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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Gerhard Marx: Near Distant

Aug 8 – Sept 5, 2020
163 Jan Smuts Ave, Parkwood, Johannesburg, 2193, South Africa

“The question,” says the South African artist Gerhard Marx, “is to engage distance without it turning into nearness.” For his fifth solo show at the gallery, Marx challenges perceptual certainties, undertaking what he calls a “project of undoing.” He is vehemently opposed to categorization, and his elaborate drawings resist it. Dimension is deceptive in these drawings, and planes uncertain. “Perhaps,” he explains, “I can undo the artifice of intimacy, build distance into objects, and let things become feral.” —E.C.