Visitor
On Tuesday, 20 October, I partook in a one day residency at the Irma Stern Museum in Cape Town. The visit formed part of Liza Grobler's latest solo exhibition, 'Visitor':
'The UCT Irma Stern Museum, or The Firs as she fondly called it, was the house of one of South Africa’s most renowned artists: Irma Stern. Here she lived, created and entertained. According to letters and anecdotes she was an inspiring and fiery character, but also a very tiring and demanding guest when she visited other homes!
Visitor opened on 3 October 2009. We celebrate Stern’s birthday (2 October) and her artistic output, but this is also a deliberate invasion of her home through continuous activity: I will host events, collaborate with colleagues and entertain in the lush garden of this museum-home… I too, shall overstay my welcome…
... Art making is a social practice: “Exhibition” implies “viewer”. I crowd sourced by inviting collaborators/guests/artists/friends. Somehow everyone’s involved… The exhibition will change daily: Objects, sounds, friends and acquaintances will occupy the space until the 24th of October. We celebrate human interaction and the slightly absurd tendency of life to connect a seemingly random list of events. '
(Text from Liza's press release for 'Visitor'; http://www.lizagrobler.co.za)
And I proposed the following for my intervention:
Michael plays the role of visiting 'portrait artist' for one day, creating rapid sketches in response to each of Stern's portrait paintings in the downstairs drawing room. These reactionary drawings confront Stern's subjects as would a ghost, an unexpected visitor, or an imaginary friend. The A6 journal pad drawings will then form the content for a special edition of Michael's online publication 'The Book of Immediate Nonsense'.
In the end, I managed to draw close to 50 miniature 'portraits' in response to a section of the downstairs drawing room's pictures. And I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to study Stern's paintings at much closer view. My pictures are not meant to be easy or literal associates of the portraits on the walls, but instead, they should be seen as reactionary interpretations, interruptions maybe, of the painted subjects.
A selection of the sketches made during this residency will be published under the same titles as Stern's portraits (unless in the case of an untitled work, for which I then will supply my own name) in a special edition of The Book of Immediate Nonsense at the end of next month.
To see what the other resident artists created during their visits, link to the event's blog: http://www.dayresidencies.blogspot.com
Pictured drawings: 'Koeksister' (L) and 'Mother and child' (R); both working titles
