Andrew Putter's ‘Secretly I Will Love You More’ is a video recreation of a 17th century Dutch painted portrait and supposedly represents Maria de la Quellerie, wife of Jan van Riebeeck. In 1652 De la Quellerie adopted the Khoikhoi child Krotoa, and in this recreation, she is shown singing a gentle Khoikhoi lullaby to her daughter.

The soft clicks of the Nama song, the infinitely nuanced facial expressions of the singing woman, and the calm solitude of the installation all suggest a moment of profound realization and bonding between this most different mother and child. In doing so the installation proposes a whole new way of understanding intimacy and dominance, the past and the present, historical narratives and the alternative tales of individual relationships.

In a subtle and visually engaging manner ‘Secretly I Will Love You More’ allows us to recognize the complexities underlying the often simplistic interpretations of history that we receive as undisputed fact.

IS THERE STILL LIFE? Continuity and Change in a Traditional Subject of Art in Recent South African Painting
UNTIL END MARCH

This unprecedented exhibition uses the still life paintings of the Iziko Michaelis Collection as a starting point for a thorough examination of the genre of still life painting in South Africa over the past century. At certain times, still life was looked upon as a lowly genre in painting, but in the Netherlands in the 17th century and in the 20th century it became a major genre for various social and aesthetic reasons. The development of the genre in South African art shows that it remains as vital as ever. The exhibition consists of works from the Iziko collections, as well as a substantial number of loans from private individuals and other art museums. The exhibition and its catalogue have been supported by Sanlam, the Goodman Gallery, Sasol, the Joan St Leger-Lindbergh Trust, the Cape Tercentenary Trust and the Friends of the Michaelis Collection. A major educational initiative for schools forms part of this project.

A WOMAN FROM DELFT: THE ART OF MARIANNE PODLASHUC (1932–2004)

The Principal Prince Claus Award was presented to Jonathan Shapiro, alias Zapiro, in 2005. This recognition amply confirmed Zapiro’s status as a major international cartoonist. Jonathan Shapiro was born in Cape Town in 1958. He studied architecture before switching to graphic design, completing his studies with a Fulbright Scholarship at the School of Visual Arts in New York. On his return to South Africa he worked with Story Circle producing educational comics on HIV/Aids, democracy and the prevention of child abuse. During the 1980s he began working with anti-apartheid groups and started publishing cartoons. Rather than working with computer-generated imagery, his cartoons are pen and ink drawings.

In 2001 he was the first cartoonist to win a category prize at the CNN African Journalist of the Year Awards. In 2003 he was the only African cartoonist to be invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

His exhibition consists of sixty original drawings for the published cartoons and includes montages of covers for the various books of cartoons that he has published.

Enquiries: Joe Dolby, tel. 021 467 4682

Art on our Doorstep is a series of exhibitions linked to a learning project that has been devised with the participation of over 50 schools that teach art in Cape Town. Learners were invited to consider the historical confrontation between 17th-century Dutch culture and the culture of the earliest indigenous peoples of the Cape through a study of both the Iziko Michaelis Collection and the displays of rock paintings at the Iziko SA Museum.

SYNERGY: AN EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY BEAD ART

'Synergy' celebrates the collaboration between artists working in urban and rural contexts, and the links between past and present. Twelve well-known South African artists have created works of art for transposition into bead art by women working in two bead studios. The facilitators were Elbé Coetsee (Mogalakwena Craft Art) and Jeanetta Blignaut (Qalo).

THE MUSE OF HISTORY: PAINTINGS BY HELMUT STARCKE

Helmut Starcke, former lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at UCT, exhibits a series of large acrylic paintings which are a postcolonial reflection on celebrated masterworks from the Golden Age of 17th-century Dutch painting. Famous works by Johannes Vermeer, for example, are used as a basis for mediations and meditations on the Dutch colonial adventure, with specific reference to Africa and the history of the Cape of Good Hope, colonised by the Dutch in 1652.

The interiors of the Old Town House, with the 17th-century originals of the Michaelis Collection close at hand, provide an ideal setting and context for this series of new paintings. Many of the interiors evoked in the Starcke's works resonate with the proportions, lighting and architectural detailing of the Old Town House itself. In addition to his own paintings, the artist will act as a guest curator and will arrange a special selection of works on paper from the Michaelis collection for display in the print room.