A Vigil of Departure
Louis Khehla Maqhubela
A Retrospective 1960 – 2010
The Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg
3 August – 18 September 2010

(and touring to IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town: 27 October 2010 – 13 February 2011, and Durban Art Gallery, 23 February – 24 April 2010)

The Standard Bank Gallery is honouring Maqhubela with a major retrospective exhibition of work from 1960 – 2010. This is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue written by the curator, Marilyn Martin. It covers Maqhubela’s remarkable historical achievement in being the first ‘black artist’ to win a prestigious art prize in an Apartheid clad South Africa of 1967. Tracing how the award took him to Europe to see its art collections, the curator describes his move away from the prevalent ‘township art’ towards a formal, spiritual abstraction that has characterised his painting ever since.

In 1973 Maqhubela left South Africa with his family for political reasons and in 1976 settled in London, where he has lived and worked ever since. The exhibition provides an invaluable survey which allows South Africans who have forgotten him or have never heard of him, to discover someone returning from apparent obscurity into their midst, and in Mariyn Martin’s words, “to welcome and embrace a significant artist who, for too long, has been absent from our consciousness and our art history books”.

The Scottish Summer Exhibition at the Fleming Collection
13 Berkley St, London W1
16 June – 4 September 2010

Including: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Jake Harvey, Margaret Hunter, Alan Kilpatrick, Helen MacAlister, Will Maclean

Kevin Laycock
Leeds City Art Gallery
September 2010 – February 2011

Collision is a unique collaboration between composer Michael Berkeley (known to many from Radio 3’s Private Passions on Sunday mornings) and Kevin Laycock, resulting in a cross-disciplinary work that examines the intersection of research in music and contemporary art: in particular, the questions associated with the analysis, translation and interpretation of the musical score into a visual format using painting practice and digital media.

Simon Lewty
Monograph publication: The Self As A Stranger September 2010

The first major monograph on the art and life of Simon Lewty will be produced by Black Dog Publishing and Art First in September 2010.

Richard Cook
The Exchange Gallery, Penzance
October 2010 – January 2011

The Exchange Gallery, Penzance is holding a large exhibition of Richard Cook’s recent work in October 2010, running till January 2011.

Simon Morley
Messagerie
Musée Des Beaux Arts, Dijon
May 2010 – January 2011

The Musée Des Beaux Arts has invited Morley to curate an exhibition from the museum’s historic collection, in particular early fifteenth century Flemish paintings with scrolls of text, which are to be linked with his own paintings.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
Audrey Burton Gallery, Leeds (& touring)
January – July 2010

A Discipline of the Mind: the Drawings of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham is a travelling exhibition which began at the Pier Art Centre, Stromness in Orkney, in 2009, continues at the Plymouth Art Gallery from 22 May to 10 July.

Alex Lowery / Luke Elwes / Lino Mannocci
Another Country: London Painters in Dialogue with Modern Italian Art
Estorick Collection, London
April – June 2010

An exhibition dedicated to the response of ten London-based painters (Tony Bevan, Arturo di Stefano, Luke Elwes, Tim Hyman, Andrzej Jackowski, Merlin James, Glenys Johnson, Alex Lowery, Lino Mannocci and Thomas Newbolt) to the work of a selection of modern Italian artists, including Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà and Mario Sironi.

Alexis Preller: A Visual Biography
by Esmé Berman and Karel Nel

This two volume publication fills a vacuum in which the major South African artist Alexis Preller (1911 - 1975) only had one small book, published in 1947, devoted to his art.

Written by distinguished art historian, Esmé Berman, author of Art & Artists of South Africa and a personal friend of Preller, this is a defining account of his life and work, with illustrations and an accompanying text that trace the evolution of Preller's fascinating, enigmatic iconography.

The author worked in close collaboration with artist and university Professor, Karel Nel, who brought an exceptional sense of design to the publication, as well as his rare understanding of traditional African culture, to identify and explain the artefacts and symbols prevalent in Preller’s paintings.

The Biography is launched to coincide with a definitive survey exhibition: ALEXIS PRELLER: Africa, the Sun and Shadows at the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, 13 October – 5 December, 2009. www.standardbankgallery.co.za

20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, 9.11.2009
MARGARET HUNTER: Joint Venture Mural, The East Side Gallery, Berlin

In the summer of 1990, following the dramatic and totally unexpected Fall of the Berlin Wall, Margaret Hunter was one of a group of artists, from East and West, invited to make a painting on the longest remaining stretch of Wall. This was the previously untouched part on the East side, approx one mile long, and 3.5 m high. The resulting 106 murals became known as The East Side Gallery and in the early nineties it was put under a protection order, to become a listed memorial.

Recently DM 2.5 million was allocated to renovate The East Side Gallery and the artists were brought back to repaint their murals as they originally appeared. Being one of the major events for the 20th anniversary celebrating the collapse of the Wall, there has been worldwide media interest.

Art and Text

Art and Text covers the development of the textual medium in art from the early combinations of text, lettering and image in the work of seminal artists such as El Lissitzky and Kurt Schwitters right up to the present day and includes the work of Simon Lewty and Simon Morley.

Art and Text, published by Black Dog, September 2009. Hardback, 28.0 x 23.0 cm, 288 pages