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Tables of delight for the festive seasonArt Source South Africa11/24/2009 12:58:07 
Artspace gallery mounts their final show for 2009, Oppitafel IX: Babettes Feast, opening on 5 and 6 December 2009. Artspace has mounted its annual showcase, Oppitafel for the past eight years. Using "the table" as a point of departure this show has been an exciting group exhibition every year accommodating two and three dimensional works from a host of well known South African artists. This year's Oppitafel showcase takes "Babette's Feast" as a point of departure. Artists have been invited to curate tables of works by artists and designers as well as two and three dimensional works with over 50 artists participating in these two shows. Babette's Feast is a story about pietism and the sensuality of food. Behind the deceptively simple story is a sort of parable or fable of religion and life. The curators for the tables at Artspace's Rosebank Gallery are Debbie Cloete, Deon de Lange, Gordon Froud, Ann-Marie Tully, Chenette Swanepoel and Alastair Findlay. Art works, objets d'art and utilitarian art will be featured and the show opens on 5 December at 11h00 - please join us for a drink. This exhibition features contemporary South African artists. Table 1 Curated by Deon de Lange featuring Deon de Lange, Marcel Waldeck, Ronel de Jager, Edzard du Plessis, Table 2 Titled Excess Curated by Gordon Froud, Featuring Gordon Froud, Nick Hauser, Norman Catherine, Yda Walt, Debbie Cloete, Bevan Thornton, Sybrand Wiechers, Table 3 Titled Table 13 Curated by Chenette Swanepoel and Alistair Findlay featuring Alastair Findlay, Chenette Swanepoel, Heidi-Kate Greef, Lize Fourie, David Ceruti, and Elske Nel Table 4 Curated by Chenette Swanepoel featuring Molten for Smelt Glass Table 5 Pink/Kitsch Curated by Debbie Cloete featuring Debbie Cloete Sybrand Wiechers, Gordon Froud, Angela Banks, Lientjie Wessels, Table 6 Deconstructing Delft curated by Ann-Marie Tully featuring Ann-Marie Tully Suzanne du Preez, Loren Kaplan, Mike Hyam, Flip Hattingh, Jennifer Kopping, Jacqueline Middleton and Melanie Cameron. Artspace Warehouse, the gallery's satellite space located in Fairland will host an extension of this show, with two and three dimensional works. This show is curated by Teresa Lizamore, curator of Artspace. The artists on exhibition are: Bongi Bengu, Annelise Bowker-Marais, Debbie Cloete, Ronel de Jager, Deon de Lange, Natasha de Wet, Gordon Froud, Dylan Graham, Kim Gurney, Flip Hattingh, Nick Hauser, Jacki McInnes, Di Miller, Margaret Nel, Stella Olivier, Uwe Pfaff, Lionel Smit, Chenette Swanepoel, Swannie Swanevelder, Ann-Marie Tully, Richard Markham, Jaco van den Heever, Engela van der Hoven, Riaan Vosloo, Leonora van Staden, Judy Woodborne, Senzo Nhlapo, Sally Rumball, Alison McKay, Michaella Janse van Vuuren and Danelle Janse van Vuuren. This exhibition will open on 6 December 2009 with a picnic in the beautiful gardens of the warehouse. Please bring a basket and blanket with niceties and some wine to enjoy the day with us. Light entertainment will be provided. Babette's Feast was first written in English as a short story. It was originally published in 1953 in the Ladies Home Journal. It was translated into Danish for radio performances and subsequently translated by the author Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) into Danish as part of a collection of five short stories entitled Anecdotes of Destiny which appeared in 1958. In 1987 Gabriel Axel directed the film adaptation of the story which starred Stephanie Audran, Jean Phillipe Lafont and Gudmar Wivesson. In conjunction with Out of Africa (1985), directed by Sydney Pollack, and The Immortal Story (1968), directed by Orson Welles, these films achieved the widespread fame denied this outstandingly gifted literary artist in her lifetime. The story is a simple one: In a village on the remote Jutland peninsula in late nineteenth-century Denmark, two maiden sisters, Martine and Philippa, preside over a small Lutheran pious sect that their father had founded as a young man. Although the minister has long been dead, a dwindling number of disciples continue to meet at his house to read and interpret the Word. Martine and Philippa now want to celebrate what would have been their long-deceased father's hundredth birthday at a simple supper for his remaining disciples. However, their servant, Babette Hersant, a refugee from the French Civil War, asks to prepare a real French dinner for the celebration, and to pay for it herself from the ten thousand francs she has recently won in a lottery. The sisters reluctantly agree, and Babette prepares a feast that brings about a transformation in the chef and feasters alike. Although the other celebrants do their best to reject the earthly pleasures of the food and drink, Babette's extraordinary gifts as a Chef de Cuisine and a true connoisseur, so characteristically French, breaks down their distrust and superstitions, elevating them not only physically but spiritually. Old wrongs are forgotten, ancient loves are rekindled, and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table - thanks to the general elation nurtured by the consumption of so many fine culinary delicacies and spirits. The eucharistic, albeit mundane celebration around the table shadows the "infinite grace... [that] had been allotted to them, and they did not even wonder at the fact, for it had been but the fulfillment of an ever-present hope." Oppitafel IX Babettes Feast opens at Artspace Rosebank on 5 December at 11h00. 142 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood. The showcase at Artspace Warehouse in Fairland opens on 6 December at 11h00. Artspace: 157 Jan Smuts Avenue Parkwood 011 880 8802 Artspace@wol.co.za www.artspace-jhb.co.za Artspace Warehouse: 3 Hetty Avenue Fairland Artslink.co.za Account: Taryn Cohn Art Source South Africa taryncohn@artsourcesouthafrica.co.za 083 671 5139 Artspace-jhb www.artspace-jhb.co.za Web site: HTTP://www.artspace-jhb.co.za
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