{"id":736,"date":"2020-10-18T21:07:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T21:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/?p=736"},"modified":"2024-02-22T23:51:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T23:51:42","slug":"jan-van-der-merwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/jan-van-der-merwe\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan van der Merwe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jan van der Merwe was born in Virginia in the Free State in 1958 and grew up in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, where he matriculated in 1975. He lives and works in Pretoria and is a senior lecturer in Fine Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). He obtained an M.A. Degree (Fine Arts) from this institution in 1999.<\/p>

Since 1976 he has taken part in approximately 131 national and 18 international group exhibitions and also held several solo shows.\n\u201cI have been a practising artist since 1977 and, additional and complementary to my role as an art lecturer, my focus has been on the production of a body of art work and a body of written articles generated from the exhi- bitions of my practical work. My art work is also used as source material for secondary and tertiary students.\u201d<\/p>

His work is represented in a number of museums and corporate collections.<\/p>

Awards<\/i><\/h3>

1982<\/strong> New Signatures<\/i>, SA Association of Art, Pretoria<\/h4>

1999<\/strong> Sasol Scifest 99<\/i>. First Prize: a trip to Paris,\nsponsored by the French Embassy and the Institute for Research Development, Grahamstown. Competition theme:\nArt and Technology<\/h4>

2002<\/strong> Chief Festival Artist<\/i>, Hadeda Art Festival, Tzaneen<\/h4>

2003<\/strong> Chief Festival Artist<\/i>, Aardklop National Arts Festival, Potchefstroom<\/h4>

2003<\/strong> IOC Olympic Art Competition, National Winner, sculpture category, attended the Senior Delphic Games 2005<\/h4>

2004<\/strong> Olympic Sport and Art Contest, International Fourth Prize, sculpture category, Diploma of Recognition<\/h4>

2005<\/strong> Represented South Africa as installation artist during the 2nd International Delphic Games held in the city of Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Received a special International Delphic Award during this event for \u201coutstanding presentation\nin the discipline of art installation\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>

2012<\/strong> Recipient of the Ampersand Award that is\nadministered by the Ampersand Foundation\n\u2013 two-month residency in New York\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>

2014<\/strong> Fi\u00ebsta 2014. Best achievement visual\nart (Time and Space<\/i> \u2013 exhibition at Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein)<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Van der Merwe frequently refers to his installations as \u201cmonuments\u201d, a metaphor for the universal history of ordinary humans: their politics and religion, their protection of valued collections. This is in contrast to monuments that are erected for political governors. It is this personal association that addresses the crowd, as the artist tries to conserve and protect humanity. The material used portrays sincerity, vulnerability and the spiritual quality and integrity of his installations. (Commendatio 2005)<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Die Vertoonkas\/Showcase<\/i> installation consists of a display cabinet \u201caged\u201d by covering the surface with rusted tin-ware. The ornaments and trophy in the cabinet are also \u201caged\u201d, to make the objects appear as archaeolog- ical artifacts. A television screen in the cabinet shows the image of a silver trophy that is burnished repeatedly \u2013 portraying the \u201ccleaning\u201d and reinterpretation of the past, repeated generation after generation. Above the cabinet a video on the Voortrekker Monument is projected. The image appears and disappears rhyth- mically, in the same way as the historical events. The rusted clock on top of the cabinet reflects the vanitas symbolism of corruption, the futile struggle against the \u201crust of time\u201d.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Showcase\/Vertoonkas <\/i>(2003), (2003), found material, rusted metal and video projections, 151 x 155 x 215cm\nOliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein
\u2013
<\/strong>Photo courtesy of Oliewenhuis Art Museum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAt present I work with artifacts of our time and attempt to transform them into archaeological remnants.\u201d
\n\u201cThe installation becomes an indoor monument to the universal history of ordinary people, their politics and religion and their treasuring of valuables. Rust refers to the transient nature of everything, a return to original matter.\u201d (Hundt ed. 2005)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beeldhoukuns","category-vorige-wenners"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/J-vd-M-CMYK-1-scaled.jpeg?fit=996%2C1500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions\/1018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.helgaardsteynpryse.co.za\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}