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How to cite this thesis
Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017).
RECONCEPTUALISING CURATORIAL STRATEGIES AND ROLES: AUTONOMOUS CURATING IN JOHANNESBURG BETWEEN 2007 AND 2016
VOLUME 1
A full thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
PhD in Art History
Department of Visual Arts Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture University of Johannesburg
by
JAYNE KELLY CRAWSHAY-HALL
200715237
Supervisor: Professor Brenda Schmahmann
The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research in 2016 is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. DECLARATION OR ORIGINALITY
I declare that this study is my own original work. Where use is made of the work of others, it is indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references.
This study is submitted for the degree of PhD at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. It has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination to any other university.
Jayne Kelly Crawshay-Hall (Robertson)
May 2019
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The financial assistance of the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2016 towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at are those of the author, and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. I also extend thanks and acknowledgement towards the University of Johannesburg for merit bursaries awarded, as well as towards the FADA department for the provision of supervisor bursaries granted. I extend thanks to the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, and the Department of Visual Art for the support provided in the processes of writing this thesis. I wish to specifically thank the staff and associated researchers at the SARCHI Centre, for the chats, advice, shared knowledge, and guidance during our weekly seminar sessions. These interactions have been an invaluable resource throughout this process, and served to create a supportive environment, and a like-minded research community.
A huge thank you is extended towards my supervisor Professor Brenda Schmahmann, South African Research Chair in South African Art and Visual Culture. I could not have hoped for a better supervisor. Thank you for your knowledge, guidance, integrity, and care each step of this project. You have taught me so much, and have been a mentor to me. I would also like to thank Professor Jeanne van Eeden, my temporary supervisor during Brenda’s absence, for the many dedicated hours towards getting me to the final stages of submitting this PhD. I am extremely grateful to both of you for your support and contributions to this research. I also thank Craig MacKenzie for his editing services.
I would like to extend my gratitude to all the curators, artists and researchers who I discuss in this paper, and who I believe have made significant contributions to our local art scene. I especially thank those who made time to sit down with me for interviews: Ricky Burnett, Lorna Ferguson, Clive Kellner, Nontobeko Ntombela, Carly Whitaker, Portia Malatjie, Louise van der Bijl, Maaike Bakker, Ella Křivánek, Stephan Hobbs, Matthew Dean Dowdle, MJ Turpin, and Dalene Victor Meyer. I would also like to thank Tara Walker (JAG Registrar) and Ziphezinhle Gwala (JAG librarian) for assisting me in finding valuable information. Without all of you, the Johannesburg art scene would be a missed opportunity, thank you.
I would like to acknowledge The Open Window institute and my colleagues for the support and time afforded towards my studies. I would especially like to thank Maaike Bakker, my colleague, friend and teammate in art, and with whom I have been inspired to curate many shows and partake in many art adventures. I would also like to thank Dalene Victor Meyer, who started NO END Contemporary Art Space with Maaike and I — it’s been an adventure and an inspiration, and in many ways, NO END and Curated by_Collective sowed the seed that led to this PhD topic.
I would like to especially thank my family, who never questioned my absence over the dedicated years of writing, but were rather there with me in quiet, gently supporting my endeavours.
Lastly, and certainly not least, I would like to thank my husband, Michael Robertson, for your dedication to me during this project. You have spent three and a half years waking me up at 4am every morning, helping me mind-map my chapter ideas,
ii encouraging me to start the new chapters, and sitting through countless read-a-louds of my paper. In many ways, I am very aware that your support has enabled me to reach the point of submission. Thank you for reminding me why this journey was important to me during the times when I was overwhelmed, and for believing in me on the days I wanted to give up. Your love, patience, and moral contribution each step of this process reminds me, every day, of how much I love you.
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ABSTRACT
There has been a shift in curatorial practice internationally whereby the curator-as- creator, or contemporary curator, is now seen as the art object’s instigator, working with artworks to create meaning. Although interest in curatorial discourse became apparent relatively late in South Africa, accelerated by the dissolution of apartheid and the end of the cultural boycott, I contend that the mega-exhibitions of the late 1980s and 1990s, particularly Tributaries: A View of Contemporary South African Art (1985); Africus: Johannesburg (1995); Trade Routes: History and Geography (1997); Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture (1996); and Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007), were seminal in prompting critical interest in curatorial practice. I discuss how a number of curators in Johannesburg have been reconceptualising their strategies and roles, particularly the shift towards maintaining independence, which I argue was prefigured by these early mega-exhibitions.
By analysing curatorial projects and the role of the curator practising in Johannesburg between the years 2007 and 2016, I show that a number of curators have gained the strategic ability to navigate challenges and/or limitations related to socio-cultural, political, or economic imperatives by remaining independent of institutional policy and/or conventional conceptions of curatorial practice. I show how autonomous Johannesburg curators have reconceptualised the conventions of producing, installing, exhibiting and viewing exhibitions, which they do by adopting independent roles that I categorise as: (1) the nomadic curator, (2) the curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator, (3) the curator engaging in collaborative curatorial practices, (4) and the curator-gallerist. Despite some western curatorial strategies having inflected Johannesburg curatorial practices, I suggest that local curators are not simply importing these ideas, but have adapted and reinterpreted them in ways that have enabled exhibitions to respond to social injustice and concerns around inclusion and exclusion; probe socio-political legacies; and bypass problems such as the lack of infrastructure and scarcity of funding and resources in Johannesburg.
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KEYWORDS
Curatorial; curator; Johannesburg; independent curator; autonomous curator; nomadic curator; collective curator; collaborative curator; curator as artist; artist as curator; curator-gallerist; mega-exhibitions; independent exhibitions.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME 1
Page
DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY………………………………………….. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………….. ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………….. iv KEYWORDS……………………………………………………………………. v TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………….. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………… ix LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………….. x
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………… 1 Context of the research ………………………………………………………. 3 Methodology……………………………………………………………………. 11 Original contribution……………………………………………………………. 16 Chapter outline…………………………………………………………………. 18
CHAPTER ONE: TRACING THE SHIFT IN CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND DISCOURSE IN SOUTH AFRICA…………………………………………………….. 21 Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 21 Tributaries: A View of Contemporary South African Art (1985), curated by Ricky Burnett………………………………………………………………... 25 Africus: Johannesburg (1995), curated by Lorna Ferguson and Christopher Till…………………………………………………………………. 31 Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture (1996), curated by Pippa Skotnes…………………………………………………….. 39 Trade Routes: History and Geography (1997), directed by Okwui Enwezor…………………………………………………………………………. 44 Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007), curated by Simon Njami……….. 53 Chapter conclusion…………………………………………………………….. 56
CHAPTER TWO: THE NOMADIC CURATOR………………………………………. 58 Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 58 Modern Fabrics: Urban Culture and Artists Connected to the City Landscape (2008), curated by Nontobeko Ntombela……………………… 62 PASS-AGES: References & Footnotes (2010), curated by Gabi Ngcobo………………………………………………………………………...... 70 Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010), curated by Anthea Buys……………………………………………………………………. 81 If a Tree ... (2012), curated by Clare Butcher………………………………. 93 Chapter conclusion…………………………………………………………….. 99
CHAPTER THREE: THE CURATOR-AS-ARTIST/ARTIST-AS-CURATOR…...... 102 Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 102 Contextualising prior theories regarding the idea of the curator as author……………………………………………………………………………. 106 Hotel Yeoville (2008 - 2011), conceptualised by Terry Kurgan…………… 110
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Floating Reverie (2014 -), curated by Carly Whitaker……………………… 119 Chapter conclusion…………………………………………………………….. 130
CHAPTER FOUR: THE COLLECTIVE/COLLABORATIVE CURATOR………..... 132 Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 132
CHAPTER FIVE: THE CURATOR-GALLERIST…………………………………..... 167 Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 167 The | Premises Gallery (2004 - 2008), founded and curated by The Trinity Session………………………………………………………………….. 171 Kalashnikovv Gallery (2013 -), founded and curated by MJ Turpin and Matthew Dean Dowdle………………………………………………………… 180 NO END Contemporary Art Space (2015 -), founded and curated by Maaike Bakker, Jayne Crawshay-Hall and Dalene Victor Meyer………… 192 Chapter conclusion…………………………………………………………….. 198
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………...... 200 Limitations………..…………………………………………………………….. 206 Contribution………..…………………………………………………………… 207 Suggestions for further research……………………………………………... 208
SOURCES CONSULTED…………………………………………………….………… 209
VOLUME 2
FIGURES
APPENDICES APPENDIX 1A: Ricky Burnett: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 1B: Lorna Ferguson: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 1C: Clive Kellner: E-mail interview
APPENDIX 2A: Gabi Ngcobo biography APPENDIX 2B: Nontobeko Ntombela biography APPENDIX 2C: Nontobeko Ntombela: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 2D: Anthea Buys biography APPENDIX 2E: Claire Butcher biography APPENDIX 2F: Sean O’Toole, A Beautiful Mess
APPENDIX 3A: Terry Kurgan biography APPENDIX 3B: Carly Whitaker biography APPENDIX 3C: Carly Whitaker: Transcribed interview
