Exhibitions
Permanent Exhibition
Oliewenhuis Art Museum permanently exhibits works by historically important artists such as J.H. Pierneef and Thomas Baines, to mention but two.
Artworks exhibited in the permanent exhibition areas change frequently according to different themes and exhibitions from the permanent collection.
FACE VALUE, an etching series by Malcolm Payne
The exhibition was inspired by the Lydenburg Heads and was described in the Cape Times as ‘a visual, archaeological and historical reading of the Lydenburg Heads’. These masks are the earliest known three-dimensional art forms to have emerged in South Africa and carbon dating revealed that they date to approximately 490 AD and were made by Early Iron Age people.
The exhibition included the original Lydenburg Heads, seven sculptures known as the Mafikeng Heads, the FACE VALUE series of etchings of which seven are of the Lydenburg Heads, seven supermarket trolleys, seven aluminium structures as containers of information and a book.
The FACE VALUE etchings from the Permanent Collection of Oliewenhuis Art Museum are a combination of beautifully drawn images from many different sources, and symbols, patterns and a variety of marks that stimulate the viewer to find meaning in these artworks. As Payne explores and questions South African cultural histories in these works, time plays a significant role and imagery and references from the ancient past (including images of the Lydenburg Heads in seven of the etchings) are used together with contemporary symbols such as the bar code in Keeping Time.
This rich mixture of imagery challenges the viewer to trace and identify diverse references from a vast reference field that reflects Malcolm Payne’s interest in ‘utilising images and codes that relate to the experience of living in South Africa today’.
Malcolm Payne majored in printing and printmaking at the Tshwane University of Technology and then studied sculpture and mixed media at St Martins School of Art in London, and painting at the University of Cape Town. He has attained status as an influential South African artist, and has won several awards including the Sasol New Signatures Competition in 1968 and the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award in 1984. In 1995 he held a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale and in 1999, the work Payne did in the 1970s was chosen for the exhibition Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s at the Queens Museum in New York. Malcolm Payne is currently Professor at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town.
Contemporary South African Women Artist Exhibition
An exhibition of artworks by contemporary South African women artists is currently installed in the Annex Gallery at Oliewenhuis Art Museum. These artworks - all created during the past 10 years - have been selected from the Museum’s Permanent Collection to showcase the diverse range of styles and mediaused and themes explored by contemporary female artists.
South Africa has produced a number of celebrated female artists whose work has become very popular locally as well as abroad and this exhibition features artworks by artists such as Diane Victor, Judy Woodborne, Nomusa Makhubu and Deborah Bell,to name a few. Diane Victor is well known for her pastel, charcoal and linocut works that typically confront viewers with uncomfortable issues. One of her unique ‘smoke drawings’ forms part of this exhibition and shows her remarkable drawing skill. Judy Woodborne’s exquisite series of etchings, titled The Burden reinforce and extend her reputation as an established printmaker and artist, as every image shows her skill in drawing as well as the mastery of the various techniques of etching learned over many years.
Also on display is a series of self portraits by Nomusa Makhubu in which she exploresissues of self-representation and identity by creating images by projecting photographs of her contemporary self onto stereotypical and historically sensitive material. Deborah Bell is a leading painter, sculptor and printmaker in South Africa who works in various media including painting, drawing, printmaking, animation and sculpture. Her work is fundamentally informed by a personal search for the ‘self’ and she often draws on spiritual imagery from a wide range of sources.
This exhibition also features artworks by Free State artists Penny George, Janine Allen and Pauline Gutter. Pauline‘s paintings Uit die blou van onse hemel and Five mothers capture the humbling energy of the rural Free State where she grew up. Pauline was recently awarded the prestigious Helgaard Steyn Award for painting for 2011.
Oliewenhuis Art Museum has shown a steady and interesting growth in its collection since 1989 and the Permanent Collection currently comprises 1372 artworks, all by South African artists. As part of the Museum’s vision to enrich people's knowledge, understanding and appreciation of our cultural heritage, the exhibitions on the first floor (where part of the Permanent Collection is exhibited) are frequently rearranged and exchanged with artworks from the storerooms.
