From 8 September, Cape Town’s Stevenson Gallery will exhibit new work by artist Conrad Botes in his third solo show at the gallery.
Botes’ exhibition is entitled “The Temptation to Exist” and, along with a return to paintings on canvas, features his distinctive reverse-glass paintings. The title refers to a collection of essays by Romanian philosopher EM Cioran’s, by the same name, and is seen by Botes to suggest the way life life might look without the boundaries of Calvinistic values. The artist also raises the question of our very desire to exist in the world as we know it.
Seeking answers to the existence of man, the artist subverts the biblical account of creation and instead portrays a vision of violence and degradation. In this exhibition, head-and-shoulders images that depict Botes’ own face are overlayed with his characteristic scrawl of anarchic figures running amok. Botes acknowledges that the idea of God cannot be ignored; His omnipresence is fundamental to our existence, even though we may choose whether or not to believe. In addition to the paintings on show, these themes will be further explored in an installation combining wall painting and sculpture.
The work of this Cape Town artist was recently included on Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now, prints from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art at MoMA, New York. Other recent group exhibitions include Peekaboo: Current South Africa at the Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki (2010); the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010); … for those who live in it: Pop culture, politics and strong voices at MU Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2010); the third Guangzhou Triennial, China (2008); Africa Comics at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2007); and the 2006 Havana Biennale.
A FOREX project show by Keren Cytter will run concurrently at the gallery. The exhibition opens on Thursday 8 September, from 6 to 8pm. The gallery is open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday from 10am to 1pm.
More information: www.stevenson.info
