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Sean O’Toole describes the Horse exhibition as
‘Topsy Turvy’
Sunday Times - 18 September 2011
Thoughts?
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Opening night!
Photography by Roz Berzen
Posted on September 13, 2011 with 1 note ()
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Plays: 0
Ricky Burnett on 702 9/09/2011
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Simon Stone
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Details from Book of Iterations, Pippa Skotnes
“The lake is not deep there, not more than six feet; but a hundred yards from the shore the bottom suddenly drops. Pressed within the narrow space (the lakeshore curves inward there forming a small bay) between the deeper water and the barrier of fire, the horses clustered, shuddering with cold and fear, their heads stretched out above the surface of the water. Those nearer to land were scorched by the flames and reared and struggled to hoist themselves onto the backs of the others, tried to push a way open by biting and kicking. And while still madly struggling, the ice gripped them.
The north wind swooped down during the night. (The north wind blows from the Murmansk Sea, like an angel of doom, crying aloud, and the land suddenly dies.) The cold became frightful. Suddenly, with the peculiar vibrating noise of breaking glass, the water froze. The heat balance was suddenly broken, and the sea, the lakes, the rivers froze. In such instances, even sea waves are gripped in mid-air and become rounded ice waves suspended in the void.
On the following day, when the first ranger patrols, their hair singed, their faces blackened by smoke, cautiously stepped over the warm ashes in the charred forest and reached the lakeshore, a horrible and amazing sight met their eyes. The lake looked like a vast sheet of white marble on which rested hundreds upon hundreds of horses’ heads. They appeared to have been chopped off cleanly with an ax. Only the heads stuck out of the crust of ice. And they were all facing the shore. The white flames of terror still burnt in their wide-open eyes. Close to the shore a tangle of wildly rearing horses rose from the prison of ice.”
‘The Horses’ Curzio Malaparte, Kaputt
MULTIPLE VIEWS OF A SINGULAR BEAST
An exhibition of 60 South African artists curated by Ricky Burnett.
8 September - 30 October 2011
Everard Read Gallery and CIRCA on Jellicoe
The horse carries many stories on its back. It appears as a potent symbolic and iconic presence in many cultures from deep antiquity to the present day. This is testament to its variety of energies that the horse holds for us both socially and psychically. Harnessed for war, peace, agriculture, travel and transport the horse is also a powerful expression of both domesticity and wildness and, indeed, overt and covert sexuality.
This is an unusual topic for a ‘serious’ South African art show; our cultural life often appears to be obsessed with self conscious concerns about identity race and gender.
The exhibition has been actively curated rather than selected from pre-existent works. In other words artists are making unique and particular work for the show. This is not a competition, there are no winners and losers and no judging panel. In short, the work will have been coaxed and the exhibition will be constructed to form a complex and reflective essay about the horse in our life and times. And also, of course, it will essay varieties of creative language and attitudes.
the exhibition ranges from ‘realism’ to abstraction, from conceptual and minimial to ‘hot’ and expressionist. Some work will be large and will embrace significant production value and some will be small and intimate and reflect private thought processes. The exhibition will embrace many established names and will also include many young emerging talents.
