FNB JoburgArtFair 2015

ABOUT FNB JOBURG ART FAIR
The FNB Joburg Art Fair is a leading art fair focused on contemporary art from the continent and diaspora. Now in its eighth year, it continues to strengthen its position by presenting the finest of contemporary African art alongside memorable exhibitions and groundbreaking initiatives.

Since its inception in 2008, the fair has set out to grow a sustainable industry for the arts with a solid base of local and international buyers. Loyal commitment from participating galleries and partners each year has allowed the fair to reach record sales and visitor numbers.

Now a vibrant program of collateral events happens throughout the city of Johannesburg, reinforcing the demand for an annual event where the continent’s artists, curators, collectors and enthusiasts can congregate.

Special features of the Fair include a series of curated Special Projects, a VIP Program that has hosted top international curators and directors from institutions like The Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou and CCA Lagos, as well as a Talks Program that invites art-world figures, philosophers, and critical theorists to deliver key-note lectures and participate in panel discussions. The 2015 Fair will also see the fifth edition of the FNB Art Prize – a major opportunity for an artist to realize a new work at the Fair.

PROGRAMMING & SPECIAL PROJECTS
The 8th edition of the Fair features over 50 exhibitors from 7 different countries. This year is focused on experimental film and live performance. The Theater hosts a program of Film screenings, Performances and Talks to highlight the growing significance of these multidisciplinary forms in contemporary African art.

FNB ART PRIZE – TURIYA MAGADLELA
The FNB Art Prize was launched in 2011. All galleries participating in the Fair are given the opportunity to nominate one of their artists for consideration by our jury. The winning artist receives a cash prize as well as the opportunity to showcase their work in a dedicated space at the Fair. The two highly respected judges tasked with selecting this year’s recipient were Senegalese curator, Koyo Kouoh, and Nigerian curator, Bisi Silva. Twenty-five galleries presented high quality proposals and this year’s FNB Art Prize winner is South African artist, Turiya Magadlela.

Magadlela (born 1978) uses a variety of commonplace fabrics such as nylon pantyhose, correctional services sheeting and uniforms in her work. By playing with the associations intrinsic to these fabrics, Magadlela imbues her work with meaning. In her practice of stitching, folding and stretching these materials across wooden frames, Magadlela creates formally stringent, abstract compositions.

For the FNB Art Prize 2015, Magadlela presents a series of works under the title, Imihuzuko (an iteration of which was shown at the Johannesburg Art Gallery from May – July 2015). Magadlela began work on this series in 2013 in an ongoing contemplation on the history of incarcerated black South African leaders. Using traditional Xhosa cloth and correctional service fabrics with their torn edges, creases and exposed stitching, she tells a story of our complex history in subtle, minimal compositions. A focal point of the exhibition comprises a large-scale installation: a grid of steel institutional beds arranged in a cell-like constellation, ‘dressed’ with these fabrics. The installation examines what it might mean to be incarcerated and brings into sharp focus the realities of present day prisons in South Africa.

FEATURED ARTIST – CANDICE BREITZ
Presented by Artlogic, Johannesburg Art Gallery and Goodman Gallery
The FNB JoburgArtFair is proud to announce internationally acclaimed Candice Breitz as the 2015 Featured Artist. Over the past 20 years, Breitz has created a remarkable body of video and photographic work that explores stereotypes, constructed identities and visual conventions in film and popular culture. Candice Breitz (born 1972, Johannesburg) is a South African artist based in Berlin.

The Featured Artist project showcases her multi-channel video installation Him + Her, marking the inaugural presentation of this two-part, major work in a South African context. In addition, Breitz debuts a Special Project – entitled Portrait of an Artist – that has been developed especially for the FNB JoburgArtFair.

Him + Her, two 7-channel video installations by Breitz, each stage the virtual encounter of an individual with a crowd of his or her other selves. Picking up where Breitz’s earlier installations Mother + Father left off, Him + Her uses existing footage from Hollywood films to compose two dense psychological vignettes. Within the imaginary space of Her (1978 – 2008), 28 Meryl Streeps, extracted out of films made by the actress over a period of 30 years, meet to discuss their needs, fears and desires. In Him (1968 – 2008), 23 Jack Nicholsons, derived from films made over four decades, congregate to exchange dialogue that swings in tone from jocularity to paranoia within the space of seconds. Although displayed in two separate rooms, Him and Her are identical in structure and mirror each other formally. Each installation suspends seven plasma displays on a minimal steel structure. Across the displays, numerous manifestations of the same actor (either Nicholson or Streep) jostle with each other for prominence, collectively suggesting, in their sameness and difference, strong metaphors for the polyphonic internal dialogue that takes place within the mind of a single individual. In engaging a series of disparate voices from the same mind, Breitz creates a kaleidoscopic, insightful and witty set of interactions between the multiple Jacks and many Meryls – interactions that draw to the surface a series of Hollywood-perpetuated cliches about psychology and gendered identity. The voices speak to each other, against each other and over each other, occasionally achieving moments of strange harmony.

