STEVENSON JOHANNESBURG presents a special project by Simon Gush, Nightfall, which will take place in the gallery’s fifth floor space.

Nightfall is a compilation of four pieces made between 2013 and 2016 that focus on Gush’s prevailing interest, work, in relation to darkness and the shadows of night.

Gush writes:

The night, when I am home from my job, is a productive time for me. It has provided space in which to think. I am interested in what becomes visible when we are not blinded by daylight.

His new essay film, Without Light, explores the links between work and light, electric and natural. Shot from the window of Gush’s home after-hours, the video looks at the way in which work and labour linger with us even after our jobs have ended.

The show includes a three-channel installation of the ongoing video series After the Work Stopped, and a new slideshow, Workers Leaving the Factory. Photographed in Maseru in 2014, the slideshow continues the artistic tradition of paying homage to what is often considered the first film ever made, the Lumière brothers’ Workers Leaving the Factory of 1895.  Gush’s 2013 video After Hours completes the night-time selection, with Sunday Light (2013) playing during the daylight hours of the show.

The show will be viewable after-hours only on the following evenings: Thursday 21 July, 6-8pm, and Thursday 4 August, 6-10pm. Daytime visitors during the run of the show will be able to view Sunday Light. The gallery’s daytime hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and Saturday 10am to 1pm.

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BIOGRAPHY
Gush was born in 1981 in Pietermaritzburg and lives in Johannesburg. Solo shows have taken place at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown; Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg; Anne Bryant Art Gallery in East London; ArtEC in Port Elizabeth; Galerie Jette Rudolph in Berlin; Galerie West, The Hague; and  SMAK, Ghent; in addition to five previous solo exhibitions at Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Recent group shows include I Love You Sugar Kane at the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius (2016); While You Were Out at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2015); The Films Will Always Be You: South African Artists on Screen at Tate Modern in London (2015); Artists Engaged? Maybe at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2014); and My Joburg at La Maison Rouge, Paris, and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden (2013). Gush has been included in the biennales of Dakar, Senegal in 2016; Bamako, Mali, in 2015; Montevideo, Uruguay, in 2014; and Luleå, Sweden, in 2009. Gush was awarded the Jury Prize at the Bamako Encounters Biennale in 2015.

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