franchise = a freedom. a venue for local and international art and cultural activity.an active creative space hosting exhibitions, events and exchanges.
Established and curated by Jenah Barry
Carol-Anne Gainer
12-11-2004 - 02-12-2004
b(l)ind, installation view, 2004, (mixed media)
b(l)ind, installation detail, 2004, (mixed media)
carol-anne gainer: b(l)ind
Carol-anne Gainer’s exhibition ‘B(l)ind’ engages the forces that bind us to daily life, our own bodies and each other. Creating works where she contests boundaries of difference Gainer produces images that affront or confound, calling for a reassessment of expectation. The small private moment – the image of the belly of one of her dogs sleeping or an action as simple as sucking a thumb signals the disruption of the supposed predictability of the middle-class home. Probing areas not customarily open to scrutiny she presents the hidden action, the small transgression to the public eye. Personal spaces are exposed and made vulnerable.
second aid: adam+harborth
14-10-2004 - 04-11-2004
doorstops, drip-catchers and other symbiotic gadgets:
an exhibition of puzzling objects collected by Adam & Harborth design studio.
anton karstel: ‘wild thing’
01-09-2004 - 17-09-2004
Wild thing, installation view, 2004, architectural intervention –front (wall- bricks, plaster, paint)
Wild thing, installation detail, 2004, ‘code’ to architectural intervention (mounted photograph)
anton karstel: an exploration of topography and demarcated territory.
The first is a photographic installation of a nyala. A nyala is both the name of an antelope and the name of South African armoured trucks. Karstel is enamoured with the thin layer of paint on these armoured vehicles, with colour and texture. In particular, the dove grey and bright yellow of the old South African Police Force, that is now being replaced by a ‘neutral’ white. Karstel treats the nyala vehicle like a flayed animal- flattening the truck onto the gallery floor so as to evoke a vast piece of skin, reversing the roles of predator and prey. The nyala is broken down and reassembled: The surface of the vehicle is recorded in 20x20cm sections (to correspond with the actual dimensions of the vehicle) with slight angle shifts in each photograph. Karstels’ intention is to allow the camera to skim the surface and transfer a detailed sense of its physical presence to a photographic surface - a photographic skin duplicate of the surface of the truck. Important elements in this treatment of the vehicle are vantage point and distance, close-up scrutiny and a transformation into something akin to landmasses, or a map. Small disruptions and abstractions reside in the surface. This focus on disruption and transformation conveys Karstel’s interest in the delicate relationship between the life of the referent, and the life of its visual recreation.
Karstel’s second work involves direct architectural intervention into the new franchise gallery space, altering the existing architecture by means of the handwork of the same people who worked on the renovation of the gallery space. Karstel suggests the content of gallery walls ‘as a refractory substance beneath their white finish’. The grafting of utility and ‘art’ objects, and the way the two might contaminate and defeat each other, might present an intersecting line between the two installations. Furthermore, the disruption of movement that is the result of halving the gallery seems to resonate with the arrested movement of the nyala.
‘Wild thing’, installation detail, 2004, photographic installation (mounted photographs, each 20x20 cm)
arno morland
13-08-2004 - 22-08-2004
cobi labuscagne and jane cheadle
06-08-2004 - 12-08-2004
ann marie peña: paper city
06-08-2004 – 22-08-2004
Paper City, installation view, 2004, collage and drawing on paper
For the work in Paper City I have explored the inherent fragile and temporary properties of the materials and images I use in my work such as newsprint, recycled wood and product packaging. I turned to mass printed media sources including newspapers and magazines for architectural and other imagery that represents the places, information and stories we consume on a daily basis that are meant to be a documentation of our lives. By taking parts of one image in a newspaper and adding them to another, the images began to feed off each other. New structures emerged that created an opposite or different effect outside of their initial context and highlighted a precarious and fragile state of being similar to the disposable quality of the newsprint itself.
I am interested in the places and things we use to frame our lives and how we construct our notions of ‘home’ from these. In this case sources such as newspapers are meant to record and account for events that occur, to document the place we know as our present tense. Surprisingly there is a lack of tension that occurs when this place (home) is taken apart, reconfigured and put back together again to accompany sound bites and headlines or to construct a paper city. In this sense home has adopted and normalized the refugee status.
