Sounding Out where the visual and musical meet
Exhibition run: July 5-18, 2012
Venue: Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, 10 Mahlatini Street, Fordsburg
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Brendon Bussy
Plastic components
Each shell: approx. 150 x 20 x 250mm
Photo: Andre James, © Andre James, Brendon Bussy
Sounding Out Exhibition
The intersection of visual art and contemporary music animates a July group exhibition hosted at the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios in Johannesburg, South Africa, called Sounding Out.
The exhibition, curated by Kim Gurney assisted by Thato Mogotsi, is infused by the notion of mondialite, as articulated by philosopher Edouard Glissant, where the imaginaries of the self and other might meet. It has an interdisciplinary, collaborative and experimental approach and is broadly shaped by the idea of echoes or refrains as a kind of common ground. The works are thematically focused on communication, an intriguing concern among participants with tone and register and concomitant emphasis on listening and how we hear.
Sounding Out extends beyond the gallery walls. It incorporates an experimental sound art project where selected participants are challenged to treat radio airtime as exhibition space, broadcast during the exhibition on Invisible Cities Radio 102.2FM. The exhibition is also associated with the Johannesburg debut of The Flower of Shembe, a mini-operetta by composer and librettist Neo Muyanga, at the Dance Factory in Newtown on July 6 & 7.
Participants include: Sanell Aggenbach, Lynette Bester, Brendon Bussy, Gordon Froud, Jared Ginsburg, Josh Ginsburg, Nathan Jansen van Vuuren, Angie Mullins, Neo Muyanga, João Orecchia.
Exhibition run: July 4-18
Venue: Bag Factory Artists’ Studios
10 Mahlatini Street, Fordsburg
GPRS: -26° 12’ 13.65”, +28° 1’ 34.51”
Gallery hours: 09h30-16h30 M-F
T: +27 (0)11 834 9181
Sounding Out Opening Night
Date: Wednesday July 4
Time: 17h30 for 18h00
Opening speaker: Professor Achille Mbembe, Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER)
You Tube video clip
“I find this exhibition exciting not only because it tries to bring together music and visual arts, not only because it is experimental and interdisciplinary, but also because it is calling for us to re-imagine the very fact of exhibiting. Exhibiting not simply as a way of seeing but also as a way of hearing; to convoke all the senses and all the faculties in the act for which we re-imagine what an exhibition is all about and what the space of exhibition can be - especially in a place where histories of space have constantly been histories of powers and … inequalities.” — Achille Mbembe, opening speech (July 4, 2012).
Venue: Bag Factory Artists’ Studios
Address: 10 Mahlatini Street, Fordsburg, Johannesburg
T: +27 (0)11 834 9181
E: info@bagfactoryart.org.za
http://www.bagfactoryart.org.za
Sounding Out is brought to you by Bag Factory Artists’ Studios.
This project is funded through the Bag Factory’s Curatorial Development programme by the National Arts Council.
Invisible Cities Pirate Radio
Sounding Out an experimental radio art project
Tune into Invisible Cities Pirate Radio (ICR) on 102.2FM between July 4 & July 18 to hear a curated series of sound artworks broadcast between currently scheduled ICR shows. This collaborative project between Kim Gurney and ICR’s João Orecchia challenges invited artists to treat radio airtime as exhibition space. This project is part of the Sounding Out exhibition and ICR will for its duration inhabit the Bag Factory premises.
Participants include: Brendon Bussy, Malose Malahlela, João Orecchia, Jane Rademeyer, James Sey, James Webb.
ICR is is an alternative to mainstream radio in Johannesburg. It is a place for artists and experiments. A place to talk about our city. ICR reaches all of the Johannesburg city centre, Newtown and Braamfontein via the airwaves on 102.2FM and soon the rest of the world via live stream: http://www.invisiblecitiespirateradio.org
The Flower of Shembe
A mythic tale of faith and destiny,
a mini-operetta by composer/ librettist Neo Muyanga
Neo Muyanga and his company travel up north with The Flower of Shembe, after its Cape Town May debut, for two nights only in Johannesburg to coincide with Sounding Out. The operetta is a fictional narrative about a new messiah coming to terms with a supremely onerous destiny. The plot is inspired in part by rumours surrounding Isaiah Shembe (founder of the ibandla la maNazaretha) and also by studies of modes of flight undertaken by Florentine artists and engineers who invented ways to levitate actors using ingenious machines and trickery.
Muyanga says: “It is true that we live in cynical times; times in which factionalism and war mongering prevail indiscriminately both in the secular and the spiritual worlds. Perhaps the act of making a work about hope and the possibility of transcendence feels a little anachronistic but I believe it is also necessary in order to power the collective imagination of now.”
Muyanga is a participating artist on Sounding Out. His exhibited works are characterisation sketches made partly in preparation for The Flower of Shembe.
Dates: Friday July 6 & Saturday July 7
Time: 20h00
Venue: Dance Factory
10 Henry Nxumalo Street, Newtown, Johannesburg
Tickets: R150
Bookings: +27 (0)11 833 1347 or Computicket: 0861 915 8000
More information: http://www.neosong.net
Neo Muyanga
Video Still
© Neo Muyanga