Illinois-based curator Tumelo Mosaka will present a non-commercial video project, titled Here and Now, at this year’s Joburg Art Fair. He speaks to Anthea Buys about the temporal nature of art
The notion of the “Global South” has gained currency as a euphemistic term for the developing world in ways that are often reductive. In your discussion of Here and Now in the Joburg Art Fair catalogue you criticise the connection between globalisation and cultural generalisation. What do you make of the idea of the Global South in the context of your project?
When Ross [Douglas] and Artlogic approached me to curate this for the art fair, they asked me to think about ideas around the Global South as a thematics of approach. I was in two minds about this theme in my thinking about how to frame an exhibition around it.
It’s another categorisation, a generalisation of a number of cultures that have traditionally been marginal to the West — it’s another way of talking about development. I think that Global South is a term used largely in relation to capital flow and economics and I was concerned about what this term would suggest in the context of an exhibition. I started thinking about the urgency of the need to address the notion of locality. I’m trying to broaden the discussion beyond just thinking about the Global South.
The artists whose work you’ve chosen for Here and Now aren’t really big names. Why are you working with them?
They’re not commercially established, but they are artists who are committed to what they’re doing. What I’ve tried to do in this project is provide a platform for these artists and what’s important to them, to allow for individual articulations — where the individuals are located and what’s driving them to make this personal intervention.
Sometimes in doing this we risk losing sight of the history that came before us, but these very personal narratives, when presented in the context of one another, I think begin to move beyond the personal and start to touch on larger issues.
What is your interest in video art?
One of the prerequisites for me for the fair was to consider video, and this made sense to me because I have also been thinking of the urgency of time. You’ll see some videos that are about the slowing down of time, where the image creates the narrative.
For me this project is about thinking about video not as a cinematic experience, but in a more painterly way. They’ve labelled it a “screening room” because of the language of the fair. But I see the whole project as more of an installation.
Traditionally, biennales are about good curating and art fairs are about the market. What place does a curatorial project like this one have at an art fair?
More and more, art fairs and biennales are this new global vehicle disguised as commerce, presenting culture in a limiting way. The biennale, however, has been a great platform for expanding the notion of curating.
The big draw with curatorial projects within the fair is that in viewing them you are looking at a body of work as a collective. I think biennales have become a little bit … I wouldn’t say outdated, but there is a sense that the biennale model no longer has the same impact as before because there are so many of them.
So I think incorporating some of the positive aspects of the biennale into the art fair is a good thing. You’re trying to create a discussion about issues that are relevant for the day, that interest you, that question the parameters of the institution of the art fair itself. It at least raises the question of what it is you’re looking at, what it is you may want to buy.
At a fair there are just so many images and because the priority is selling, these images don’t usually talk to one another or create a dialogue. But in this case, when you’re curating, you’re approaching it from a very different perspective. That’s the challenge. Will I succeed or fail? That’s left open.
What do you think is going to happen to art and artists in the economic climate?
I have to say that I’m struggling with that right now, but I’m hopeful — this is not the first time the art world has had to face such hard economic times. I think artists will continue to make art to comment on their own socioeconomic climate and we as curators have to be in tune with that. I’m hopeful that more interesting works will be produced because the focus will be less on the market. Maybe we’ll go back to thinking about what it means to look at and make art.