Paper City, installation view, 2004, collage and drawing on paper
Operatic phoenix rises from the ashes, installation view, 2004, collage and drawing on paper
local: the contemporary landscape
07-06-2004 – 07-07-2004
john deller, abrie fourie, wanda yu-ying hu, dorotthee kreutzfeldt, rhett martyn, mary wafer
curator jena barry
The exhibition expresses an ambivalent hope, a meditation and an acknowledgement that one’s sense of the local might be unstable. Works touch on the momentary, fleeting, and transitory in engaging the particular atmospherics of place. The work centres on a desire to capture a sense of place, a shifting sense of the 'local'.
john deller
Title, Context, Date, Medium, Dimensions
abrie fourie
Swallowed (Sunnyside), detail, 2002, photographic light box, dimensions
“What Fourie has come to fetishize in his work…is what one might call a compulsion for the irrelevant moment…Time becomes heavy in these pictures- time is tied down, and the weight of everyday things becomes a delight for the eye.”
John Peffer, Fragmentary Moments Mistaken for Something Meaningful, FNB Vita Art Prize catalogue 2002.
Abrie Fourie tells two tales of ‘’Swallowed’, both of which centre on his desire to capture poetic moments –
firstly, that observing the building he realised that the barbed wire is not intended to prevent one from entering the building, but rather from climbing it’s impenetrable walls.
He is also interested in the difference in mood between the left and right side of the work. Fourie took a photograph of the building, stepped forward and took a second image.
He changed no settings on his camera, but in the moment between each photograph, and in his movement, he captured the fleeting shift of light and of atmospherics.
wanda yu-ying hu
When the sun shines through the leaves, Video stills – series of nine framed, 2004,
Wanda Yu-Ying Hu
Wanda Hu is a Taiwanese artist who lives and works in London. She is enamoured by ephemeral, delicate moments.
Once When The Sun Shined Through The Leaves
Central London
A quiet yellow wall
Standing next to a busy street
It was a spring day
Cloudy as usual
Suddenly through the clouds
The Sun shined sharply
The soft wind blew gently
The leaves flapped happily
Groups of yellow circle light
Appeared on the wall
Dancing
With the leaves
With the wind
With the Sun
All of a sudden
Everything stopped
Disappeared
Gone
Only the blur
Of that ephemeral moment
Is captured
In front of you
Right here
Right now
- Wanda Yu Ying Hu, 2004
dorotthee kreutzfeldt
Notes for Paintings in Public - Detail of gallery intervention which acts as a code or map public painting project in the inner city, 2004, sign writing paint, variable dimensions.
Notes from paintings in public.
Painting in Public is a collaboration with six professional sign-writers on a series of site specific paintings at buildings in the inner city Johannesburg. Most of the sites are vacanct and have been ‘mothballed’ for several years. Each place represents a particular moment in the history and current development of the city. The paintings were to respond or pay homage to the place, its ‘spirit’, architecture and heritage, as well as to the people who reside, work or commute here.
The project developed over a year through a process of research and consultation with stakeholders, the Provincial Heritage and Resource Authorities, the City Council and CJP, historians, neighbouring traders and property owners. The material gathered in the process informed the concepts and designs for each painting, which were produced with the sign writers over three months with the aim to create ‘new sights’ and engage what we see and how we invest (emotionally, economically etc.) in the city we live and work in. Installation of the work started end of May and will be completed by mid July. Walking tours will be offered in July over three weekends, 17th/18th, 24/25th, 31st .
Artists and sign writers who participated include Beki Ngwenya, Thabiso Spieks Banda, Ozor Ejike Ezefuna,Nabil Burhan Batenga, Alindo Gustavo Mula, Edward Solomon Lekala and Marcus Neustetter. Vivienne Mahloko and Vuyani Maseko assisted with field research.
rhett martyn
Untitled, Detail, 2004, Oil on Canvas
mary wafer
Bridge, Detail, 2004, Oil on Canvas
Truck, Detail, 2004, Oil on Canvas
Mary Wafer
Wafer is a South African artist who was living and works in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2004.
She often expresses her deep feeling of being in an interstitial position, and uses her lack of geographical identity to seek an identifying place that exists in a sense rather that an actual place,
that is a nuance, or a reflection, something intangible. Wafer is drawn to how small moments (and some bigger ones) in a day can give an almost complete sense of place.
She is interested in how a sense of place forms a sense of self.
Wafer is absorbed by the poetics of a place - by light, shadow, lines, colour and paint. Wafer paints directly from photographs, exposing the process.
The photographic quality is not merely a reference, but integral to the painting.
