It is ironic that in the New York of Africa — or “Jobai” as Jo’burg is now called — there is not a single gallery where you are guaranteed to find African art on display.
But this is about to change. The University of Witwatersrand is planning to build four new art galleries in an ultra-contemporary building that will turn University Corner, cradled between Jorisson Street and Jan Smuts Avenue, into the art hub of Braamfontein. The venture will cost Wits almost R50-million.
Julia Charlton, senior curator of the Wits art galleries, said that although they have just started looking for funds, the project is already in its third phase of planning.
One of the its main objectives will be to display the university’s valuable collection of African art, “at the point where the university shakes hands with the city”.
Charlton said it was not a question of tarting up their existing space, but about creating a new space — they want the gallery to be a permeable corner where street life is maintained and pedestrian traffic is encouraged.
One of the ways in which the architects plan to do this is by giving the gallery transparent walls with adjustable internal walls for flexibility for exhibition design.
The building will also be enveloped by a gold mosaic “skin” that will wrap around the external walls and wind its way through the internal walls of the building. Its purpose will be to draw constant attention to the collection from gallery spaces and the street.
Fiona Garson, a member of the consortium of architects that have designed the gallery, said the skin’s purpose is to express the sense of storage and make it visible from downstairs, inside and outside the building so that it shows that there is something precious inside.
According to the plans, the four independent multi-functional exhibition areas will have designated functions. One gallery will be allocated for student exhibitions, assessments and teaching. Another gallery will be dedicated to African art, while a third will feature researched exhibitions from the university’s collections of contemporary and historical South African art.
The fourth gallery will be available for special projects such as experimental exhibitions or income-generating external exhibitions. There will also be teaching, research and seminar rooms.
The Wits art galleries will be part of the Wits cultural precinct that includes the Wits School of Arts and the Wits Theatre. The precinct is linked to Johannesburg’s cultural arc — a key component of the urban-renewal plan for Johannesburg that aims to connect cultural venues and spaces from Constitutional Hill to Newtown.
Architect Nina Cohen said galleries had been closed from the public behind walls, and by creating a forecourt “in an important position in Braamfontein”, it allowed free pedestrian movement on the street and into the gallery. She also said this provided new ways of looking at the city.
Restaurant, bar and club owners are already eyeing the location of the once-rotating restaurant on the 18th floor of University Corner. The space offers a 360 view of Johannesburg. But, according to Charlton, at present the rotating gears are stiff.
Charlton said the African art exhibitions will counter the “darker African stereotype”. She said they were interested in art objects of faith and religion as well as pieces of art that people could appreciate in terms of “culture, refinement and skill”.
She said the exhibition will also deal with issues of South African identities. “In the context of South African history where all [African] identity was denied, [art] gives us opportunities to construct questions of who we are and who we are not … all those meaty questions that we are grappling with all the time are richly debated through art objects.”
A “funky and fabulous” art collection on the theme of soccer — including a statue of Jesus playing soccer and colourful helmets worn at matches — will also be exhibited in 2010.
When asked why Wits would spend funds on a gallery instead of on underÂprivileged students’ fees, Charlton said: “Learning from art is like a library and you can’t learn without a library. There’s a fundamental difference between looking at an image in a book and at the actual object before you.”