Jan van der merwe biography template
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About The Artist
Transformation of the found
In the past few years inom have been producing art works in which inom incorporate funnen objects images, junk materials - objects inherited, bought, picked up. The desire to work with these materials, their shapes and textures, coupled with the images, memories and sentiments that they evoke serve as the starting point of the art making process.
In a solo exhibition held at the African fönster Museum in May (the practical component of a Master's grad study at the Technikon Pretoria), war and soldier images were conspicuous. The soldier fryst vatten a metaphor for the artist, who uses his personal memories, history and survival skills in the art making process. The war theme is also a tool through which personal demons could be exorcised: during the 's I worked as an artist in the shows and exhibitions section of the then SADF, where I was exposed to a lot of visual material pertaining to the defense force, which inom had to exhibit for propaganda
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When architect Pieter Mathews gathered his coterie of Pretoria artists to stage a typical Cool Capital guerrilla exhibition in the basement of his firm, Mathews and Associates Architects&#;, most high-profile building to date, the Javett Art Centre at UP, they all leapt to participate. He shares the excitement of the event with DIANE DE BEER who encourages those visiting the Centre, which again reopens on Heritage Day (September 24), to also check what&#;s left of the glorious art in the basement parking area:
“A basement is an underground space…the humblest of spaces specifically in the Javett: UP”, writes Pieter Mathews in the explanatory notes of The Sample Workshop, the catalogue documenting the guerrilla exhibition. The exhibition took place under the radar of the conventional gallery space above. Many factors including the transient nature of art, the way art is viewed in the world and the fact that the artisans who participated in construction of the gallery would poss
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Liminality, absence and silence in the installation art of Jan van der Merwe
Liminality
The term "liminal" relates to the Latin phrase for "threshold". The notion of liminality as developed in anthropological writings on ritual signifies the temporary cessation of "ordinary" social life experienced during rituals, such as initiation rites. 1 For the duration of the ritual, liminal space and time are created in order for "ordinary" activities, frameworks and worldviews to be dismantled whilst the initiate is experiencing a transformation in her or his social status. Early twentiethcentury anthropologist Arnold van Gennep identifies three stages that the initiate goes through during the initiation rite, namely the pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal phases (Adjaye ). The middle, liminal stage is described as a state of 'limbo, devoid of permanence and characterized by ambiguity' (van Gennep paraphrased by Adjaye ). Cultural anthropo