I am a sucker for authoritative comments. I believe first and ask questions afterwards. About 35 years ago, when ‘happenings’ were the rage I read a description of such an event in an American Art magazine. A Turkish artist in New York had hired a small auditorium and had slung a bed sheet filled with entrails from the local abattoir above the seats. When the audience arrived he slashed at the bulging canopy with a sword, bringing the mess down upon everybody. The article described “the wilful encounter with random experience”, “the probing of pockets of aversion in the psyche of everyman”, the “translation of defunct and formless matter into a metaphor for society’s detritus” etc. etc. I thought “Wow! Man! Rad!” or whatever susceptible young lecturers thought in those days. Driving home at rush hour that afternoon, I nearly crashed my car into the Empire Road traffic lights as it suddenly dawned upon me that I had been seduced by mellifluous waffle into thinking that a rather nasty prank was art.

The same sort of confusion rose in me recently when I read that Damian Hirst (whose work I often deeply respect) said that the attack of 9/11 was, in its way, an artwork. It was certainly a “happening”. The combination of great aircraft and massive buildings and cataclysmic implosions made the event awesome, even beautiful. I almost found myself nodding in agreement with Mr. Hirst. A little reflection corrected my perspective and made me ashamed. What we all saw, over and over again in the hours and days which followed, was a colossal “snuff” movie. We were helpless voyeurs, watching people being atomised. No, I said to myself. This event bears the same relationship to artwork as gang-rape bears to the act of love. If 9/11 is an artwork then a hammer covered in brain matter at a murder site is an artwork, differing only in aesthetic appeal. We widened our definition of artwork to our benefit in the 20th century but the process is now in danger of becoming meaningless, teasing the boundaries of tolerance beyond reason or morality. Robert Motherwell said that all art could hope to do was to remind us of our common humanity while allowing a well-directed mass murder to captivate us with its spectacle.

I say all this because we are, artists and art lovers alike, living in the fall-out of that catastrophe. Lieschen’s end of year shows have become a feature of Cape Town’s annual year end celebrations. I’m sure you all remember the delightful 2000 group show with its witty and festive work. It was as if the buoyancy of President Mandela’s inauguration had carries its optimism into the new millennium and we bade good- riddance to the battle-scarred 20th century. Two years on things seem to have changed. The world is physically fragile, tearing at its own fabric with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and drought – and the usual suspects run across the world waging war and terror while justifying their malevolence by mouthing platitudes about democracy, religion and nationalism, race and economics.

This show is, in its way, a register of our un ease and our attempts to confront or assuage our anxieties. It is called ‘Variation”, and within the variety of artists on offer, the works themselves are variations on the themes the artists have chosen. Variation, seen by many in the world to be antagonistic to their particular interests is something that civilised people celebrate.

In this ‘ceremony of innocence’ we have bold abstraction in the infinitely throbbing arcs of Nicky Marais’ work, set against Gregory Shaw’s smouldering fires. Hanneke Benade’s figures of timeless stillness are contrasted with Arabella Caccia’s apparently simple silhouettes within which complex pain is contained. Gail Catlin reminds a squalid world of the wit and elegance of the erotic. Keith Dietrich casts a surveyor’s eye over landscape and distils poetry, as does Lyn Smuts, whose birds become piercing song on a musical score of mountains. Passion and compassion, the qualities with which we need to fight the present plague , are in Natasja de Wet’s ephemeral latex + Perspex. Grazyne Gradkowska allows us to play again with her askance look at her roots in Polish folk art. Jaco Sieberhagen’s luminous bone-work is a sermon on the grandeur and the mortality of kings. Even looking at a Hennie Meyer teapot is a tea ceremony of delight and Emile Manefeldt’s doors tell eternal storieson their distressed surfaces. Laura du Toit’s pots, tantalising in their variety, are puns on the earthquake, the cavern and the meteor while Wiebke von Bismarck stresses the order of the universe in work of subtle geometry. Arcane shapes and lissom drawing give a disconcerting edge to Thomas Catlin’s lyricism, and Liza Grobler reminds us that the nimbus casts shadows as well as light. I have tried to conjure up the yearning creature within the artist, fumbling towards an image. Greg Kerr’s bright daemon embraces that of Gerard Manley Hopkins in works of great humanity and insight. We are given, in Mario Sickle’s heroic totem, a hymn to community and our interdependence. Finally Lynette ten Kroden reminds us that the desire to make images is ancient and timeless and that our profession is an honourable one.

The work on offer tonight is there to give delight and hurt not, in Caliban’s pleasant phrase. Enjoy the respite it offers. It is a celebration of our common humanity.

01. The Light Shines in the Darkness		02. The Gift
pastel on paper		pastel on paper
52cm x 46cm		107cm x 87cm

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Arabella Caccia

01. Seated Nude		02. Nude Kneeling
mixed media on board		mixed media on board
112cm x 102cm		112cm x 102cm

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Natasja de Wet

01. Alteration I		02. Alteration II
mixed media on perspex		mixed media on perspex
104cm x 38cm		39cm x 45cm

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Gregory Kerr

01. Thinking Christina		02. Gerard's Daemon
pastel on paper		pastel on paper
61cm x 52cm		61cm x 52cm

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Emile Manefeldt

01. Moses and the Burning Bush		02. Moses and the Buring Bush
mixed media on wood, old shutter		mixed media on wood, old shutter
170cm x 25cm		170cm x 25cm

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03. Jonah		04. Jonah
mixed media on wood, old shutter		mixed media on wood, old shutter
158cm x 25cm		158cm x 25cm

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05. Jonah		06. Jonah
mixed media on wood, old shutter		mixed media on wood, old shutter
158cm x 25cm		158cm x 25cm

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Nicky Marias

01. Red Triptych
industrial enamel paint on board
180cm x 80cm

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Judith Mason

01. Running Hot and Cold Water	02. Potter	03. Painter
oli on board	oli on board	oli on board
51cm x 47cm	83cm x 63cm	83cm x 63cm

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Lynette Ten Kroden

01. Ancient Travel Story
mixed media on canvas
57cm x 52cm

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Gregory Shaw

01. Fields of Fire		02. Epitaph for a Dream
oil on canvas		oil on canvas
142cm x 65cm		142cm x 65cm

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03. In Search of Canaan		04. In Search of Canaan
oil on canvas		oil on canvas
30cm x 20cm		30cm x 20cm

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Mario Sickle

01. Woman and Friends
sleeper wood
height: 200cm

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a. detail: Woman and Friends	b. detail: Woman and Friends	c. detail: Woman and Friends
sleeper wood	sleeper wood	sleeper wood

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Laura du Toit

01. A Collection of Raku Vessels		02. A Collection of Red Pots
ceramic		ceramic

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Hennie Meyer

01. Tea Pots

ceramic

height: each 17cm

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