Pauline Corfe
THIS weekend, two exhibits from Cape Town’s South African National Gallery — Ezakwantu: Beadwork from the Eastern Cape and Jane Alexander’s The Butcher Boys — left for Europe and the prospects of international acclaim. But SANG curator Emma Bedford said lack of funds could jeopardise the showing of the latter work at the prestigious Venice Biennale.
First stop for Bedford and exhibitions officer Jon Weinberg, who are accompanying the shows, is WUrzburg in Germany, where Ezakwantu forms part of an annual Africa festival, focusing this year on South Africa. The show will be opened on Sunday by the mayor of WUrtzburg and the new ambassador to Germany, Lindiwe Mabuse.
The beadwork will be on view until June 10, by which time the 100th Venice Biennale will have opened.
Alexander’s work was selected by Venetian curator Jean Clair for an exhibition titled Identity and Otherness, or The Story of the Human Body. To be exhibited alongside the three life-size images that comprise Beauty and the Butcher Boys are works by luminaries such as Picasso and Dali.
While the majority of the costs have been borne by the Italian government, R20 000 is still needed to get the work to its final destination.
Alexander has also been left without a seat on a plane — but, according to Bedford, the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year is too busy preparing new work for her show at the Grahamstown Festival to worry about that.