Appeal 2012 art, law and the media
Exhibition Overview
APPEAL 2012 for Case 001/05/08: Catherine Dickerson, Amber-Jade Geldenhuys, Ansie Greyling, Kadromatt, Ikram Lakhdhar, Kai Lossgott, Nelson Makamo, Leroye Malaton, Agnes Marton, Naadira Patel, Sandile Radebe, Elgin Rust, Pauline Theart, Mma Tseleng and Marguerite Visser.
September 11-24
A constantly morphing exhibition that explores ideas around art, law and the media opened on Tuesday 11 September in a pop-up event at an inner-city warehouse. ‘APPEAL 2012’, the latest iteration of a long-running research project by artist Elgin Rust around judicial redress, incorporates over its two-week exhibition run the creative responses of a dozen other artists to a core installation of existing ‘evidence’ by Rust around notions of the judiciary and related issues of redress. The exhibition takes the form of a fictional court case with Rust as lead evidence presenter and the participant artists as a jury.
Rust says: “Much like a trial gets re-opened for an appeal where evidence is re-evaluated, the project is re-opened and investigated. And like a case that goes into an appeal moves between courts, the project now moves location from Cape Town to Johannesburg.”
Artworks vary from sculpture to video, photography, sound and text. Some of the works are performative and ephemeral and many are site-specific, responding strongly to the distinctive industrial exhibition space. They range from: unnanounced poetry readings (Agnes Marton) and a unique kwaito set performed at the opening event (Kadromatt and Mma Tseleng), making reference to a kwaito legal dispute about royalties and copyright issues rendered with court audio clips from Rust’s evidence, to a series of inflatable sculptures powered by fans and hairdryers (Catherine Dickerson), obsolete surveillance cameras (Amber-Jade Geldenhuys), a courtroom chair reconfigured into a spider-like sculpture Gogga (Ansie Greyling), a long-distance contribution that responds to the artworks from the US (Ikram Lakhdhar), a linked LED lightbox and performance piece that included a typewriter, found legal statute book and magnetic tape (Kai Lossgott), a reconfiguration of Rust’s The Ship of Fools installation into a kind of psychogeography of the inside of a courtroom Order Out of Chaos (Leroye Malaton), a video and sound projection by Naadira Patel, a column created out of cardboard that playfully takes its cue from the architectural surrounds (Sandile Radebe), an exploration of voice and song in sound art through the performance of a lullaby into the exhibition space (Pauline Theart), and a drawing relating to Lady Justice that engages with narrative imagination (Marguerite Visser).
The composite final installation evident at the finnisage 24 September comprises what Rust terms a final ‘judgement’, in effect a joint collaborative visual statement regarding emotional transformation.
The exhibition is hosted in collaboration with guerilla gallery, a transient artist-led independent platform that enables projects in makeshift city spaces. The exhibition is curated by Rust with Kim Gurney. The venue is courtesy of 1886, a property development, asset and financing solutions company, and The Living Artists’ Emporium in Doornfontein. The exhibition is partly sponsored by the National Arts Council.
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Vernissage
Date: Tuesday 11 September
Time: 18h00
Mma Tseleng & Kadromatt explore early Kwaito’s use of language in Case # 001/05/1994-2004: Sghubu vs The People. Building from Hillbrow: The Map, a mixtape and cassette sleeve publication that looked at royalty and ownership cases in early Kwaito, the duo perform at the vernissage a set that investigates music’s disregard for morals, the media, academia, hypocrisy and society’s double standards.
Installation towards a cassette sleeve and mixtape publication, part of the Independent Publishing Project
Mma Tseleng and Kadromatt
Image credit: Francis Burger
Agnes Marton, a Hungarian-born poet who has travelled from Luxembourg to participate in APPEAL 2012, gives unannounced poetry readings during the opening. The previous day, she treats other participant artists to a private reading in the exhibition space.
Finissage
Date: Monday 24 September
Time: 18h00
Venue: 2nd floor, Warehouse Building East, 3 Buxton Street, Doornfontein, Johannesburg
The closing event of the exhibition is a special occasion where the final iteration of the installation, incorporating all the responses of the participant artists, will be fully evident. The event includes a performance piece by Kai Lossgott incorporating a typewriter, found statute book and magnetic tape, as well as a sound art performance by Pauline Theart, who will sing a lullaby into the industrial exhibition space in response to trauma she perceives as evident in the core installation by Elgin Rust.
Event: Artists’ Walkabout
Date: Saturday 15 September
Time: 11h00
Venue: 2nd floor, Warehouse Building East, 3 Buxton Street cnr 29 Siemert, Doornfontein, Johannesburg
Interested parties are invited for a walkabout of the exhibition by participant artists including Elgin Rust, Sandile Radebe, Leroye Malaton and Pauline Theart who gives the first in a series of three sound art performance by singing a lullaby into the industrial exhibition space as a response to trauma perceived as evident in Rust’s installation.
Event: Public workshop
Date: Saturday 22 September
Time: 14h00
Venue: 2nd floor, Warehouse Building East, 3 Buxton Street, Doornfontein, Johannesburg
All welcome and the workshop is free. Come and give your own artistic response to the installation — materials provided.
Email nomadicplatform@gmail.com for more information or to reserve your place.
Note: Secure parking available. Cnr Buxton & 29 Siemert, just off Joe Slovo. Near Stallion security/ Jozi Junction/ ‘21 Blazing Hot Years’ billboard indicates the turn. Look out for ‘Appeal’ signage outside the correct driveway and number 3 on the gate - map and directions below.
Exhibition venue
Download pdf here: Venue map
Venue directions:
Exhibition signage
The entrance driveway with ‘APPEAL’ banner on left-hand side looks like this:
And the dots to follow to the exhibition venue look like this:
Project Archive: Forum for Redress
FFR is an open forum, investigating processes of redress that have come to light as a result of CASE N0 001/05/2008, setting a precedent in the matter. This case, which was taken on by Adv. Alice in 2008, remains unresolved to date, with an appeal scheduled for September 2012. The forum thus aims to identify, frame and host discourses on key issues pertaining to processes of redress within the fields of law, culture and aesthetics, by gathering people and objects in this online archive in the lead-up to the hearing in Johannesburg in an attempt to justly resolve the matter.
Visit Forum for Redress online.
Elgin Rust ©
6th in the Series, Edition ?
Photomontage, collaged, archival ink on photolustre paper
84 x 147cm