The high-profile globe-trotting gallery exhibition Not Alone: An International Project of Make Art/Stop Aids opens at the Durban Art Gallery on Wednesday February 25 at 6pm for a run until May 20. Featuring work by artists from Brazil, America, India and South Africa in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography, embroidery and more, the exhibition is embarked upon an extended peregrination around the planet after having debuted at the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles where it was shown last year. The project’s leader, Dr Carol Hofmeyer, will be present at the opening.

Highlights of the show are the Keiskamma Altarpiece, the monumental work embroidered and beaded by 120 people from the Eastern Cape and Medicine Man, the sculpture by Daniel Goldstein and Daniel Kapellis which consists of over 300 empty medicine bottles and syringes used by the artists over the last 20 years since they were diagnosed as being HIV-Positive. The sculpture is over 4 metres high and lit resembling a figure of light. Felix Gonzales-Torres, the Cuban artist who died of Aids in the 90’s and was recently honoured with a retrospective, has featured in the exhibition his beaded curtain called Blood, another highlight and the first time his work has been shown in Africa.

Local artists include William Kentridge whose Medicine Chest will be shown for the first time in Durban as well as Pieter Hugo, Langa Magwa, Gideon Mendel and others.