Slight shifts and distortions occur between the initial idea and scene (the photograph), the blown up copy, the drawing and then the painting.
Wafer works the colour shifts and clears up the image, allowing a graphic quality to emerge, removing random details, distilling a momentary sense of place.
Statement
Mainly the ideas I am working with are about trying to capture a sense of place/ space. I am drawn to how small moments (and some bigger ones) in a day can give an almost complete sense of something. It is almost intangible, but I can explain in an obvious way by talking about a Joburg thunderstorm, and how the light and sky and air are the place. Then to take it a bit further, how that makes me how and who I am. Most important to me is how a sense of place forms and even creates a sense of self. A relation to the place that you are in, a locality. In the way the word local can mean a geographical space and also a nearby place. I have a deep feeling of being in some kind of interstitial position, but I am also finding ways of reconciling with that. Being what we are and from where we are there is no way we will ever be anything else. I am trying to use my lack of geographical identity, to create some kind of identifying place, that exists in a sense rather that an actual place, that is a nuance, or a reflection, something in the air. So it is all about identity really, and the social politics of geography. The lure of the local, senses of belonging, the right to believe in and own ‘place’.
Things that are also important to me – a sense of the poetry of a place, the light the shadow the lines – all traditional painting ideas, and maybe a bit old fashioned. Colour and paint, line and shape, I love the contrast of light and dark and simple colours. Other important technical reference is that all my paintings are directly from photographs. The photo is very evident in the painting too. It is not merely a reference, but part of the process. I love the slight shifts and distortions that happen between the initial idea and scene, the actual photograph, the blown up copy, and then my drawing and then my painting. So much changes although it is still the same scene in essence. Additionally, I try and work up the colour shifts and clear up the lines, and create a graphic image – remove random details somehow.
comixbrew
Comics Brew is an international festival of comic art that will be held in Southern Africa from May 2004 to March 2005. Pro Helvetia (Arts council of Switzerland), the French Institute of South Africa and the Royal Netherlands Embassy sponsor this event in association with the Goethe Institute Johannesburg, the University of Stellenbosch and Bitterkomix. Anton Kannemeyer is the festival co-ordinator.
The festival is an initiative to showcase, develop and establish comic strip drawing in Southern Africa. The potential of the medium as an educational tool as well as entertainment has been realized in most European countries, the USA and Japan. Recent developments in Europe and the USA have equated the art form with (high) literature, fine arts and film. The festival aims to bring professional artists, specialists, academics, as well as examples of their work to Southern Africa in order to showcase, stimulate and develop this much neglected art form.
One South African and five international comic strip artists make up the Comics Brew International Exhibition that will be travelling to Johannesburg, Maputo (Mozambique), Durban, Cape Town, Luanda (Angola) and Windhoek (Namibia). The artists are Joe Daly (South Africa), Anna Sommer (Switzerland), Henning Wagenbreth (Germany), Jacques Loustal (France), Willem (the Netherlands) , and Sergé Huo-Chao-Si (Reunion).
Joe Daly (South Africa) studied film animation for two years at City Varsity College in Cape Town before realizing that his passion lies with comics. Since then he has published in Africa Comics (Africa e Mediterraneo, Italy) and Bitterkomix 13. At the end of 2003 he published The Red Monkey: The Leaking Cello Case – a 32 page full colour comic about life in the underside of Cape Town. The Red Monkey was also serialized in SL magazine.
Anna Sommer (Switzerland) completed a pre-diploma course at the Zurich School of Art and Design where she specialized in graphic art. Presently she lives in Zurich where she has been working as a freelance comic strip artist and illustrator since 1996. She has published widely in international magazines such as Die Zeit, NZZ Folio, das Magazin, Du, WoZ, Vibrations, Lapin, L'imbécile deParis, Libération and Strapazin.
Henning Wagenbreth (Germany) received a diploma in graphic design at Kunsthochschule Berlin. During his career he completed a one year residence in Paris, worked as instructor for illustration at the Kunsthochschule Berlin and has been lecturer in Visual Communication at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin since 1994. He has published extensively on an international level, also as graphic artist (esp. posters, book covers and children’s books).
Jacques Loustal graduated in architecture from the School of Beaux-Arts. He currently works as a freelance illustrator for advertising and the press. Travelling forms an integral part of his life and he is internationally renowned for his travel sketchbooks. His other work includes numerous illustrated books, children’s books, graphic novels and editorial illustrations.