BENJAMIN PATTERSON
Presented by the Goethe-Institut
In 2015 the Goethe-Institut supports the Fair’s focus on film and performance art with two projects: the showing of work from the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, both as part of the central programme and in a dedicated booth, and the performance work Paper Piece by one of the founding members of Fluxus, Ben Patterson.

Patterson (American, b. 1934), will perform Paper Piece (1960), in the context of the exhibition Think of Number 6, which is organised by John Peffer and Bettina Malcomess at Point Of Order, Johannesburg.

Patterson was an early pioneer of performance art, and his Paper Piece is a score for five performers who twist, tear, shuffle, wave and otherwise manipulate a pile of paper to produce various sonic and visual effects. This iconic and influential work premiered at the first Fluxus Festival in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1962, and it is the earliest example of a Fluxus performance to activate audience participation.

Along with artists associated with the Futurism, Dada, Happenings, and Gutai groups, Patterson and his Fluxus cohort helped invent what are now known under the general terms “performance art,” “conceptual art,” and “relational aesthetics”. Fluxus methods continue to influence experimental artistic practice today, especially their use of everyday materials and live chance events (following the philosophy of John Cage), and their approach to art making with its spirit of openness and mischievous humour that includes the audience in the act of creation.

INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL OBERHAUSEN
Presented by the Goethe-Institut
The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is the oldest of its kind and one of the largest and most important platforms for short films worldwide. The FNB JoburgArtFair programme is curated by Hilke Doering, who has been with Oberhausen since 1995 in the capacity of head of the International Competition, the Children’s and Youth Cinema and the Market. The following films will be screened in the Theatre:

Sans-titre (Untitled), 2011, directed by Neil Beloufa
La Estancia, 2014, directed by Federico Adorno
Freedom and Independence, 2015, directed by Bjørn Melhus
Epistrofi stin odo aiolu (Returning to Aeolus Street), 2013, directed by Maria Kourkouta
Item Number, 2012, directed by Oliver Husain
Sieben Mal am Tag beklagen wir unser Los und nachts stehen wir auf um nicht zu träumen (Seven Times a Day We Complain About Our Fate and at Night We Get Up to Avoid Our Dreams), 2014, directed by Susann Maria Hempel

Additionally, a program of very short video works will be presented at the Goethe- Institut booth (Booth 40).

2015 DISCOVERY AWARD
Presented by LOOP Barcelona and the Spanish Embassy
LOOP is an independent platform dedicated to the fostering
of video art, artists’ films and moving image practices.
Antiga Fabrica Damm hosts the exhibition of the winner
and 10 finalists of the 2015 Discovery Award – an art video
/ film competition that aims to support and recognise new
work by international artists. The competition solicits entries
through a free open call to the artistic community and this
LOOP Barcelona initiative is supported by Estrella Damm,
who sponsored the first edition of the prize in line with her long-time support of the cultural sector. The Discovery Award in partnership with the Spanish Embassy are proud to present the 1st Award winner, Shahar Marcus and Honourable Mention, Marco Godoy on the Theatre programme. Films by the other 2015 nominees will be screened on the FNB JoburgArtFair Parallel Programme.

THE JOHANNESBURG PAVILION
Presented by 133 Arts Foundation, FNB JoburgArtFair and the City of Johannesburg
The Johannesburg Pavilion constitutes a group of film and
performance artists investigating the possibilities and the
implications of presenting and making work on the edges of
a global art event like the Venice Biennale. It was created
in 2015 by the 133 Arts Foundation in partnership with the
FNB JoburgArtFair. Johannesburg Pavilion artists developed
new work in-situ at the 56th Venice Biennale. The resulting
film documentation will be shown for the first time during the Fair along with a new performance by Johannesburg Pavilion artist, Silindokuhle ‘Ibokwe” Khoza entited I’M NOT ILOLO NOW THAT ITHONGO SELI VUMILE. Please refer to Theatre Programme for more details.