The Iziko South African Museum is currently finalising a repair and renovation project, funded by the Department of Public Works. Certain public areas such as the foyer, restaurant and retail area will be renovated and upgraded. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Our objective is to transform this area into a secure, welcoming space for visitors that will provide high quality public facilities with improved orientation and information about the Iziko South African Museum, as well as the collections and temporary exhibitions of Iziko’s other eleven museums.

The design solution and implementation of this revamp will embody in some ways the spirit and underlying ethos of Iziko, of providing a warm welcome that will be sure to enhance visitor experience.

UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT: GEORGE STOW AND THE ROCK ART OF THE SAN
8 NOVEMBER 2008 -  31 MAY 2009

George Stow was a Victorian man of many parts – poet, historian, ethnographer, artist, cartographer and prolific writer. A geologist by profession, he became acquainted, through his work in the field, with the extraordinary wealth of rock paintings in the caves and shelters of the South African interior. Enchanted and absorbed by them, Stow set out to create a record of this creative work of the people who had tracked and marked the South African landscape decades and centuries before him. Stow’s paintings are interpretations of the art of the San, informed by his own understanding of a particularly turbulent time in South African history and his sense of the tragic demise of the San way of life. This exhibition celebrates his pioneering achievement and reminds us, too, of the richness of the imaginative universe of the San.

A collection of his interpretations of rock art, a selection of his geological maps, documents and field notebooks, some of
his poetic works, quotations from his writings on the San and their history as he recorded and interpreted it, as well as some contextual material from the Bleek and Lloyd archive are displayed. The exhibition brings together works from the Iziko South African Museum, the National Library of South Africa and the of Cape Town (UCT). It is curated by Pippa Skotnes and her team at the Centre for Curating the Archive, Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT. A new publication on Stow will be launched at the exhibition.

Enquiries: Petro Keene, Tel. 021 481 3883, or email pkeene@iziko.org.za.

AFRICAN DINOSAUR EXHIBITION: PHASE 1
CURRENT

The African Dinosaur Exhibition is still in development, but elements of it are now on display. The main feature is the massive skeleton of the sauropod dinosaur Jobaria, which was cast from a fossil discovered in northern Niger by Dr Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago. Also on show is the huge head of Carcharodontosaurus, a close relative of Tyrannosaurus, and the skull of the extinct crocodile Sarcosuchus.

BEADS: RITUAL AND ORNAMENTATION
CURRENT Extended!

The small but rather beautiful ‘Beads: Ritual and Ornamentation’ exhibition features prehistoric and ethnographic beads from southern Africa. Objects on display include Nassarius kraussianus shell beads, dating to 77 000 years ago. These are among the earliest beads discovered anywhere in the world. Prehistoric beads used as grave goods are also shown. More recent beads include colourful neck ornaments, 20th century tortoise-shell cosmetic containers decorated with beads, an isidlokolo (otter-skin cap), iqhina (necklet) and an umtseke (arm ornament) worn by Xhosa diviners.

Two posters, one of men adorned with beads in ritual dancing postures, as shown in a drawing by Elisabeth Mannsfeld of a rock painting in Ngolosa, Eastern Cape (Frobenius Collection), and one of diviners at a ceremony in East London, Eastern Cape (1968), contextualize the exhibition.

Enquiries: Sarah Wurz, Tel. 021 481 3888.