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APPENDIX 4A: Portia Malatjie biography APPENDIX 4B: Portia Malatjie: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 4C: Louise van der Bijl (of Assemblage): Transcribed interview APPENDIX 4D: Maaike Bakker biography APPENDIX 4E: Maaike Bakker: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 4F: Jayne Crawshay-Hall biography APPENDIX 4G: Isabel Mertz biography APPENDIX 4H: Beathur Mgoza Baker biography APPENDIX 4I: SPACE SPACE / Ella Křivánek biography APPENDIX 4J: Ella Křivánek: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 4K: Blazing Empress poem
APPENDIX 5A: Stephan Hobbs of The Premises Gallery: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 5B: The | Premises Gallery: Reconstructed curatorial programme (2004 - 2008) APPENDIX 5C: Matthew Dean Dowdle and MJ Turpin of Kalashnikovv Gallery: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 5D: Kalashnikovv Gallery: Reconstructed curatorial programme (2013 - 2018) APPENDIX 5E: Maaike Bakker and Dalene Victor Meyer of No End Contemporary Art Space: Transcribed interview APPENDIX 5F: NO END Contemporary Art Space: Reconstructed curatorial programme (2015 - 2018)
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Actag Arts and Culture Task Group AGC Art Gallery Collection ANC African National Congress ARI Artist Run Initiative AWB Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Party / Afrikaner Resistance Movement CAPE Young Curators at Cape Africa Platform CBD Central Business District CHR Centre for Historical Reenactments CoJ City of Johannesburg DIY Do It Yourself DUT Durban University of Technology FADA Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture FEMME Freedom of Education Motivates Empowerment JAG Johannesburg Art Gallery JDA Johannesburg Development Agency JWTC Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism NP National Party NPO Non-Profit Organisation PAM Pretoria Art Museum PWV Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging SANG South African National Gallery SARCHI South African Research Chair TRC Truth and Reconciliation Committee UN United Nations VANSA Visual Art Network of South Africa VIAD Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre Wits University of the Witwatersrand
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page Figure 1.1: An installation view of Jackson Hlungwani’s Crucifix (undated)...... ………………..……………………………. 1 Figure 1.2: Jackson Hlungwani’s Crucifix (undated), as photographed by David Goldblatt…………..…………..……………………………. 2 Figure 1.3: Jackson Hlungwani’s Crucifix (undated), as depicted in the official catalogue for Tributaries…………………………………. 3 Figure 1.4: A view of the overall installation of Tributaries: A View of Contemporary Art (1985)..………………………………….…….. 4 Figure 1.5: An installation view of the Electric Workshop for Africus: Johannesburg (1995)….………………………………………….. 4 Figure 1.6: An installation view of Unknown Artist, The Corn Circle (1995) at the Electric Workshop………………………………………….. 5 Figure 1.7: An installation view of Invisible Borders, the Israeli exhibition at the Electric Workshop for Africus: Johannesburg (1995)….. 6 Figure 1.8: An installation view of António Ole, Canoa Quebrada (1994)... 7 Figure 1.9: Kendell Geers’ installation of Carlos Capelán’s work at Museum Africa (1995) …………..……………………………….. 8 Figure 1.10: Layout for the Newtown Cultural Precinct / Museum Africa venues for Africus: Johannesburg (1995)………..…………….. 9 Figure 1.11: ‘The Bushman Diorama’ at the South African Museum………. 10 Figure 1.12: Installation view of Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture (1996), at the SANG (Cape Town)…………... 11 Figure 1.13: An installation view of the Alternating Currents exhibition at the Electric Workshop for Trade Routes: History & Geography (1997)………………………………………………………………. 11 Figure 1.14: An installation view of the second-floor of Alternating Currents at the Electric Workshop, Trade Routes: History & Geography (1997)...…………………………………………………………….. 12 Figure 1.15: Installation views of Wenda Gu, Africana Monument — Oasis (1997)...…………………………………………………………….. 12 Figure 1.16: A procession from Studio Orta, Nexus Architecture, as part of the satellite events for Trade Routes: History & Geography (1997)….………..………………………………………..………… 13 Figure 1.17: Iké Udé’s Time Magazine (Man of the Year) (1996), reproduced on a bus shelter…………….……………………….. 14 Figure 1.18: Kendell Geers’ bus shelter (1997) as part of the Trade Routes: History & Geography (1997) guerrilla installations / satellite activations. ………………………………………….…… 15 Figure 1.19: Odili Donald Odita’s End-Fin (1997), reproduced on a bus shelter as part of the Trade Routes: History & Geography (1997)….………..………………………………………..………… 15
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Figure 1.20: The cover of the Mail & Guardian’s ‘Friday Section’ of 10 to 16 October (1997), featuring an artwork by Kendell Geers, TW (Score), 1 August 1997…………………………..…….……. 16 Figure 1.21: The image and design aesthetic used for the South African catalogue cover, produced for the Johannesburg installation of Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007)…………………….... 17 Figure 1.22: An installation view of Bili Bidjocka’s The Room of Tears, 2004 for Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007)………….…... 17 Figure 1.23: An installation view of Kwesi Owuso-Ankomah, Movement no.39, 2004 and Moshekwa Langa, Collapsing Guides, 2002- 3, featured in Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007)………… 18 Figure 1.24: A photograph taken at the opening evening of Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007)……………………………………...….. 18
Figure 2.1: Zamaxolo Dunywa’s photographic work, Uthini Ngami (2000)……….………..………………………………………..…… 19 Figure 2.2: An installation view of Modern Fabrics: Urban Culture and Artists Connected to the City Landscape (2008)………………….………..………………………………….. 20 Figure 2.3: A reconstructed layout plan of the exhibition, based on the verbal recollection of Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C)………………………………………………………………….. 21 Figure 2.4: Nothando Mkhize, Tresspasses ... prosecuted (2008, [sic])……….………..………………………………………..……... 21 Figure 2.5: A still image from Dineo Sheshee Bopabe’s video documentation of the performance piece Dreamweaver (2008)..……………………………………………………………… 22 Figure 2.6: The official invitation to Modern Fabrics (2008), which includes an image from experimentations of Mlu Zondi’s performance piece, Umlabalaba (2008)……………..…………. 23 Figure 2.7: An installation view showing the site of the exhibition for PASS-AGES: References & footnotes (2010) curated by Gabi Ngcobo……………………………………………………………… 24 Figure 2.8: Installation view showing the display techniques used to show Zanele Muholi’s series Work as Usual (in the foreground) and Mary Sibande’s Long live the Dead Queen (in the background) in PASS-AGES: References & footnotes (2010) curated by Gabi Ngcobo………………………………………… 24 Figure 2.9: One photograph from Zanele Muholi’s series Work as Usual (detailed in the curatorial programme for PASS-AGES — which is also titled under the banner Massa and Mina(h) (2008 -)…..….………..………………………………………..…… 25 Figure 2.10: Ernest Cole’s now famous image, titled: “Young boy is stopped for his pass as white plainclothesman looks on” (c mid-1960s)…………………………………………………………. 25 Figure 2.11: A repetition of the iconic image “Young boy is stopped for his pass as white plainclothesman looks on” by Ernest Cole, set in context of works by Kemang Wa Lehulere………………….. 26
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Figure 2.12: Installation view showing a video piece by Kemang Wa Lehulere, Pencil Test, (c 2010)……….……………………….… 26 Figure 2.13: Kemang Wa Lehulere’s Afro-combs in the foreground, with still images from the performance in the background, hanging across strings…………………...……………………………….… 27 Figure 2.14: Dineo Seshee Bopape, The Performance has been Deferred, included in PASS-AGES: References & footnotes (2010)……...….………..………………………………………..…. 27 Figure 2.15: The newspapers containing the curatorial statement on a table at the exhibition, PASS-AGES: References & footnotes (2010).….………..………………………………………..……….. 28 Figure 2.16: The curatorial statement was written on a blackboard at the exhibition, 'PASS-AGES: References & footnotes' (2010)……...….………..………………………………………..… 28 Figure 2.17: The floor plan of JAG, indicating the rooms used for the installation of Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010).………………………………………………….. 29 Figure 2.18: An installation view of Room 8 of Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010) in week one…..……… 30 Figure 2.19: An installation view of Room 7 of Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010) in week one.…………. 31 Figure 2.20: An installation view of Room 6 of Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010) in week one………….. 32 Figure 2.21: Rodan Kane Hart, instructional diagrams for Developments of space. 96 to 0sqm in 8 weeks: A time based intervention (2010).………………………………………………………………. 33 Figure 2.22: An installation view of Room 8 of Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010) in week six, showing the south side of the room………………………………………... 34 Figure 2.23: An installation view of Room 8 of Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010) in week 6, showing the northern viewpoint of the room……………………………… 34 Figure 2.24: An installation of what Buys referred to as ‘The coroner’s corner’………………………………………………………………. 35 Figure 2.25: James Sey’s installation work, titled Sublimation and Reversibility (2010) ……………………………………………….. 36 Figure 2.26: An installation image of Serge Alain Nitegeka, Equalibrium (2010) ………………………………………………………………. 37 Figure 2.27: Serge Alain Nitegeka, Equilibrium, 2010, encroaching on Alexandra Dodd’s installation, Making Room (2010)………….. 38 Figure 2.28: Alexander Opper, Negotiation (2010) — one part of a site- specific installation (week 1).…………………………………….. 39 Figure 2.29: Alexander Opper, Negotiation (2010) — another part of a site- specific installation (week 1)………….………………………….. 40 Figure 2.30: Alexander Opper, Negotiation (2010) — a site-specific installation (week 8)……………………………………………….. 41 Figure 2.31: Myer Taub, Only When it Rains (2010)...………………………. 42 Figure 2.32: Detail of Buys’ handwritten appraisals on the wall of JAG …… 42 Figure 2.33: Kemang Wa Lehulere, 30 Minutes of Amnesia: Scene 2 (2012).………………………………………………………………. 43
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Figure 2.34: An installation view of James Beckett, Berea in Soap (2012), included in If a Tree … (2012)…………………………………… 44 Figure 2.35: Installation views from Dineo Seshee Bopape’s L.L.T.I (2012)..….………..………………………………………..……….. 45 Figure 2.36: Nicholas Hlobo, Sit - On or Stand Up and Be Counted (2012) included in If a Tree … (2012)……….…………………………... 46 Figure 2.37: Simon Gush, Perfect Lovers (tripartite), installation of three ceiling fans included in If a Tree … (2012)……………………... 46 Figure 2.38: Phillip Raiford Johnson, Aperture (2012)……………………….. 47 Figure 2.39: Paul Edmunds, installation view: Cumulate (1998), Cardinal (1999) and Text on the artist’s experiences as a technical assistant for the second Johannesburg Biennale……………… 47 Figure 2.40: Antonis Pittas, Where to go from here (2012)………………….. 48 Figure 2.41: Robin Rhode’s newspaper diptych, The Star 23 February 2011 (2012), shown in installation view………………………… 49 Figure 2.42: Lerato Shadi, Seipone (2012), Performance, included in If a Tree… (2012)…………………………………………………. 49 Figure 2.43: Yvonne Dröge Wendel’s Black Ball (in Newtown, Johannesburg) (2012)…………………………………………….. 50 Figure 2.44: Colin Richards, False Wall (2012)……………………………….. 50 Figure 2.45: Installation image of If a Tree … (2012) curated by Clare Butcher……………………………………………………………… 51
