Adding Subtractions, Fordsburg Artists’ Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa, 18 June – 10 July 2009

Visiting curator Daniella Géo invited twenty five South African and international artists to participate in this exhibition. South African visual art shows a noteworthy prevalence of found footage, assemblage, collage, series, sequencing, weaving and sampling. If, on the one hand, these artistic strategies may reflect scarce economic resources, on the other, they symbolise the gathering of history's fragments – whether private or collective. Older and younger generations alike rearrange analog or distinct elements in order to reinforce or subvert a certain reality, thereby creating new socio-political and time-space relations. Art is construction, but by adopting the above practices, artists highlight the gestures of de- and re-constructing. These acts evoke not only criticism, questioning and the search for meaning, but also stimulate memories of what has been left behind. Most works relate, even if indirectly, to their historical and cultural framework. Subjects and approaches vary – from personal to universal issues, and from emotional to logical viewpoints – as do artists' trajectories. In a rather improbable combination, the Adding Subtractions exhibition brings together works of diverse media, concepts and aesthetics, following a collage-like perspective, proposing a revisitation of South African contemporary art production. – (Fordsburg Artists Studios) Twelve Phases of Orange (2002) was selected for this exhibition.