It was a name of manifest ambiguity. DIRT Contemporary. Located in a glass-fronted retail space on the lower end of Cape Town's Kloof Street, this tiny gallery ran for less than a year through 2005. Pitched at younger, more adventurous buyers and collectors, it sold everything from painting, graphics and illustration to more abstruse art objects - a glass sculptural speech bubble, for one.
The brainchild of Rory Palmer and Elodie Hainard, DIRT espoused a brattish self-belief typical of Michaelis School of Art graduates. "It's a relatively low-cost gallery for young people," explained Palmer at the time. "It's not so much a commercial space."
Unfortunately, Palmer's dilettante pose got the better of DIRT. Eviction was inevitable. In the grander scheme of things, its demise is less important than the cultural moment it heralded.
"This isn't a mere moment or a passing fad," declared London's Design Week magazine in a July 2003 issue. "Decoration is suddenly everywhere around us. After years of minimalist rule, ornamentation is no longer perceived to be a crime. In design, art and fashion, pretty shapes and motifs are taking over rigorous lines." Now three or so years on, this prognosis reads like a declaration of fact.
More so than most, DIRT was quick to recognise this shift in aesthetic tastes, particularly in the field of graphic and ornamental arts. Among the artists featured on its large group shows was Heather Moore. An accomplished illustrator and designer, Moore's creative product inhabits that grey area between design and art.
Most of Moore's work revels in the simplicity of flat surfaces, her silhouetted images characteristically lacking in perspective. In part this is the outcome of her process, screen-printing, Moore applying her designs onto everything from tea towels to trays. She also produces traditional works on paper. And like her husband, sculptor Paul Edmunds, Moore is meticulous in her detailing, fastidious about her finishing.
You can buy her work through What If The World on Cape Town's Hope Street. Her prints are surprisingly cheap. A large A3 monochromatic screen-print titled Black Birds sells for just R475/print; it is limited to an edition of 10.
A judicious eye, coupled with a little bit of homework, will yield many similar bargains for the enterprising Christmas shopper. I asked What If The World (WITW) founder Justin Rhodes about his gallery's eclectic basket of goodies, which includes art and design objects, examples of contemporary illustration, painting, even the odd photograph.
"I think now more than ever, art-making is taking new forms," he says, referring particularly to the rise to prominence of graphic-based arts. "This is a worldwide trend, certainly among the emerging set in New York, London and Japan... If you look at the East End of London now, there are something like 500 small independent galleries like us, and a young artist community of 10 000."
Though Cape Town does not have the same critical mass as London, the success of WITW suggests an eager market. It has already expanded into a second venue at the Old Biscuit Mill. Every Saturday the gallery participates in a public market held there.
"The majority of our buyers are young professionals," says Rhodes, pegging their average age between 25 and 40. Though mostly white, the gallery does hold screen-prints by AAA School of Advertising graduate Mavuso Mbutuma, wry scenes with black spectral blobs invading white suburbia (R500).
Among the gallery's more exciting prospects is Jo'burger Zander Blom, who is attracting attention with his maverick projects. These include paper sculptures exclusively exhibited in his Brixton home, as well as participation in a new book project. Titled Avant Car Guard, this 24-page artists' book (R50) is due to be exhibited at Cape Town's Bell-Roberts Gallery early in 2007. Produced in conjunction with artists Jan-Henri Booyens and Michael MacGarry, the book includes a photograph of the trio cavorting on painter J H Pierneef's grave. WITW stocks a selection of Blom's trashy but fun Indian ink prints (R1 080).
In many senses, the artists shown at WITW personify young urban cool. While the gallery's studied mix of attitude and aptitude (sometimes more of the former than the latter) might not appeal to all buyers, this should not detract from an appreciation of WITW's role in bringing much-needed energy into a stolid, and at times overbearingly genteel, art economy.
"If we are going to create a sustainable art community here, we need to get young people coming into galleries, viewing exhibitions, and engaging with art," says Rhodes. "Those that start with us will grow with us and also feed into the larger galleries."
Further north, a similar enthusiasm for affordable graphic-based art has gripped Johannesburg. At present, Gordart in Melville is showing drawings by Tshwane-based artist Shane de Lange (until December 15). Like Mbutuma's work, science fiction figures strongly in De Lange's works on paper (R1 000).
That these doodles on paper have mainstream appeal was recently made clear at a packed drawing exhibition held in a derelict building on Commissioner Street. Organised by designer David Chong, "Night of 1 000 Drawings" netted R65 000 for an inner-city charity. Not bad, given that the drawings each cost R100. Among the participants on this show were graphic artist Nicolene Louw and painter Mark Kannemeyer, younger brother of Anton Kannemeyer, co-founder of Bitterkomix with Conrad Botes.
A new book on this duo, published by Jacana, is useful in quantifying just how influential they have been on local graphic-based art. Appropriately titled The Big Bad Bitterkomix Handbook (R330), it compiles over a decade's worth of intellectual irreverence and visual prurience. (Original prints, drawings and paintings in the book are available at Art on Paper and Michael Stevenson.)
Somewhat overlooked, but equally influential on the medium's evolution locally is designer Peet Pienaar. Co founder of the design agency Daddy Buy Me A Pony, Pienaar's credits include the deliriously conceptual literary magazine Afro. Pienaar's style typically fuses a mishmash of influences, ranging from African football iconography to computer icons.
Commenting on the similarity of US comic book artist Chris Ware's ornate style with Pienaar's, influential New York-based book designer Chip Kidd states: "Their work has qualities in common. Chiefly that on first inspection it's formally beautiful. But then when you look at what the content actually is, it's often quite devastating. "
Pienaar's decision to pursue design over art was one based on outcome, he says. A painter by training, he jettisoned the medium in favour of performance, "because I felt that putting something in a gallery didn't have any effect". Performance art proved similarly unrewarding and prompted a renewed search for "something that reached a wider audience and could have real impact. Design was the closest to art, which is why I made the shift."
One of Pienaar's strengths as a designer is his visual intelligence. Recognising the difficulty of communicating in a multilingual society, he has created graphic works that use sequential visual icons to communicate pithy stories. One such story involves the child runaway Thulani Nganga. You can buy a limited edition, signed set of 10 laser-cut ivory-coloured cards (R2 000) telling Nganga's story from the website artthrob.co.za.
Though serious art collectors might regard graphic-based works as marginal and cheap, such snobbery tends to miss the essential charm of this medium. Less intent on being high-minded statements on big issues, their whimsy aptly records - and sometimes elevates - the fleeting character of everyday life.
Ranking the Analysts 2009
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