Figure 3.1: Hotel Yeoville was installed at the top level of Yeoville’s new public library………………………………………………………... 52 Figure 3.2: Initial sketch planning (above) and the three-dimensional layout of the booths (below) as designed by Alexander Opper and Amir Livneh of Notion Architects……..…………………….. 53 Figure 3.3: The ‘Love Booth’ and ‘Directory Booth’ (left) and ‘Story Booth’ (right) as installed.…………………………………………………. 54 Figure 3.4: Hand painted Afro-Pop images and signwriting by Guylain Melki….………..………………………………………..………….. 54 Figure 3.5: Wire frames and digital code, designed and implemented by Tegan Bristow……………………………………………………… 55 Figure 3.6: The ‘Love Booth’ interior setup included a private mirror…….. 55 Figure 3.7: The ‘Story Booth’ interior contained prompts to inspire the participant’s topics for sharing information……………………... 56 Figure 3.8: ‘Love Booth’ — image results from participation………………. 56 Figure 3.9: Video Booth participation results………………………………… 57 Figure 3.10: Installation shot showing the participation appeal created through the set-up of the space………………………………….. 58 Figure 3.11: Image shots of the published book, Hotel Yeoville: Terry Kurgan. …………………………………………………………….. 59 Figure 3.12: Screenshots from Nicola Kritzinger’s January 2014 residency…….………..………………………………………..….. 60 Figure 3.13: Screenshots from Carly Whitaker’s January 2014 residency…..….………..………………………………………..… 60 Figure 3.14: Leanne Shakenovsky, Galleries of Gold (Day 8), 2014…………….………..…………………………………………. 61
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Figure 3.15: Maaike Bakker, A Manual for Constructing a Virtual Monument (2014)………………………………………………….. 62 Figure 3.16: Screenshots from Tegan Bristow’s June 2014 residency……….….………..……………………………………… 63 Figure 3.17: Screenshots from Joao Orecchia’s June 2014 residency………….………..………………………………………. 64 Figure 3.18: Screenshot from Carly Whitaker’s artist website landing page, 2018………………………………………………………………… 65 Figure 3.19: Images from Chloë Hugo-Hamman’s Floating Reverie digital residency…………………………………………………………… 66 Figure 3.20: Chloë Hugo-Hamman for 2Bop………………………………….. 67 Figure 3.21: Chloë Hugo-Hamman, “*NO PRESERVATIVES ADDED” (2016); Post-digital 2015 installation view...……………………. 67 Figure 3.22: Carly Whitaker, Bae Magick (digital residency) (2017)...……... 68 Figure 3.23: Carly Whitaker, Bae Magick exhibition, Kalashnikovv Gallery, 2017………………………………………………………………… 69
Figure 4.1: An installation image of the sound recording work by Tiffany Mentoor, who collaborated with children from the Anstey’s Kids Project………………………………………………………… 70 Figure 4.2: An installation image of the Mbali Khoza’s video pieces, wherein she collaborated with children from the Anstey’s Kids Project..…………………………………………………………….. 71 Figure 4.3: Mandy Johnston’s collaborative work was a reconstruction of the ancient board game known as ncuva.…..………………….. 71 Figure 4.4: An installation image of
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Figure 4.16: MARTHA Collective, proposal illustration for Think about what you have done (2014)..…………………………………………… 81 Figure 4.17: MARTHA Collective, Think about what you have done (2014)....….………..………………………………………..……… 82 Figure 4.18: Michael Heizer’s Double Negative (1969)……………………… 82 Figure 4.19: Louis Olivier, Rotating Totem (2014)……………………….…… 83 Figure 4.20: Jean Paul Lemmer, The whistling machine (2014)……………. 83 Figure 4.21: Map of placements of the artworks for the Fluxus Now exhibition, curated by SPACE SPACE….………………………. 84 Figure 4.22: Aaron Carter’s work installed at the fence near the entrance/exit to M31 Anderson Street.………………………….. 84 Figure 4.23: Spencer Lai’s work, installed in a bush in Newtown Community Park, near Dance Factory, Johannesburg...……... 85 Figure 4.24: The installation of Blazing Empress’ work at stairs near the corner of Henry Nxumalo Street and Barney Simon Road, Johannesburg……………………………………………………… 86 Figure 4.25: Amber Wright’s work, installed in a crack near corner Rissik Street and Kerk Street, Johannesburg.…………………………. 87 Figure 4.26: Tshepo Moloi’s photograph, installed at a flowerbed at the Gauteng Rental Housing Tribunal, Johannesburg..…………… 88 Figure 4.27: The caption from The Sydney Morning Herald read: “South African white supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche rides a black horse after being released from prison in Potchefstroom on June 11, 2004”……….………………………………………… 89 Figure 4.28: OH!BLOOD collective’s work, installed on a wall in Staib Street, Johannesburg.…………………………………………….. 89 Figure 4.29: Roberta Joy Rich’s work installed on a wall in New Doornfontein……………………………………………………….. 90 Figure 4.30: Roberta Joy Rich’s work installed on various poles and electricity boxes in New Doornfontein, Johannesburg.……….. 90
Figure 5.1: The | Premises Gallery floor plan….……………………….……. 91 Figure 5.2: Screenshot of the digital archive, Performance: VED vs. Joburg, a sound and digital visual presentations by Machfeld, sound mixed by artist M18J92T..……………………………..…. 92 Figure 5.3: Mtkidu: 24 min, a set in abstraction with African Noise Foundation and Devil’s Cartel, 21 April 2007………….……….. 92 Figure 5.4: A work from Colleen Alborough’s show, The Night Journey (26 May - 9 June 2007 at The | Premises Gallery).………..….. 93 Figure 5.5: An installation image from Robyn Magowan Social Masquerade (16 June - 23 June 2007).…….…….…..………... 93 Figure 5.6: Installation images of Maja Marx As Far as the Eye Can Touch (3 November - 24 November 2007).…….………………. 94 Figure 5.7: 3D render of the intended installation of some works of Suzanne du Preez Views of the edge (12 July 2008 - 26 July 2008)………….…………………………………………………….. 95 Figure 5.8: Antoinette Murdoch, installation of You don’t have to like me, from the exhibition Karaoke Confessions (25 August - 15 September 2007 at The | Premises Gallery)………….………... 95
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Figure 5.9: Antoinette Murdoch, performative event with Sex bomb cake, at the exhibition Karaoke Confessions (25 August - 15 September 2007 at The | Premises Gallery).………….……….. 96 Figure 5.10: Thought Traffic, co-curated by Brenden Gray and The Trinity Session (30 June - 28 July 2007)……………..………………… 96 Figure 5.11: An installation shot from Urbanstretch (26 March - 12 April), co-curated by Leigh-Anne Niehaus and Murray Turpin……….. 97 Figure 5.12: An installation image of Black Koki and 351073, Pollution, Racism, Money and Violence (2008), which was included in Urbanstretch (26 March - 12 April), co-curated by Leigh-Anne Niehaus and Murray Turpin.…….……………………………….. 98 Figure 5.13: The poster indicating the line-up for The Painters Show — Our Space, curated by MJ Turpin for Satellite Spaces: The Untitled Gallery…………………………………………………….. 99 Figure 5.14: The poster for Nothing is Sacred by Niall Bingham and Murray Turpin. Satellite Spaces: The Untitled Gallery.……….. 99 Figure 5.15: The poster indicating the line-up for I Am Not You — Multi- medium exhibition, for Satellite Spaces: The Untitled Gallery….….………..………………………………………..…….. 100 Figure 5.16: The poster for Reaching for God by MJ Turpin for Satellite Spaces: The Untitled Gallery.……………………………………. 100 Figure 5.17: The poster indicating the line-up for Our House, the living installation exhibition for Satellite Spaces: The Untitled Gallery………………………………………………………………. 101 Figure 5.18: The World of Evil John, live feed installation shot at Kalashnikovv Gallery 1.0.……………………………………..….. 101 Figure 5.19: An installation image of Ward 56 by Evl Jon, installation at Kalashnikovv Gallery 1.0…………………………………………. 102 Figure 5.20: An installation image of Mega Bonanza’s exhibition at Kalashnikov 1.0.…………………………………………………… 102 Figure 5.21: An installation view from MJ Turpin’s solo exhibition, The escape from self, presented at Kalashnikovv 1.0……………… 103 Figure 5.22: Process and installation images from Rasty vs Veronika — Painting Installation……………………………………………….. 103 Figure 5.23: Performance Art Showcase by Kalashnikovv Gallery…………. 103 Figure 5.24: Process images from The Prelude — Final Installation..……... 104 Figure 5.25: Installation views from Death of the Old at Kalashnikov 2.0…….….………..………………………………………..………. 104 Figure 5.26: Installation images from Bazooka by Mega Bonanza….……… 105 Figure 5.27: Installation images from MJ Turpin’s solo exhibition, ESCAPE FROM SELF II at Kalashnikovv 2.0……………………………... 105 Figure 5.28: Installation images from MASH UPS at Kalashnikovv 2.0…..………………………………………………………………. 105 Figure 5.29: NEW TEMPLES FOR NEW TIMES // malware poetry by Alice Edy, installation image.…………………………………………… 106 Figure 5.30: EXHIBITION Y, process image………………………………….. 107
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Figure 5.31: Sikelela Damane’s installation of his solo in the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room…..……………………………………………. 108 Figure 5.32: A screenshot from the Instagram post, explaining the exhibition series, “The Young Collectors" Room, May 2017………………………………………………………………… 108 Figure 5.33: Not for Sale, an exhibition of MJ Turpin’s private art collection………..………………………………………………….. 109 Figure 5.34: No End Contemporary Art Space floor plan……………………. 109 Figure 5.35: Images from Fifteen Hundred (2016) as part of the exhibition series that takes place annually..………………………………... 110 Figure 5.36: Sixteen Hundred (2017) as part of the exhibition series that takes place annually ……………………………………………… 110 Figure 5.37: Once in a Lifetime installation image………….………………… 111 Figure 5.38: Everything in Between installation image………………………. 112 Figure 5.39: BATT BUTT Supermarket (2017) installation image………….. 112 Figure 5.40: Installation image from Limbo (2018), a duo by Maggie de Vos and Imile Wepener…..……………….……………………… 113 Figure 5.41: It Is What It Is (2016) installation images……………………….. 113 Figure 5.42: What’s In it For You? (2017) installation image………………... 114 Figure 5.43: Louis Minnaar’s Hail Mary (2016) and installation shot……….. 114 Figure 5.44: Peter Claasen’s Die Land van Katte Met Horings (2016) installation images..……….……………………………………..... 115 Figure 5.45: Installation image of Hannah Shone’s Fantasma (2017)……... 115 Figure 5.46: Jean de Wet’s Secret Messages (2017), an installation image……….………………………………………………….…… 116 Figure 5.47: 72 hours (2016) process image screenshots..…………………. 117 Figure 5.48: Installation shots 72 Hours (2016) …………………………….... 117 Figure 5.49: To Meet the Threshold (2017) installation by Io Makandal…… 118
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INTRODUCTION
Johannesburg, Jozi, Joburg, eGoli — all nicknames that refer to South Africa’s industrial capital and Africa’s wealthiest city — is described by Kai Lossgott (2017:221), Johannesburg-based artist, researcher and curator, as an “emerging art centre”. Although he foregrounds the drawbacks of Johannesburg itself in terms of the slow shift away from racial segregation in post-apartheid society, the high unemployment rates (applicable to South Africa as a whole), and the power relations that still operate as exclusionary mechanisms in local art institutions, he argues that the art world continues to exist “in spite of these conditions” (Lossgott 2017:222). In addition to these obstacles, Johannesburg artists are subject to a general lack of funding, resources and infrastructure for the arts. Where the infrastructure does exist, it often adopts white cube1 principles or is subject to institutional controls underscored by western discourses or tainted by apartheid history. Furthermore, mainstream galleries tend to focus exclusively on their artist stable2 and pander to commercial art markets, resulting often in an under-representation of novice artists and/or art curators. This leads to issues of exclusion, where ‘gatekeeping’ can be said to occur through mainstream gallery representation. This, in turn, generates concerns around authorship and domination in the commercial art scene. These drawbacks have resulted in what feels like a general shortfall of opportunity for the arts. However, despite the limiting conditions that influence art practitioners in Johannesburg, they continue to work and devise solutions to these circumstances.