Willem was born in 1941 in the Netherlands. He studied in Arnhem and Den Bosch between 1962 and 1967. He has published more than 60 books and has been working since 1985 in Paris for Liberation (newspaper) as political-satarist. His work is often highly controversial because of its unyielding criticism and explicit content.
Sergé Huo-Chao-Si was born in 1968 in Reunion. He is a founding member of the comic group Cri du Margouillat and published extensively in the magazine (le Margouillat) until its end in 2002. His first graphic novel, Cases en Tôle, collects stories from this period. In 2003 he published the acclaimed La Grippe Coloniale with writer Appollo.
Prominent South African comic artists such as Zapiro, Rico from Madam and Eve, Stidy, Konradski and Joe Dog (from Bitterkomix) will participate in the events and exhibitions surrounding the festival (see programme for more detailed information).
General outline of the first leg of the festival, Johannesburg:
On 3 May 2004 Comics Brew will be launched in Johannesburg at franchise, 44 Stanley Avenue, Millpark. This event will mark the beginning of the Comics Brew Festival as well as the opening of the International Exhibition. The exhibition will run until the 23rd of May.
Running parallel with the Comics Brew International exhibition will be other events and exhibitions relating to the festival. From 3 – 7 May 2004 workshops will be held at Wits University by Anna Sommer and other comic strip artists. This will allow for local and international partners to meet, collaborate and exchange information. For more information regarding the workshops, Gerhard Marx can be contacted at marxg@artworks.wits.ac.za.
The solo exhibition of Anton Kannemeyer (Joe Dog) entitled Gathering evidence, will be opened on the 4th of May 2004 at Art on Paper on 8 Main Road, Melville. Conrad Botes will launch his exhibition catalogue on the 6th of May 2004 at the Johannesburg Art Gallery on Klein Street, Joubert Park. His exhibition opened on the 17th of April and runs until the 18th of July.
From 7 May 2004 until the 28th of June 2004 an exhibition entitled Ten years of political cartoons will run at Museum Africa at the Old Market building, 121 Bree Street, Newtown, Johannesburg. The artists participating in this exhibition are Zapiro, Stidy and the creators of Madam and Eve. The exhibition is a celebration of and reflection on South Africa’s ten years as a democracy - seen through the eyes of these prominent political cartoonists.
For more information about the festival visit www.comicsbrew.com
HIV(E): ade darmawan, paul edmunds, josé ferreira, sofia garcia vieyra, jena mccarthy, greg streak.
The Hiv(e) project was a social engagement by international artists Ade Darmawan (Indonesia), Paul Edmunds (South Africa), José Ferreira (South Africa - United Kingdom),
Sofia Garcia Vieyra (Argentina), Jena McCarthy (South Africa) and Greg Streak (South Africa).
Hiv(e) was curated and facilated by PULSE.
PULSE, the artist run initiative founded by Durban based visual artist Greg Streak in 2000, is linked to RAIN, an international network of artist run initiatives.
The word hive has as one of its definitions, ‘to separate off from a larger industry, creativity and the sweetening of collective efforts.
Of course, contained in the word HIVE is the acronym HIV or human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids.
josé ferreira instructions for throwing stones detail 2004 print portfolio
Hiv(e) lithographic print portfolio: Portfolio of six prints Edition of thirty
Streak was interested in producing a project that looked to engage the issue of social conscience coupled with artistic integrity in a way that both are adequately addressed and inter-related.
The project does not engage AIDS per se, but rather acts as a metaphor for nurturing and giving – a counter-foil to the art worlds appetite for wanting and taking.
In reality the project manifested itself in direct functional contributions to ‘Gozololo’ an HIV/AIDS centre for children in Kwamashu, a township north-east of Durban.
The artists’ interventions at Gozololo both facilitated direct upliftment of the centre and/or the children, as well as carrying the idiosyncratic stamp of the artists themselves.
The interventions at Gozololo were complimented by equivalent works for exhibition at franchise in April. A limited edition (30) portfolio of six lithographic prints also formed part of the exhibition.
These prints were produced during the project at Stepping Stone Printers, with master printmaker Greg Hayes.
Hiv(e) was supported by the Rijkakademie and the RAIN network, the Royal Netherlands embassy, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs and Stichting Doen.
The print portfolio is included in the Rijksakademie’s collection, Amsrerdam.
greg streak composter gozololo kwamashu 2004
Site specific works are available for viewing on request.