WHERE ART HAPPENS IN NATURE
NIROX is committed to the global contemporary arts through its sculpture park, artist residency, workshops and outdoor concert venues.
UPCOMING CONCERT
VALENTINE'S MUSIC CONCERT
Valentine's Music Concert:
12 February, 2023
All you need is
LOVE
is all you need
Fall in LOVE again this Valentine’s 2023
with music in nature
at the glorious NIROX Sculpture Park
in the heart of the Cradle of Humankind
the birthplace and the source
of human promise,
captured with passion,
excellence and harmony
by exceptional acoustic and a capella artists
celebrating the power of LOVE
NIROX RESIDENCY STUDIO
EXHIBITION
Anna Boldt & Mathias Weinfurter: Blurry Gazes
During their residency at NIROX (Dec 2022 – Jan 2023), Anna Boldt and Mathias Weinfurter realised Blurry Gazes, the second project conducted by the duo under that banner. Having conducted similar research in the town of Ambalema, Colombia, in 2019, the starting point for their artistic research in South Africa was a series of photographs, stitched together on Google Street View (GSV), of various locations in the region surrounding NIROX. Whilst in residence, the duo conducted research on-site, meeting those captured by GSV and exploring the site-specific conditions of the proximate (yet economically disparate) areas of Nietgedacht, Roodeport, and Krugersdorp. The result is a portrait of these respective communities, juxtaposed with their online representation, that raises a series of questions about visibility, representation, agency, surveillance, and land in South Africa.
NIROX SCULPTURE PARK
EXHIBITION
Layers: Rock Art Across Space and Time
“Layers: Rock Art Across Space and Time” is held in collaboration with the Embassies of Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico and Portugal.
The exhibition is also supported by The European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).
The first iteration at NIROX will open on 26 November 2022 and run until 15 January 2023, before travelling to Cape Town and Johannesburg.
THE COVERED SPACE
EXHIBITION
Jonathan Freemantle: Spirit Matter
NIROX is pleased to announce Jonathan Freemantle's upcoming solo exhibition, Spirit Matter, opening on Saturday 19 November 2022 in the Covered Space.
The exhibition will debut a range of paintings made in Freemantle's Edinburgh studio and during his residency at NIROX earlier this year. It will also include an installation and performance on the day of the opening, intended as an entry into Freemantle’s meditative painting process, and as a continuation of the artist’s ongoing exploration of the relationship between his body, time, and the earth.
VILLA-LEGODI CENTRE FOR SCULPTURE
EXHIBITION
Walter Oltmann: A Quiet Focus
As the latest recipient of the Edoardo Villa Extraordinary Award for Sculpture – intended to acknowledge exceptional achievement in the field by artists based in South Africa – Walter Oltmann will participate in a two-month residency at NIROX, making use of the Centre’s Workshop to begin experimenting and creating his latest body of work. The residency will be accompanied by an exhibition in the Project Space, aimed as a platform to showcase works-in-progress, preparatory and complete drawings, as well as the work of artists Usha Seejarim and Chris Soal, who work in a similar mode, to varying ends. The exhibition is intended to provide audiences with a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the processes and materials used by each artist, to varying ends. Later in the year, the Centre will host a second exhibition highlighting the outcome of Oltmann’s residency.
IN RESIDENCE
WALTER OLTMANN
Walter Oltmann
As the latest recipient of the Edoardo Villa Extraordinary Award for Sculpture, Johannesburg-based artist Walter Oltmann will participate in a two-month residency at NIROX, making use of the Centre’s Workshop to begin experimenting and creating his latest body of work. The residency will be accompanied by an exhibition in the Project Space, aimed as a platform to showcase works-in-progress alongside preexisting works, preparatory and complete drawings, as well as the work of other artists who work in a similar mode, to varying ends. In 2023, the Centre will host a second exhibition highlighting the outcome of Oltmann’s residency.
RESIDENCY
PAST
PHOKA NYOKONG
These paintings build on an ongoing series titled ‘Ethnology for Genocide: the History Paintings.’ The series focuses on the violent entanglement of African cultural heritage with western anthropology, ethnology, museology, religion, and psychology, particularly the so-called punitive expedition orchestrated by the British against the Benin kingdom in the late nineteenth century, which culminated in the destruction and looting of Benin’s cultural art objects.
RESIDENCY
PAST
ANNA BOLDT AND MATHIAS WEINFURTER
In 2019 Anna Boldt and Mathias Weinfurter realised the experimental research and artistic project Miradas Borrosas (Blurry Gazes) in the Colombian village of Ambalema.
During their residency at NIROX Foundation in December 2022 and January 2023, Anna Boldt and Mathias Weinfurter will continue the work to enable a comparison of impressions. The chosen destination is the village Nietgedacht, 40 km from the centre of Johannesburg. The starting point are again the GSV photographs of the location which were taken in December 2014. For the artistic expression, on the other hand, they will deal with the site-specific conditions. In a free creative realization, a portrait of the respective place and its inhabitants will be created in relation to their representation online. The open character of the project allows for social choreographies.
RESIDENCY
PAST
Driaan Claasen and Catherine Ash
Driaan Claassen and Catherine Ash will continue their ongoing collaboration as part of a residency at the Centre, making use of the electric and wood-fired kilns to produce a series of sculptures made out of ceramics, glass, and wood, that grapple with mental health. Their proposed works foregrounds the use of wood as a mediator between glass and ceramics, making reference to the elements as a way to both ground and connect the internal and external, physical and mental, aspects of the human anatomy; a connection which is also apparent in the case of trees and neurons that take on a Lichtenberg or dendritic-type pattern.
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