1 The term ‘white cube’ was coined by artist and critic Brian O’Doherty in a three-part essay published in 1976 (O’Doherty 1976/1986:7), and refers to a display strategy adopted long before the late twentieth century. Cain (2017) discusses how the white cube came about because of wanting to increase ease of viewer interaction and combat “museum fatigue” (Benjamin Ives Gilman, cited in Cain 2017), and so display techniques began to be adjusted. Art began being displayed at eye-level, limited to one or two rows of work only, and avoiding a floor-to-ceiling installation. This meant that selection became an important consideration, with less significant works being placed in storage (Cain 2017). Negative wall-space increased, and so the colour of the wall became an important consideration — shifting from red, to light-grey, and finally to white in the 1930s (Cain 2017). According to Klonk (cited in Cain 2017), “[i]n England and France white only becomes a dominant wall colour in museums after the Second World War, so one is almost tempted to speak of the white cube as a Nazi invention”. New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which adopted these approaches with Barr’s “Cubism and Abstract Art” exhibition (1936), is thereafter credited with ‘institutionalising’ this display method that later became ubiquitous (Cain 2017). Therefore, the white cube is synonymous with Modernist practices. Furthermore, typical white cube installation practice is referred to as ‘centre-line’ hanging style, and has become indicative of white cube practice. Centre-line hanging works to display art neutrally, with the middle line of the pieces often being placed at eye level. Furthermore, ample negative space would be given to each work, and works would not be hung one on top of the other. 2 An ‘artist stable’ refers to a group of artists formally represented by a gallery.
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This, I contend, is made possible as a result of autonomous practitioners’ individual efforts to break down the boundaries and respond to the constraints that I have outlined above.
The purpose of this study is to scrutinise the state of recent Johannesburg art curating in order to identify factors that have underpinned a shift towards more independent forms of curatorial praxis. My main assumption is that this ability to surmount obstacles is typical of autonomous3 Johannesburg-based curators, who have recently increased in numbers. Furthermore, I contend that western curatorial strategies have been adjusted and amended in response to local considerations and circumstances, which I explore in this study. Although critical discussion of curatorial strategies has occasionally appeared in the literature on South African art, a comprehensive enquiry focusing on Johannesburg autonomous curatorial roles and strategies has still not been produced. My study addresses this gap in the research. I discuss how, by adopting autonomous curatorial roles, a number of Johannesburg curators have gained the strategic ability to navigate local challenges and/or limitations related to socio-cultural, political, or economic conditions.
My interest in shaping a PhD topic around alternative contemporary curating practices has been a response to my own involvement in the Johannesburg art scene; I have been both an independent curator and artist in response to local drawbacks. I believe that positioning oneself as independent assists the curator in approaching and confronting issues. My conjecture is that remaining autonomous allows the Johannesburg curator the ability to interact with history and how society enacts, receives and responds to dichotomised historical narratives. Therefore, in this study, I explore how a number of Johannesburg curators, working independently
3 As most art practitioners in South Africa are linked to an institutional entity in some manner, I qualify my use of ‘autonomous’ and ‘independent’ (which I use interchangeably) to designate a curator whose practice is not limited by institutional policies (whether social, political or economic) or conventional conceptions of curatorial practice. I use the terms interchangeably, as autonomy is more relevant to my discussion of agency; however, independent is commonly adopted in the discourse of curatorship. Kabelo Malatsie (2018:12) defines autonomy as “self-creation, self-determination and self-authorship that is free from external influence”; however, she complicates this notion of autonomous and independent as it is, to her, idealistic or ‘utopian’ within a South African context “because [autonomy/independence] is entangled with systemic privilege brought on by apartheid”. Thus, although I acknowledge that the terms ‘independent’ and ‘autonomous’ present challenges and thus require further interrogation, for the sake of this study I use them to imply that the curator had agency over the curatorial practice, and that the gallery/institution/sponsor with which the curator was practising did not constrain the curator in any way.
2 of institutions, have reconceptualised the conventions of producing, installing, exhibiting and viewing exhibitions. They have done this in a manner in which they can respond to social injustice, probe socio-political legacies, contribute to differing perspectives, and offer alternatives to uneven acknowledgment. I show that they do this by adopting four roles that I refer to as 1. the nomadic curator, 2. the curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator,4 3. the collective/collaborative curator, and 4. the curator- gallerist.
Context of the research
The traditional understanding of the role of the curator is as a ‘carer’ and ‘preserver’ of valuable artefacts. Paul O’Neill (2012:10), curatorial researcher and writer, regards the curator-as-carer as ostensibly presenting artefacts neutrally, creating a ‘passive’ viewing experience informed by the hermetic institution of art itself. In Euro-America,5 discourses preceding the curatorial turn of the 1960s were focused on the critique of individual artworks. However, as O’Neill (2012) and David Balzer (2015) have revealed in their studies of the histories of curation, the envisaged task of art curators underwent a reinvention in the 1960s. Discourses that succeeded this curatorial turn began contextualising art in the context of the exhibition, thus investigating the practice of curating itself. Influenced by postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas, artists “began to recognize the social inconsequentiality of autonomous art”, and questioned their status as the exclusive authors in the construction of the meaning of art (O’Neill 2012:10). Curatorial practice6 was acknowledged to be “affecting the
4 I make use of a strikethrough to indicate non-binary, non-hierarchical configurations between the curator and artist. This is discussed in detail in Chapter Three. 5 Smith (2012a) uses the term Euro-American, rather than ‘international’, to refer to the western dominant art historical narrative. He opts to use Euro-American to be more specific of region, as often the use of the term ‘international’ implies Euro-American practices, and thus the term used in these contexts excludes those narratives emerging from the East, Africa and Asia. In this study, I thus adopt Smith’s use of the term Euro-American to refer specifically to European and American practices. I also refer to the West and/or ‘western practice/discourse’ to refer to typical, or traditional, praxis and critical discourse that developed historically in Euro-America and/or as a result of Euro-American dominant practices. Should the practice be a typical application beyond merely the West/Euro-America, I refer to specific regions, such as Asian, South American, African, South African, Johannesburg, etc. 6 Curatorial practice refers to the specific praxis of exhibition-making, or what O’Neill (2012:1) calls “the distinct practice of mediation” that draws upon the discourses framing the practice and in turn further contributes to curatorial discourse. Curatorial discourse can be defined as including all conversations, writing, criticism, and reviews in response to the development and execution of an exhibition. Curatorial discourse thus analyses how an exhibition is presented or organised, how the exhibition is conceptually framed, and how both the curator and the audience have spoken about the exhibition.
3 boundaries of art’s production, responsibility for its authorship, and its mediation” (O’Neill 2012:14).
