visual diary

So as you know the Turbine Art Fair happened over the weekend from 11 – 14 July 2019…and I would like to share my adventures with you:

Oh my what big wings you have said mini-me

The adventure started on the 10th of July, flying to Johannesburg with my Mini-me companion. Why is she called Mini-Me you might ask, well…

Me and Mini-me

In preparation for the fair I started to re-read the book: Seven days in the art world by Sarah Thorton, and I quote:

“Poe believes that an art fair can be a tough environment for an artist. ‘ If they are any good, they make art because they have to. They don’t do it to please the market. So for some artists, hanging out here can mess with their heads.”

I wanted to test this theory and check it out for myself.

Anyway, I had my first Gautrain experience where i almost got fined for chewing gum, because in all the excitement I did not notice this sign!

Gautrain station

OPENING NIGHT 11/07/2019 (Thursday)

Installation view at the Turbine art fair – opening night. Photo credit: Sherilea Gaspar

On the opening night I wore a rubber hooped skirt and rubber collar, (envisioned by me, but created with the help from the Tailor: William Mills in Stilbaai.) The headdress I embroidered and made myself. (It used to be the wings of another sculpture that I took apart)

I really love the colour of the wall, which was the idea of the Millennium gallery who represented my work at the fair. I feel it really complimented the work installed.

The opening night was great, and I’ll admit that I felt like some sort of princess at a ball, having a ball 😉 …..(to have a ball. (Enjoy oneself enormously, as in It was a great trip—I had a ball. This idiom uses the noun ball in the sense of “a gala dance.” [ Slang; 1920s])

FRIDAY (open to the public) 12/07/2019

I enjoy dressing up since age 5, and for events like these, i like to wear the medium I make my art with…rubber. So on this day I decided to only wear the rubber crown, but with a rubber collar and some dramatic make-up:

Photographer: Alon Skuy

The photo below was taken in the Millennium gallery booth…who also exhibited the work of Norman Catherine (see the artworks behind me). It was an honor for me that my work was exhibited in the same space as his and also with the work by artist Colbert Mashile (whose work was on the opposite wall)

JULY 12, 2019. Hannalie Taute, , at The Millennium Gallery. RMB Turbine Art Fair (RMB TAF) Its the 7th edition of the Fair. “RMB TAF, since its inception in 2013, has grown extensively year on year and 2019 will see the most substantial Fair yet in a new location – 10 Fricker Rd, Illovo from 12 – 14 July with a preview evening on 11 July.” PHOTOGRAPH: ALON SKUY

SATURDAY 13/07/2019

…its time to introduce you to the owner of the Millennium Gallery: Ronel van der Vyfer!

with Ronel van der Vyfer director of the Millennium gallery based in Pretoria

“A great dealer does a good job for the collector but a great job for the artist. A great adviser does a good job for the artist but a great job for the collector.” (another quote from the book: Seven days in the art world.)

SUNDAY 14/07/2019

So on Sunday I wore A blue dress, and fellow artist Zelda Stroud mentioned that outfit reminds her of the “Blourokkies” I was not familiar with this term and she explained it to me, but here is the shortened version found on the internet:

2. colloquial. [Named for the sky-blue uniform of the sect.] A name given to a woman belonging to the Pentecostal ‘Latter Rain’ or ‘Spade Reën’ sect.

[1972 The women..wear a uniform consisting of a sky-blue dress worn well below the knee, with headdress to match…This uniform ensures that they are modestly and neatly dressed, independently of changing fashions.]

In retrospect i find this fascinating, since I wasn’t familiar with this sect, and I’m not religious in this sense, but funny enough I chose to wear this on a Sunday with a very different headdress than what I can imagine they wore back then 😉

another definition I found is this:

1. Prison slang. rare. [Probably by analogy with Afrikaans bloubaadjie the blue jacket worn in the past by long-term male prisoners (see bloubaadjie).] A female habitual criminal, sentenced to an indeterminate period in goal; this sentence. See also blue-coat sense 1.

1969 A. Fugard Boesman & Lena 7 Oppas they don’t get you. Blourokkie next time they catch you stealing.

(definitions found here: https://dsae.co.za/entry/blourokkie/e00890

The latter definition fits with the helmet I wore (sondebok) 😉

anyway…..

Highlights of the fair include meeting fascinating people ranging from art students, fellow artists, friends, art lovers young and old and of course interesting art collectors:

“It’s not just about buying a piece. Its about buying into someone’s life and where they are going with it. Its a mutual commitment, which is pretty intense.” – quote from the book: Seven days in the Art World.

One of the interesting art collectors with my work: wild thing. It makes me smile every time I see this image

“Collector should be and earned category. An artist doesn’t become an artist in a day, the same with a collector. It’s a lifetime commitment and a life process.” quoted from the book: Seven days in the art world by Sarah Thornton.

So there you have it dear friends…I would like to thank each and everyone responsible for making this one helluva unforgettable experience!

I’ll leave you with this quote I found on the internet by Tennessee Williams:

“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”

Even though I stitch onto rubber almost every day, I find that some days I just want to play.

My playground/playthings = Sketchbook, magazines, scissors, glue and ink = making monsters!

sketchbook page : collage and ink

The blink of an eye takes roughly 84 milliseconds. Within half that time, according to studies of perceptual illusions and false memories, you can tap the darkness within and conjure monsters for yourself.

sketchbook page : collage and ink

Pictures and words – whether printed or orally transmitted – can serve as priming stimuli too. As members of a social species constantly transmitting ideas in the form of words and pictures, each of us is perpetually primed by cultural metaphor to know just what to do with primitive fears when they are triggered – we make monsters.

Sketchbook page: collage and ink

Point is, midnight visits to graveyards aren’t required for conjuring monsters. They are always with us, permanently stored in our brains as a form of false memory deposited for future use by the priming stimuli of our culture.

sketchbook page: collage and ink

There is a perceptual underpinning to why, once triggered and thereby invited to come out and play, the monsters of our mind so often end up ruling the day – or at least dominating our thoughts and feelings for a time.

Sketchbook page : collage and ink

The phenomenon is called boundary extension, and it is strongly associated with false memory.

Show a person a picture in which only a portion of a house is visible, and the mind will construct a mental picture of what the rest of the house might look like. In other words, we extend the boundaries of what we see until it matches our culturally learned expectation of whatever a thing is supposed to look like.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-dolphin-divide/201402/monsters-the-mind

Sketchbook page: collage and ink

“(What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams. We deny them an existence of their own, we make them up to suit ourselves — our own hungers, our own wishes, our own deficiencies. Now that I’ve been one myself, I know.)”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin