Founding owner of the iart Gallery, Elana Brundyn says: ‘Muse-08 creates a unique opportunity in social documentation by celebrating the lives of individuals who have shaped South African culture through the visual arts,
performing arts and new media. Poets and patrons, visionaries and villains, actors and activists, all who play prominent roles in South African Arts and Culture have been captured on paper and canvas by our country’s leading artists.’
I think the work is arresting. Elizabeth Gunter’s Louis Jansen Van Vuuren with dog is gentle and beautiful.
Eris Silke’s portrayal of Louis Schachat is artfully respectful while Reshada Crouse’s potent picturing of Rian Malan burns the inner eye like the acrid smoke of burning tyres. Paul Emsley’s William Kentridge is the boast of the exhibition and is so exact that even careful looks make it difficult to see that it is sketched rather than photographed. I loved Sam Nhlengethwa three Zwelethu Mthethwas with jaunty hats.

Although the work premiered at the KKNK, the launch party by Dagmar Schumacher, elevated it from exhibition to event. Despite being a regular guest, I am frequently amazed at who I meet at her parties. Not, you might think the same list of shelbs and vips each time. She manages to not only hand-pick the right people, but get them there too - the rarest of achievements in Cape Town. I was delighted with Annelize Buchanan’s canapés.
Not just her usual elegant munchies, but mini boerie rolls, bobotie bites and waterblommetjie stews. As sponsor Media 24’s Ton Vosloo quipped in his opening address that it was the first art exhibition he’d attended where brandy and coke cocktails were served.

  • Brian Berkman
    (for Brian Berkman Publicity)