“My first relationship with South African art was in 1997,” Chris Dercon said with a fond smile. That was when Okwui Enwezor curated his first grand-slam event, the second Jo’burg Biennale, and “knew it would be the city’s last”.
That was 20 minutes before Dercon, the director of the Tate Modern, gave the keynote address on Saturday at this year’s FNB Jo’burg Art Fair where he reflected on the changing nature of the museum and the Tate’s plans to acquire contemporary African art.
“New York really opened the world for me,” he said, reflecting on his time as programme director for the city’s PS1 Museum. “It was here that I really became involved with Latin American artists. It was a chance to realise what contemporaneity was grounded in. It enabled me to begin exploring different modernities.”
He has held his current post since April this year and his attention has moved to South African photography. Having recently procured Santu Mofokeng’s The Black Photo Album and currently showing works from Guy Tillim’s Congo Democratic, the Tate Modern’s collection seems to be redefining the often disparate genre of social documentary photography.
“What makes me angry,” Dercon said (visibly angry, after being asked about the nature of public sponsorship of the arts in South Africa), “is the lack of government participation.” He said he felt the “public sphere for contemporary culture” was diminishing greatly and it was the duty of sponsors such as the Goethe-Institut, his hosts for the occasion, to take up the mantle.
Making art audiences care
Dercon, a seasoned international art-fairgoer, was overwhelmingly positive about this year’s FNB Jo’burg Art Fair, and said that traditionally it was the role of the avant-garde “to be a bridge between the symbolic and financial transfer of information”. In line with the topic raised during his address, Dercon said that the role of the art fair was steadily replacing that of institutions as a cultural mediator.
His address was titled “Audiences: How much do we really care?” It seemed to be an obvious but astute approach to the issue of whether the public has the ability or will to engage with contemporary art. “Biennales have changed audiences, which has placed a burden on the calm and cordial role of the museum.” Indeed, with all the hustle and bustle of something like the art fair, the “calm and cordial” environment of the museum or gallery seemed no longer to be the criteria for art appreciation.
On the changing role of the museum, Dercon said it was time to acknowledge and “embrace our stakeholders”, focus on audience development and build a relationship to works and to the museum itself. This rethinking of the “typology of the museum” proposed that the “museum has become a platform for a secular culture”, where the limits were constantly were tested and extended.
Dercon’s obvious point of reference was the Tate Modern, with a huge budget to realise and address such grand questions. What was enlightening was hearing about the Tate’s approach to African acquisitions: “The borders of the Western world are no longer an option.” With museums in North America and Europe gradually looking to South America, Africa and the East, Dercon said that to bolster collections more attention needed to be paid to historical works.
Referring to modern African art, he said that masters from the 1950s to the 1980s would be a point of focus and would “consolidate holdings”. With the curatorial assistance of South African Kerryn Greenberg, Dercon seemed ready for the
challenge.
But what worried some in the audience was that the focus on modern masters could displace an interest in today’s contemporary art, with only photography triumphing in the battle for international attention. Admittedly, Dercon said it was primarily Western curators’s “lack of knowledge” that was a major stumbling block when considering contemporary African art.
And that’s where the Jo’burg Art Fair comes in, providing visibility across continents. As the South African art world gestures to new frontiers, so borders begin to be redefined.