/ 4 November 2005

Faith, hope and charity

Artists have been at it again. Donating their time and their art to raise funds for various worthy causes. Two Sundays ago, the Night of a Thousand Stars in Cape Town raised R1,4million for local charities. This week, an art auction featuring work by some of the country’s leading artists, such as William Kentridge, Cecil Skotnes and Sam Nhlengethwa, raised R750 000 in just over an hour for the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

The hospital is campaigning to raise R50million to upgrade its theatres, scenes of a lot more drama than the country’s other theatres, which are equally bereft of funding. Why the leading children’s hospital in the country should have to go on a drive to raise funds from the private sector and the public so that it can provide better healthcare for children, is beyond me.

Have we really strayed so far from having a caring government, one that invests in the health of its people and of its children? Or is this really just a way in which the government encourages individuals — such as Amanda Bloch and Linda Givon, who drove the art auction — and companies such as Maersk Sealand, who sponsored the event, with opportunities to act as “good citizens”?

Perhaps this is an indication of things to come. That various sectors of our public life will now look to artists to help them raise funds through such art auctions.

In which case, wealthy individuals and companies could be invited by the Department of Correctional Services to a function to raise money for new prisons. The country’s top artists will be invited to submit prints to be auctioned. Fingerprints. Framing will be done for free by inmates who are experts in this area.

Given the water crisis in the country, many new dams will need to be built. Again, the good corporate citizens of the country will be invited to bid on a series of watercolours donated by the country’s increasingly charity-weary artists.

The Department of Minerals and Energy will draw attention to the energy crisis and the need to raise billions for its proposed pebble bed modular reactors by hosting an annual competition where artists will create sculptures using pebbles. The best sculpture will win its creator free electricity for a year. The annual competition will be known as the Pebble Art Awards.

The Gautrain budget has given new meaning to inflation, with its initial price tag of R7billion now standing at R20billion. Perhaps the additional cash is to fund the black economic empowerment gravy train that will no doubt run alongside the Gautrain. Funds will have to be raised to cover the extra costs and, again, artists will be invited to make art out of scrap metal to be auctioned. The Blue Train will be donated as a start.

The Department of Arts and Culture will, of course, not exploit artists. Instead, it will host a golf day to raise funds to organise a bigger and better golf day next time.

The Department of Sport and Recreation, on the other hand, will host an auction of hitherto unpublished photographs of Brian van Rooyen at “Kamp Voldraad” to fund its Rugby Development Programme.

The Department of Science and Technology doesn’t need the arts any longer, as it now has its own Large Telescope in Sutherland to sell numerous nights of a thousand stars.

Keep an eye out for the African National Congress’s launch of its Local Government Election Fund with an auction of paintings. Oil paintings. And the Jacob Zuma Trust Fund will soon be inviting bids on its range of “fax art”. Artists’ signatures will be encrypted so that they may still be invited to do charity functions for “the other side.”

Going once. Going twice. Everything and everyone is up for sale.