Capetonian Nathan Zeno doesn’t recognise the seasons by the weather. He relies on esoteric signals
THE Cape Town of summer is not the same as the Cape Town of winter. This may seem obvious to those who don’t live here. Otherwise we would be besieged all year by all of you. But it’s not just the weather — the people change as well.
the real Capetonians go away for the summer holidays and those that can’t afford to, start speaking with affected accents, as if they are trying to fit in. Let me say that again… As if they are trying to fit in. As if they don’t belong. Let’s put it this way, they seem to stop understanding what the Olympic Bid means. For you it’s a holiday, for us, well let’s just say it can be the best of times, it can be the worst of times.
Listen, I’ve been told that I’m not really a Capetonian, because I don’t like snoek. Not because I don’t eat fish, but because I don’t like snoek. If I liked snoek I wouldn’t be so negative.
I could, in a club listing, mention all the names of the DJs that play in different clubs, but you would find that after going to all the clubs enough times to notice, they all play the same music. Like I could tell you different things about different clubs, but in the end it’s always 7am and getting hot and you feel guilty because you should be at the beach, but you’re in a night-club.
Which is not to say that the clubs are not good; that it’s not beautiful, this city. It’s so goddamn beautiful. Everything, all the time. It’s just a different beauty for those of us that live here. What I’m trying to tell you is that it’s all about how things appear. It’s all about appearances. Everyone is trying to compete with the mountain. and if you’ve been away or never been here before, it shocks you. You may not notice, but suddenly you are competing as well. And in that competing there is a comfort. You want to be taken at face value, which allows you to take all that surrounds you as it looks on the surface: beautiful.
Listen, I live here. How do I know it’s truly summer ?
1 I went to my favourite bar on Friday night and recognised nobody. I felt like a stranger at my own bar counter (Capetonians think that everything is theirs).
2 You turn a corner and find yourself in a roadblock. You don’t panic because you are not drunk and you aren’t carrying anything. After passing through unafraid, but unstopped, you realise you miss the adrenalin rush so you contemplate getting drunk and trying to get through later.
3 And then you whisper to yourself: “A road block.It must be summer …”
4 Everyone has new sandals and white feet.
5 It’s so beautiful that it depresses you a little.
6 The second roadblock of summer. It’s Monday morning at 2 am. You turn a corner and find yourself approaching a roadblock. You haven’t slept; you are very drunk; you have a poppers stain on your shirt. You make it through but you are no longer sure if you miss that adrenalin rush.
7 The Twinkly Sea project has passed into memory.
8 You start meeting so many backpackers and “adventurers from around the world” and beautiful German models (one of whom will eventually drive you to ruin due to her ferocious drug habit and lack of money sense) that you feel like part of the international community.
9 You find yourself taking a hit of amyl nitrate to get up.
10 You feel guilty because you haven’t been to the beach.
11 It’s too hot to go to the beach.
12 You contemplate buying a scooter
13 You try to promise yourself you won’t go to the River Club on New Year’s Eve and it starts getting on your nerves.
14 You can remember your drug dealer’s phone number off-hand.
15 There are 20 people from Jo’burg sleeping in your lounge.
16There are four people from Jo-burg sleeping in your kitchen.
17 There is a girl from Germany sleeping in your bed.
18 But it’s platonic and anyway Ecstasy takes away her sexual desire.
19 You fall in love every day. Every moment of every day.
20 You can’t do anything about that because there is too much choice.
21 It’s almost time to go back to work.
22 You decide to quit your job.
24 And go off into the country.
25 You feel strangely empty, but you don’t mind, which is, in itself, strangely relieving.
26 You discover you have learnt how to identify most foods in German and can say “my little cabbage” in French but find yourself slowly losing your grasp of your usual advanced English vocabulary.
27 The water at Clifton is warm enough to swim in. There’s always something to do and never enough time You find yourself at a new club opening every night. It’s 7am and you haven’t slept and you want your mummy. It’s 8am, you haven’t slept and you want an ice cream. It’s 9am and you want …
28 It’s too much.
29 It’s not enough.
30 There’s a cold front coming in.
31 You order another Long Island Iced Tea.
32 The days slip by. Your attention span is so short that you can only think in lists.
33 You find yourself saying “it’s so goddamn beautiful” at least three times a day.
37 It’s so goddamn beautiful
38 Another day slips by.
39 The third roadblock of summer doesn’t bother you as you are now taking the back roads as a matter of course to avoid the traffic.
