James Webb
ONE DAY, ALL OF THIS WILL BE YOURS
21/01/2010 - 26/02/2010
James Webb. Le Marché Oriental. Production still.
“One day, all of this will be yours” is James Webb’s second solo show at Blank Projects. It takes its starting point from Blank’s relocation to Woodstock. The 3-minute film “Le Marché Oriental,” Webb’s meditation on the unresolved space that was the former Oriental Plaza, an Apartheid-era shopping mall designed to control Indian trade, will be screened. This artwork is both site and time-specific to the gallery space, as the location of the Oriental Plaza is currently the construction site of ‘Six,’ a newly designed suite of luxury apartments furthering the gentrification of the Woodstock area.
The film documents an intervention inside the then-disused mall on the 4th day of Ramadan, 2008. Sheikh Mogamat Moerat of District Six’s Zeenatul Islam Majid mosque was invited to sing the Adhan (call to prayer) inside the empty remains of the building a few weeks prior to its demolition.
The film won second place at the Documentary Film Makers’ Association’s “Home Town” short film competition at the 2009 Encounters Film Festival, and is currently part of the 3rd Arts In Marrakech biennale, curated by Abdellah Karroum.
The exhibition will also feature selected other works created by Webb in the last 3-years around the world, displayed together for the first time in Cape Town.
James Webb (b. 1975, Kimberley) has been working on both large-scale installations in galleries and museums as well as unannounced interventions in public spaces since 2001. His work questions the nature of belief in our contemporary world, often using exoticism, displacement and humour to achieve these aims. He has participated in exhibitions including “This Is Now 2,” L’Appartment22 (Rabat), “Delusions Of Grandeur,” Unit B (Texas) and the 9th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon.
