WHATIFTHEWORLD / GALLERY is pleased to present Outside The Lines: An exploration of Abstract Materiality, a group exhibition that engages with the material elements and physicality of abstraction. Formally the works selected for this exhibition emphasize composition, colour, line, shape and texture. A critical point of entry is the potential for ambiguity often associated with abstraction.
WHATIFTHEWORLD / GALLERY is pleased to present Making Faces, the first in a series of exhibitions using portraiture as a starting point to examine concepts and themes in the work of a select group of contemporary artists.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present Cameron Platter’s Fucking Hell, an exhibition of new drawings. Exploring a reality stranger than fiction, through fantasy, satire and subculture, Platter fills the ordinary and the marginal, with incendiary new meaning. Working from everyday experience with subjects overlooked or considered delinquent, sordid and lowbrow, he reconnoiters notions and concepts on the outside fringes of South Africa’s popular culture.
For her first solo exhibition with Whatiftheworld Gallery, Maja Marx presents Fold - a selection of new paintings, drawings, objects and monotype prints. Her latest body of work is a study of disrupted surfaces, and comprises of an examination into the properties of text, line, flatness and depth.
WHATIFTHEWORLD / GALLERY is pleased to present Little Ruin, a new solo exhibition by Andrzej Nowicki on the gallery’s first floor. Drawing on his carefully considered archive of photographs, Nowicki uses both found and auto biographical images as a point of departure in this body of work, blurring the boundary’s between personal history and invented narrative.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present the first solo exhibition by Artist Renée Holleman titled A novel in parts. This will also mark the launch of the gallery’s new premises, housed over two floors of the historical Woodstock synagogue buildings on the corner of Argyle Street and Albert Roads.
Daniel Levi’s recent painted work explores the symbolic world of abstraction. On the canvas his aesthetic senses intermingle with his intuitive, cathartic responses in a non-literal way, allowing him to explore channels of expression beyond the concrete world of the literal image that is inescapable in film.
Michael Taylor’s new series of paintings, ‘The tenacious tree huggers’, portray a cast of awkward characters and their relationships to their personal environments. The paintings are character sketches of individuals struggling against the unpredictable ways of nature.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Berlin-based illustrator and figurative painter Olaf Hajek. Hajek is currently one of the most internationally renowned and sought-after illustrators. His colourful work can be seen in publications including The New York Times and The Guardian, as well as on stamps for Great Britain’s Royal Mail.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present a new solo presentation by Richard Hart titled Lingua Nero. Exploring new territory both materially and conceptually, Lingua Nero is a continuation of Hart’s investigation into the complex relationship of semiotics, signs, symbols and language.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present the debut solo exhibition by Daniella Mooney, the promising young sculptor recently featured as a ‘Bright Young Thing’ in Art South Africa Magazine (Vol 08 Issue 03)
Daniella Mooney’s first solo show sees the artist taking on the role of shaman, alchemist and creator – with an exhibition that articulates the fragility, whimsy and inevitable decay that encapsulates the universal human position.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present an exhibition of contemporary art, design, and antique Cape furniture in collaboration with historian / dealer Deon Viljoen. The exhibition will include new pieces by Gregor Jenkin, Xandre Kriel, Georgina Gatrix, Athi-Patra Ruga, Cameron Platter, Frauke Stegmann + Lyall Sprong, Lyndi Sales, Ed Young, Liam Mooney, Pierre Fouche, Julia Rosa Clark, and others; as well as pieces by Dutch furniture-maker Patrick Schols.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present the first installment of the ‘Ilulwane Saga’ by Athi-Patra Ruga, entitled Teeth are the only Bones that show… In this forthcoming exhibition Athi-Patra Ruga elaborates on an already dense personal iconography informed by influences as diverse as pop culture, theology, performance, ritual, and sociopolitical concerns. He presents us with visual propositions that challenge definitions of masculinity and highlight contemporary South African issues around sexuality, wealth, race and consumerism as a framework for identity.
In his new series of shadow paintings Eastman has created a collection of silhouetted shadow portraits that appear to the viewer simultaneously strange and familiar. The works are rendered using Eastman’s signature technique of enamel on aluminum and the shadows themselves are enigmatically cast against this monochromatic shimmering surface.
DOUBLE ENTRY is Dan Halter’s second solo show in South Africa after his 2006 exhibition entitled Take me to your leader at João Ferreira Gallery. As a relatively fortunate Zimbabwean living in South Africa, Halter investigates and draws attention to the plight of less fortunate fellow Zimbabweans now displaced in South Africa. Dubbed the pejorative ʻkwerekwereʼ these foreigners are often confronted with xenophobic violence by their South African counterparts. Halter is also concerned with the relations between the two neighbouring countries. He seeks to interrogate empty promises made by governments on both sides.
Hard Times/Great Expectations is a presentation of new large-scale colour drawings, sculpture, and video by Cameron Platter. His series of home-made drawings - each meticulously hand-worked and coloured in pencil crayon, are tapestries of a contemporary South African experience; they are simple stories drawn and appropriated from the media, TV, films, art history, pornography, battle scenes, politics, music, signs, imagination, adverts, and religion.
Whatiftheworld is pleased to present the second solo exhibition by Jan-Henri Booyens titled Tectonic. Booyens (b. 1981) is a fast-rising, young South African painter imbued with a distinctive artistic vision. After his successful debut solo exhibition _ The Matt Sparkle_ at Whatiftheworld in 2008, Marilyn Martin (former director of the SA National Gallery) wrote that his works were “unashamedly modernist in intention and execution”.
The gallery is pleased to announce that it has been selected for VOLTA NY, the American incarnation of the successful young fair founded in Basel in 2005. VOLTA NY was conceived to continue the original mandate to create a tightly-focused, boutique affair that would be a place for discovery and concentrate on current and topical art production.
Whatiftheworld / Gallery presents Paradise Apparatus, a new solo exhibition by Julia Rosa Clark. This show concludes a trilogy that included the acclaimed Hypocrite’s Lament (2006) & Fever Jubilee (2007/8). Continuing her exploration of our intricate and fraught relationship with Nature, Paradise Apparatus explores the sensations and mysteries of chemistry, perception and colour as they relate to the search for fulfilment with references to aspects of science, alchemy, theatre-craft and art making.
For its final show of 2009, Whatiftheworld / Gallery is pleased to present a major group exhibition titled Holiday. Featuring a selection of signature works from emerging South African artists, the exhibition opens up and explores the underlying link between these contemporaries. Linked through their use of recycling and re-mixing of found objects and images, (each with their own origin, stories and complexities) the works engage with an array of pertinent critical issues.