Walter Meyer

Gavin Younge

Gerard Bhengu

W.H. Coetzer

Christine Dixie

Gladys Mgudlandlu

Simon Stone

Peter Schütz

William Kentridge

Alexander Podlashuc

Albert Newall

The Lie of the Land:

Representations of the South African Landscape

At the Iziko Michaelis Collection, Old Town House, Greenmarket Square, until 11 September 2010

This unique new exhibition, curated by Professor Michael Godby of UCT, presents a comprehensible overview of the history of the art of landscape painting in South Africa. While there have been many

exhibitions of South African landscape art in the past, this is perhaps the first time that this theme has been tackled thematically so as to prompt new thinking on a subject that we all-too-often take for

granted.

The Lie of the Land: Representations of the South African Landscape, which opened on 10 June 2010 at the Iziko Michaelis Collection, Old Town House, is structured so as to invite visitors to experience and also ponder the variety of approaches to this much-loved genre that has been

prompted by our history, politics and evolving cultural shifts and changes. In the light of this, the provocative title of the exhibition has a deep resonance. To what extent is a representation of a

landscape ‘truthful’? To what extent is it a fabrication constructed to suit the attitudes, needs and demands of makers and viewers at a particular time in history?

Landscape is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most popular type of art in South Africa. The complex issues it raises are perpetually with us. Landscape paintings commemorated the first

contacts of European explorers at the Cape, and it is still widely practiced throughout the country to this day. While a seemingly exhausted genre, landscape nevertheless remains a central and vital concern in the practice of many young and contemporary South African artists who are strongly

featured in this exhibition. This is perhaps because land and land ownership issues lie at the core of South Africa’s fractured political history. In this long history, the representation of landscape has

assumed many forms, not just because the actual physical geography of South Africa is so varied and inspiring, but because different groups, and individual artists, at different times, have wanted to

communicate different things about their natural environment.

The exhibition has been arranged in five discrete sections spread through the rooms of Cape Town’s famous colonial landmark, the Old Town House. Each section is clearly explicated for the benefit of visitors. The sections cover some of the wide range of purpose behind landscape representation – from statements of awe in the face of a new landscape; to records of various methods of exploiting

the landscape’s natural resources; to commemorations of struggles over possession of the landscape; to expressions of poetic or patriotic feelings through the medium of landscape; to recent

interrogations of the very means of representing landscape.

The exhibition runs until 11 September 2010 and is accompanied by a well-illustrated catalogue with major essays, edited by the exhibition’s curator, Professor Michael Godby. The catalogue is in press

and will be available shortly. This new exhibition and catalogue are a sequel to Michael Godby’s previous and highly-popular exhibition Is there Still Life?, held at the Iziko Michaelis Collection in

2007–2008.

The Old Town House has recently undergone renovations and is now wheel-chair friendly, with a lift to accommodate disabled visitors to the upper floors of the building. Disabled visitors may gain

access to the Old Town House from a new entrance in Burg Street.

For more information, please contact Hayden Proud on 021 467 4676 or e-mail hproud@iziko.org.za