed media artist from France, Frederic Koenig brings to the studios a unique blend of photography, film and performance. An artist familiar with South Africa, last year Fred’ served a residency at the Bag Factory, a sister organization of Greatmore Studios in Fordsburg where his piece My African Safari narrated his impressions of the city. In a personal statement he commented that, “The spirituality, memories and history that charge so many places in Johannesburg have found their way into my work” Fred is a well-traveled artist whose portfolio boasts several images that capture the experiences of people and sites in Haiti, Mexico and France. He speaks of the need to document his subjects’ experiences through his “observations”, playing on the study of ethnology. Unlike an anthropologist however Fred claims to “ interact, live and participate” in his subjects’ realities, bringing a greater level of sensitivity and depth to his work. Fred’ works largely in black and white claiming that this medium has an immediacy, confronting the viewer with the emotional truth of the experiences he attempts to document. Some of his images are rendered in varying degrees of color, and the manipulation of these images is evidence of the performative aspect of his practice. The art of photographic manipulation allows Fredrich the opportunity to expose the fiction and construction of our identities. Fred’ formally studied photography in Germany and France, and later worked with photographer Trix Rosen in New York. He currently works in close collaboration with the Haitian art foundation AfricAmericA (http://www.africamerica.org) on various projects.

Fred defines his body of research as ‘the longing of belonging’. He speaks of a tension between wanting to be a part of other people’s worlds, and being a spectator who is French, with an obvious accent. His artistic scholarship forms obvious ties with Ivor Sias’ and Newell Harry’s journeys of displacement; Fred’s sense of displacement is perhaps a little more abstract. The French artist along with the south african dancer and award winner Ebrahim Medell initiated a workshop with the young dancers of the Eoan Group at Joseph Stone to explore performance art, and it is this medium that he will use to tell a narrative about several topical issues at present concerning tolerance, love social classes gender issues...
Fred and South African Artist, Toni Morkel form the Voodoo Divas, a duo that though absurd, risqué performances serve to challenge and dismantle conservative notions of art making.

The French Embassy in South Africa and the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund has sponsored Fredric’s residency at Greatmore Studios.

Coster Mkoki, Zimbabwe
Mambakwedza H Mutasa, Zimbabwe
Petros Ghebrehiwot, Eritrea
Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, Nigeria

Coster Mkoki, Zimbabwe
My past experience in heavy chrome smelting industry has had a big influence in my artwork. Working on huge machines and handling all sort of materials has led me into experiments and exploring of difference mediums. Daily I strive to bridge the gap between my technical past and what I can lay my hands on. I want my art to evolve on emotional and social comment of any environment through observation and interaction.

Mambakwedza H Mutasa, Zimbabwe
Chosen for TransCAPE exhibition March 2007, Mutasa works mostly in sculpture but also explores photography, painting and performance as expressive tools. In his work, Mutasa aims to demonstrate that there's a different side to every story. He mainly works with what he calls 'weld art' a method of welding shaped steel into new forms. His work bares a monumentality that is always on the verge of disintegration, commenting on both universal human spirituality and the political state of the African continent. Mutasa was born in 1974 in Harare, Zimbabwe where he lives and works. Inspired by the creator to create, a sheep of the shepherd, an instrument to glorify his living word in the spirit of Jesus Christ, a mirror of his Godliness, as to bring consciousness of the presence of the present things, all this defines the core of his work. His sculptures are called, CONNECTING SOULS Two individual souls attracting, WRESTLING THE SPIRIT WITHIN Resisting, fighting temptation, wrestling a weakness and negative addiction each individual has. MAN IN THE MIRROR Who is that person in the mirror? What is he/she about? A point of realization, awakening of the spirit, addiction of wrong doing and heart to repent.

Petros Ghebrehiwot, Eritrea
My art works focus on depicting our daily lives’ activities and mainly the invisible part of life. The subject is universal but every idea emerges from my own experiences. I painted a series of works on the individual world under the theme “Secrecy of Shelters’ using the silent, dark internal space of architectural themes. For me these spaces contain many mysteries of both good and bad deeds that take place inside the shelters. Currently, I’m working on the social world where individuals gather and form a crowd for social, cultural, political or religious reasons. A crowd is powerful and can bring change.

Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi is a Nigerian visual artist who explores the different terrains of art for creative expression. He has been involved in a myriad of art activities in Nigeria and abroad. The Greatmore Studio Residency Programme has provided him with another opportunity to participate in the activities of Greatmore Studios, having participated in the Thupelo International Artists Workshop in 2004.

Plus

Xolelani Pat Matshikiza, Cape Town
Yeul Lee , Korea
Kitty Dörje, Cape Town

As well as open studios of Greatmore Studios resident artists:

Anthony Cawood, Cape Town
Ena Carstens, Cape Town
Kennett Sinclair, Cape Town
Madi Phala, Cape Town
Mandla Vanyaza, Cape Town
Nadja Daehnke, Cape Town
Nicholas Hales , Cape Town
Norman O'Flynn, Cape Town
Pierre Fouché, Cape Town
Velile Soha, Cape Town
Wonder, Cape Town

Gabriel Rueda Pacheco
The works in this series speak to contemporary issues affecting people of Africa and the African Diaspora. Each piece in the series is able to stand alone yet they work together to tell a story of how contemporary generations continue to experience similar conditions to those of their parents or even ancestors only now they are at the mercy of and manipulated by big business, brands and the continuing and growing influence of the West. The use of the Coca Cola wave throughout this series has the double message of representing big business and global brands and the affect they have on the daily lives of people; yet the wave is also used to express movement and the connection between Africa and her Diaspora.

