View more books at: https://www.bobshop.co.za/seller/2248344/ElevenOclock
Our Land / Ons Land
Exhibition catalogue - The Pierneef Station Panels Revisited. Carl Becker and Monique Pelser, 2012.
Booklet
In the early 1930s J.H Pierneef the most influential and prominent historical South African landscape painter was commissioned by the railway services to travel South Africa and paint select sites reached by the capillary railways. Famously known as the Johannesburg Station Panels, these paintings depict scenes of mining, industry, seaside villages and sprawling uninhibited landscapes. The panels, which were exhibited in the concourse of the Johannesburg Railway Station until the abolishment of the apartheid government in the 1990s, were intended to create the effect that the station was the gateway to a glorious and unknown landscape.
Pierneef spent days in the various sites making watercolour sketches and gathering visual data. He would then go back into his studio and construct an ideally composed painting. These photographic studies form part of a larger process of tracing, pinpointing the perspectives and photographing the iconic landscapes.
In addition to the photographic prints there are digital screens documenting studies of how the camera responds to the shifting light. These works are new photographic studies made in response to the process Pierneef went through making observational sketches of the site and the surrounding environment.
Our Land/Ons Land, an astonishing exhibition revisiting the iconic Pierneef Johannesburg Station Panels, will be presented by painter Carl Becker and photographer Monique Pelser at the Durban Art Gallery opening on Thursday, 18 September and running until Sunday, 26 October.
Becker and Pelser both visited the Pierneef Museum in Graaff-Reinet in 2007. The two had not met, but each decided to embark on a search for the original sites of Pierneefs Station Panels.
JH Pierneef (1886 to 1957) was commissioned by the SA Railways in 1929 to paint 32 works showing the natural splendour of South Africa. They were completed in 1932 and were hung in the concourse of the new Johannesburg Station. The works were intended to depict places of historical interest or natural beauty and were meant to encourage tourism and rail travel within the Union of SA. They depict landscapes from Hermanus in the Western Cape to Louis Trichardt in Limpopo. These works are seen by many as the most important single body of landscape paintings made by a South African painter. They have been seen by thousands of people over the last 80 years.
Pelser, a photographer currently working and living between Cape Town and New York City, and Becker, a Hermanus-based painter, met by chance in 2010 and decided to collaborate. This exhibition is the result of the search for the sites of Pierneefs paintings.
Both artists work at the sites, observing the landscape over time. Pelser shows stills and digital screens depicting the play of light from sunrise to sunset. Becker works in traditional media drawings, watercolours and oil paintings. The result is a conversation about an Old Master between photography, installation, drawing and painting.
We are negotiating a complex history, says Pelser, The Utopian views I held in my hand were a far cry from what I faced. But there were also moments when I was moved by the sheer scale of what I saw.
Pierneefs paintings were hugely popular because South Africans identify strongly with the land says Becker, We are bringing that legacy into the present moment and hoping that a new generation will interact with it. The photographs and paintings suggest different ways of interpreting the landscape. Monique and I have a visual conversation about the land how old and new media vary and concur in their representation of it.
Our Land/Ons Land is an on-going project that is constantly being revised and extended. It has been shown at the Stellenbosch University Art Gallery, the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein, and the Ann Bryant Gallery in East London. It travels to the Durban Art Gallery in September.
Wear and tear. PLEASE CHECK IMAGES FOR CONDITION
Conditions
Please read the conditions before bidding.
REGRET NO OVERSEAS SHIPPING.
NON-PAYING WINNING BIDDERS - Please do not bid on an item unless you intend to complete the transaction. NEGATIVE feedback will be posted for non-paying winning bidde
