PAST EXHIBITIONS
ZANDER BLOM – THE TRAVELS OF BAD
LIAM LYNCH – A CLAUDE GLASS
OLAF BISSCHOFF – TERRA INCOGNITA
ZANDER BLOM – THE DRAIN OF PROGRESS
LIAM LYNCH – OPEN TO MISINTERPRETATION
SOCIETY OF PHOTOGRAPHERS - 6X6
ZANDER BLOM
“THE TRAVELS OF BAD”
5 MARCH – 1 MAY 2009
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"The Travels of Bad" documents the travels of an idealist Machiavellian hero, guitar in hand, on a crusade to revitalise the arts of the culture capital of the world. Fuelled by equal measures of blind optimism and hedonism, the search for new ideas and exotic flavours takes our hero to a fictional paradise setting where this bizarre satirical action tragedy literally starts to unravel.
The Travels of Bad comprises a 48-page mini-novella with 17 photographic works and a 17-track album soundtrack. The exhibition includes a selection of sculptures and merchandise.
The works will also feature prominently at the JoBurg Art Fair from 3-5 April 2009 at the Rooke Gallery stand and the exhibition will travel to WhatIfTheWorld/Gallery in Cape Town to open on 27 May 2009 and close on 27 June 2009.
Artist’s statement
The Travels of bad is essentially a satire that looks critically at the influence that exotic cultures and their artefacts have had on the avant-garde system of European visual art from the end of the 19th century onwards. The critique comes in the shape of mini-novella that is illustrated by a series of photographic works and accompanied by a pseudo rock-opera type symphonic drone thrash metal rock album.
About the book
Zander Blom’s second book “The Travels of Bad” (ISBN 978-0-620-43190-3) is published by the Rooke Gallery and will be launched at the exhibition opening on 5 March.
The book will be available from the gallery and from select bookstores including Boekehuis in Melville, Johannesburg and Biblioteq in Long Street, Cape Town.
Prologue to “The Travels of Bad”
Violently passionate heroism and epic struggles. Terribly tormenting hurdle burdens and deadly back-drops. The imperious forces of nature… apathetic savages, vicious beasts. The underbelly of the unknown. A killer island retreat. One Man… one Goal… one Chance... a quest to restore the culture capital of planet Earth and save the universe.
A massive slime void has appeared in the sky above the earth’s civilized centre as a result of outdated aesthetics, stale, tired, worn-out ideas and pervading mediocre insipid vacuity. The slime entity feeds off the silence of the tons of bland, academic, crap in art museums. The void grows bigger year by year, and if not stopped, will annihilate the universe and all of mankind. Doom is imminent. Brooding and looming. Human survival hangs in the balance. Our hero protagonist genius hard-bastard motherfucker artist, pale vampire, the machismo Machiavellian, the god from the machine, the magical universe exorcist needs to journey to the ends of the known world, back to the savage, the primitive, the naïve, the origin of man, and find new strange exotic weird shit, deliver it from the colourful world of indifference, use it to revitalise the creative spirit of the pale world of intelligence, and have enough pompous misadventures along the way to make cult status.
Adventure, alienation, tragedy, stupidity, high amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, and machinegun measures. A journey, a coma, a rollercoaster-ride, a damn endurance test! A certified party-bus escapade.
Somewhere a guitar solo is vaguely audible over the sound of amazingness… Somewhere a lizard’s purr echoes in a deathcave, and somewhere on the filth ridden backstreets of the over-developed metropolis Earth universe, our disgruntled idealist hero bursts onto the scene. At the exact moment that our death-sex, drone-thrash, action-tragedy breaks into a thick riff.
Hard... fast... bad!!! No illusion-destroying interruptions!!! Go forth! Find the cure of primitive juice!!! The damn exotic art elixir!!! Save the rotting core of the universe... AWESOME!!!
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LIAM LYNCH
“A CLAUDE GLASS”
A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION
9 OCTOBER – 30 NOVEMBER 2008
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"It seems that Gray walked about everywhere with that pretty toy, the Claude-Lorraine glass, in his hand, making the beautiful forms of the landscape compose in it’s luscious chiaroscuro." – Gosse, 1882.
Named for Claude Lorraine, a 17th-century landscape painter, the Claude Glass is a painter’s tool, a somewhat convex dark or coloured hand-mirror, used to concentrate the features of the landscape in subdued tones.
