A dedicated new art space was launched in Pretoria’s Fried Contemporary recently, showcasing the works of professional artists to collectors and invited guests. First up was Guy du Toit’s amazing new bronze collection Linear Algebra.

The Collector’s Room is Fried Contemporary’s dedicated new exhibition space where the works of celebrated South African artists are exhibited to collectors and invited guests.

After a five year stint with her husband Johan in London, Mika Thom returned to South Africa to take ownership of the gallery in June this year. The new Collector’s Room was launched in August, showcasing the renowned sculptor Guy du Toit’s collection of bronzes, Linear Algebra, which were especially made for the show.

With a background in art studies, business and curatorship, Mika has plans to exhibit the works of many more prominent South African artists in her new room.

Says Mika, “Featured artists are by the nature of what they do, masters in their particular field and known by industry experts and academics. Most of them will have had success in showing with noteworthy galleries and museums nationally and internationally or have been featured in academic publications and exhibition catalogues.”

Currently on show is the group exhibition Land and Sea by Vusi Beauchamp, Michael Cheesman, Abrie Fourie, Leanne Shakenovsky and Pieter Swanepoel. It runs until 4 October 2014. Diane Victor will be showing more of her renowned smoke-drawings too, although this time around, she’ll be producing them in person at the gallery on Saturday, 11 October 2014. It’s open to the public, so it’ll definitely be worth it to come and see how Diane creates her magnificent, ghostly images. Her works will be up until 22 November 2014.

Other renowned artists Mika has in the pipeline for the Collector’s Room include David Koloane, Angus Taylor and Roger Ballen.

For more information about this exciting space, visit friedcontemporary.com.

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Southern Guild ArcelorMittal SA Heavy Metal was an independent exhibition of high-end design investment pieces in the Woodstock Foundry at the same time as Design Indaba. Is this the beginning of a design-fuelled fringe festival?

Trevyn and Julian McGowan, the directors of Southern Guild, were not the only people to piggy back their event on the influx of design professionals into the Mother City. The European Light and Design Centre flew in Giullermo Simo Pascual from FLOS Italy to launch Patricia Urquiola’s new Tatou series, and Sodastream SA took the opportunity to celebrate the new Yves Behar-designed machine.

The Heavy Metal exhibition’s opening was perfectly timed: straight after the first day of the Design Indaba Conference. A live performance by Them Tornadoes, kinetic fire sculpture by Brendhan Dickerson, food trucks, and lots of wine and bubbly made for a stylish but laidback party atmosphere. Celebrated Malian designer Cheick Diallo showed work, and conference speaker David Adjaye made an unofficial appearance and whirlwind tour of the work.

With over 40 pieces on show, also noteworthy about Heavy Metal was the number of top South African designers and artists who were not exhibiting at the expo. Gregor Jenkin, Andile Dyalvane, Porky Hefer, Dokter and Misses, Joe Paine and many others chose to make a single statement piece for Heavy Metal, rather than creating a mass of low-cost high-turnover wares that typically do well at the expo.

“With the Heavy Metal exhibition we want to celebrate this age-old tradition of designers working in steel, bronze, copper, aluminium, gold and silver and the beauty of the raw material, but we equally want to throw a spotlight on the durability and appropriateness of this material in tough economic times when high quality investment pieces are, rightly, favoured over cheap, mass-produced, low-quality objects,” said Trevyn.

VISI thinks that it is fantastic that the South African design industry has grown to this point and the quality of the work on display said it all. In particular, we loved Ceramic Matters’s Dream Dolls, Dokter and Misses’s on-trend use of colour, Haldane Martin’s fabulous Hex brass tables and Guy du Toit’s whimsical hare tables.

For more of Southern Guild’s design collaborations, visit their website www.southernguild.co.za

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