Through a varied series of works and actions created and documented over several years, Belinda Blignaut has been processing issues around social constraint and transformation, with the body at the centre of all; an emotional response to a political world.
Adapting available materials and processing immediate surroundings, she hopes to translate the ways we cope. Her work is often body canvas, a quiet visceral investigation into violence through action and documentation. Surfacing in BLOWN is a desire to resist the effects of institutionalized culture and the constructs of sophistication we have become - how good we are at concealing messiness, the natural body, and intuition.
It is significant that BLOWN is the most extensive showing of Blignaut’s work since her absence from the art world for over a decade. The exhibition will include seminal works from the mid-1990s as well as a more recent survey of her production.
That Blignaut is practicing now, for the first time since the beginning of this country’s democracy, suggests that there is a revived urgency for protest. In her own words, “I’ve come to believe we have one story to tell and keep finding different ways of telling it.”
Belinda Blignaut was born on a farm in the Eastern Cape in 1968. Her first group exhibition, ‘Come As You Are’ at F.I.G in Johannesburg lead to her first solo:‘Antibody’, at the Everard Read Contemporary in 1993. Her work is represented in the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection, as well as numerous private collections. Selected group exhibitions include the 1994 Sao Paulo Biennale, the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale. Blignaut subsequently made broadcast television: her documentaries and experimental video pieces on subculture, South African underground culture, sexuality, crime underworlds, violence, ritual and freedom of expression focused on social change. In 2009 she began exhibiting again as an artist. Some recent projects include participation in Paradisiac and Scarry Scarry Night: No Government No Cry, Belgium, 2011, Vex and Siolence, 2010 (a group intervention with Linda Stupart and Stuart Bird at Youngblackman, Cape Town, and Cinderella Is Pissed at Goodman Cape Town 2010. Her ambitious curatorial project: A shot to the Arse (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town 2012) highlighted her engagement with the contemporary avant guard, countercultural activism and artifacts. Her exhibition at blank projects is her second solo exhibition - nearly twenty years since her first.
WHYI MAKE BecauseICantTurnBackBecauseIUsedBloodSweatAndTearsBecauseOfTheTearsBecauseOfTheBloodBecauseImTiredOfWaitingBecauseOftenILiveAndWorkInIsolationBecuaseThisIsWhatIWonderDuringTheRestlessNightsBecauseOfTheNightBecauseOfTheTimesBecauseItsTimeBecauseOfProcessBecauseToHurryProcessIsSlowSuicideBecauseIWonderIfAnyoneWillEverSeeThemBecauseIhaveToWaitToBeInvitedBecauseICantAllowDoubtBecauseICantStopBecauseIWontStopBecauseArtIsNeverFinishedBecauseOneWorkIsPartOfAllWorksBecauseIStillBelieveInTheManifestoAndManifestingItBecauseUbuwebIsASchoolBecauseTheArtistChangesBecauseTheArtistCanModifyAWorkAtAnyGivenPointBecauseTheStoryNeverChangesBecauseEverythingRearrangesBecauseOfChanceBecauseIWontBeAdjustedToSickValuesInLifeAndArtBecauseHumansMatterMostBecauseArtKnowsItsLifeBecauseItProcessesLifeBecauseItsStickyAndMessyBecauseActionShiftsBecauseArtIsAFireBecauseIStillBelieveBecauseItsTheOnlyVoiceIHaveBecauseIHaveSomethingToSayAndItBurns
Adapting available materials and processing immediate surroundings, she hopes to translate the ways we cope. Her work is often body canvas, a quiet visceral investigation into violence through action and documentation. Surfacing in BLOWN is a desire to resist the effects of institutionalized culture and the constructs of sophistication we have become - how good we are at concealing messiness, the natural body, and intuition.
It is significant that BLOWN is the most extensive showing of Blignaut’s work since her absence from the art world for over a decade. The exhibition will include seminal works from the mid-1990s as well as a more recent survey of her production.
That Blignaut is practicing now, for the first time since the beginning of this country’s democracy, suggests that there is a revived urgency for protest. In her own words, “I’ve come to believe we have one story to tell and keep finding different ways of telling it.”
Belinda Blignaut was born on a farm in the Eastern Cape in 1968. Her first group exhibition, ‘Come As You Are’ at F.I.G in Johannesburg lead to her first solo:‘Antibody’, at the Everard Read Contemporary in 1993. Her work is represented in the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection, as well as numerous private collections. Selected group exhibitions include the 1994 Sao Paulo Biennale, the 1995 Johannesburg Biennale. Blignaut subsequently made broadcast television: her documentaries and experimental video pieces on subculture, South African underground culture, sexuality, crime underworlds, violence, ritual and freedom of expression focused on social change. In 2009 she began exhibiting again as an artist. Some recent projects include participation in Paradisiac and Scarry Scarry Night: No Government No Cry, Belgium, 2011, Vex and Siolence, 2010 (a group intervention with Linda Stupart and Stuart Bird at Youngblackman, Cape Town, and Cinderella Is Pissed at Goodman Cape Town 2010. Her ambitious curatorial project: A shot to the Arse (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town 2012) highlighted her engagement with the contemporary avant guard, countercultural activism and artifacts. Her exhibition at blank projects is her second solo exhibition - nearly twenty years since her first.
WHYI MAKE BecauseICantTurnBackBecauseIUsedBloodSweatAndTearsBecauseOfTheTearsBecauseOfTheBloodBecauseImTiredOfWaitingBecauseOftenILiveAndWorkInIsolationBecuaseThisIsWhatIWonderDuringTheRestlessNightsBecauseOfTheNightBecauseOfTheTimesBecauseItsTimeBecauseOfProcessBecauseToHurryProcessIsSlowSuicideBecauseIWonderIfAnyoneWillEverSeeThemBecauseIhaveToWaitToBeInvitedBecauseICantAllowDoubtBecauseICantStopBecauseIWontStopBecauseArtIsNeverFinishedBecauseOneWorkIsPartOfAllWorksBecauseIStillBelieveInTheManifestoAndManifestingItBecauseUbuwebIsASchoolBecauseTheArtistChangesBecauseTheArtistCanModifyAWorkAtAnyGivenPointBecauseTheStoryNeverChangesBecauseEverythingRearrangesBecauseOfChanceBecauseIWontBeAdjustedToSickValuesInLifeAndArtBecauseHumansMatterMostBecauseArtKnowsItsLifeBecauseItProcessesLifeBecauseItsStickyAndMessyBecauseActionShiftsBecauseArtIsAFireBecauseIStillBelieveBecauseItsTheOnlyVoiceIHaveBecauseIHaveSomethingToSayAndItBurns