A Selection of WATERCOLOUR & PASTEL works from the Permanent Collection
An exhibition of watercolour and pastel artworks was installed recently on the first floor of Oliewenhuis Art Museum. The artworks were selected from the Art Museum’s Permanent Collection with the aim of showcasing South African artists’ diverse approach to the use of these media.
Artworks range from those created in the 1920s to artworks created in the late 1990s and a variety of styles such as traditional landscapes in muted colours, abstract works and colourful expressionistic and conceptual works are on display. Artists such as Erich Mayer, Maud Sumner and Gregoire Boonzaaier represent the South African masters while artworks by well-known contemporary artists such Norman Catherine, Andrew Verster en Marion Arnold are also exhibited.
Temporary Exhibitions
Temporary exhibitions are housed on the ground floor of the Art Museum and in the recently restored underground Reservoir. The Art Museum hosts between twelve and eighteen temporary exhibitions per year. Every effort is made to provide excellent exhibition space for artists to exhibit their works and to enrich the public’s knowledge, understanding and appreciation of cultural heritage and to reflect the full diversity of South African Art.
Johan Voets: Short Stories from the City of Roses (a collection of diary entries from Bloemfontein)
11 November 2011 - 15 January 2012
Short Stories from the City of Roses (a collection of diary entries from Bloemfontein), an exhibition of photographs by the Belgian photographer, Johan Voets, will be on show at Oliewenhuis Art Museum from 11 November 2011 to 15 January 2012.
Johan Voets (born 1958) is a photographer with a special interest in documenting social issues, but he also shoots stills on movie sets and, occasionally, advertising campaigns. He lives and works in Brussels. Short Stories from the City of Roses showcases a selection of more than 80 photographs taken by Johan during his visits to Mangaung between 2005 and 2010. Rather than claiming the status of an in-depth photo-essay about Bloemfontein, this exhibition is meant to be approached as a collection of photographic diary entries.
He explains how the project started: ‘I did not pick Bloemfontein on purpose. It was just the wheel of life turning when my friend, movie director Frank Van Passel, called me on a rainy autumn day: “I arranged a ticket and accommodation for you, but I can't pay you a fee. Now, would you still like to travel to South Africa and do a photo story about this amazing, crazy youth orchestra?” Frank's daughters are members of Violet, a Belgian youth orchestra. Together with friends, teachers and parents, they have decided to record a CD and donate the proceeds to this happy bunch of African kids they saw playing violins in a short TV report about Bloemfontein. They wanted some nice pics to illustrate the booklet.’ The kids he refers to play in Mangaung’s very own Bochabela String Orchestra.
Short Stories from the City of Roses is a work in progress. Some of the photographs sketch the outlines for an ongoing photographic project about Batho Location, in collaboration with the National Museum. Johan had the opportunity to accompany Derek du Bruyn and Patrick Letsatsi of the National Museum on a few field trips during which these historians collect eyewitness accounts of the social, cultural, political and economic history of Bloemfontein's oldest township. Heritage preservation is the main purpose of the project but, through giving a voice to the voiceless, the recording of Oral History is also a powerful tool for community development and empowerment. The exhibition also contains some of the first series of photographs Johan started shooting for another project about religion and spiritual life in Mangaung. He explains: ‘The city's countless churches and other places of worship clearly illustrate the diversity of its population, turning Bloemfontein into a microcosm of the Rainbow Nation. They tell a beautiful and compelling story about love and hate, hope and despair, about sin and redemption, about submission and empowerment.’
Mangaung residents might see elements of Mangaung with which they’re completely unfamiliar, as these images represent a selection of some of the small bits that make up Mangaung as seen through the eyes of a photographer who passionately explored what to him was a foreign city with a variety of unfamiliar cultures.Johan Voets has participated in numerous group shows abroad and in 2010 he became a laureate of the Prix National Photographie Ouverte, organized by the Charleroi Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium.
Nandipha Mntambo: Faena (Standard bank Young Artist Exhibition)
17 February – 9 April 2012
Nandipha Mntambo's Standard Bank Young Artist exhibition, Faena, presents a body of new work encompassing sculpture, works on paper and video. In these works, the artist extends her interests in the cow as both subject and medium, and particularly in the personal and public dynamics inherent in the art of bullfighting.