The curator therefore featured as an additional author, capable of mediating experiences in relation to the artworks and thus “[relinquishing] a measure of [the artist’s] authorial control” (O’Neill 2012:10). The 1960s witnessed the advent of curator-centred discourse and the expanded role of the ‘curator-as-author’ — an intellectual figure who had a broad knowledge base of the arts, who organised contemporary art exhibitions within his or her authorial capacity, and who operated in opposition to the museum (O’Neill 2012:14). This led to the development of curator- centred discourses, which involves promoting the practices of the curator, not as simply limited to the organisation and display of discrete artworks, but instead including “the production of knowledge” as well as “the development of cultural circulations and translations” that shape the ways in which people interact with art (O’Neill 2012:22). However, the role of the curator-as-author approach was later criticised for being didactic, mediating a “personal narrative proffered by a single author-curator” in an ahistorical manner that pandered to the art market or private gallery (O’Neill 2012:14). Curators operating within institutional posts began being scrutinised, as the resultant curatorial displays were considered to be inscribed by their institutions’ normative ideologies and historical frameworks (Balzer 2015:39).
As a result, the curator underwent a second reinvention during the 1990s, which saw the introduction of the ‘curator-as-creator’, a term used by Balzer (2015:39). The curator-as-creator prompted the advent of ‘advanced exhibitions’ — an exhibition practice attributed to a kind of “free-form science” where the curator is seen as the art object’s instigator, similar to how an artist could instigate meaning or “improvis[e] with the odds and ends lying around in their studio” (Balzer 2015:39). The curator-as- creator’s objective is to counter the ‘historical amnesia’ of the individual authorial position of the curator-as-author, and to participate in discursive practices of co- production, co-operation and collaboration in order to frame art in a pluralist manner that encourages dialogical exchange. The curator-as-creator employs an interventionist role and selects, categorises, theorises and exhibits work in a manner that articulates art’s socio-temporal position in order to spark critical response. The curator-as-creator maintains a cross-disciplinary approach and encompasses all
4 aspects related to spectatorship, interactivity, conceptualisation and mediation (Balzer 2015:40).7
As such, the ‘curator-as-creator’ nomenclature can be translated into what is predominantly referred to today as the ‘contemporary curator’ (Havränek 2009/2010; O’Neill 2012; Smith 2012a; Smith 2015). Contemporary curating is considered, according to Terry Smith (2012a:35), to be a reinvention of the traditional exhibition format, where the exhibition may include rehanging a permanent collection, staging temporary exhibitions, orchestrating an events series, and assisting dialogic exchanges. In such a space,
[t]he exhibition — in this expanded, extended sense — works, above all, to shape its spectator’s experience and take its visitor through a journey of understanding that unfolds as a guided yet open-weave pattern of affective insights, each triggered by looking, that accumulates until the viewer has understood the curator’s insight and, hopefully, arrived at insights previously unthought [sic] by both (Smith 2012a:35).
According to Vit Havränek (2009/2010:32), the contemporary curator’s relationship with artists expands as he/she is responsible to participate directly with them, view their work and provide reflections on it. The curator is now responsible to write articles situating the artist’s works in the context of critical theory and publish related texts in conjunction with organising exhibitions, evaluating artworks, securing funding, and working with the institution, media and public (Havränek 2009/2010:32). Smith (2012a:30) explains that:
… contemporary curating aims to display some aspect of the individual and collective experience of what it is, or was, or might be, to be contemporary. Thus, there is a spatial and phenomenological horizon for contemporaneity within the exhibition: it is a discursive, epistemological, and dramaturgical space in which various kinds of temporality may be produced or shown to exist.
Although new possibilities in curatorial practices had become increasingly influential in Euro-America since the 1970s, this was not the case in South Africa. Discourses in South African contemporary arts prior to the 1990s focused primarily on the critique
7 The curator-as-creator’s role can be directly attributed to the demystification of curatorial practice, which implies that the curator makes the curatorial process visible, maintains transparency with regard to selections and positions, and brings dialogue into play in order to exhibit art in a pluralist manner that responds to wider historical and cultural positions.
5 of the art object. Interest within curatorial discourse occurred relatively late in South Africa, accelerated in the 1990s by the fall of apartheid, the end of the cultural boycott, and I argue, the early significant mega-exhibitions and biennales of the late 1980s and 1990s, which were accompanied by curatorial training programmes. This relates to the argument by Smith (2012a:68) that biennales challenge curators (who are the primary custodians for biennales) to constantly reinvent their approach towards their practice. Therefore, I use ‘contemporary’ in this study to refer to a specific praxis of curating that does not rely on customary curatorial conventions derived from museum practices. I also use ‘contemporary curator’ to refer to a curatorial role wherein the curator reinvents the presentation of the project and peripheral events related to the project in a way that appeals to the context in which the exhibition is hosted. Contemporary, in this context, is thus not intended to refer to a specific time/moment. These contemporary approaches are predominant in Euro- America after the curatorial turn of the 1960s, and I believe, started to manifest in South African after the 1990s.
My study begins with a historical contextualisation of the appearance of South African curatorial discourses in response to a number of important exhibitions in the mid-1980s. I begin with Tributaries: A View of Contemporary South African Art,8 curated by Ricky Burnett in 1985 — arguably the first international and local mega- exhibition of South African arts that included work by both black and white artists. I surmise that Tributaries influenced many subsequent mega-exhibitions in terms of their inclusions and exclusions, and demonstrated the potential for autonomous curatorial projects to critique political dispensations. I also consider the two Johannesburg biennales, Africus: Johannesburg9 (1995) and Trade Routes: History and Geography10 (1997), as well as Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture11 (1996), and conclude with Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007), which was arguably the last independently curated international mega-exhibition installed on African soil prior to the increase in interest in curatorial discourses in
8 Hereafter referred to as Tributaries. 9 Hereafter referred to as Africus. 10 Hereafter referred to as Trade Routes. 11 Hereafter referred to as Miscast.
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South Africa.12 I believe that these exhibitions may have prompted widespread interest in curatorial practice in South Africa, in that they indicated ways in which local curators began thinking about the curatorial project as a critical platform. Smith (2012a:87) argues that biennales account for “an alternative public sphere, one in which visual culture offer[s] compelling propositions for a world in disarray”. In light of Smith’s comment, I thus critically examine the development of curatorial practice and discourse in South Africa from the late 1980s onwards, a time when South Africa underwent vast socio-political change and wherein curatorial practice began becoming a focus of sustained interest. I examine the impact that the unique approaches of these curators had, and how these influences may be traced in Johannesburg curatorial projects employing contemporary approaches to experiment with alternative visions for exhibiting South African visual culture.
The discourse of the ‘curator-as-creator’ is often associated with the notion of autonomy or independence. Smith (2012a:226) outlines his ideal role in contemporary curating, which he says is to “strive to work from an independent, relatively autonomous professional perspective” — an approach he posits balances both the vision of the artists and the vision of the curator. As a result, and as previously defined, I limit the scope of my study to focus only on curators working autonomously/independently.
According to South African art critic Hazel Friedman (1997:6), institutions “constitute a microcosm of power relations in the real world” — especially art institutions that function in the sphere of cultural production. As previously indicated, white cube spaces, which have a western, Modernist provenance, predominantly display work in an ahistorical manner, signifying a space that is isolated from social, historical, and
12 It should be noted that the exhibition The Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life (2014) at MuseumAfrica, curated by Enwezor with the assistance of South African art historian Rory Bester, could also be considered a mega-exhibition, and possibly the last mega-exhibition on South African soil up to and including the time of writing in 2019. I have opted to end my historical contextualisation of mega-exhibitions with Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007), however, as I consider it to have contributed to prompting curatorial interest in South Africa, whereas in 2014, interest in curatorial discourse and praxis had, arguably, already gained momentum, which I aim to show in this study. Furthermore, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life was conceptualised by Enwezor for Haust der Kunst, Germany, where Enwezor was director. Thus, in the context to my definition of an autonomous/independent curator, this exhibition falls outside of my scope.
7 cultural contexts (O’Neill 2012:71-72). The majority of institutions13 in South Africa have a history framed by apartheid narratives. The designation of ‘independent’ or ‘autonomous’ in this context, therefore, may apply to curators working within the space of a commercial/non-commercial museum/gallery, but who are not employed by the institution concerned and therefore are not constrained by the institution’s socio-cultural/political agendas. This may also include a curator linked to an educational institution, or having received funding support, but not necessarily limited/controlled by the institution/sponsor in terms of their curatorial approach and output.14 Rather, independent or autonomous curators are able to (and often seek to) dismantle these hegemonic positions, as they are free to pursue their own agenda and not be confined by institutional intentions.
Carolee Thea (2009:6) talks about the emergence of the independent curator: “Among the major figures to have come of age in this cultural milieu is the independent curator, whose importance can be compared to that of the literary critic’s in the 1950s or the business consultant’s in the 1980s”. For Smith (2012a:18-19), however, independent curators range from
the few celebrated international artistic directors of biennials and mega- exhibitions (most of whom have at least one part-time institutional base) to do-anything interns whose actual working conditions make them foot soldiers in globalized capitalism’s outsourced armies of cultural producers in whose ranks the thrill of being seen to be doing something cool stands in for the slim prospect of being paid, sometimes, for their labours.
This flippant description of the independent curator by Smith (2012a:18-19) does not, in my opinion, entirely suit the position of the South African independent curator. Smith (2012a:18) also refers to the role of the ‘independent curator’ as a “professional subfield”, under which, he irreverently implies, practitioners ‘shelter’ beneath its “bright-yet-fragile umbrella”. I would argue against this, as I believe the South African independent curator does not employ autonomy to “be seen to be doing something cool”, but rather as a platform to comment on socio-cultural and
13 ‘Institution’ in this context refers to a museum, gallery, educational institution, and corporate or government art foundation. 14 It should be acknowledged that employees might have their own biases and agendas, but that these would be restricted by the institution’s mandate. I also acknowledge that curators applying for funding may find subtle ways to shape their projects to anticipate funder favour. Furthermore, just as a government institution may be traditionalist in its approach, commercial galleries can also have an agenda (even if this is simply to represent their artist stable).
8 political contexts in a manner not limited by institutional policy, or as a platform to produce consistent practice, despite a lack of opportunity for curators.
