Diane Victor's 'The Rhinoceros who looks at the sky'.
Artist Diane Victor, suffering from polycystic kidney disease, is being assisted by the arts community to make a journey to the United States where she will be given life-saving surgery by becoming the recipient of a donated kidney.
On Thursday evening, art-lovers and collectors gathered at the Goodman Gallery, Victor’s commercial stable, to view a remarkable collection of donated contemporary artworks which will be auctioned off on Saturday afternoon (April 20) in order to raise funds for the ailing artist. Works included in the auction have been donated by galleries and artists themselves.
At the viewing, senior curator Neil Dundas noted that Victor, now surviving on 14% kidney function, was in the process of trying to amass enough money to join a donor programme in the US.
“I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever known who is more disciplined, hard working and more deserving of the gestures of assistance that have come in so kindly from so many of you,” Dundas said to the crowd.
Big names on the auction who have donated their own work include William Kentridge, whose Concerning Narrative is a self-portrait in charcoal and pastel on encyclopedia paper. The work has a value estimate of between R280 000 and R350 000. Other names include Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt, Kudzanai Chiurai, Sam Nhlengethwa, Gerard Marx, Willem Boshoff, Guy Tillim, Moshekwa Langa and Mikhael Subotzky.
In addition, Victor herself has donated drawings and etchings to the auction, including a large-scale work titled Heal which dates back to 1993.
In an interview, Victor said that she knew of her condition for five years and that it was a hereditary ailment. While it caused the death of her father, she said she lived with a “sense of denial. I have a 50% chance of getting it – I didn’t want to know. So I went through my life headfirst.”
Victor, who was a featured artist at this year’s Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn in early April, said that her failing health motivated her to work with increased energy.
“I find that the one thing I can control is my work. The problem of one’s body failing is that one can’t fix it oneself. So I have been taking on almost every project I can, and not dealing with [the health issue]. I take on what I can control, and what matters to me.”
Victor said that the problem of a lack of available kidneys in South Africa had to do with the fact that “within black culture, specifically, it may not be frowned upon but desecrating a body is not looked upon kindly from an ancestral point of view”.
She said that her partner offered to donate a kidney to her, but it had proven incompatible. “Perhaps his kidney can fit somebody else. They have a round-robin system over there [in the US].”
“But it is the American medical system and it is probably the most expensive system in the world to come into. And as an alien I’m allowed to do to it; but it’s about – and I checked the pricing when I was there a year and a half ago – R2-million,” Victor said.
The Diane Victor Benefit Auction will be held at the Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood on April 20 at 3pm. To view the works on auction visit Goodman-gallery.com Tel: 011 788 1113. After the art auction at the Goodman Gallery on Saturday, a subsequent auction will be held at the University of Johannesburg (date to be announced).