Kin Bentley In Line: Fine art and Port Elizabeth's 2010 stadium

Monday, May 28, 2012

Fine art and Port Elizabeth's 2010 stadium

After a brief Grahamstown visit in my previous posting, I've returned to the recording of my art reviews published in the Herald, PE, in the latter part of the first decade of this century. This section covers from mid-September, 2008, till mid-May, 2009. (To read them, hold down control and left click. Click again to see them larger still.)

The Montage Gallery in Walmer really made an art of staging art exhibitions. This was published on September 17, 2008

Due to scanning constraints, my review of photographerTim Hopwood's show is done in two takes. It was published on September 29, 2008

My sons and I made regular forays to the North End Lake to monitor progress on the construction of the stadium being built for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. This led to our starting our first blog, 2010 Stadium Watch. These are two of my pictures taken at the time and published in the Herald on October 6, 2008. We actually met an engineer working on the project while taking pictures and he told us he visited used our blog to follow the project while out of the countrry. I plan, at some stage, to use some of those pictures to present a pictorial record of the project

This review was published on October 13, 2008

At one point the powers that be made life more difficult for me, making me take my own pictures at the various art shows I attended. Hence the picture byline. Again, I had to scan it in two parts. This was run on October 14

This was run on October 15, 2008, and concludes below.

My photo was run with this article

Another fine show at the Cuyler Street Gallery. This is from October 27, 2008, and concludes below

The conclusion

Tossie Theron kept me on my toes. This, marking the closure of her gallery, also appeared on October 27, 2008

Port Alfred artists featured in this show, reviewed on November 17, 2008, and concluding below

The last bit

I even had a kind word on November 17, 2008, for Melanie Hillebrand, director of the Nelson Mandela Metro Art Museum

Another bit of Montage magic. This is from November 24, 2008

The EP Society of Arts and Crafts (Epsac) gallery often delivered fine fare. This is from February 2, 2009, and concludes below

The ending

I still kept submitting the odd piece to Lifestyle, the Sunday Times magazine. This is from March, 22, 2009

Another interesting Epsac show, from March 23, 2009, it concludes below

I recall this review led to a call from Ken Denton, the Irish magnate who has bought up large swathes of historic Central and, sadly, left many historic gems to fall into almost irreparable states of direpair. His attempt at finally restoring the 1860s Donkin Terrace homes has been halted by officials because he is changing their character. They are arguably the most distinctive architectural feature in the city. How tragic.

This show certainly made me keen to visit India at some time. This is from May 11, 2009, and concludes below

Indian sunset

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About this blog

This blog has morphed from one thing to the next, and will continue to do so.

The latest offerings are of a political nature, though the main role of the blog is to put online scanned versions of my sketches, which make up the bulk of the first part.

* Earlier, I returned to a project I suspended on September 12, 2011, namely posting clilppings from my writings in the Herald newspaper in Port Elizabeth. From those you'll have gleaned that I was first prevented from writing political letters and articles critical of the ANC government.

Then my art reviews came under fire - from the hallowed halls of academia, no less.

* Before this, I posted a series of book reviews and an account of recent travels.

* There is also a short autobiographical novel, Little K and the Big World.

Below is a summary of what was posted before that. (NB. To view pictures larger, hold down "shift" and left click on the mouse. Click again to see it even larger.)

* During the 27 years I have worked as a journalist, I have kept random samples of my work. Initially, when I joined the Evening Post in Port Elizabeth in 1984, I kept a scrapbook, so those first years – when the anti-apartheid struggle really started hotting up – are fairly well covered.

By the time I joined the Eastern Province Herald in about 1988, I’d stopped collecting my stories, but I have one article I wrote that year which I think captures the mood of those dark times.

During two years in the UK – 1990 and 1991– when I worked as a correspondent for the SA Morning Newspaper group, I kept no cuttings. The same applies to the early 1990s when, back on the Herald, I covered the gradual transition to democracy. After the April 27, 1994, first non-racial elections, I moved to the sub-editing department, where I have been ever since.

When Robert Mugabe started his crackdown in 2000, I took up the pen again in a big way – and was lucky to have been given space by then editor Ric Wilson to vent my spleen in the Herald. In between, I wrote numerous book reviews and art crits, which balance out the offerings. I began this section with the more recent stuff, from 2000 onwards, and will take up this project again in 2012.

* Having all but exhausted my sketches on this blog - though I have yet to post pictures of my paintings and a few carvings - I thought I would digress into other areas of interest, and use a few of my photographs to illustrate them.

As Thabo Mbeki and the ANC set about rubbishing everything to do with our colonial past, I found myself rather cherishing what our ancestors had done here, notwithstanding my obvious detestation of the apartheid system which, had Jannie Hofmeyr lived to succeed Smuts after the Second World War, may not have happened. It is interesting to note that the National Party came to power in 1948 despite polling 100 000 fewer votes than the United Party. This was the effect of "loading" the urban constituencies.

Anyway, the East Cape has seen a fair share of interesting history down the centuries, some of which is covered here.

There is also history in stamps and envelopes. A few years back I went to a Port Elizabeth antique shop in the hopes I could acquire some old SA stamps from my youth. At first things looked bleak. The dealer only had posh albums of expensive stamps. But wait, he said, I do have a couple of black bin bags cluttering up the place somewhere, full of useless old stamps and envelopes. He gave them to me for about R100, if I recall correctly.

From these I have made several postage stamp-based artworks, photos of which I'll be posting, eventually. I also discovered a treasure trove of envelopes which had been posted to the City Treasurer of the PE Municipality as well as to the Divisional Council and another whole batch sent by dealers around South Africa to the Ford Motor Company in PE. These all date from the early 1960s, so we're talking 50 odd years ago. Each envelope tells a story.

* Initially I started this blog to illustrate how I learnt the art of drawing, after many years of toil, and how, once learnt, this skill has accompanied me throughout my life.

At each step, since about the mid-1970s, I have, where possible, made drawings that are often a more telling record than any photographs.

You will find a plethora of styles and techniques, but the bottom line – forgive the pun – is an attempt to get at the visual truth. As we go along, I explain each work and how I came to do it – that is, where I remember precisely when they were made.

* Remember, as this is a blog, the story starts from the first post and works its way upwards, as it were.

Click on the images to see them in a larger format. If you want an image to fill your computer screen, press F11. Press the same key to escape.

My thanks, again, go to my son, Douglas, who was just 16 when he helped me put together the header for this blog. Most of the more creative ideas - and all the technical expertise - in this regard were his.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Fine art and Port Elizabeth's 2010 stadium

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