In this study, I focus on discussing the role of autonomous curators in Johannesburg between 2007 and 2016. The time period begins in 2007, the year when the last independently curated mega-exhibition, Africa Remix: Art of a Continent,15 opened on South African soil. The scope lasts for one decade, ending in 2016, when I began this study. I have focused on Johannesburg, as the majority of key exhibitions I identify that have prompted local curatorial interest (as I maintain in this study) were conceptualised for, and installed in, Johannesburg. Alternatively, these exhibitions were primarily based in Johannesburg, even if some components were exhibited elsewhere. Furthermore, Johannesburg has also in recent years been witness to an increase in independent practices, according to Portia Malatjie (2013:367). Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall (2008:1) have stated, in the context of their book on Johannesburg, that citizens generate “their own cultural forms, institutions, and lifeways”. The increase in independent practices in Johannesburg, I postulate, also relates to Gerard Hagg’s (2010:3-4) observation that Johannesburg persists as the space where the major section of the art market is located. Elvira Dyangani Ose’s (2013:386) article ‘What makes a place a city? Untimely contemporary artists and the African city’, explores the condition of the contemporary in African cities, which, she argues, manifests in independent initiatives where contemporary African art practitioners “[question] the cultural policies of their new governments, and [critique] Western artistic modes and structures, especially Western art’s division into separate specialist areas of practice”.
It is important to note that the selections for my case studies are informed by my own identity as a researcher, as I have also worked as both an artist and curator in Johannesburg. Therefore, even if I did not attend the exhibitions discussed, I am often familiar with the spaces or contexts in which they were held. Furthermore, my own practices have responded directly to Johannesburg city, wherein I have practised in an attempt to overcome some of the shortcomings endemic to the Johannesburg art scene, and thus I have a personal connection to the geographical
15 Hereafter referred to as Africa Remix.
9 space of Johannesburg itself. Accordingly, focusing on Johannesburg, I explore the ways in which the independent curator makes use of an independent, interventionist position in order to challenge socio-cultural circumstances.
Ose (2013:386) maintains that art and artists “have the potential to be critical mediators in persuading or provoking citizens to stop being mere spectators of social change, and rather to become active protagonists of history”. Working in light of this insight, I aim to reveal that, despite some western curatorial strategies having inflected South African curatorial practices, local curators are not simply importing western ideas, but have adapted and reinterpreted them in ways that have enabled exhibitions to respond to local socio-cultural and economic circumstances. Curatorship is demonstrated as a tool which, when contextualised in a manner specific to the national milieu, can encourage further discourse in the socio-cultural sphere — which Ose (2013:383) argues is a responsibility citizens living in African cities have. This, I maintain, can be accelerated when curators work autonomously.
Autonomous roles operate in various ways, which, as previously stated, for the purposes of this study I categorise as: 1. The nomadic curator; 2. The curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator; 3. The collective/collaborative curator; and 4. The curator- gallerist. At times, these roles may overlap. I hold that by using strategies commonly associated with these roles, curators are able to negotiate the common drawbacks that plague the Johannesburg art scene, and produce provocative exhibitions that confront socio-cultural and economic circumstances. I furthermore assume that autonomous curators, working according to these roles, attempt to reduce the divide between art and the broader public.
More specifically, I explore whether the nomadic curator is advantaged by being able to choose spaces in which to install exhibitions, and is thus not hampered by either a lack of appropriate infrastructure, or the limitations and policies expected of permanent employees working in exclusive white cube/institutional spaces. I investigate whether the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator uses curatorial strategies as a way of exhibiting his or her work alongside other artists’ works in which there is a move away from binary constructions around the dominant position of either curator or artist. I question whether this strategy is used to neutralise hierarchies. Likewise,
10 the collective/collaborative curator, to me, may demonstrate a shift towards what O’Neill (2012:52) considers discursive and democratic curating, away from a centralised, authorial or single-perspective. I suggest that issues of speaking on behalf of another, and reducing the ability of the ‘subaltern’ to speak and not be spoken for, according to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988), can perhaps be overcome through strategies of collaboration, co-production and co-operation. Finally, I explore the role of the curator-gallerist, referring specifically to an autonomous curator who has established a semi-formal, independent platform for his or her practice. I question whether this role is adopted in order to “[eliminate] connotations of institutional conditions” (O’Neill 2012:40), and therefore could be considered a type of infrastructural activism. I enquire whether this role is adopted to offset the over-representation of artist-stables linked to established galleries accommodating mainstream art markets, and the simultaneous under-representation of novice and marginalised artists and/or curators.
In this study, I thus attempt to reveal what makes independent curatorial practice in Johannesburg, and the role of the local curator, unique. Alongside this, I identify various influences, such as socio-cultural events as well as international and national practices and discourses that may have impacted on ways of curating locally. My analyses of selected exhibitions in this study focus particularly on group exhibitions. Group exhibitions accentuate the interventionist role the contemporary curator may adopt in response to the socio-cultural and economic milieu, particularly in response to the limiting conditions art practitioners in Johannesburg are subject to, which is of particular concern in my study.
Methodology
Curatorial practice involves “conceptualizing ways in which art and its contexts are understood” (O’Neill 2012:1). To study curatorial methods is to investigate the ways in which exhibitions are facilitated, as well as how artworks have been displayed, mediated and discussed. Curatorial discourse and curatorial practice are therefore “dialectically entwined” (O’Neill 2012:1). Consequently, I make use of an integrative, qualitative research approach for this study, considering both the discourse and the practice.
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Maria Lind (2009:103) argues that ‘the curatorial’ implies something more than the mere making of exhibitions and working within the expanded field of curating. Therefore, according to Lind (cited in Hoffman & Lind 2011), ‘the Curatorial’ [sic] implies a methodology that takes art as its starting point, and then situates it in relation to specific contexts, times, and questions in order to challenge the status quo. Lind (2015:321) subsequently explained her thinking:
‘Curating’ encompasses the technical side of things, and can take different shapes and forms: make an exhibition, commissioning an individual artwork, organizing a screening or seminar series, a workshop, et cetera. But ‘working curatorially’ implies doing these things with a sensibility and urgency as to why they are being done precisely this way, precisely right now in relation to this art and the questions that it raises or proposes (original emphasis).
In order to explore the role of the autonomous curator, and his or her curatorial projects, I need to analyse how the practice is “expressed by those responsible for their conceptualization and production” (O’Neill 2012:1). As such, where this is possible, conducting semi-structured interviews to converse about the independent curators’ influences and approaches in their respective practices are integral to my research methodology. Coline Milliard (2016:7) states that “interviews have a particular place in curatorial studies, and remain to this day the primary mode through which the history of curating has been recorded and studied”. Furthermore, Felix Vogel (2013:48) states that “the form of the interview, as a seemingly unmediated form of speech, underlines the supposed authenticity of statements and constructs a form of authority that in turn legitimates the curator as author of the exhibition”. These self-reflexive discussions with curators enable me to explore how contemporary approaches have allowed independent curators in Johannesburg to connect dialogical positions and address socio-cultural and/or economic challenges.
I also conduct in-depth analyses of the exhibitions themselves in relation to the type of role the curator adopted. Discourses on curating, as well as curatorial practices, are informed by postmodern and poststructuralist ideas. This is specifically evident in the shift from the passive viewing experience of art towards a relational experience, where “meaning is located at the point of reception” and in context of the space and
12 installation (O’Neill 2012:11). Where relevant in my study, I offer theoretical insights on how postmodern and poststructuralist ideas have informed curatorial praxis through contextualising my discussions with the curators. Insights gleaned through interviews (where available) are enhanced by textual analysis of the exhibition itself. Extensive close readings of the selected exhibitions are done by considering the visual archival material related to the curator’s conceptualisation and research processes, alongside consideration of the activation of space, the placement of artworks, and processual changes during the exhibition. Thus, I reflect on photographic records of the composition of the installation, the works in the installation, floor plans and descriptions of where the works were placed, in relation to the exhibition catalogues, the curatorial overview of the exhibition, and the theme of the exhibition. I also consider the press releases, curatorial statements and texts framing the exhibition, written responses to it, exhibition listings, criticisms, reviews, newspaper or journal articles about the exhibition, as well as audience responses (when available).
Where I was involved in the conceptualisation and realisation of the curatorial projects, I employ an auto-ethnographic methodology, which describes an analytical approach used to analyse the researcher’s own experiences of the process, result and understanding. According to Carolyn Ellis, Tony Adams and Arthur Bochner (2011), “[a]utoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience”. Furthermore, autoethnographic researchers “wanted to concentrate on ways of producing meaningful, accessible, and evocative research grounded in personal experience, research that would sensitize readers to issues of identity politics, to experiences shrouded in silence, and to forms of representation that deepen our capacity to empathize with people who are different from us” (Ellis & Bochner 2000, cited in Ellis, Adams & Bochner 2011). According to Mariza Méndez (2013), “[a]lthough a qualitative approach opposes the positivist standpoint that assumes that reality is objective and independent from the researcher, it has been accepted as a valuable practice of research”. As such, I consider my experiences in conceptualising, curating and realising curatorial projects as meaningful and valuable insights, and I reflect on these insights for the sake of this study.
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There are unfortunately relatively few helpful texts regarding the role of the South African autonomous curator. I therefore felt that it was necessary to trace the changing curatorial approaches relevant to South Africa, and construct an abbreviated curatorial history that would contextualise my findings. This is done similarly to how Balzer, in Curationism: How curating took over the art world and everything else (2015), offers a linear history of the changing role of the western curator. Texts I consulted include literature focused on the South African mega- exhibitions I identified previously as being crucial to stimulating local curatorial insight, as well as exhibition reviews and newspaper articles on these exhibitions. In addition to conducting interviews (where possible), I examine the exhibition catalogues and archival materials of the mega-exhibitions. Texts such as Shelley Ruth Butler’s ‘The politics of exhibiting culture: Legacies and possibilities’ (2000), Jillian Carman’s 100 Years of collecting: The Johannesburg Art Gallery (2010), and Carolyn Hamilton and Pippa Skotnes’ co-edited volume Uncertain curature: In and out of the archive (2014) are consulted, together with various other books and anthologies that contribute to my understanding of institutional curatorial discourse. Chikukwa’s text, ‘Research article: Curating contemporary African art: Questions of mega-exhibitions and western influences’ (2011) also provides valuable insight into the contemporary curatorial developments that are shaping practices within and outside of Africa. This enables me to trace the change from the traditional understandings of curatorial practice in South Africa to what I refer to as contemporary South African curatorial practice. I also refer to Rogue urbanism: Emergent African cities (2013), edited by Edgar Pieterse and AbdouMaliq Simone. The essays in the publication offer responses to African urban initiatives, foregrounding the need to theorise the specificity of conditions in African cities, which I use to frame my focus on Johannesburg.
