#maxi pretorius

[lotharb-blog]

2019 - Blow Your Sculpture

2019 – Blow Your Sculpture

Glass has enabled so many milestones in history, from the telescope to microscope, high-speed communications and that smartphone in your hand. Yet, only very few contemporary artists utilise it’s potential in their creative narratives.

Blow Your Sculpture’sis an initiative to break the proverbial mould, to introduce glass, it’s malleability and endless possibilities to a new crowd of creatives.…

[lotharb-blog]

Blow Your Sculpture 2019 opened on 13 March at the Pretoria Art Museum, almost a year after launching at Smelt Glass Studio.

Twelve artists took part in this third iteration of a collaborative project with the aim to promote glass as an expressive medium within the South African art milieu. Blow Your Sculpture also strives to grow our local hand-made glass industry.

This year’s artists are: Guy du Toit Peter du Toit Richard John Forbes Caitlin Grenberg Maxi Pretorius Martli Jansen van Rensburg Charl Enslin Ian Redelinghuys AnZu Wicks Gordon Froud Mike Hyam and Lothar Böttcher (Instigator & Curator)

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Ian Redelinghuys

Gordon Froud

Lothar Böttcher

AnZu Wicks

Caitlin Greenberg

Peter du Toit

Charl Enslin

Mike Hyam

Guy du Toit

Maxi Pretorius

Martli Jansen van Rensburg

Richard John Forbes

The opening night exceeded all expectations with tons of guests arriving to experience and delight in the multitude of works on display. The Art Museum was a hive with people from all over buzzing in conversations, mingling and taking photos with their favourite pieces.

Such a phenomenal turnout surely is a sign of BYS’s success in promoting creative glass. Each artist had their own approach on how they interpreted this limitless and versatile material. Their narratives ranged from heads to illumination, glass carpentry to mixed media installations and much much more.

Blow Your Sculpture is the brainchild of Lothar Böttcher who launched the first event during the Pretoria CoolCapital biennale in 2014. This first collaboration was exhibited at Modern Art Projects and is now in their permanent collection in Graskop.

In 2016 BYS took place again with the added parameter to ad light with, upon or onto the sculptures. The exhibition was staged in two parts – the first was hosted in the open air at the Pretoria Botanical Gardens for two nights whereafter all the works were installed at the Pretoria Art Museum.

Now, after an absolutely successful launch, the exhibition will be catalogued and used for promotion. BYS is looking for sponsorship to grow the concept and allow students and other artists, who don’t have the financial means, to participate.

Blow Your Sculpture is growing and there is already talk of the next collaboration – possibly in 2021…?

For more info click on the link above to our Face Book page or email blowyoursculpture@gmail.com

Blow Your Sculpture 2019 Blow Your Sculpture 2019 opened on 13 March at the Pretoria Art Museum, almost a year after launching at…

[lotharb-blog]

It was in 2003 that I went to the USA, to experience Pilchuck and my first Glass Art Society conference in Seattle. I was blown away!

All fired up and inspired by the camaraderie within this international glass community gathering in the Pacific North West I returned to Pretoria with a million ideas in my head. How can we make this magic happen in our neck of the woods?

As luck would have it, Dr. Ingram Anderson (a rheumatoid arthritis specialist and avid glass collector) and myself met and fired up a conversation on our local fledgling glass community. We were both of similar opinion; to enable a platform where artists, enthusiasts and collectors could converge. The idea was to grow our local industry, as small as it was.

Our conversations grew, inviting other artists and collaborators within the arts and especially the glass scene here in South Africa.

After much deliberation, in 2004, the South African Glass Art Society (SAGAS) was born as a non-profit organisation “to promote and foster the appreciation of Glass Art in Southern Africa.” The initial SAGAS board members were Dr. Ingram Anderson (Chairman), Ian Redelinghuys, Retief van Wyk, Maxi Pretorius, Jakkals Pretorius, Gordon Froud and myself, Lothar Böttcher as coordinator.