A Claude Glass represents, for some, a radical departure from Liam’s usual approach and aesthetic. Avoiding the traditional structure of narratives or photo stories, and presented only in colour, the work aims to reflect an autobiographical approach, always lyrical, more often than not with a sense of mystery.
Prior to the opening a weblog, podcast and videocast will be made available to those subscribed to the mailing list.
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OLAF BISSCHOFF
"TERRA INCOGNITA"
29 May – 1 August 2008
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Working mainly in oils and often incorporating projection and as-found objects, Olaf's contemporary approach to a classic medium will take the form of a major solo exhibition at the Rooke Gallery in May 2008.
Terra incognita ("unknown land") is the Latin term used in early cartography for regions that had not been mapped or documented. Legend claims that cartographers labelled such regions with "Here be Dragons" and depicted such as decoration on their maps (as evidenced on the one known surviving map, the Lenox Globe, in the collection of the New York Public Library). During the 19th century terra incognita disappeared from maps, since both the coastlines and the inner parts of the continents had been fully explored.
By painting and exploring these scenes/spaces the artist is subjectively busy with personal map-making. The illusion of an invented landscape can however lead to delusion. An It can evoke a certain feeling (melancholy, longing, recognition) or memory of a scientifically mapped and known place/space. This is the fine artist as con-artist.
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ZANDER BLOM
THE DRAIN OF PROGRESS
EXHIBITION AND BOOK LAUNCH
20 SEPTEMBER TO 8 DECEMBER
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Press Coverage
The exhibition comprises a set of one off photographs, drawings, paintings and prints and includes the launch of Zander's first book/Catalogue Raisonné (The Drain of Progress) that provides a unique view of a stage set upon which Zander's ongoing modernist experiment occurs.
With the highest degree of sincerity Zander Blom questions the personal relevance and motives of the modernist visual artists before him.
How did it feel to be the true "avant-garde"? Moreover, of what personal relevance is Modernism when viewed as a series of cultural movements that stretch back as far as the 1890's? His investigation of modernism is much like a child being presented with a watch, and in order to understand it - he immediately takes it apart. The exhibition includes the launch of Zander's first book/Catalogue Raisonné (The Drain of Progress) that provides a unique view of a stage set upon which Zander's ongoing modernist experiment occurs.
The exhibition will comprise a set of one off photographs, drawings, paintings and prints. The exhibition will be open to the public on specific days. Please click here to see the gallery viewing schedule.
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LIAM LYNCH
"OPEN TO MISINTERPRETATION"
A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION FEATURING FOKOFPOLISIEKAR.
28 JUNE TO 31 JULY 2007
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Posters on bedroom walls feature images that serve as veritable snapshots of popular youth culture. Larger-than-life images feature individuals admired and aspired to by an impressionable audience. Often held in place with no more than tacky adhesive, these influential images form an enduring part of one's appreciation for visual art from an early age.
Music photography lies at the very heart of this phenomenon as it captures, in a tangible format, the single most powerful force that shapes youth culture. Music.
"Open to Misinterpretation" is an exhibition that focuses on this force.
Who sets out to shape youth culture? Liam Lynch's deeply personal images of Fokofpolisiekar raise the question of who the most influential players really are. The band? The moral majority? Or the fans themselves?
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SOCIETY OF PHOTOGRAPHERS
"6X6"
PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION AND BOOK LAUNCH
31 JANUARY TO 20 MARCH 2008
The Society of Photographers comprises a collection contemporary photographers based across the globe. The Society operates on a unique system of anonymity and invitation-only membership to ensure that only the best work is revealed to the general public.
Each year the Society publishes a book and hosts physical exhibitions comprising the best of the work produced by a select set of its members.
The 2007/8 project was titled "6x6" and featured Erika Larsen, Ian Wolstenholme, Paula McCartney, Dave Jordano, Sasha Rudensky and Shawn Records.
Guest Judges for 6x6 included :
ROGER BALLEN
SHEYI ANTONY BANKALE (Next Level UK)
DANA FACONTI (BlindSpot Mag NY)
MICHAEL FOLEY (Foley Gallery NY)
JASON FULFORD
CLARE GRAFIK (Photographers Gallery London)
MATTHIAS HARDER (Helmut Newton Foundation Germany).
DARIUS HIMES (Radius Books)
KRISTEN LUBBEN (UCP NY)
STEPHEN SHORE
To see the work please visit www.societyofphotographers.com