A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the Eduardo Villa exhibition that I was hoping to go to. I happened to mention it to my friend Paul, who also "happens" to be the guy who has an original Eduardo Villa sculpture in his house, and so, after much planning, we set off to see the exhibition today.
I met Paul at his house at 11:30am - a major achievement, considering that he's generally nocturnal - and we made our way through town, with my map and lots of swearing at taxis from Paul, and quite a bit of fighting between us. We did the traditional "drive past the gallery twice" thing before finding the parking area (for some reason, I can never find the entrance to the Standard Bank Gallery. I drive around and around and around, and then, just as I'm about to give up, I find the entrance), and eventually headed up to the gallery, high-fiving each other for having succeeded in finding the gallery, especially since town is filled with one-way streets, police blockades and various other impediments (mostly in the form of taxis).
Villa's work was being exhibited downstairs, and it really was interesting. Most of his works are very colourful and organic in shape, although some of them are a little more angular (and look a bit like shark fins, at least to me). They look a little like children's' toys (hence the blog title), because of their colour and shape. Most of the pieces were about 30cm in height (unusual for Villa, who normally creates enormous pieces that can only be exhibited outdoors) and were made from cast steel. And yes, like all BA students (especially those studying Freud), a couple of them did look rather phallic. I quite liked the pieces which were grouped together though, mostly comprising four different shapes on a base (Kirstan has decided that these represented an "orgy", although I'm not sure I agree). Paul and I had fun looking at pieces with names like "Totem: Blue" and "Totem: Red", and a couple that looked like pepper grinders. The funniest part of the outing was undoubtedly me noticing that Paul's grandfather was mentioned 3 times in the time-line of Villa's life which the gallery had composed, and Paul nonchalantly mentioning the dinner parties that he'd attended at Villa's home (which, incidentally, has turned out to be in the same suburb as where I live)!
We then proceeded to the upstairs gallery, where Andrew Verster's work was being exhibited. Some of it was a little weird - like his opera sets and costume designs for musicals. His work was also very diverse, ranging from installations to paintings. The most amazing pieces were henna-inspired decorated limbs, on single-coloured backgrounds. Each one had the most incredible detail and the colours were amazing! He really likes using colour - sometimes to the point where my eyeballs started to ache (neon yellow is not your friend)!
Paul and I then miraculously found our way back to the highway, and I then drove back to Wits to teach my last stats tutorial for the semester, feeling rather cultured. The exhibition runs until the 23rd of May, and if you get the chance, you really should try to see it!
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