Dr. Ingram Anderson

Ian Redelinghuys

Retief van Wyk

Maxi Pretorius

Jakkals Pretorius

Gordon Froud

Lothar Böttcher

  Our first national exhibition was hosted at the Gordart Gallery, in Melville, Johannesburg later that year. It was during July as I still recall my daughter, Lilo, being born on the 1st of July, sleeping in Gordon’s office, only a few days old…

The show was a resounding success. Sales were good and the overall vibe was positive with many conversations about South African glass and its future.

The scene was set… for the following year’s event.

In 2005 SAGAS moved to the Western Cape. More specifically Cape Town, Worcester and Paarl, with an exhibition even in Stellenbosch at the Dorp Straat Gallery.

Lorna Reade coordinated the gathering and did an astounding job with several venues and events planned during the Festival of Glass. We exhibited work at the Jean Welz Gallery in Worcester where David Reade also has his studio. David hosted open days working with students from TUT, who actually came down from Pretoria to attend.

Lorna Reade and Lothar Böttcher unpacking works for the exhibitions

A large contingent of students with lecturers from TUT (being photographed by Dr. Anderson)

David Reade and Gary Thompson – Pioneers of South African glass

Lorna also organised a show of glass at the Irma Stern Museum, which is part administered by the University of Cape Town.

We visited Red Hot Glass just outside Paarl on The Spice Route Farm overlooking wine lands.

Nelius Britz recently opened the Edge Glass Gallery and formed part of the SAGAS festival with a wonderful opening night in downtown Cape Town. The Edge Glass Gallery, which is part of the Cape Glass Studio, is still the only dedicated Glass Gallery in sub-Saharan Africa.

Shirley Cloete and Dr. Ingram Anderson (2 Sept. 2005)

Opening night at the Edge Glass Gallery, Cape Town

Dr. Ingram Anderson opening an exhibition

We went to visit Shirley Cloete at her estate Morgenster in Somerset West. She is considered the doyen of SA glass, collaborating with David Reade and Gary Thompson in the 1980’s and later having her own studio from where she worked for many years.

The 2005 Festival of Glass in the Cape was a seminal moment for our fledgling glass community.

After the grand scale of the 2005 glass festival things became difficult. Committee members had professional commitments and funding for the organisation was stagnant. This is particularly difficult for a fledgling non-profit.

In 2006 SAGAS was disbanded. We could simply not continue with an altruistic ideal of a glass community without funding or sponsorship – also running the day to day management, newsletters and organising… – as professionals ourselves, working for a living.

Ten years later, in 2016, Dr. Anderson and myself curated a national glass exhibition at the Association of Arts, Pretoria. This exhibition, titled Out of the Fire, Into the Light, brought artists working with glass from all over South Africa back under one roof.

This year we did it again, on a smaller scale though. Back to the Future – Contemporary Glass Inspired by the Past opened on the 28th of September at the Association of Arts and invited artists working with, and using glass in their creative narrative from Pretoria.

In the introduction for the show I wrote: “Pretoria is a proverbial melting pot for creative glass.” With the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), the only academic institution on the continent offering glass as a major subject in their Fine Arts Department we truly are at the source of contemporary glass in South Africa.

The exhibition presented mostly graduates from TUT’s glass department over the past 24 years, myself included. The artists who participated were:

Olwethu de Vos

Gordon Froud

Caitlin Greenberg

Mike Hyam

Martli Jansen van Rensburg

Thabang Monoa

Kgotso Pati

Maxi Pretorius

Ian Redelinghuys

Liesl Roos

Nicole Rowe

Mbali Tshabalala

Diane Victor

Retief van Wyk

Marileen van Wyk

Berco Wilsenach

Lothar Böttcher

A comprehensive catalogue of the works with artist statements is available here.

It is my hope that our conversation of glass continues with many more ventures and adventures, growing a sustainable industry within an African narrative.

One thing I have learned from the international glass community is that it is a family with weird cousins, uncles and aunts, some might be scary and others timid or bombastic, everyone differently unique but all are giving, supportive and believe in the magic of glass and its future.

  #SouthAfricanGlass - The art and societies from my perspective It was in 2003 that I went to the USA, to experience Pilchuck and my first…