Art & Design: Key Masters of Modernism

The 2018 season of Art & Design Saturday at Keyes Art Mile brings together new and established creative voices, providing a space for both critical engagement and laid-back entertainment. Each month a newly curated focus is presented to audiences with interests in contemporary visual arts and cutting-edge design. To celebrate design month in Joburg, Keyes Art Mile and True Design are proud to present Key Masters of Modernism: Exploring Craftsmanship in Design.

The showcase offers visitors to Keyes the opportunity to experience a unique collection of historical and catalyst pieces of future design from the acknowledged Masters of Modernism. These include Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, Marco Zanuso and the joint collaboration of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand.

The selected pieces from the “Cassina Maestri” (Cassina Masters) Collection will be on display in The Atrium of The Trumpet building throughout the day. The Cassina Masters Collection was born in 1964, when Italian high-end designer furniture manufacturing company, Cassina S.p.A, acquired the rights to products designed by Le Corbusier, remaining the exclusive worldwide licensee of the Le Corbusier designs until today. The collection was widened in 1968 with the acquisition from Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin of reproduction rights to some of the Bauhaus objects as well as other modern masters rights, including the designs of Gerrit Rietveld and Frank Lloyd Wright (in 1971) and Charles Rennie Mackintosh (in 1972).

“True Design’s ethos is original design,” comments Aldon McLeod. “Committed to providing only the best and highest standard of authentic design products in the world to South Africa, our brands are a true reflection of success, each with their own rich history, pioneering the trends of design and product technologies.”

Masters of Modernism: Exploring Craftsmanship in Design takes place on May 12th from 10am to 3pm. To enhance the experience of viewing these historical designs, True Design will screen a series of three films, courtesy of Cassina, that show the history and making-of the iconic designs.

MESH cinema will additionally screen a feature-length, subtitled film on Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, otherwise known as Le Corbusier (1887 – 1965). The Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer is considered one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture and industrial design. The film will be screened on the hour at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00.

Food, drink and music are an integral part of the mix at May’s Art & Design Saturday with MESH Club offering great coffee, breakfast, lunch and tapas for sundowners with a selection of bespoke cocktails from their new bar MIX. Visitors can also grab a Aperol Spritz at …, coffee at .., take in the breathtaking panorama over Joburg over lunch at Marble, and indulge in the delicious fare on offer at BGR and Milk Bar.

Other highlights of Art & Design Saturday on May 12th are:

· A solo exhibition by Charles Gassner at SMAC Gallery. Born in the Netherlands, Charles Gassner (1915-1977) was a painter of both abstract and figurative subjects. He arrived in South Africa in 1948 after studying art in The Hague and Berlin. Gassner was one of a group of talented artists working in the very distinctive South African school of representational abstraction, during what has become termed as the Isolation Years.

· TMRW digital gallery will be offering viewers an immersive and digitally augmented experience of large works on paper by Mongezi Ncaphayi, presented in collaboration with SMAC Gallery and a sculptural work by Sophia van Wyk, presented in association with Hazard Gallery. A series of virtual reality (VR) film productions from Kenya, Senegal and Ghana titled ‘New Dimensions’ co-produced by Electric South and the Goethe-Institut South Africa and supported by Big World Cinema, Blue Ice Docs and the Bertha Foundation will also be on display.

· Everard Read Gallery will be open on the day with a group exhibition, while CIRCA Studio will be exhibiting the printed works of Colbert Mashile and Ade Adesina. Upstairs at CIRCA will be a show of selected pieces by Blessing Ngobeni.

· Anatomy, True Design, Okapi and Shelflife will all be open for browsing.

For more visit Art & Design.