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Indepth Arts News:
"Monument: An Exhibition of Works in Cast Iron by Cobus van Bosch"
2002-02-11 until 2002-03-02
Association for Visual Arts
Cape Town, ,
ZA South Africa
The exhibition MONUMENT uses one of the most well known examples of urban iconography - the manhole cover - as a metaphor. The works form a series of various cast iron patterns and images, relating to personal and collectives experiences in South Africa.
In the process it becomes something of an anti-monument, remembering unmonumental experiences in life that hardly ever finds itself eternalised in precious bronze monuments, but actually constitute some of the most durable impacts on human life. This include sexual awakening, suburban architecture (the corner-cafe), institutionalised violence (the police state, military conscription), death (which is often undignified, such as the drive-by accident), the final disrespect (the post-mortem), etc.
The works, described by Van Bosch as made readymades, are all made in cast iron from hand-carved master copies in Plaster of Paris. It is finally created through the processes of an industrial foundry (sand casting, etc.) and can perfectly well serve as the real thing (manhole covers), opening the way for these works to become both public artworks and functional objects.
Cobus van Bosch is both an artist and an arts writer. He is currently assistant arts editor of the daily newspaper Die Burger in Cape Town, South Africa, and has served as a judge in the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival and the prestigious Absa Atelier Art Competition (South Africa) in 2000 and 2001. This is his third solo exhibition, and he has participated in various group exhibitions in South Africa. His previous solo exhibitions were at the now defunct Mark Coetzee Fine Art Cabinet in Cape Town (respectively in 1998 and 2000). Mr. Coetzee is currently the director of the renowned Rubell Family Art collection in Miami, USA. The previous exhibitions dealt with respectively the phenomenon of the urban wild man (the hobo as a metaphor for Christ on earth and outsidership) and the impact of the military conflict in Angola (the Cuban and South African Vietnam) during the seventies and eighties. Van Bosch was conscripted by the South African Defence Force during 1985 and 1986.
The exhibition MONUMENT concludes on 2 March 2002. The website of the Association of Visual Arts in Cape Town, South Africa, is www.ava.co.za
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