Legends at Standard Bank Gallery
JOBURG - Minnette Vári who – for the past 20 years, has been one of South Africa’s leading visual artists – along with the Qing-Orpen Project, will exhibit all new shows at the Standard Bank Gallery this year.
The gallery will open two long-awaited exhibitions on 29 January.
The project drew inspiration from British official Joseph Orpen and a young bushman guide named Qing who met in December 1873 when a party of armed men from the Cape Colony and its north-eastern borderlands travelled through the Maluti highlands of Basutoland. Although the party had an essentially military purpose, the exchanges between Qing and Orpen on the topic of cave drawings have become the most famous result of its operations.
The exhibition titled On the Trail of Qing and Orpen, aims to extend this work beyond the textual mode, and beyond the confines of the academy.
It is an opportunity for members of the Qing-Orpen Project to give prominence to other elements in the story of Qing and Orpen – landscapes, material objects, pictures, people, ideas – in order to widen the context within which the text’s origins and resonances can be understood.
Minnette Vári, on the other hand, is from a generation which saw the end of apartheid and this is reflected in her work. Her art has been featured in exhibitions around the world and is specifically focused on South Africa and its momentous transition.
The title of her exhibition, Of Darkness and of Light, is a reflection of conceptual, emotional and visual threads that run through her body of work.
Don’t miss the opening of the exhibitions at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg CBD.
Details: www.standardbank.co.za