I also undertake a literature review of curatorial discourses stemming from other geopolitical contexts, mainly from the West, in order to inform my readings of autonomous, contemporary, curatorial practices in South Africa. Where relevant, this is embedded in the chapters. I adopt a critical comparative position to glean insights based on the similarities and differences between local and western curatorial practices, and to identify ways in which local curatorial practices have been influenced by ideas from the West. Important journals, such as Manifesta Journal:
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Journal of Contemporary Curatorship; Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and OnCurating.org, an independent international web journal focusing on questions around curatorial practice and theory, proved valuable for this study. O’Neill’s The culture of curating and the curating of culture (2012) is a key text that explores the factors leading to the beginning of curatorship as a seminal discourse in contemporary art practice. O’Neill (2012:9) explores the role of the autonomous curator as a mode of self-representation and medium for communication, arguing that current curatorial practices should be understood as different from accepted understandings of the curator. O’Neill also edited Curating subjects (2011) and Curating research (2015, edited by O’Neill & Wilson). These volumes consist of essays that respond to the curatorial projects of others, and consider the relationship between curating, the curatorial and research practices respectively. Curating research provides critique on recent attempts to construct concepts of the curatorial, as the authors show that these concepts cannot be reduced to a set of positions, but that they should rather be considered processual, which is valuable for my approach.
Smith’s volume, titled Thinking contemporary curating (2012), outlines key tendencies in contemporary curatorial thought, and provides insight into ideas such as the ‘reimagined museum’, the expanded exhibition, and infrastructural activism to elicit spectator response. Smith (2012a:20) attempts to identify the ‘distinctive elements’ of contemporary curatorial practice, almost in an attempt to provide a definition for the practice. He does so by setting up a comparison between the conventional definition of curating and the contemporary definition in order to unpack the “distinctive elements” of what contemporary curatorial practice entails, which provides seminal information for my study.
Jens Hoffman’s text, The theatre of exhibitions (2015), positions the discipline of curating “in the context of a larger cultural sphere shaped by the political, social, and economic conditions of its time”. Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational aesthetics (2002) and The radicant (2009), although referred to briefly, offer a strategy for understanding contemporary curating practices, which he frames using the term ‘New Institutionalism.’ New Institutionalism seeks to reshape the art institution into an egalitarian public sphere, characterised by human interaction in the social context as opposed to practising in a private symbolic space (Bourriaud 2002:16). Bourriaud’s
15 engagement with strategies for repositioning the relationship between the curator and art object is directly relevant to my study; however, I deploy a different framework to understand these strategies in relation to the Johannesburg context. Key texts outlining the role of the socially engaged curator are also consulted in terms of their relevance to a local context, and are referred to where relevant in the chapters.
Original contribution
Euro-American publications have tended to conduct critical interrogation of curatorial discourse and practice, as well as the role of the autonomous curator; however, the majority of these publications exclude practices occurring outside of the West. When South African curators and exhibitions are considered, the discussion is limited to a few paragraphs in a chapter. For example, Smith (2012a:151-157) deliberates on groundbreaking exhibitions of African art by curators, mainly South African, as showing the potential of exhibitions to play a role in liberation struggles; however, he only briefly discusses the 1997 Johannesburg biennale and Gabi Ngcobo’s role in curating for the Center for Historical Reenactments.16
Critical discussion on local curatorial strategies has occasionally surfaced in the literature on South African art, but this is usually only in the form of exhibition catalogues and texts. The majority of texts on local curatorial practice concentrate on mega-exhibitions, institutional exhibitions or exhibitions by African curators living and working in the West. Raphael Chikukwa (2011:227) similarly emphasises this absence, which he notes as being linked to the custom of mega-exhibitions showcasing contemporary African art being curated by diasporic curators and often including diasporic artists. Robyn Cook’s (2016) doctoral study, ‘The new institutions: Artist-run participative platforms and initiatives in South Africa’, engages critical discussion of what she considered an increase of South African artists establishing artist-run initiatives (ARIs). ARIs are defined by Cook (2016:10) as alternative platforms to the “conventional studio/gallery archetype”. Cook (2016:4) emphasises
16 Smith omits all reference to Africus 1995 Johannesburg biennale from his list of ‘pathbreaking exhibitions’ relating to Africa by other curators — and although he includes two other South African exhibitions, 10 Years 10 Artists, Art in a Democratic South Africa (Cape Town, 2004), and A Decade of Democracy, South African Art 1994 - 2004 (Cape Town, 2004) — both these so-called successful exhibitions are far more successful in their published book form — which gave the artworks and themes longevity. It must also be noted that there is a dearth of information available on the actual exhibitions these publications respond to.
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ARIs as important to local artistic and curatorial development. Particularly, she investigates the artist working in this context as acting as a “double agent” — both as artist and curator (Cook 2016:4). Cook’s (2016) critical deliberation on the “double agent” is an important contribution to discussion on local curatorial strategies; however, her focus is on “experimental and/or non-commercial practices” defined by the establishment of a particular space.
While strategies deployed in individual exhibitions may be discussed, engagements with curating tend not to be a feature of general publications on South African art. For example, while Volume Four (1990 - 2007) of the Visual Century: South African Art in Context (2011) (edited by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Mario Pissarra and Madisi Majavu) does consider some examples of autonomous local curatorial praxis, the volume is devoid of sustained engagement with the practice of curatorship. When the curatorial role is considered, this is limited to one-paragraph outlines embedded in curatorial statements.
The majority of local exhibition reviews, although providing key insights into how shows are received by the public, tend to pay attention to the analysis of art objects, and fail to provide insight regarding curatorial practice and its part in mediating and contributing to the authorship and contextual boundaries of the works. My study addresses this gap in scholarship and critically evaluates the contribution of the South African autonomous curator.
It is worth doing this research, as curating is a public event that invites the audience to interact with the works on exhibition and respond to the themes and conceptual frameworks espoused. Autonomous curators are, I propose, questioning the detachment of art from the general public by adapting their practice to address pertinent issues. Smith (2012a:257) acknowledges that, outside of the West, “curatorial activity has been pivotal in the bringing about of positive change”. However, this has not been traced in a comprehensive study. Therefore, while I acknowledge that there has been worthwhile literature on individual contemporary exhibitions in South Africa, there has not been sustained engagement with independent curating in South Africa. My focus, specifically on Johannesburg, is intended to address this gap. My research entails considering discourses/practices
17 that evolved in Johannesburg, and then examining their relevance to, and reinterpretations and adaptation by, independent curators in South Africa. I deliberate on how autonomous curators have acquired the agency to adapt and possibly expand on western curatorial practices. I consider how, by doing so, Johannesburg curators are producing provocative work that has the ability to confront socio-cultural and economic conditions. I propose, finally, that this work by local curators, selections of which I examine here, represent the “positive change” of which Smith speaks.
Chapter outline
This study is presented in five chapters. The first chapter provides a close reading of the mega-exhibitions previously referred to that I believe prompted local curatorial interest. Chapter One is therefore a contribution towards what Smith (2012a:188) calls the “accumulative collective memory of curating”, and is posited as a historical contextualisation in order to trace the shift in approaches of curatorial practice and discourse leading up to 2007.
The subsequent chapters provide close readings of the four roles that I identify as being commonly adopted by autonomous curators, namely the nomadic curator, the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator, collective/collaborative curator, and the curator- gallerist. It should be noted that, although I contextualise each role in separate chapters, curators are able to adopt more than one role in their practice.
In Chapter Two, I consider the role of the nomadic curator who operates autonomously, and question whether the nomadic curatorial role can be seen to have enhanced the exhibition’s concept. I examine whether the nomadic role prompts the curator to make use of critical adaptive practices to install site-specific exhibitions that deconstruct characteristic institutional curatorial approaches. Smith (2012a:204) argues that “space remains the main category of reference; the temporal dimension of exhibiting has yet to be researched in any depth”. Therefore, I consider exhibitions held in varying spaces, and question whether installing exhibitions in spaces not only dedicated to the display of art or limited by prevailing curatorial canons has inspired local curators to assume this adaptive role. In this chapter, I consider four exhibitions:
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Nontobeko Ntombela’s Modern Fabrics: Urban Culture and Artists Connected to the City Landscape (2008), Gabi Ngcobo’s PASS-AGES: References & Footnotes (2010), Anthea Buys’ Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010), and Clare Butcher’s If a Tree … (2012).
I examine the role of what I term ‘curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator’ in Chapter Three. I account for my use of the strikethrough as an attempt to indicate a move away from binary constructions of either curator or artist. My terminology, therefore, also refers to the local variation of curatorial practice, where artists often turn towards curating, implying that there is a tendency to approach curating as a creative practice. I consider, specifically, Terry Kurgan’s Hotel Yeoville (2008 - 2011) and Floating Reverie curated by Carly Whitaker (2014 -), and whether these practitioners operated ‘between’ the role of artist and curator equally in order to advance their practice, neutralise dominance, and indicate sensitivity towards problematic power/authorial positions prevalent in South African socio-political history.
