Cape Town - The Spier Light Art exhibition started at the beginning of the month and will run until the beginning of next month.
This annual event at the Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch is in it sixth edition and visitors can illuminate their evenings with 21 different light and video artworks installed across the farm.
Spier has become synonymous with art and beautifully combines it with its food and wine offerings. So, those arriving just before the sun goes down can enjoy an outdoor feast of food and wine under the summer sky. As the stars come out, the lights turn on.
Spier exhibits one of the largest contemporary art collections in the country, but it also invests a lot of time and energy into making art accessible to as many people as possible. That’s why this annual light art experience is always free to enter – the aim is to celebrate artists and their creations and to offer every visitor a unique interaction with inspiring artworks.
At Spier Light Art 2024, the artists each grapple with big themes and challenges in our modern world, such as environmental disasters and climate change, how technology dominates our lives, the effects of racism and colonialism, gender identities and how humans make sense of life.
Despite the weight of these ideas, the artists create in a way that invites lightness, interaction and introspection. Sometimes you will laugh, sometimes you will sigh, but you will always think and wonder.
Curators Vaughn Sadie and Jay Pather promise visitors to the farm yet another bold, bright and beautiful art experience.
The curators said these works combine wonder, participation and thought.
“This exhibition of Light Art is a space for celebration, offering moments of escape and fantasy and moments when we may touch sides with the world outside, lest indeed, we fall completely asleep.
“These lights and colours will awaken your senses. You might happen upon a mesmerising, colourful network of fungi in Stevie Thompson’s Mycelium, or be faced with the blurry lines between relaxation and inattention in Alan Alborough’s sculptural ‘ZZZZ’.
“You might encounter Abri de Swardt’s ‘Flood Light’ or Naadira Patel and Sarah de Villiers’ ‘Assembling Lines’ and wonder how we can save our planet from humanity’s excess and short-sightedness.
“Your opinions and beliefs about gender and race, immigration and labour might be broadened. You may wonder what it means to be alienated by language or contemplate on the invasiveness of big brands’ advertising,” they said.
The organisers said whichever artwork you encounter, you will be engaged and entertained in South Africa’s one-of-a-kind art experience.
“Bring an open mind and comfy walking shoes – the art installations are exhibited across the farm – and let Spier Light Art 2024 add a whole lot of light to your life,” they added.
This project is supported by the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia Johannesburg and Fedex. Entrance is free and a sunset picnic can be pre-booked. Eateries are open until 21:00 for the duration of the exhibition.