An evening of art, beer, food and friends in Cape Town.
Wednesday evening saw a friend (Dutch photographer Kathalijne van Zutphen) and I enjoying a beer at the divey Zula Bar overlooking Long Street before heading out to catch some art at the Spier Contemporary Art exhibition (currently on at the City Hall, Darling Street, until 14 May 2010).
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| Long Street from the Zula bar |
I had never been in the Cape Town City Hall (dating back to 1905) before and it was quite a good choice of venue for the 101 art works (we didn’t get to see all the installations as they exhibition closes at 18h00 daily and we had less than an hour). The interior of the building is, for want of a better word, creepy. It has long corridors and high ceilings and dusty rooms.
Contemporary art, I find, can be pretty depressing. There were at least 3 works that depicted dead bodies in some form or another. Walking through the inter-leading rooms we were followed by echoing voices from tape players and videos, quite eerie. The ambiance reminded me strongly of the Whitechapel Gallery in London. There was lots of political commentary, not all of which I really got. However, between the photography, videography, sculptures from various media and paintings there was quite a bit to pause at, talk about, circle ponderingly or laugh out loud at. Though it must be said, on entering yet another room we were both independently drawn to the large open window looking out on to the sun-bathed slopes of Table Mountain and declared that to be the best work on display! My favourite piece was a selection of photographs of South Africans around the country in all their (our) weird and wonderfulness.
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| Brewers & Union |
Afterwards we headed to Heritage Square for supper at
Brewers & Union (also known as
& Union as the church to which the space belongs did not want the word “Brewers” on the outside wall). The courtyard filled up with trendy Capetonians and foreigners enjoying the warm autumn evening and the delicious beer for which & Union is best known.
We shared 2 platters (cheese and charcuterie (cold meat) which came with ciabatta, olives, chutney, crisps and small bowls of green salad. A live jazzy band played chilled music and the mood was festive and relaxed.
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| Brewers & Union platters |
