Conceptual ArtMarc Alexander – South African Artist

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Title: Prophetic Antics (2011)
This art work is intended to stir up a dialogue concerning the nature of prophesy, particularly in relation to the end of the world. In one sense or another we are all self-appointed prophets, some prophecy that the end is near while others prophecy that it is not. According to Biblical scriptures no one will know the day or hour in which ‘the end’ will occur. Despite this, however, there have been many attempts, to pin point a particular day (the 21 May being the most recent case). And with 2012, being ‘the end,’ according to Nostradamus, the Aztec Calendar
He pictures the debase state of the world at present. With all the uproar amongst environmentalists, conspiracy theorists, religious leaders, politicians, etc. one can’t but imagine that the world is poised for destruction and chaos. What does the future hold for mankind? Bordered by this are some already fulfilled ‘biblical prophecies’. According to these it is hard not to assume that our generation will be witness to ‘The End.’ These prophecies are obscured by symbols and prophetic diagrams of various cults and religions.
Marc Alexander aims to capture the ideologies that we are presented with today, while tackling environmental issues and how we are ‘Killing the planet.”

For a man of few words, Kudzanai Chiurai is not afraid to speak his mind - which he does, loudly and brilliantly, through his art. His brutal honesty and fearless commentary on the status quo had him exiled from his homeland, Zimbabwe, and helped accelerate his rise as an internationally acclaimed artist by the age of 30.


Through his subversive statements, opinions, spoofs and observations, multilayered in arresting mixed-media works, he has been dubbed a poet, an anti-poet and a cultural philosopher. And yet Chiurai is not the kind of guy who would appreciate being put in a box.


In spite of sell-out shows, exhibitions abroad and his art hanging on the walls of New York's Museum of Modern Art and in Elton John and Richard Branson's homes, Chiurai remains unaffected: a cut-off observer, clearly speaking his truth. His arresting body of work is increasingly defined by the use of mixed media, as he combines paintings and drawings with videos and photographs to address issues such as democracy and xenophobia.
An activist and a cultural philosopher who uses his striking -- and at times dark -- creations to tackle the political and social issues that are close to his heart.
"You can't escape politics," explains Chiurai, who lives and works in South Africa. "Everything's political in the sense like how we're socialized."

"Art has always played an important role in telling these stories," he explains. "Whether it's through painting or posters; whether it mirrors a thought or it mirrors an idea; whether it mirrors a conversation that should be had. I thought that, in that instance, it was possible to do that in one image."

His recent works, Conflict Resolutions depicts the way Zimbabweans living in S.A are treated through xenophobia and etc, his work can been seen in Kassel, Germany.

Broomberg&Chanarin

South African born and UK based Adam Broomberg bring together three powerful series produced in the past four years. People in trouble laughing pushed to the ground (2010),The Day Nobody Died (2008) and The Red House (2007) are all located within zones of conflict – Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq respectively.

At times hauntingly beautiful and engagingly uncanny, People in trouble laughing pushed to the ground was produced by Broomberg with help from  Chanarin. The archive, established by photojournalists around the beginning of the Troubles in the early ’80s, is equally concerned with protests, funerals and acts of terrorism as it is with the more ordinary stuff of life – drinking tea, kissing girls, watching trains. In each instance, the presence of the archivist is discernable through a range of marks and incisions on the contact sheets.

The Day Nobody Died was realised by Broomberg in June 2008 during a trip to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with British Army units on the front line in Helmand Province, arriving during the deadliest month of the war. On their first day a BBC fixer was dragged from his car and executed and nine Afghan soldiers were killed in a suicide attack. The following day the number of British combat fatalities was pushed to 100, with casualties continuing until the fifth day when nobody died. In response to these, as well as a series of more mundane occurrences, Broomberg turned an armoured vehicle into a temporary darkroom, producing a series of peculiar abstract forms modulated by the heat and light, presenting an alternative to the photographic documentation of war.

The Red House is a series of 27 photographs of wall drawings and graphic marks made by Kurdish prisoners held in the former headquarters of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist party in northern Iraq. After the 1991 Kurdish uprising this notorious place of incarceration, torture and sometimes death, remained as a monument to the cruelty of war. Cropped and isolated, there is no visual information other than these curious markings, revealing an unexpected bout of expression amidst the monotony, solitude and terror of captivity. “History presents itself as a palimpsest” writes author David Campany. ”The traces recorded by these photographs may relate to past events in the history of the Red House but nothing is settled in Iraq yet. While the photographs are fixed forever, these may not be the last marks made on these walls.”

Adam Broomberg documented South Africa ten years after apartheid, His work can be seen through documentary, as he tries to capture the “truth” through photography.