AMALER-RAVIV’S JOBURG EXHIBITION EXTENDED DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND

Worldart Johannesburg has announced the extension of Arlene Amaler-Raviv’s untitled solo exhibition, which will now run for an additional week until 06 September 2007.

The decision to extend the exhibition was made by Amaler-Raviv and Worldart founder and owner, Charl Bezuidenhout. “The exhibition has enjoyed tremendous interest from the art world, the media, buyers and dealers. Reviews have been unanimously positive and sales have been excellent. Based on this welcoming response, we’ve realised that a number of people who wish to see the exhibition have not yet had the opportunity to do so. Worldart is located in the inner city – an area that requires a dedicated trip for most people. Because of this, we have chosen to change the dates to offer an extended opportunity to view the work,” explains Bezuidenhout.

After a very well-attended walk-about in August, Amaler-Raviv will be hosting a second walk-about on 01 September, offering in-depth explanations of each piece, describing the circumstances which led to the creation of this formidable body of work.

Twenty seven years on from her first ever exhibition, held at the Market Theatre Gallery, her untitled body of work has been four years in the making and has brought Amaler-Raviv, 54, back to her birthplace, Johannesburg, for the first time since 1989. For the past decade, the artist has lived, worked and regularly exhibited in Cape Town, but has now chosen to hold this exhibition at Worldart Johannesburg as a part of her search to understand her own birthplace. In the canvasses of this exhibition, Amaler-Raviv confronts the denseness of our daily urban lives and the sense of remoteness and dissociation that can develop from this. Her palette and mark-making are expressive and certain, provocative and inquiring, even the energy of her signature mark mimics urban life and empathises with both people’s plight and their pace. The large scale, fielded nature of many of these works references her innate confidence and forwardness to seek answers, inviting viewers to engage in her process in ways that make sense to them.

The exhibition consists of more than 70 works, including two 2 metre x 2 metre canvasses and a series of 53 iconic postcard size images.