Paintings, music, writing

“Landskappe kan in olieverf geskilder word, maar ook in musiek uitgebeeld word. Eerskomende Saterdag (20 Februarie) gaan ek Suid-Afrikaanse landskappe saam met ʼn groep musikante wat ek respekteer en mee identifiseer op die verhoog ontgin. Die Wasgoedlyn-projek is een van daardie opwindende Suid-Afrikaanse projekte wat hoë vlakke van kreatiwiteit en professionaliteit met spontaneïteit kombineer. Gewoonlik tree Riku Lätti as ʼn tipe koormeester op. Hy stel die verhoog op en begin dan ʼn aantal musikale gesprekke tussen die kunstenaars. Hy beskyf dit so: ‘Geen twee Wasgoedlynkonserte is dieselfde nie. Daar is wel ‘n paar konstantes: Geen opgesmuktheid, net rou, ongerepte musiek, gespeel deur die skeppers self met die hart op die mou, en voila, ‘n towerwêreld van oorspronklike klank en liriek is telkemale gebore uit die niet.’ Saam met Riku is daar Jackie Lätti, Churchil Naude, Laurinda Hofmeyr, Willim Welsyn en ek, met slegs my kitaar gewapen.” – Andries Bezuidenhout

Waar? Breytenbach-sentrum, Burgerstraat 14, Wellington
Wanneer? Saterdag, 20 Februarie 2016
Hoe laat? 20:00, maar die deure is 19:00 al oop
Skade? R120 om in te kom. Daar’s ʼn splinternuwe verhoog en kroeg!
RSVP? Asseblief, dit help om kratte in die kroeg te tel (en stoele) maar kom gerus op die ingewing van die oomblik. By besprekings@breytenbachsentrum.co.za of by 082 335 3105

Hierdie vertoning is die laaste van ʼn reeks geleenthede wat saam met die groepsuitstalling “Gas” by die Breytenbach-sentrum in Wellington plaasvind. Van my skilderye is saam met werke van Kirby van der Merwe (olieverf op doek en aluminium) en Hanné Koster (fotografie) te sien – tot 3 Maart.

Voorsmaak van Churchil Naude (saam met Riku) op YouTube.

Wat het ʼn olieverfskildery van ʼn leë munisipale swembad in Brandvlei te doen met ʼn foto van ʼn posbus in Beaufort-Wes? Wat is die verband tussen die handelsmerke van oliemaatskappye en die beeldende kuns? Drie kunstenaars, Hanné Koster, Kirby van der Merwe en Andries Bezuidenhout, het saam aan ʼn uitstalling getiteld “Gas” gewerk wat op die oomblik by die Breytenbach-sentrum in Wellington besigtig kan word. Die uitstalling se titel kom van ʼn skildery van ʼn petrolstasie uit die 1940s deur die realistiese Amerikaanse skilder Edward Hopper.

Die drie kunstenaars lewer elk op hul eie manier kommentaar op die ekologiese krisis wat ons in die gesig staar. Hanné Koster stal foto’s uit van landskaptonele met petrolstasies wat in onbruik verval het, stukkende windpompe en doringdraad. Kirby van der Merwe werk meestal in olieverf – soms op doek, maar ook op aluminium – en skilder tonele van brandende takke, oorlogsveterane en die handelsmerke van oliemaatskappye. Andries Bezuidenhout werk ook met olieverf en skilder landskappe vol tekens van menslike bestaan – heinings, telefoondrade, hoogspanningslyne.

Die uitstalling is verlede Saterdag deur die digter Loftus Marais geopen, maar eerskomende Saterdag (13 Februarie, om 11:00) gaan die drie kunstenaars self oor hul werk praat. Tydens hierdie rondleiding deur die galery gaan hulle gaan praat oor wat hul geïnspireer het om die werke aan te pak en oor en die gesprek tussen hul werk. Kom luister wat hulle sê en kom vra self vrae oor die kunswerke.

Toegang is gratis en ʼn glasie wyn kos R10.

RSVP by Anne-Grett Erasmus by galery@breytenbachsentrum.co.za

Meer inligting en aanwysings om by die Breytenbach-sentrum uit te kom hier.

Andries Bezuidenhout on his contribution to the exhibition:

gas gases, n. gas; (Am.) brandstof, petrol
gas gaste, n. guest, visitor
gas gasse, n. gas

JM Coetzee writes in his novel Elizabeth Costello: “Realism has never been comfortable with ideas. It could not be otherwise: realism is premised on the idea that ideas have no autonomous existence, can exist only in things. So when it needs to debate ideas, as here, realism is driven to invent situations – walks in the countryside, conversations – in which characters give voice to contending ideas and thereby in a certain sense embody them” (p. 9). Or paintings. The title “Gas” draws on Edward Hopper’s painting with the same title, a work characteristic of the American painter’s realist approach to depicting landscapes. Hopper completed this painting of a rural filling station in 1940. A lonely figure guards three fuel pumps at sunset. Electric light from the filling station contrasts with natural light at dusk. A dense forest blocks the horizon.

When we look at Hopper’s painting today it most probably calls up different connotations to those of a typical art enthusiast of the 1940s. Environmental concerns and the ecological impacts of fossil fuels are at the forefront of present day collective consciousness. Fuel stations have already changed in form and design. In the near future filling stations will, in all probability, no longer be places where we are required to interrupt our journeys. This may be a cause for feelings of nostalgia, but their ruins will also remind us of why we use the word anthropocene to name the current era.

The South African context also calls up pertinent issues around the use of non-renewable sources of energy: coal, oil, the impact of fracking on water sources, etc. I’ve been working on landscape paintings that explore how that which we observe on the earth’s surface is related to that which we pump and dig from below the surface in order to move “forward” – to progress, or to regress? I have also been exploring these issues in my poetry and music.

“Gas”, when spoken in Afrikaans, may also mean “guest” or “visitor”. The landscape painter is a visitor, at times a guest, an outsider’s eye that travels with a vehicle propelled across the landscape by a diesel engine in order to stare, to photograph, to paint. The anthropocene era forces us to be more aware of the tension between our status as guests or proprietors of the planet we inhabit. The human being as colonial animal, invader species, parasite. It’s about land, landscapes and possession. Who decides what happens to mineral and water resources? Terms such as “water rights”, “mineral rights” and instruments such as cadastres codify and control nature and other people in a symbolic and violent order. On the landscape itself fences, walls and warning signs are erected as instruments of control. Locating Hopper’s “Gas” in contemporary South Africa would imply eucalyptus trees and Apollo lights over an informal settlement on the horizon.

Landscape painting is typically seen as a conservative and nostalgic artistic genre. Maybe a different way of viewing landscapes (Hopper’s landscapes, but also contemporary realist landscape painting) presents different possibilities. Then again, realism can only deal with the concrete, the landscape, the conversation.

Opening: Saturday 6 February 2016, 11:00

Where? Breytenbach Sentrum, 14 Burger Street, Wellington, South Africa

RSVP: Anne-Ghrett 083 415 0002 / galery@breytenbachsentrum.co.za