Two innovative ventures are set to improve the Gauteng public’s art literacy levels, reports HAZEL FRIEDMAN
THE perfect instrument for assessing art literacy in Gauteng has, to date, been the microscope. And leading the “no-need-to-know” pack are past city councils whose role in cultural promotion has been so negligible — and misguided — as to warrant barely an asterix in the annals of local art history.
But this situation is changing. Both the Gauteng legislature and the Sandton municipality have embarked on separate visual- art schemes for the dour old Johannesburg City Hall and the Sandton Art Gallery respectively. Although their agendas differ — Sandton has developed an in-house collection which will show the “cutting edge” of contemporary art, while the Gauteng legislature has purchased both historical and contemporary works for public display — both aim not merely to prettify the halls and walls of their seats of power but to enhance cultural awareness throughout the region.
With Stanley Nkosi, secretary of the Gauteng legislature, serving as co-ordinator, acquisitions for the city hall have been spearheaded by an advisory committee of arts administrators, curators and consultants, including Bongi Dhlomo, Warren Sebritze and Lesley Spiro. Operating within the parameters of an as-yet-undisclosed budget and a conveniently loose brief, the team have purchased about 40 works which will be displayed when the city hall has been fully revamped.
Says Nkosi: “Gauteng is the cultural centre of South Africa. People should be able to come and see the products of our artistic talent.”
But ratepayers expecting to contemplate delicate renditions of wildlife and savannahs will be shaken from their pastoral fantasies. They’ll be greeted instead by a Pastoral Scene which is anything but idyllic, by Jane Alexander; Michael Goldberg’s ironic monument to Kaizer Matanzima, dating from the late 1970s; a work from Paul Stopforth’s grotesque Face series executed in the early 1980s; and a conceptual triumph of wood, glass and text by Alan Alborough, titled Hang Man.
Sebritze explains: “We have selected works which say something significant about artmaking and South Africa at different moments in our history, no matter how controversial or challenging they are to traditional perceptions of art.
“Our purpose is to enable art to engage more meaningfully with the public, and promote public awareness of local talent.”
Which is similar to what the Sandton municipality had in mind when it built a gallery to house its art collection in May last year. Since 1992, a committee consisting of Dhlomo, Louis van Heerden, Karel Nel, Wilma Cruise and Lucia Burger has been given the task of updating the somewhat stuffy art collection. Armed with a paltry budget of R40 000, they have acquired 25 works by major artists, including Jackson Hlungwane, Robert Hodgins and Penny Siopis.
This year the gallery budget was sliced to an absurd R8 000, putting the lid on further acquisitions. But the committee has initiated innovative schemes to expand the collection: in addition to inviting artists to exhibit free of charge, on condition that the gallery gets to choose a work, they have undertaken to promote “significant works” which need the support of major sponsors. At the moment, Kevin Brand’s remarkable Here XVII and Willem Boshoff’s Blind Alphabet occupy pride of place for this purpose.
Responses to these initiatives have not all been positive. Legislature members have expressed fears that the art-purchasing scheme might ignite the wrath of ratepayers who believe funds would be better spent on other priorities. And recently, suburban matrons threatened to launch a BMW blockade of the Sandton gallery over the purchase of “pot scourers” (used in Siopis’ Regina Mundi to question representations of race, gender and
“The region has many priorities, but cultural promotion is surely one of them,” says Cruise. “Making these artworks visible and accessible will succeed in increasing the public’s level of art literacy and help develop a culture of support for artmaking throughout the region.”
Sandton Art Gallery is exhibiting its new acquisitions until January 31