Janet Smith
The pigeons were shitting all over irreplaceable original artworks, so Lesley Cohn came up with a simple but brilliant solution to the problem: chicken wire in the eaves. If only the pungent details of The Bag Factory’s outstanding rates bill with the Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) were as obvious to unravel.
More than R200 000 outstanding in rates owed by an institution that nurtures and supports the output of a handful of this country’s prominent artists.
Directors Sandra Burnett, Robert Loader, David Koloane and project co-ordinator Cohn are beginning to fear the worst. The Bag Factory has attracted substantial funding from the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (for its residency programme), the Arts and Culture Trust, the Royal Netherlands Embassy and other credible and valued sources, but its survival could now depend on the settlement of a rates bill. Donors stipulate how they prefer their funds to be used, and rates are not included in the criteria.
Neither the TMC nor the Northern Metropolitan Council (NMC) will flutter its wings on the matter, and while Burnett appreciates the need for Gauteng’s residents to pay for services, she also believes a restructuring of the rates on the premises is necessary. She says significant, unqualified increases have taken place over the past six years, making it impossible for the section 21 company to pay.
Victor Modise of the TMC has expressed his verbal support for the project, but no money has been forthcoming in grants-in-aid or funding from either council
Meanwhile, a show opened at the Mexican Embassy in Pretoria this month – a significant gesture of support from another developing country whose cultural secretary Aldo Aldama admitted his government could not donate, but could offer its premises as an exhibition space for the artists of The Bag Factory.
The Mexicans rallied the interest of the diplomatic community in the capital city, and by the time the chicken legs had been polished off and the sandwiches pared down to lettuce at the launch, several artworks had been sold. Two works in pastels, oils and acrylics by The Bag Factory’s resident artist, Zimbabwean Hillary Kashiri, were ready to be rolled up almost immediately.
The Bag Factory itself is a most unimpressive creative destination from the outside. Inside it’s hot enough to get naked in the winding passage that trails between small studios separated by prefab walls, some reflecting the idiosyncratic voice of an artist’s brush.
Koloane, Sam Nhlengethwa and Kay Hassen are among the artists who have their studios here, which is an immense consideration. Under one blistering roof are housed a group of South Africa’s best-known artists, whose work has been shown, bought and housed in collections all over the world. The TMC was enthusiastic about traipsing its Biennale clients through The Bag Factory a couple of months ago, cheerfully absorbing the gushing praise and throwing back a couple of cups of tea with the proprietors, still intent on retrieving all money owed on the rates bill. Its contribution to the Factory in 1997 was nil.
When British art lover and art entrepreneur Robert Loader bought the Speedy Bag Factory in Fordsburg in 1991 to establish a gallery that would bridge the isolation experienced especially by township artists, the rental of the 14 studios was fixed at less than R200.The artists still pay this amount to produce individual works and much larger commissions from high-profile clients.
Sponsorship is found for artists who cannot afford to pay the rental, and The Bag Factory now also provides an exhibition space free to those who want to show their work. During the ill-fated second Biennale, the venue served as an informal satellite for curators and artists.
There are also three residency studios, one of which can accommodate small workshop groups, and a lithographic printmaking facility for collaboration and edition work administered by Mark Attwood.
Cohn says there is no other institution like The Bag Factory – which has played host to many of the country’s leading contemporary artists over the past six years – in South Africa, although the trend to house artists working in different media in a collective is popular in other countries. The London-based Triangle Arts Trust and the Bag Factory’s sister project the Gasworks, also in London, perform an essential function in allowing fine arts to flourish in the world’s most liberating city.
The communal appeal of the Fordsburg venue is stimulating, beneficial to an active working environment. Some studios wallow in paint and tools, rank and fresh with the smell of producing another unforgettable image. Nhlengethwa, who has enjoyed one of his most successful years as a painter, is preparing for the holidays. His studio is neat, carpeted, flavoured with jazz. Next door, Hassen’s paint pots assume an aesthetic identity all their own.
If The Bag Factory snapped shut, a primary point of contact would also be closed. Meanwhile, the two councils have yet to respond on the issue of the outstanding rates bill.