South African artists continue to exist in a cultural vacuum that gives too little recognition too late, writes Hazel Friedman
THERE is an ancient Greek proverb that says the soul of a nation will be judged by the way it treats its artists. If this is so, then South Africa has much to answer for.
Blame it on apartheid which decreed that the fruits of black South African labour would be cheap and expendable. Blame it on economic deprivation that forced struggling artists into other activities and eroded their spirit. Blame it on the smug complacency of a gallery system that favoured the tried, the tame and the tested. And the museums whose paltry budgets were matched by impaired vision. Blame it also on the dearth of a culture of art criticism and the also-ran status conferred on South African art by an ill- informed public who still believes that art comes from an exotic place called overseas.
The litany of accusations is endless. And justified. The inescapable fact is that when one examines the flimsily woven fabric of South African art history, the seams unravel, revealing a history of neglect, exploitation and – in certain cases – irretrievable loss.
But now art dealer Warren Siebrits has curated an exhibition which helps to fill some of the gaping crevices in South African art history over the past few decades. He has achieved this on a smaller (but no less laudable) scale to the seminal The Neglected Tradition exhibition curated at the Johannesburg Art Gallery by Steven Sack in 1988. And he has succeeded in putting an heroic human face onto South African art history by acknowledging the undimmed creative spirit that survives, even in the face of adversity.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Confluence brings together different streams of art making over the last 40 or so years by artists who, for one reason or another, have been marginalised by the mainstream. There is no attempt to bracket the artists in neat defining categories, nor to clump them into a single “struggle” camp.
Although the majority of artists represented on the exhibition are black and self-taught, Siebrits has included white academically trained artists – many of whom, such as Jane Alexander, Willem Boshoff and Kendell Geers, are achieving acclaim initially denied them by an inherently conservative art network.
They are among the more fortunate. The overwhelming majority of names on show belong to that pantheon of artists who have received too little too late.
Gerard Sekoto, who died in 1993, is now regarded – whether accurately or not — as the father of South African painting. Yet his life epitomised the contradictory standards applied to black and white artists during apartheid. Although the source of his artmaking was derived from childhood activities, like many of his peers, he received some formal art education, and as an urban artist gained access to current methods and languages of artmaking. Yet he remained caught in the racial vice that demanded demanded a racial stereotype, that black artists be kept “unspoilt” and separated from their white counterparts, even in exhibition catalogues. In 1947, he paid his own way to Paris, where – shortly after a major retrospective of his work was held in South Africa – he died alone, impoverished and in exile.
Dumile Feni also suffered from the twin blades of oppression: neglect and exploitation. And of course, posthumous acclaim. Widely regarded as the Goya of the townships and the master of violent turbulent imagery, he was working during the1960s and 1970s when the apartheid grip had tightened to a stranglehold. Constantly harassed by the authorities for refusing to conform to South Africa’s whitewashed ideology, he left the country in the 1970s along with fellow artists Gavin Jantes and Louis Maqhubela. He died in exile in 1991.
At the time of his departure, many artist- activists – among them Winston Saoli, Lionel Davis and Fikile (Magadledla)- were detained. And a number of extraordinarily promising artists died young and tragically, among them Cyprian Shilakoe and Julian Motau.
Fortunately, early examples of works by Dumile Feni, Cyprian Shilakoe and Fikile were unearthed by Siebrits. In the case of Saoli, who recently died a penniless alcoholic, there appears to be no trace of his earlier output. The only place he has been assigned is to the growing ranks of the lost generation of unsung cultural heroes.
George Pemba travelled a less lonely path than some of his counterparts. Today he is alive and living in the Eastern Cape. At the age of 85 – although crippled – he continues to paint. And at last he is receiving accolades, in the form of national retrospectives and a book, by journalist Sarah Huddleston, which chronicles his struggle for recognition. Yet the principal benefactors of his labours remain – not Pemba himself – but his dealers, the Everard Read Gallery.
As for Gladys Mgudlandlu, she painted her expressionistic landscapes at a time when black women’s work was strictly “maid in South Africa”. Today, 17 years after her death, she is regarded as something of a pioneer, among the few who remember her.
But the history of neglect in South Africa has not been colour-specific, nor has it been solely politically inspired. Charles Argent – also known as the “bus ticket” artist – was using conceptualism as a strategy as far back as the mid-Fifties. He was inevitably alienated by the conservative art establishment because of his unorthodox ways, and an exhibition of his works held at the Edenvale Public Library was closed down by the police. Argent left South Africa in the 1960s and died in 1982. Today, even though he was in many ways the progenitor of conceptualism in this country, in the official art history bibles his name is mentioned almost as an afterthought.
But there were few who encapsulated the country’s madness more poignantly than artist and poet, Wopko Jensma. Although he too exerted a powerful influence on his artistic peers and progeny alike, by 1988 he was living in the Salvation Army Hostel in downtown Johannesburg. The hostel burned down in 1994. To this day no-one knows whether or not Jensma survived.
And to whom does one turn to secure the survival of SouthAfrica’s eroded? The forces of government? “History has the ability to talk to us,” said Lionel Mtshali, Minister of Arts Culture, Science and Technology during a recent interview.
“It is our duty to listen and learn from its lessons. But the local art world might be hard of hearing. Admittedly, the new political dispensation has promised to yield the fruits of change in all spheres of life.”
And the arts are no exception. Hoisting the flags of cultural transformation are the White Paper on Arts and Culture, released in June 1996, and the formation of the National Arts Council to oversee the funding of deserving cultural projects. It goes without saying that speedy funding will lead to the growth of cultural centres. With facilities come workshops teaching practical skills, and with teaching comes the prospect of generating a society that does not relegate art and artists to the lowest rung on the national priority ladder – as has sadly always been the case. And government fumbling has hampered the process of transformation.
But while the signature of the new South Africa might have changed, it still bears the stains of old ink. The art world remains governed by a clique of curators, critics and galleries determining access to and ownership of art. And in many respects the galleries and official art institutions have spawned a selfish culture of “startists” intent on maintaining a foothold in the here and now of SouthAfrica’s flavour of the month status. And in the process, many of the less visible, vocal artists remain sidelined or simply ignored.
In another country, artists of the ilk mentioned above would be fted and toasted. In South Africa they have to become household names on someone else’s turf before being accorded a similar respect on their own. Or they live fast, die young and leave a good-looking myth behind.
This is why it is so essential for South African art to nurture a culture of criticism and research. One day we will be forced to ask a similar question to the one posed by playwright Athol Fugard: Who are we? Where do we come from? What time is it?
By then the answer to all of the above might be: who knows?