MICHAEL STEVENSON
invites you to the opening of
DISTANT RELATIVES / RELATIVE DISTANCE
Barthélémy Toguo
Senam Okudzeto
Odili Donald Odita
Owusu-Ankomah
Julie Mehretu
Wangechi Mutu
on Wednesday 7 June 2006, 6-8pm
The exhibition closes on Saturday 8 July 2006
Please click this link to view a selection of the works on show.
For the 2006 winter season, Michael Stevenson will present Distant Relatives/Relative Distance, an exhibition featuring contemporary artists from elsewhere in Africa who currently live overseas. It will be the first occasion in almost all instances that paintings and installations by Barthélémy Toguo, paintings by Senam Okudzeto, Odili Donald Odita and Owusu-Ankomah, prints by Julie Mehretu, and video work by Wangechi Mutu will be exhibited in South Africa.
South Africans share many concerns with these distant relatives, including the prejudice of Western institutions and a common political sphere, yet dialogue between South African and other African artists seldom takes place in this country. Local issues of transformation and representation have occupied the South African art world for the past fifteen years. Perhaps as a result, the cities in which the artists on this exhibition practice seem far away.
That distance, however, is relative. In recent years contemporary African art has been the subject of much critical writing and a series of international exhibitions, such as The Short Century, Authentic/Ex-centric at the 49th Venice Biennale, Looking Both Ways, A Fiction of Authenticity and, most recently, Africa Remix. All of these projects showed South Africans alongside other African artists. Taking the term 'distance' more literally, the upcoming exhibition creates an unprecedented physical proximity, giving South African audiences an opportunity to see work by artists they might only know from catalogues.
Michael Stevenson is looking forward to hosting these distant relatives, showing that distance is relative. Distant Relatives/Relative Distance will open Wednesday 7June, 6 - 8pm. The gallery is open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday from 10am to 1pm.
MICHAEL STEVENSON | Hill House, De Smidt St, Green Point, Cape Town | PO Box 616, Green Point, 8051, South Africa
tel +27 (0)21 421 2575 | fax +27 (0)21 421 2578 |
info@michaelstevenson.com | www.michaelstevenson.com
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