Travel Tip: Art and Archaeology in South Africa
Dada South?

Dada South? is a curated museum exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa that focuses on a major international art movement of the 20th century, but from the perspective of recent South African art.

In addition to a review of the ambivalent relationship between cultural creation and political resistance, as well as how art historical ideas are received and interpreted in response to specific, local conditions, Dada South? also invites consideration of another set of questions: What significance did African art hold for Dada and how do we understand their ideas about Africa? How are their counter-rational, collaborative and interdisciplinary strategies, dating back nearly 100 years now, still so resonant in contemporary art today? In particular, what does a Dada attitude to the political and spiritual reveal about individualism, collectivism and ethics in art today? As Marcel Duchamp said, "When you tap something, you don’t always recognize the sound. That’s apt to come later." Could Dada be the only 20th century movement that still exists?

Dada South? also features a symposium (18, 19 February 2010) with keynote speakers such as Dada scholar Marc Dachy (Paris, FR); curator Susan Hapgood (New York, USA); performance theorist Jean Johnson-Jones (Surrey, UK) and artist and social provocateur Nina Romm (Johannesburg, ZA). Other speakers include Belinda Blignaut, Willem Boshoff, Fred de Vries, Kendell Geers, Thembinkosi Goniwe, the Gugulective, Stacy Hardy, Ashraf Jamal and James Sey, among others.