Rendezvous Art Project, Focus Painting
20 April – 3 June 2012
This is the fourth undertaking by The Rendezvous Art Project and aspires to put together a travelling exhibition of works by 60 artists which uses painting as a medium. RENDEZVOUS FOCUS PAINTING aims at giving artists with different levels of experience the opportunity to exhibit in this group shows at various venues in South Africa.
For Future Generations - Hugh Tracey and the International Library of African Music
3 May - 17 June 2012
ILAM is a research institute based at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, and houses the largest archive of African music in sub-Saharan Africa. It was established by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey in 1954 to preserve thousands of historical recordings, some dating all the way back to 1929. Titled For Future Generations: Hugh Tracey and the International Library of African Music, the exhibition displays a selection of African musical instruments from Tracey’s collection, as well as items related to his field research, publications, film and audio recordings. Born in 1903, Tracey arrived in South Africa in the 1920s and was immediately fascinated by a musical instrument called the mbira, a kind of thumb piano. He began making field recordings of music in the early ‘20s, working right through into the ‘70s.
Manfred Zylla: Retrospective
14 June – 29 July 2012
Multi talented and well-known anti-apartheid artist Manfred Zylla has been active in the South African art world since 1970. In 2006 Zylla was nominated for a Sasol Wax Art Award and was selected as one of the top ten artists. Zylla works in a wide range of media including painting, drawing and woodcuts. As a social commentator Zylla uses his art as a tool to demonstrate and illustrate shortcomings and inequalities within his society.
Manfred Zylla lives and works in Observatory, Cape Town. He is a selected participant in the Ninth Havana Biennale for 2009.
Johannes Phokela
21 June - 29 July 2012
Johannes Phokela is renowned for his exquisitely painted manipulations of iconic images by European Old Masters, particularly those from the seventeenth century, like Rubens, Van Dyck, Breugel, Jacob de Gheyn and Caravaggio. “Most of my work,” says Phokela, “is a contemporary take on Old Dutch and Flemish Masters where I take on what is perceived to be Europe’s grandiose history of art as a medium to convey values and ideals represented within a global context of cultural elitism” (Dlamini, 2006).
One striking feature of Phokela’s satirical work is his use of a red nose, which appears every now and again in both his paintings and sculptures. He was inspired to use this clown-like nose after he had acquired one in the UK from the charity organisation, Comic Relief. But the nose did not fit his African physiognomy. “At first,” he says, “I thought I must have bought the wrong size, but in the end I realised that they were not really made for my type of nose” (Haines, 2002).
The Loeries Travelling Exhibition
2 - 6 July 2012
This travelling exhibition displays the winning and best brand communication of the 33nd annual Loerie Awards. The prizes are awarded to printed as well as digital advertisements.
Nellie Brisley’s Art Studio Student Exhibition
2 - 19 August 2012
Oliewenhuis Art Museum will host the Nellie Brisley-art studio’s ever popular student exhibition in the Reservoir. This exhibition will include around 216 artworks by students from the ages of 5 to18 years that attends art classes at the art studio at Oliewenhuis Art Museum.
24th Sophia Gray Memorial Lecture and Exhibition
30 August – 18 September 2012
Sophia Gray (1814 –1871) was the first woman to practise architecture in South Africa and one of the earliest in the world. As a tribute to her achievements, the University of the Free State instituted the annual Sophia Gray Memorial lecture and exhibition since 1989 in recognition of the contributions of a South African architect, usually a practitioner.
People, Prints and Process Twenty Five Years at Caversham
20 September – 4 November 2012
The Caversham Press founded in 1985 by Malcolm Christian in KwaZulu-Natal has a memorable history. This is being celebrated in an exhibition of artists’ prints that opened at the Standard Bank Gallery in October 2010. ‘People, Prints and Process – Twenty-Five years at Caversham’ features over a 100 works by more than 70 artists. It tells a remarkable story of faith in creative people and the processes of human interaction and empowerment generated through collaborative work underpinned by exacting design and printing processes (etching, lithography, screenprint, linocut).
Oranje Quilters Guild Quilt Exhibition
4 – 28 October 2012
This guild was founded by a group of innovative quilting ladies in 1989 as part of the South African Quilters Guild and we are still going strong and growing daily.