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Anziska and Zuva challenging the face of buying art
By Robyn Sassen
The glamour that Johannesburg's Melrose Arch exudes by virtue of its shopfronts and sidewalk café clientele doesn't necessarily guarantee an art-aware patronage. But this did not scare Michael Obert, who took over the gallery space in the exclusive center in September last year, calling it Zuva Gallery.
With a sister space in Scottsdale, Arizona, Zuva brings an exciting and optimistic breath of artistic air to Melrose Arch. It's certainly not commercial art to match your furniture that you'll find here, but rather real investments made by artists solidly grounded in the discipline. Here are works which are magnificent and obviously ownable, not cutting edge esoteric art from university.
Currently on show is an exhibition of paintings by Cape Town-based artist Wendy Anziska. This artist needs no introduction to international audiences: she has held numerous highly acclaimed shows in Bonn, London and Paris. Listed in the International Who's Who in Art Anziska is the daughter of a sculptor who was known in the 1960s Parisian Salon scene. She has not shown her work locally in some time, which makes her current show with Zuva something of a scoop. These richly coloured, deeply layered visual essays about identity and meaning offer opulent and intriguing viewing experiences.
Drawing from a range of sources - ideological, visual, intuitive, contextual and coincidental - Anziska's works are often divided into panels. In these, narrative runs concurrently with layers of meaning and intention. Rich in complicated detail, they are works that demand revisiting. The artist's life in intimate detail is present in these works, but her rendition thereof is such that the tone is universal.
Two paintings comment evocatively on the violence that has become so pervasive in our world. Lips and Explosion were not political in intent, but the development of the individual works led the artist to obliterate elements with white paint. The allusion to smoke and the smell of cordite after a massive explosion feels clear. Although Anziska takes an overt stance against politically-toned work, she does believe that we are unavoidably products of our environment.
In most of the works on show are to be found vanitas symbols that have their roots in the European Renaissance. These symbols are commentaries on the transience and wastefulness of modern existence. It's a theme which modernist artists frequently explored, and Anziska's use of it is as self-referential as it is philosophically informed.
Obert is excited and optimistic about this exhibition and his new gallery, and well he should be. With an initiative in place for emerging young artists and a partnership with the Artist Proof Studio in the wings, Zuva anticipates becoming a platform of self-sustainability for local artists, filling the gaps in gallery awareness and professional conduct that so much of tertiary art education reveals. This is another great space to watch grow and visit often.
(From Business Day newspaper, 26 April 2004)
ART
By Ashley Johnson
AN AIR of sincerity pervades WENDY ANZISKA's latest exhibition (Zuva Gallery, Melrose Arch, Johannesburg (011) 684 1214). One senses that she is opening her heart and allowing viewers into this private space. The desire to communicate ideas on life through her paintings takes precedence over artistic style and each work tries to express something unique.
Painting as an art form languishes in the shadows of this century and consequently the skills of facture have been diminishing. Anziska is one of a minority of artists who can use the medium effectively. In essence it demands that a highly developed intuitive sense interacts with the possibilities of paint.
This body of work is incredibly dense and the viewer will constantly be drawn into new discoveries as the layers reveal their treasures. The artist does not make realistic renditions but instead follows the dictates of whim, deploying a range of marks from gouges and scratching to thick impasto squiggles. It is a delight to follow the passages within the compositions to each new experience. Thus the paintings are very expressive on a purely formal level.
More personally, the artist tries to speak poetically through the written word and the symbolic objects she uses. Her intent is to place materialistic aspects of existence in the light of her belief that these are transcended leading into another realm. In Adam and Eve she uses a male icon like James Dean and has him holding a camera as if reality must be understood through the lens. Marilyn Monroe is an icon she uses frequently to stand for women. The glamour of movie stars is more real than everyday experience. People use facades to conceal their identity and so masks and sunglasses are evident signs in the works. Other common symbols like hearts as well as personal memorabilia also abound. Yet the magic lies in the way she blends all her elements.
Venus, a relatively calm painting, combines a yellow image of the Venus de Milo in the foreground girded with a red line that wriggles across frenetically from a camera. The energy in the line conveys the meaning. Behind, Marilyn and other female icons establish a visual tension, advancing against the Venus who tends to meld into the background yellow. Dark rectangular shapes articulate the surface and dictate where the eye should follow.
The free flow of consciousness the artist expresses is evident in even the more structured compositions. The painting titled I Want To Be Something has many rectangular framed sections featuring women from history or personal photographs. A fan blows an image of a woman as though granting a life force. There is a sense of things moving across the painting. Other works dealing with the passing of time like A Moment in Time I and II, are less structured but permit caesuras of meaning to slip through holes in the surface.
Anziska has been acclaimed internationally and parts of this exhibition will be shown at Zuva Gallery's other location in Scottsdale, Arizona. Prices for the works range widely from R5000 to R90000, due in part to her international profile. The exhibition ends on May 9.
tel 480-488-6000 * 1-800-721-ZUVA * scottsdale@zuvagallery.com
Zuva Gallery * Melrose Arch * The 14 High St. * Johannesburg 2076
tel 011-684-1214 * johannesburg@zuvagallery.com
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