Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Art
Online-Only Auction, 14 - 25 April 2022
South African Art at the Venice Biennale
About the SessionThis Venice Biennale-themed session in Strauss & Co's April online-only auction is timed to coincide with the launch of the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale in late April, and Strauss & Co’s sponsorship of the African Art in Venice Forum 2022 at Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal on 20 and 21 April. This session divulges the history of the Venice Biennale and South African art, as the art world converges on Venice. South Africa first became part of the Venice Biennale more than seventy years ago. The cordial relationship between Italy and South Africa over this period has nurtured international support for artists and art organisations in this country and continues to develop today.
About this Item
signed in pencil in the margin
Notes
"The bird had long since been an anthropomorphic motif for Sash and when she found a baby buzzard dead in a pond she felt she had the ideal image through which she could channel both her own despair [at the death of her close friend and mentor Professor Heather Martienssen in 1979, and her ongoing sense of loss after leaving South Africa to go into exile in 1974] as well as her world view. In a macabre move, she hung the bird in her studio ... For Sash, the spacial discontinuity of the bird's form, its dislocated wings and broken skeletal structure, matched the symbolic displacement she attached to the opposing forces of 'victor' [it is a predator] and 'vanquished' [it has become a victim].1
1. Charles MacCarthy (ed) (2013) Cecily Sash: Artist and Teacher, Presteigne: Studio Sash, page 36-37.
Cecily Sash exhibited at the Venice Biennale, South African Pavilion in 1964 and 1966.
Literature
Charles MacCarthy (2013) Cecily Sash: Artist and Teacher, Presteigne: Studio Sash, other examples from the same series illustrated in black and white on page 36.
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