by 
Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal) In our roundup this week, we bring you:
- Career highlights young photographer Mack Magagane
- Joe Public pulls another cracker out of its creative bag with the ads for Bryanston Dual-Medium school
- With two major art events over the past two weeks, we know it’s difficult to get to both; that’s why we sent our photographer team to Southern Guild at MOAD and the Cape Town Art Fair as well.
Featured: Mack Magagane Photography
Twenty-three year old Soweto-born, Johannesburg-based photographer Mack Magagane is one to watch. Since his studies at the Market Photo Workshop, his work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions abroad and locally in Paris and Portugal, and at the FNB Joburg Art Fair 2011 and 2012.
Currently, Magagane is completing a residency at the Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France in Paris as part of the French — South Africa season 2013.
We got chatting to Mack Magagane find out more about his background, his style and his future plans.
Print ads by Joe Public Ignite for Bryanston Parallel Medium School
Joe Public Ignite created this print campaign for a school in Johannesburg that teaches in both English and Afrikaans.
The ads feature a poem and sentences that can be read word for word — with only occasional changes in meaning — in both languages, and end with the message: Only four out of every 100 people realise this can be read in Afrikaans and English. Give your child the best of both worlds.
See the rest of the print ads by Joe Public.
Russian Bear | #UrbanExpressions campaign
For this campaign, Russian Bear Vodka commissioned 10 artists/designers from across the country to participate in a design challenge under the theme ‘Urban Expressions’. The artists were encouraged to represent their understanding and influence of urban culture, using black-coated Russian Bear bottles as their canvas.
Their designs have been submitted and are now up for public vote until 8 November 2013. The public’s favourite design will become Russian Bear Vodka’s next limited edition run.
See more of the designs in the Russian Bear Bottle Designs.
Southern Guild at MOAD
The brand new Museum of African Design (MOAD) opened almost two weeks ago on 24 October with the largest yet showcase from the Southern Guild collection. Also at the gala event, the six winners of the second annual Southern Guild Foundation Awards 2013 were announced.
The awards endeavour to broaden the awareness of the caliber and potential of the South African design landscape, as well as motivate the industry. They are intended to relate directly to the ‘business of design’ for the winners, addressing practical and real challenges that face designers in the current landscape.
Selected by the Southern Guild Design Foundation board members, comprising top design and business leaders, awards are made across two categories: Future Growth and Recognition of Excellence.
See our full coverage of all the local design work curated by Southern Guild at MOAD.
Out of Office: Vélo
Art. Coffee. Food. These three things are the very essence of Vélo — a cosy little coffee shop on the corner of Juta and Melle in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. During peak hours, Vélo is filled table upon table with a jovial atmosphere, the realised vision of owner Nick du Plooy, who wanted to cultivate a space that would encourage networking.
The light and freshly decorated space welcomes creatives, students and businessmen through its doors on a daily basis, a testament to its wide appeal. There are quieter hours at Vélo, and these are the times when it wouldn’t be unusual to find people reading and working — making the most of the free wi-fi — in the intimate surrounds.
More about Vélo and other places to get Wifi in Johannesburg.
Featured: Patrick Dinneen
Patrick Dinneen’s body of work can’t help but challenge one’s understanding of the medium of photography and what most of us comfortably consider as art. Perhaps that is why his name is often quickly followed by the description “anti-art” or “anti-photography”.
Pinpointing the exact definition of what makes a piece of work anti-anti is also not an easy task. In his Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, George Dickie talks about the four different types of anti-art, one of those being art which has strikingly unusual content.
With this in mind, I must admit that, when looking at some of Dinneen’s work, the phrase “anti-art” is the first thing that comes to my mind.
Read more about Patrick Dinneen.
My day job: Jonathan Liebmann
As little as 10 years ago, the very idea of the Maboneng Precinct as it is today (and what it’s fast becoming) would have seemed an impossible feat to most. But to Jonathan Liebmann, after returning home from a trip abroad and missing the urban lifestyle he was able to live there, the area was alive with possibilities.
With a vision to craft a vibrant urban community, Liebmann founded his development company Propertuity in 2007. His first property investment was Arts on Main, which has since grown into a major drawing card for the Maboneng Precinct.
Read about Jonathan Liebmann’s day job as a creative property developer.
Cape Town Art Fair 2013 | In pictures
Produced and managed by Fiera Milano Exhibitions Africa, the ground-breaking Cape Town Art Fair is set to reshape the contemporary art landscape in the Mother City.
The inaugural event took place two weekends ago at the V&A Waterfront, with more than 130 artists and 40 leading galleries exhibiting. The hugely successful fair has prompted the organisers to host a return of the show in February next year.
See our full coverage of the Cape Town Art Fair 2013.
Design Annotator is a regular column on MarkLives featuring the top design work from South Africa’s biggest online creative showcase, Between 10 and 5, which is curated by publisher Uno de Waal (@Unodewaal) who is also a social strategist.