Brenda Atkinson
REVIEW OFTHEWEEK
Just three months after finding a home and willing financial midwives, Johannesburg’s inaugural urban culturefest Artichoke got off to an uneven but promising start on Saturday April 8 at the Sandton Civic Gallery.
The quarterly cultural event – initiated by dancer/performer Jeannette Ginslov and organised by herself, Kathryn Smith and Bie Venter – follows the successful lead of art parties such as Durban’s Redeye @rt and Cape Town’s Softserve.
The organisers’ original ambitions to run the event at the Johannesburg Art Gallery as part of Jag Eye, the project to regenerate Joubert Park, were predictably scuttled by an obstructive city council and unhelpful Jag.
Sponsorship wasn’t forthcoming: the National Arts Council (NAC) turned down the Jag Eye funding application, and after a year of planning, the party seemed doomed not to live.
Its 11th-hour relocation to the Sandton Civic Gallery – described by Smith as having “the same demographics as the Jag: it’s right next to a taxi rank and flanked by informal traders” – brought in both money and people. Artichoke positions itself not only as hip, multimedia and multicultural, but as accessible and educational – the latter ambition facilitated by the financial support of the MTN Art Institute, as well as the NAC, which sponsored the afternoon’s art therapy workshops. Its stated intention is to provide platforms for emerging and established artists of all disciplines, through a “tight, professional production that focuses on one theme”.
Great in principle, initially shaky in practice, Saturday night’s theme of Catharsis tottered off with a good crowd, dance inside and outside some flame- throwing that had Johannesburg’s hard- core heading for less hippie-esque playtime pastures.
Those who left missed the evening’s interesting moments: dance and drumming from Inzalo and Muka set the evening’s wildly eclectic tone, followed by Ginslov’s lumbar nr 5, a sinuous solo dance performance enacted along a white line/spine on the floor. Although not the highlight of the evening, Ginslov’s piece had strong elements – notably a brilliant cyber-biological-emotional soundtrack that Robyn Orlin would rip her tutu for.
Shortly before 8pm, almost-celebrity MC Bevan Cullinan (most recently seen in the FNB Vita Dance Umbrella) adopted a winning Eastern European accent to intro Steven Cohen’s performance. Not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach, proclaimed Cullinan, which of course sent the crowd sprinting to get as close to Cohen as they possibly could.
Cohen’s performance – titled Limping into the African Renaissance, and previously performed at the FNB Dance Umbrella to wide critical ambivalence – was as usual at the centre of sponsorship anxiety: MTN agreed to accommodate Cohen on condition that his performance end promptly at 8.15pm.
An odd prerequisite, since by that time Cohen would have arabesqued a grotesque prosthetic leg/ penis on to the stage, pirouetted before flickering hard-porn images of watersports and coprophilia, and apparently eaten his own shit – a gesture rammed home with the line “Queer self- acceptance is an acquired taste”.
Some went ho-hum, while others ran for the courtyard bushes, but mercifully for the organisers, it was over within the allotted time.
After a low-key musical interlude from Mandla Mabila and Stompie Selibi (which a few people seem to have missed), MC Cullinan’s own performance followed. A mime piece contorted to the accompaniment of grim solo electric guitar, it was less catharsis than Gothic exorcism: black- garbed and white-faced, Cullinan delivered the goods with a compelling show of primal pain, but most people who saw him perform at the Dance Umbrella said they preferred his lighter comic touch.
What remained of the evening – a classical Indian dance piece performed by Tribhangi and MC’d by a large white man in a robe – was aesthetically pleasing and supportive of Artichoke’s cultural diversity agenda. But it was cringeworthy in presentation, overlaid as it was by cheesy recorded New Age-speak on chakras.
Which raises another issue that organisers face: how to get to the “art of the matter”, as Artichoke would have it, without sacrificing the quality of the content. As a conceptual whole, Artichoke’s first outing was thematically convincing, but its wow factor was low in terms of individual contributions. Final participants were selected from an open invitation for contributions – a properly democratic process which thankfully cut out many of the usual suspects and offered access to fresh talent.
The other option – to appoint a curator to work around a theme – might make for a stronger programme, provided the curators themselves come from alternative networks, and have a fresh eye for artists who will both impress and surprise.
Finally, despite the politics involved in the mountain having to come to Mohammed, the Sandton Civic Gallery works as a venue. If Artichoke’s organisers can do artistic justice to the party’s cultural and educational agenda, and indeed, as Smith hopes they will, work with the fascinating demographic contexts of the gallery, Artichoke might well become Jo’burg’s favourite necessary indulgence.