December 2011
33 posts
What we talk about when we talk about love
Untitled by Zanele Muholi. Blood on fabric. Image courtesy of Stevenson.
Love and lust, desire and death, sex and identity. The seething entanglements of the human heart are investigated in a fine new group show at Stevenson gallery in Cape Town.
Taking centre stage is Meschac Gaba’s Marriage Room from his Museum for Contemporary African Art - a collection of artefacts, images and video...
Holiday reading: Corina van der Spoel's top 5
Corina van der Spoel runs the Media24-owned Boekehius in Johannesburg. Sadly, soon after WANTED’s feature on standalone bookstores went to press, it was announced that the media conglomerate will be closing it due to “ever-increasing losses”. Here Corina lists her top 5 holiday reads.
CORINA’S CHOICE
1. Sirkusboere by Sonja Loots: in 1904, together with his troops, General...
Road test: Porsche boxers
Even the thought of wearing your prized undies for more than a few months should appear gross to you. If not, you certainly shouldn’t be fessing up to it. However, thanks to advances in fabric technology the clever people at Porsche Design in Austria are offering a 10 year guarantee on these seamless boxers. Designed and manufactured in collaboration with adidas their tightie whities get our...
Takkie treats
Bensimon has launched its first South African store at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town - just in time for summer. The French brand made a name for itself as purveyors of tennis shoes, and takkies (still made in Europe) form the staple of store’s offering. We love the high-tops for guys, while the Liberty fabric sneakers are great for girls.
Bensimon, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.
Holiday reading: The Book Cottage's top 5
The Book Cottage, an independent book shop in Hermanus, shares its top five reads for the holidays.
1. Idees vol vrees by Kobus Galloway: if you’ve lived in SA for long enough to know that a robot is not family of R2-D2, and you like puns, homophones and other equally enthralling figures of speech you have to own a copy.
2. The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal: this is more than about the...
Ancient Africa goes global
Renchia Droganis, dreamer and CEO of nature-luxe beauty brand Africology, has packaged the dynamic power of indigenous plant life in a range of beauty products designed to heal, restore and revitalise. Her journey began as experiments in her kitchen. Droganis, a reiki master, combined her foundational knowledge of the power of energy with her passion for people, Ubuntu and the earth.
In the...
Holiday reading: Carla Edgar's top 5
Carla Edgar, owner of Parkhurst’s Nice Books in Johannesburg, shares her favourite reads for the festive season:
1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: an intimate autobiography from the man who changed our digital lives forever.
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: selected by Amazon as one of the top books of 2011, it follows a circus that quietly appears in different towns and only opens...
Escape to the country
The least interesting thing about The Other Side Restaurant at Monaghan Farm is the food. This is because it’s really nice. It’s contemporary, fresh, well made and logical. The restaurant prepares loads of ingredients from its own organic farm and uses only meat of good provenance. It is what we should expect — always, and at the very least — but we don’t because it’s so very rare to be served...
Burger dreaming
It might only have been open for less than a fortnight, but Clarke’s Bar and Dining Room on Bree Street is already a prime contender for best burger in Cape Town. Lyndall Maunders’ new eatery serves up simple American fare, but with the best ingredients she can find. And it shows: the patties are veritable chunks of free range beef mince, the seeded rolls are light and fluffy, and the crispy...
The new Skinny
Printed fabric brand Skinny laMinx has opened its petite studio and store in Cape Town’s Bree Street. Designed by Heather Moore, the fabric prints are bold and simple, an uncontrived blend of domestic whimsy with African flavours and a fairly earthy palette of muddy browns, yellows, greens and greys.
The fabrics have been used to create aprons, tea towels, cushion covers and handbags and...
The Designer-Maker Market
The folks at the Freeworld Design Centre are in the swing of their third Designer-Maker Market. Stock up on everything from fresh flowers and handmade Christmas goodies to homemade icecream and the best artisan chocolate.
For a full list of store-holders, click here.
Freeworld Design Centre, 71 Waterkant Street, Cape Town.
Holiday reading: Mervyn Sloman's top 5
Mervyn Sloman of The Book Lounge in Cape Town’s east city precinct shares his top five holiday favourites:
1. Open City by Teju Cole: An absolutely phenomenal debut novel with beautiful writing.
2. Is Just a Movie by Earl Lovelace
3. Young Blood by Sifiso Mzobe: a fantastic novel which makes you as a South African think about the choices you make.
4. The Marginal Safari by Justin Fox:...
Coming up with clever titles is hard: Michaelis...
Art critic SEAN O’TOOLE shares his highlights of the Michaelis School of Fine Art graduation exhibition.
I start writing this review sitting on a chair at a glass-topped, steel-framed table made by recent Michaelis graduate Rodan Kane Hart. The desk looks out across his empty studio, which last year was home to Jared Ginsburg, the 2010 Michaelis Prize winner. There’s a cool zigzag sculpture...
'Tis the season... for Christmas cocktails
The masters of mixology at Liquid Chefs share three festive season-inspired cocktails to try this Christmas.
Mistletoe Margarita
37.5ml Gold tequila
20ml Chambord Liqueur
50ml pomegranate juice
25ml lime juice
20ml Agave syrup
3 mint leaves
1 cherry
Shake and strain into a salt rimmed margarita glass. Garnish with mint leaves and cherry in the shape of mistletoe.
Gingerbread Martini
25ml ...