For example, Silence depicts an individual with its mouth covered and a bounded head. This particular piece speaks to the way people continued to be silenced and rendered mute by their increasing reliance on particular products and lifestyles. Another piece, Blinded, depicts a figure covering one eye, with a cuff around the neck and a barcode on the back of the neck. This piece speaks to the way people who continue to live in poverty or unhealthy overcrowded communities are pacified and rendered blind because they have access to particular goods. The barcode addresses the fact that people are increasingly treated like unthinking, unfeeling products that can be bought and sold.

Overall, the sculptures in this new series highlight the similar social issues faced by people of African descent around the globe.

For more information please contact Gabriel Rueda Pacheco: jy156@aol.com

Xolelani Pat Matshikiza
Despite his youth Xolelani is an artist with great versatility and depth who introduces a peculiar work ethic and discipline into Greatmore Studios that very few of the most mature artists can claim. As a seasoned athlete he speaks of athletics as an art form and a skill that has equipped him with the strength, determination and ‘power’ to tackle the most massive of paintings. His abstract and figurative oil paintings and ceramics are inspired by every day live, with a sight of love and happiness that lights the dark view of the world.

For more information please contact Xolelani Pat Matshikiza: xpmatshikiza@gmail.com

Avhashoni Mainganye
His work is about many aspects of life, about journeys individuals go through. Inward journeys, to understand who we are, physically and spiritually and discover our self. He travels in his daily activities to see more.
Avhashoni produces visual poetry that he quietly recites to share the joy with his audience. It is about creation continued by the vigorous forces of nature like the tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes.
We have to embrace what we can not change and celebrate the joy of life.

For more information please contact Avhashoni Mainganye: a.mainganye@yahoo.com

Yeul Lee
His recent <Creation Space Mutation> series has figured the nature in the universe and the real aspect of human-beings to have the serious message to speak the price of life and its preciousness.
This is linked with the unique method of adaptation which is a kind of deconstruction style.
The signs for sky, land, sun and moon are part of his pictures as well as of the Korean national flag. Uncovering the illusion, the energy and the artists’ inner emotional spirit his mixed abstract paintings create harmony to make strong time effects of present.

For more information please contact Yeul Lee: leey1225@hanmail.net

A zesty, new group show, opening 6.30PM, March 17th, Artscape Theatre, is to be shown in conjunction with Garth Erasmus's "murals in progress" in the theater foyer. Jacki Mc Innes chatted to the six young artists - three based locally, three from such culturally diverse islands as Mauritius, Haiti and Trinidad - who will be showing eclectic works ranging from the deeply personal, to socio-economic and geographical comparisons between their own countries and ours.

Kate Tarratt Cross, born in South Africa but now resident in Haiti where she and her partner run an art foundation, produces paintings that are largely autobiographical. She uses images of her own shadow built up with the graphic marks of her fingerprints and signature. Tarratt Cross views shadows as fleeting and insubstantial - visual traces of those that they echo. Shadows provide information about one's position in time and place, thereby providing a record for life's journeys.

Loyiso Qanya from Cape Town also uses shadows in his substantial works, and although he uses his own shadow as a point of departure, he prefers to use it as a tool to interpret the space it occupies. Qanya's work seeks to explore the physical and psychological space occupied by South Africans, believing that although we have made great changes in our country, we are nevertheless still bound by the shadows of our brutal past.

Also preoccupied with space is Dean Arlen from Trinidad. His working method finds him wandering through our cities observing and comparing South African living spaces with those from his home country. He conceptually and visually deconstructs these spaces in an attempt to understand what our homes might mean to us, finding commonalities such as a love of status symbols, but also differences, such as the vastness of the divide between rich and poor, something that is less prominent in Trinidad.

Avinash Ramsurrun, a photographer from Mauritius, has an ambitious project underway where he photographs sets of contrasting city scenes programmed to change electronically in response to the viewer's presence in front of the work. Ramsurrun's intention is to force the good and the bad to coexist in the same space thereby highlighting disparities of life experience in our cities.

Sigila Mazibuko hails from Johannesburg where he uses collage and paint to visually interpret the lyrical verses of African "Dub Poets". His work is abstract but avoids a sharp, discordant edge. He aspires to bring a sense of tranquility to his viewer, a gift he believes to be valuable in these turbulent times.

Kadiatou Diallo, of West African origins, but born in Germany and now living in South Africa, combines art and psychology in her work. She is reluctant to describe her work as surrealistic, but admits that her work evokes dream-like narratives. She creates the sense of a kind of "story board" that allows her to explore how a person's response to certain situations may affect their whole life experience.