Wim botha drawings of eyes
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An Icon Made Of Mielies: Decoding Wim Botha’s “Mieliepap Pietá”
Produced by the Cape Town-based artist in 2004, it is an exact mirror image of Michelangelo’s Pietà (1498-99) located in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. In contrast to Michelangelo’s work, which was sculpted in Carrara marble, Botha’s version is made from resin and mielie(maize) meal – a staple food for millions of people in South Africa. Because the original work of art is so recognisable, the audience may not even be aware of the reversal of the image at first.
On closer inspection, however, Botha’s unusual artistic material is revealed and areas of high finish are contrasted with those left roughened. The evocative expression of anguish, sorrow and tenderness in this pose is also familiar, but has a particular resonance with Sam Nzima’s iconic image from the 1976 Soweto Uprising. In Nzima’s photograph, the mortally wounded 13-year-old Hector Pieterson is being carried in search of help in the arms of an
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Wim Botha, GL Brierley + Augustin Rebetez | FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph | 13.11.-18.12.2021 – extended until 29.01.2022
until 29.01. | #3259ARTatBerlin | FeldbuschWiesnerRudolph (FWR) currently shows sculptures and drawings by the artist Wim Botha, paintings by GL Brierley and a large video work as well as photography by Augustin Rebetez.
” (…) And what we know is that things are out of balance and that we are probably way too late to bring them back into balance.”
Judith Hermann, 2021
Indeed, it will take a while after the pandemic for all sorts of strangeness to become a new home. Narratives like those of Judith Hermann’s novel “Daheim” describe the courageous arrival of a new place that offers security. In which the memories have no objectivity, but the now is obvious. In fact, it is often poetry and art that create these new worlds infant of our eyes….
Wim Botha, Prism 36, Me and You, You, Bronze, 2021
The autumn exhibition
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Wim Botha
Wim Botha’s work grapples with historical and cultural attitudes toward faith and mortality. In this exhibition, he presents installations suspended from the ceiling, drawings on vit paper, sculptural busts crafted from carved leather-bound books, and large prints of skeletons. The South African artist’s installations are composed of seemingly separate parts that are brought tillsammans into a strikingly cohesive signature aesthetic through his limited black, white, and red palette, austere lines, and careful craftsmanship. His work also employs scholarly references to Calvinist South African architecture and furniture. This effect is highlighted in Vanitas Toilette, 2008, a smooth black wooden sculpture resembling both a bathtub and a coffin that hangs by wires from the ceiling. Its sleek lines and shiny surface man it appealing as an object of design, although its shape and connotations are unnerving. The strongest works in this show are beautifully render