"11th Imperial Yeomanry " 2007 oil on canvas, 38cm x 76cm
"March II "(detail) 2007 oil on canvas, 38cm x 76cm

 

PRESS RELEASE

March

Cobus van Bosch at 34 Long

6 - 31 March 2007

The spectacle of demonstrations, mass marches and processions has played a significant role in South African history. Advancing troops, “klopse” cavalcading through Cape Town, demonstrating and striking workers, marches in protest against political authority – they all combine to form a highly visual record of reaction against, or celebration of social and economical realities. 
 
Generally speaking, most people tend to be private beings, going about their personal business peaceably. But they can be marshaled into mass action by cathartic events, positive or negative, and momentarily sacrifice their individuality in order to engage in public displays of emotion, communal rituals, or mass action.
 
A wild pillaging mob, a “disciplined” advancing military column or a joyous carnival procession – all formed by individuals converging in large numbers – becomes a single organism, driven by a collective cause, their particular lives temporarily in limbo.
 
In a thoughtful series of paintings entitled March, Cobus van Bosch exploits the visuality of public performance to reconstruct various Southern African moments. The camera shutter, replaced by brushstroke, remains silently in evidence. Suppressed, grainy colour evokes the zeitgeist of the 20th century in uneasily cropped images inhabiting a controlled, chaotic borderland where identity is lost to the energy of abstraction. 

RÉSUMÉ

All images © the artist, 2007
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34 Long Street    Cape Town    South Africa 
For more information contact Andries Loots:   tel. +27 82 354 1500    fineart@34long.com

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or by appointment tel. +27 21 426 4594