Beauty and its Beasts at Durban Art Gallery

The Durban Art Gallery is a city treasure that offers families the opportunity to enjoy a day out on a rainy day while instilling in children a lifetime appreciation of art.
Founded in 1892 the gallery houses a range of artworks, some dating back to the 15th century including cover carvings, clay pots and beadwork as well as the works of Andrew Verster and Penny Sipois, which are exhibited on a rotational basis.
The collection was born when harbour engineer Cathcart William Methven gave one of his paintings to the then town council and the gallery went on to grow as it received further donations and purchased additional artworks. In 1920 art connoisseur and philanthropist Colonel R.H. Whitwell donated more 400 works to the gallery. His donations included a range of foreign treasures such as Dutch and French paintings, objets d’art including Chinese and French ceramics, bronzes by Rodin and early glass vases by Lalique.
Since the 1970’s works by many local artists were added to the gallery, which now focuses mainly on art that highlights the multi-cultural diversity of the country and the city.
Currently on display is an exhibition entitled “Beauty and its Beasts: Has the female stereotype changed?” The famous art collective ‘Guerrilla Girls’ describe a stereotype as “a box, usually too small that a girl gets jammed into and an archetype as a pedestal usually too high that a girl gets lifted onto”.
For this exhibition the gallery’s collections have been excavated to unearth works that speak directly to the evolution of the female stereotype. The exhibition examines how the stereotype was created and how artists have either perpetuated the phenomenon or subverted it. Works borrowed from other art collections include Mary Sibande’s ‘Cry Havoc’ and Zanele Muholi’s ‘Condom’s and Feet’ – contemporary pieces that sit provocatively alongside Hubert von Herkomer’s ‘Queen Victoria’ .
The exhibition will be on display at the Durban Art Gallery from 31 March to 28 May 2017. Gallery hours are from Monday to Saturday from 8:30am to 4pm and on Sundays from 11am to 4pm.