Holiday reading: Kate Rogan's top 5
Kate Rogan, the co-owner of Love Books in Johannesburg shares her top five books for the holiday season.
1. The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach: this is the next big thing in American fiction. Baseball, love and family all come together in a very fine debut.
2. Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors: this is an ode to the great American wilderness and a...
Wanted Wine Offer: Muratie Merlot 2007
In partnership with the Wade Bales Wine Society, WANTED is offering readers the opportunity to purchase the Muratie Merlot 2007 which was awarded four stars in the 2011 edition of John Platter’s Wine Guide.
Muratie, a well-known landmark in the Stellenbosch area, harvested its 2007 Merlot from three different blocks on the estate. The combination of excellent soils, various slopes and elevation...
Wine interview: Rijk Melck, Muratie
Rijk Melck, the managing director of Stellenbosch property Muratie, says he lives under the 300-year-old oak trees planted by Laurens Campher and Ansela van de Caab, the farm’s original owners. German born Campher arrived in the Cape after deciding to seek adventure as a soldier and seaman and was settled on Muratie in 1685. He fell in love with slave girl Ansela van de Caab, but the two were...
Holiday reading: Ann Donald's top 5
The December issue of WANTED profiles six top SA bookshops, who each share their Christmas shopping recommendations. Here, Ann Donald, the owner of Kalk Bay Books, lists the five books to buy this Christmas:
1. An Inconvenient Youth by Fiona Forde: essential — if troubling — reading for every South African who cares about the future. Forde offers valuable insight into the making of Julius...
Peter Clarke: portrait of a life in art
A retrospective exhibition of South African artist Peter Clarke is showing at the SA National Gallery until 15 February.
Here, we share the portrait of this extraordinary man that was published in WANTED’s March issue.
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A SPRY OLD MAN
From humble beginnings as a dock worker, Peter Clarke has overcome racial hierarchies to become a significant figure on the South...
It's summer at the Goodman
Nontsikelelo Veleko, Paradise, Las Palmas, 2009
The Goodman Gallery launches its Summer Show in Cape Town next week. It has this to say about it:
Goodman Gallery Cape presents Summer Show – opening on 15 December and running until 14 January. The exhibition has been designed as a review, focusing on new and recent work by South Africans artists either represented by or associated with the...
All at sea: December undressed
WANTED’s editor, GARY COTTERELL, shares his favourites from our December issue, which will be delivered to Business Day subscribers tomorrow.
Much as I love the City of Gold’s sparkle and buzz, the end of a busy year means some rest and recuperation is definitely in order. And water: we all need a bit of the wet stuff to provide replenishment and growth for the year ahead, and there’s...
At the Michaelis Graduation Exhibition
WANTED took a stroll round the Michaelis School of Fine Art’s Graduation Exhibition, featuring 48 of its students, which opened last night at the school’s beautiful Hiddingh Campus in Cape Town. The show runs until the 17th.
Work by Johke Steenkamp.
Desiré by Yentl Meghan Kohler
Photos by Laura-Jo Diedricks.
Photos by Joanna Pawelczyk.
Installation by Morne Visagie.
...
December Winelands diary
Getting into the swing of things at Summer in Stellenbosch Valley.
Summer in Stellenbosch Valley: 16 – 18 December
The Stellenbosch Valley, a sub-route of the Stellenbosch American Express Wine Routes, is home to the likes of Jordan, Overgaauw, Middelvlei, Spier and Zevenwacht. These wineries have organised a festive season programme of wine tastings featuring older vintages and rare bottlings....
7 Questions: Luke Dale-Roberts, Henri Du Rand and...
In the last part of our Q&As with the creative forces behind the food-inspired pods currently on show at the Freeworld Design Centre, we sit down with The Test Kitchen’s Luke Dale-Roberts and Henri Du Rand and Eve Collett, the duo behind design studio Casamento.
How do food and design intersect?
EC: Food and design have always kind of been seen as one. So whatever is “in” – the “in”...
15 minutes with Andrew Feinstein
Andrew Feinstein. Picture by Simone Sultana.
The London-based anti-corruption campaigner Andrew Feinstein is back in SA this week to promote his new book, The Shadow World, which lifts the lid on the global arms trade. WANTED’s ALEXANDER MATTHEWS asked him about reading, writing, and the places that inspire him.
The thing you love the most about London:
Its diversity – 374 different...
Art on Bree
Wednesday night saw the launch of BeautifuLL Life on Bree Street in Cape Town. Formerly a furniture showroom, the building is now a cultural centre managed by Youngblood Arts and Culture Development, the philanthropic initiative set up by Dutch shipping magnate Roger Jungblut which aims to connect cultural projects with corporate support.
BeautifuLL Life’s residents, including Renova,...
Seven Questions: Maranda Engelbrecht and Gerda...
In the third part of our Q&As with the creative forces behind the food-inspired pods currently on show at the Freeworld Design Centre, we sit down with restauranteur Maranda Engelbrecht and photographer Gerda Genis.
How do food and design intersect?
ME: Food was a commodity, and it became a fashion. I think they found a synergy that hasn’t been there before
What’s the one ingredient you...
Not your average craft market
This Saturday, Harrington Square in Cape Town will host The Fringe Handmade, a market showcasing local creativity. With 200 stands selling everything from ceramics and decor to jewellery and craft, the market presents the perfect opportunity to stock up on Christmas presents, while supporting local craft and design.
“The Fringe is committed to creating opportunities for locally-made design...
