Johan Conradie International Art Tours

31/03/2025

Nishiki Market Tour day in Kyoto. Thanks to our brilliant guide, Hikaru Ono, for making it a truly memorable experience! Your passion is addictive. Kyoto does not disappoint 🌸🇯🇵🍛🍤🍚

13/03/2025

A ‘glimpse’ of what is in store for my upcoming “Secret Japan: culture & cuisine tour”!
🌸👘🍜🍣🍤🇯🇵

30/05/2024

Excellent exhibition! Artists Karine N’guyen Van Tham and Parul Thacker have created works specially designed for the Palazzo around the theme of thread. Thread as a means of expression, a source of inspiration and a metaphor, evoking writing and developing materially in weaving, sewing and the art of embroidery.
These poetic and expressive works continue the commitment of our two foundations to the arts and crafts.

27/05/2024

Berlinda De Bruyckere: “City of Refuce lll”

Taking its title from a Nick Cave song of the same name, “City of Refuge lll”, is the third in a series of exhibitions by Berlinda De Bruyckere thematising art as a place of sanctuary and shelter, reinforced here by the venue’s spiritual intensity. Oscillating between transcendence and material immanence, ‘City of Refuge III’ is based on three new groups of works by the artist which uniquely respond to the church’s monumental architecture, function, symbolism and history. On view will be an installation of Archangel sculptures in the nave and side aisles, a large-scale installation in the church’s Sacristy and sculptural wall-vitrine works in the hallway of the Monastery’s Gallery.

Throughout her practice, De Bruyckere has rendered hybrid forms with human, animal and organic features. Drawing from the legacies of the European Old Masters, the Flemish Renaissance, Christian iconography, as well as mythology and cultural lore, the artist layers existing histories with new narratives suggested by current events to create a psychological terrain of pathos, tenderness and unease. Investigating the dualities of love and suffering, danger and protection, life and death, her works surpass theological connotations, transferring them to the realm of the universal and profane.

17/05/2024

What a fantastic day! Anselm Kiefer solo in Palazzo Strozzi with my tour group. 💫🙌🏻💫

“Palazzo Strozzi presents a major exhibition dedicated to one of the greatest masters of the 20th and 21st century art, Anselm Kiefer. The exhibition allows direct contact with the art of the German artist thorough new and historical works that engage in a profound dialogue with the Renaissance architecture of Palazzo Strozzi, including a new work especially created for the palace’s internal courtyard.

Curated by Arturo Galansino, General Director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Anselm Kiefer. Fallen Angel is a journey that reflects on topics such as identity, history, and philosophy.

Through painting, sculpture, installation and photography, Kiefer’s art offers deep introspection into the human condition, in a complex weaving of connections between the past, present and future. Since his debut on the art scene in the late sixties, Anselm Kiefer is involved in an impactful, richly-layered work that explore themes of memory, myth, history, literature, and poetry. Every work of Kiefer expresses a refusal of limits—not only through scale and materiality—but also through the infinite richness of resources with which he probes the depths of memory and the past.”

21/02/2024

Looks really promising!! 👀💫💫👀

01/02/2024

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/venice-biennale-2024-artist-list-1234694571/amp/

The 60th edition of the Biennale is set to run April 20 to November 24.

19/01/2024

“Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior” is an official collateral event at this year’s Venice Biennale. Sikander specializes in Indian and Persian manuscript painting, a traditional style that is both highly stylized and disciplined. While becoming an expert in this technique-driven, often impersonal art form, she imbued it with a personal context and history, blending the Eastern focus on precision and methodology with a Western emphasis on creative, subjective expression. In doing so, Sikander transported manuscript painting into the realm of contemporary art.

Raised as a Muslim, Sikander is also interested in exploring both sides of the Hindu and Muslim “border,” often combining imagery from both—such as the Muslim veil and the Hindu multi-armed goddess—in a single painting. Sikander has written: “Such juxtaposing and mixing of Hindu and Muslim iconography is a parallel to the entanglement of histories of India and Pakistan.” Expanding the manuscript painting to the wall, Sikander also creates murals and installations, using tissue-paper-like materials that allow for a more free-flowing style. These are some examples of her work.