September 12–November 8, 2013
SCAD Savannah
Gutstein Gallery
201 E Broughton St.
Savannah, GA 31401
Public Program: Friday, September 27, 3:30–5:30pm
Reception: Friday, September 27, 5:30–7pm
Guest curated by Storm Janse van Rensburg, Abrie Fourie’s Oblique features an HD film installation and photographs, many of which have never been seen before. This expanded version of the traveling exhibition has been previously shown in Germany and South Africa and follows the publication of the artist’s monograph of the same name published in 2011. Central to this work is a narration by well-known South African actor Marcel van Heerden of a text by the author and theorist Ivan Vladislavić. Fourie’s practice can be seen as a catalog of memories as an ongoing archive. He explores the familiar and intimate zones of home with the same interest and curiosity as he does the unknown. In his practice, he avoids narrow and direct modes of documentation, and aims to explore the ambiguous and unfixed. He states that this approach is ‘not so much defining a place, as circling the relationship between spaces, sign and self; it hints at that silent tension between absence and presence, abstraction and reality.’
The Oblique public program will feature a dialogue between artists, curators, writers, thinkers, academics and photography enthusiasts. The event is envisaged as a moderated but informal gathering where participants will share and search for points of contact and, perhaps obliquely and gently, interrogate the power of the image in our processes of memorialization.
The exhibition and program are free and open to the public.
For more information, please see scad.edu/calendar/exhibition.
Biographies
Abrie Fourie (b. 1969) was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and has lived and worked in Berlin since 2007. He has presented a number of solo exhibitions at important institutions including the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Iwalewa Haus (Bayreuth, Germany), the Museum for African Art (New York) and the Forum d’Art Contemporain FAC (Sierre, Switzerland), amongst others. He was a recipient of the inaugural Africa Center Spier Contemporary Award (Cape Town) and has participated in group exhibitions at Daimler Contemporary (Berlin), Iziko South African National Gallery (Cape Town) and the Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), amongst others.
Storm Janse van Rensburg (b. 1972) is an independent South African curator currently based in Berlin. He was previously senior curator of Goodman Gallery Cape Town (2007–11) and curator of the KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts (KZNSA), Durban (2000–06), both in South Africa. He was a founding member of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa. Curated group exhibitions include New Painting, a national traveling exhibition (KZNSA, University of South Africa Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery), Nation State and EAT ME! for Goodman Gallery and The Beautyful Ones for Nolan Judin Gallery, Berlin. Curated solo exhibitions include Beau Diable by James Webb (National Arts Festival, 2007); Wonderland by Nontsikelelo Veleko (Standard Bank Young Artist, 2008); Portraits by David Goldblatt (Goodman Gallery Cape Town, 2011) and Labor Berlin 11: Oblique by Abrie Fourie (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa, and Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth, Germany, 2012). He has edited a number of exhibition catalogues and has written for African Arts journal, Art South Africa and Canvas magazines, amongst others.
About SCAD
The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited institution conferring bachelor’s and master’s degrees at distinctive locations and online to prepare talented students for professional careers. SCAD offers degrees in more than 40 majors. Visit scad.edu.
