Artist Bev Butkow’s immersive installation at RMB Turbine at Fair
By Edward Tsumele
And so the RMB Turbine Art Fair (TAF) is open today for public viewing and buying the art works on display by 60 galleries, as well as sampling art talks and other interesting conceptual projects on offer.
It is understandable that a lot of art lovers could easily be confused as to what to look out for as there is so much to check out. Here at CityLife Arts we would like to advise visitors to the fair this year that you should visit as many galleries as you can, and it is possible to do so since the fair has gone virtual this year. Actually you can enjoy the fair with the whole family in the comfort of your home, and how more wonderful an experience could be, thanks to Covid-19 that has made many events impossible to attend physically.
While we recommend that visit as many exhibitors as you can so that you can make an informed decision as to which artist to collect, we would however like to recommend that you should not forget to check out an installation by this artist, and please understand there are many conceptual ideas at the fair besides this one. We are in no way saying this is the most interesting, for it is obviously impossible to single out one among many other interesting art objects, concepts, installations and exhibits as the most outstanding. In fact everything you see at RMB TAF 2020, has been carefully curated and represents possibly the best that southern African artists could offer this year in different media and styles. We are merely saying as you do so that is virtually touring the fair, remember to check out this one too. Having put that out of the way, here is what this artist’s installation is all about.
Photographs by Thekiso Mokhele
New immersive installation by Bev Butkow
Bev is one of the artists who’ve defied the odds to make things happen despite the lockdown, creating a large-scale immersive installation woven into the rafters of the Bag Factory Artist Studios, knotting itself to the physical structure of the building. Representing two years of work, her new film piece embodied-entanglements is also live at the fair as part of Tactile Visions-Woven, an exhibition curated by Professor Sharlene Khan. This selection of textile-based works expands the conversation on ‘materiality’ and ‘tactility’ through contemporary artists who engage these concepts. A series of striking photographs by Thekiso Mokhele capturing Bev’s creative process are available for sale. Butkow’s installation can be virtually visited at the RMB Turbine Art Fair.
The artist along with one other artist Sanelisiwe Nkonyane, are represented at the RMB TAF by Guns & Rain, a Johannesburg based gallery that focuses on contemporary artists from southern Arica. Nkonyane’s work is titled Londoloza Njalo and can be seen in Guns&Rain’s
| viewing room featuring great work by this liSwati artist and recent University of Johannesburg graduate. Nkonyane’s work explores embodiment, self representation and disobedience in light of Nguni cultural views about the female body. “By disobeying cuktural norms through photography, I take ownership of how my body is viewed,” Nkonyane says. |