40 You recognise everybody.
41 You discover that your electronic phonebook cannot handle foreign address configurations.
42 It’s so goddamn beautiful.
43 Your evenings are constructed from conversations with other people about their memories of them
44 You stop taking your own car to the beach.
45 You’re so tired.
46 It’s too hot to sleep.
47 You know the Rikki’s number by heart.
48 Your drug dealer is giving you bulk discounts
49 You have no money left, but you always manage to find some
50 You constantly have sand between your toes.
51 Your hair is a shade lighter.
And then imperceptibly it’s over, the roadblocks stop, the tourists go home, the beaches are accessible and well … There is no one sleeping in your lounge. You still have at least two months of solid beach weather ahead.
You went to the River Club on New Year’s Eve.
You drug dealer has been arrested. Apfelmus has slipped from your daily consumption. You go to your favourite bar and discover your friends are all back from New York and Amsterdam and Mozambique.
You are taking the main roads again. It’s so goddamn beautiful.
@1997’s best art buys
ART: Hazel Friedman
The neons of recession might be flashing furiously all around South Africa. Yet commercial art galleries — those that have been left standing, that is — have reported record sales this year. And topping the best buys list are, unsurprisingly, not the bold and brash, nor necessarily works by the younger, flashier stars in the art firmament but the tried, tested and unashamedly traditional of South African art.
We’re not talking million-rand mark here or any price even closely approximating figures fetched for a Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons. But, by South Africa’s pitiful currency rates anyway, the top-selling South African artists are enjoying something of a boom, within and beyond our borders.
“We’ve had a record year,” says Linda Givon of the recently relocated Goodman Gallery, who has spent the best part of 1996 promoting her stable of thoroughbreds overseas.
“The turning point for South African artists was the Cuba Biennale in 1994,” she says. “That really turned the international focus on what was coming out of this country, and of course South Africa’s sexy post-apartheid status also helped.”
Givon’s top-selling artists include Norman Catherine, whose prices have literally doubled in the last two years. In 1994 he commanded R20 000 for a painting. Today, R40 000 is not beyond the norm. But this price pales in comparison with what mixed media artist Willie Bester’s most expensive works sell for. A Bester opus sells from R40 000 to R100 000, as does a work by sculptor Johannes Segogelo.
“Last year was definitely Willie’s year. Next year will be William’s”, says Givon, referring to artist and film-maker William Kentridge. Currently selling at around R24 000, Kentridge’s works are expected to increase by at least a third in value, particularly in light of the fact that he has been invited to exhibit his works at the prestigious international Documenta show next year.
“The important exhibitions — after Documenta — for South African artists to show at are the four major Biennales: Sydney, Sao Paolo, Venice and Cuba. A large percentage of their market is overseas, facilitated in part by South Africa’s low exchange rate. But there are some artists, such as Robert Hodgins and Pat Mautloa, who insist on maintaining prices affordable to the local market.
Despite his near-legendary status on the local art scene, a Hodgins can still be bought for the pauperly price of approximately R12 000. As for Mautloa, well, he refuses to sell his works for sums exceeding the R8 000 mark.
“Unfortunately no one is buying that much at home, so as with other creative disciplines our artists often have to earn a living elsewhere,” says a spokesman from the Everard Read Gallery.
This is very much the case with sculptors from Venda — many of them marketed by the gallery to tourists from Europe. But says Read, interest is growing locally for works by black artists, particularly on the part of Cape Town buyers. Which might explain why the Everard Read has opened a branch at the Cape Town waterfront, specialising in art with a capital C (for commercial).
“A Lucky Sibiya wood panel will sell for about R16 000 to R18 000, as opposed to R8 000 four years ago,” says Read. Velaphi Mzimba also sells for the same amount.
Yet private collectors still fall over themselves to purchase a realist landscape by artist John Meyer for the princely sum — in South African terms — of R45 000.
“It’s incredible that even though galleries have been shutting their doors, particularly in Gauteng, we have experienced a record year,” he says.
“Perhaps it is also inevitable — given the unstable gallery scenario — that an increasing number of South Africa’s best-selling artists are promoting works on their own without a dealer as an intermediary,” says Robert Weinek, curator of the newly opened international H’nel Gallery in Cape Town. “Artists like Brett Murray and Lisa Brice are selling from their studios. Lisa does really well in Germany and Brett’s prices have doubled in two years. But both insist that their prices remain within the reach of the local market.”
Added to the list of local luminaries who are actually making money from art are neo-conceptualists Joachim Sch’nfeldt, Moshekwa Langa and Wayne Barker. And, perennial priest of painterly flower power Andrew Verster, is one of the few South African artists who can boast a sell-out show in Durban.
“A few years ago South African artists suffered from an inferiority complex about their work and status in the international art arena,” says Givon. “These days they are in danger of acquiring a smug-with-success complex.”