Brenda Atkinson
You’ve gotta love the Absa Group. This corporate banking crowd has been quietly ploughing money into local contemporary art for, oh, quite some time now. They continued to build the collection initiated by Volkskas in the days when you couldn’t see the bank tellers for the Van Wouws. They’ve endorsed the Volkskas Bank Atelier Award, which has offered young artists cash and a Paris address for over 10 years. And the group recently (and very quietly) announced its intention to “adorn” the offices of its new seven-storey, R400- million Johannesburg banking complex with original South African art.
This all comes to mind because the 13th winner of the Volkskas Atelier Award was announced last week. Been-around-for-some- time-waiting-for-a-break-in-Bob’s artist Carl Gietl scoops R30 000 and one of the three Paris studio apartments administered by the South African Association of the Arts for the purposes of the award.
Gietl has obvious talent. He’s one of the few artists in this country who pushes painting to interesting new places. He’s off-beat, sometimes sensitive, sometimes funny, often clever, apparently unsophisticated, but then I suspect misleadingly so.
As for the exhibition, its quality can only be guessed at. Judging by the names and the press release, it’s white and two- dimensional. Finalists, each of whom gets R5 000, included Wayne Barker, Jean Brundrit, Hanneke Benad and Peter Stuart Rippon.
I would of course like to comment on whether Gietl’s work, made specifically for the Volkskas competition, is worthy or not of winning, but unfortunately the judging and exhibition take place at the Pietersburg art museum. Gietl good- humouredly describes Pietersburg as “a friendly, helpful town. If you ask for directions to a bar, the locals always provide you with the racial ratio of the drinkers you’ll find there”. Then he asks innocently: “Is the museum part of the RDP?”
While this choice of venue may be a bizarre take on inclusivity on Absa’s part, a kind of reverse re-entry affirmative action, it seems like a well-intentioned, wildly misguided marketing move that does neither the artists nor the sponsors a service. Absa’s Cecile Loedolff says Pietersburg was originally chosen as a venue because of its proximity to “the Venda artists”. “We wanted township residents to have access to this kind of work,” she explains, “and it’s surprising how many do visit the exhibitions.”
This is all very well, and yes, I do know all that stuff about the ideology of the metropolitan centre. But arts sponsorship is about providing access to diverse communities; it’s about exchange, and it’s founded on the principle of publicity.
What could Absa itself possibly get out of the Volkskas Atelier Award as it currently (and historically) stands? As a press member, finding out anything about the award practically requires a private detective. Which suggests that Absa’s marketing and sponsorship departments need to get their potentially vastly beneficial and prestigious act together. If Absa will not pay for buses to take members of the press and public to Pietersburg, they should bring the event closer to Johannesburg. They might choose a venue like the Johannesburg Art Gallery, which could sorely do with some traffic, and after a few weeks move the exhibition to venues around the country.
Loedolff concedes that the issue has been raised, and that “a number of wonderful changes” will occur within the year: it seems that Absa will give its name to the award; new venues will be considered, and the winner’s and merit prizes will be increased considerably.
As, hopefully, will the degree of the award’s exposure. MTN’s publicity and education drive for the launch of its corporate collection in October has been consummate. Absa could stand to take a leaf out of that book.