In Chapter Four, I consider the collective/collaborative curator, referring to the independent curator operating using group curatorial strategies. I propose that this role may be adopted as an active method wherein authorial and hierarchical positionality can be avoided, and democratic approaches can be incorporated. I thus also reflect on the drawbacks of the traditional understanding of the curator as a single, authorial figure, and consider whether the collective/collaborative curator offers an opportunity to pluralise inclusion and challenge canons entrenched in the dominant art scene. I consider, specifically, the exhibitions
I look at the role of the curator-gallerist in Chapter Five. I explore whether Johannesburg has witnessed an increased tendency for independent curators to establish art platforms in response to the lack of accessible spaces for artists and curators. My interest is in the curatorial role and responsibility the curator-gallerist assumes, and I consider whether this position can be deemed an active confrontation
19 of hegemonic or canonical roles, which may be considered exclusionary, elitist, outmoded and mainstream. I discuss, specifically, The Trinity Session’s role in curating the programme for The | Premises Gallery [sic], MJ Turpin and Matthew Dean Dowdle’s role in curating the programme for Kalashnikovv Gallery, and Bakker’s, Dalene Victor Meyer’s and my own role in curating the programme for NO END Contemporary Art Space. I question whether the curator-gallerist provides a platform that is more supportive of novice practitioners, and that does not inhibit artists and curators from experimenting.
I conclude the study by outlining the potential impact curatorial practice has had on the local art community. I attempt to make explicit the early shifts, and the influence contemporary curators derived from these early exhibitions, which I argue resulted in the four roles I outline above. I suggest new insights, and highlight my contribution to curatorial and art historical scholarship, while acknowledging limitations to the study and suggesting avenues for further research.
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CHAPTER ONE: TRACING THE SHIFT IN CURATORIAL PRACTICE AND DISCOURSE IN SOUTH AFRICA
Introduction
A change in approach towards South African art curating practices can be identified from about the mid-1980s. Before then, curatorial practice was generally approached traditionally, with the curator being a carer, presenting individual, autonomous/self- enclosed artworks to the public. Although new possibilities in curatorial practices had become increasingly influential elsewhere since the 1970s, these only became a focus of sustained interest in South Africa in the 1990s, arguably spearheaded by Tributaries (1985).17 Curated by Ricky Burnett,18 Tributaries included paintings and sculptures alongside “dolls, dancing maces, a kraal [homestead with an animal enclosure] guardian figure, a ceremonial mantle, a bridal veil, and mapotos [Ndebele married women’s aprons]” (Dubin 2006:42). The exhibition signalled, according to Steven Dubin (2006:42), the “democratisation of the object” — an unconventional approach bearing in mind South Africa’s apartheid system premised on racial and cultural hierarchy and, particularly, the partial State of Emergency that had been declared in 1985.19 Burnett’s autonomous position as curator, which afforded him the opportunity to make independent choices when selecting artists and art objects despite the political climate, is of particular interest in this chapter, as I argue that it indicated possibilities that can be provided as a result of practising autonomously.
17 Tributaries is also cited as being influenced by the international exhibition Art Against Apartheid, held in Paris in 1983 (Bell-Roberts 2016). 18 Burnett is a South African artist and curator. He has had numerous solo exhibitions, and curated many noteworthy exhibitions. Most prominent for the context of this study is his curated exhibition, Tributaries, although his curation of Jackson Hlungwani’s work and the establishment of Newtown Galleries were also significant. Currently, Burnett is based in Johannesburg and teaches art at the Burnett Art Studios. 19 In 1985, the apartheid government National Party (NP) had declared a partial state of emergency in Eastern Cape and Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (PWV), which is now the Gauteng province, allowing the government to micromanage media coverage, curfew times and movement of citizens, whether in an individual or group organisational capacity. This can be seen as an indirect influence on Burnett’s independent position in order to show opposition towards the political regime.
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Euro-American art history and museum / curatorial history differ from their counterparts in South Africa.20 In Euro-American art historical narratives, the late 1960s and early 1970s can be seen as a seminal transitional period in curatorial discourse, particularly as it gave rise to the emergence of the independent, or autonomous, curator. Prompted by art practitioners such as Pontus Hultén,21 Harald Szeemann22 and Seth Siegelaub,23 the curator began being acknowledged as an “independently motivated practitioner” who occupied a more central position than the curator-as-carer who operated behind the scenes (O’Neill 2012:2,14). Hultén and Szeemann thus worked to shift the production of art to the space and duration of the exhibition (Niemojewski 2016:10). Hultén tested the limits of the contemporary museum from within, enabling artists to produce and install works on site (Niemojewski 2016:10). Hultén thus mobilised a sense of the spectacle towards the exhibition and its curator. He emphasised public programmes and redefined the position of the museum’s primary aim to serve the public (Niemojewski 2016:10). Szeemann disrupted inherited conceptions of the curator’s role by organising international exhibitions independent of any institution. Furthermore, he began contextualising artworks from “divergent contemporary art scenes” perceived as having similar concerns, into single group exhibitions (O’Neill 2012:16).
20 Vogel (2013:21) argues that there is a gap between art history in a museum and art history in an academic context. To Vogel (2013:52), academic art history is primarily concerned with theory and thus often serves to neglect the object. Museum practice, according to Vogel (2013:52), is primarily occupied with the object as it is linked to funding and audience, and thus “creates a low expectation of its research” as it needs to be relatable to a non-academic audience. Vogel (2013:52), however, acknowledges that to reduce history to these two disparate strains is problematic or presumptuous, as histories are plural “and the two fields mentioned — academic art history and curatorial studies — are each internally heterogeneous, and they frequently overlap both with each other and adjacent fields”. In this chapter, and in the context of this study, I draw upon Vogel’s position of multiple histories, demonstrating how Euro-American history (both art historical and curatorial) differs from South Africa historical trajectories. 21 According to Niemojewski (2016:10), “Pontus Hultén was the founding director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn and the Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel — as well as serving as the director of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, making him, arguably, one of the most prominent and experienced European museum professionals of the twentieth century”. 22 In 1969, Szeemann’s exhibition Live in your Head: When Attitudes Become Form established his role as an autonomous curator (see Chapter Three of this study for more detail), and prompted his resignation as director of Kusthalle Bern, which led him to be recommended to convene Documenta V (1972). 23 Milliard (2016:7) also acknowledges the American curator, Seth Siegelaub, for catalysing curating in its contemporary form in the 1960s. Siegelaub was most interested in conceptual art, and the curation thereof.
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O’Neill (2012:16) argues that, as a result of these approaches, curating in its contemporary form emerged, and the curator began taking on a more centralised position; “the exhibition form [began] being treated as a medium in and of itself” and authorship around works and an exhibition was expanded. According to Rafal Niemojewski (2016:10), Hultén and Szeemann “can be regarded as the progenitors who defined the new dimensions and directions of contemporary curatorial practice. Their practices informed the working methodologies of the current generation of practitioners […], many of whom alternate between institutional jobs and temporary assignments”. However, this transition towards autonomous curatorial approaches seemed to take place at the exact moment that the United Nations (UN) began spearheading the cultural boycott of South Africa more vigorously.
The cultural boycott was one of many international efforts by the UN to impose sanctions against South Africa in direct criticism of the apartheid regime.24 The boycott, which called for sanctions against all cultural exchanges with any organisation or institution in South Africa practising apartheid, hindered local access to information and examples of international cultural practices.25 According to Candice Breitz (1995:90), the cultural community of South Africa was placed in a ‘creative quarantine’. Although South Africans were not completely isolated from accessing international information, the boycott hampered access to developing international discourses on contemporary art and curatorial practice. The lack of widespread, popular exposure to shifting conceptions around the role of the Euro- American curator, and more pertinent issues appearing locally, were strong factors that resulted in the stagnation of local curatorial discourse and practices; consequently, the traditionalist conception of the curator as a ‘carer’ of valuable objects continued to exert influence.
24 In conjunction with the cultural boycott were other boycotts, such as economic and sport boycotts. 25The UN’s restrictions became progressively stricter throughout the years in order to gain wider traction. Michael C Beaubien (1982:7) outlines the UN’s escalating stringency towards the cultural boycott against South Africa by quoting the various UN Resolutions: In 1968 the resolution requested “[a]ll states and organizations to suspend cultural, educational, sporting, and other exchanges with the racist regime and with other organizations or institutions in South Africa which practice apartheid”; in 1972, the wording for the resolution was updated to “all organizations, institutions, and information media to organize a boycott of South Africa in sports and in culture and other activities”; and two years later, in 1974, this was updated to “all governments to prohibit all cultural, educational, scientific, sporting and other contacts with the racist regime …”. Eventually, by 1980, the General Assembly was appealing directly to “writers, artists, musicians, and other personalities to boycott South Africa” (Beaubien 1982:7). Furthermore, the boycott occurred prior to the internet age, and international cultural magazines were often difficult to obtain.
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In this chapter, I thus trace the shift in South African curatorial practice and discourse by analysing the curatorial concepts and methodologies of notable mega-exhibitions that reconceptualised received curatorial methodologies. I accordingly consider the following curatorial roles in this chapter: o Tributaries (1985) curated by Burnett o Africus (1995) curated by Lorna Ferguson26 and Christopher Till27 o Miscast (1996) curated by Pippa Skotnes28 o Trade Routes (1997) directed by Okwui Enwezor29 o Africa Remix (2007) curated by Simon Njami.30
I show how these pivotal exhibitions, all of which were held in South Africa, may be considered as having an influence on local curatorial discourse and practice. To my knowledge, a comprehensive study outlining how these exhibitions influenced
26 Although Ferguson was never officially acknowledged as ‘curator’ for the biennale (in the catalogue she was acknowledged as ‘Biennale Co-ordinator’), she defines her position in retrospect as being responsible for curating curators, which she argues allowed the model to be conceived of as ‘democratic’ (Ferguson 2016, see Appendix 1B). In February 1994, Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B) ‘imported’, by means of money raised for the biennale, forty international curators, who were toured to six different museums in the country. The international curators were then presented with the ideas for the biennale, introduced to potential trainee curators, and shown various South African artists’ portfolios submitted in anticipation of participating as curators in the biennale. Till (1995:7) characterises this approach as “indirect involvement rather than direct curatorial control”. 27 Till’s role in the biennale catalogue was acknowledged firstly as ‘Director Culture: Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council’, and secondly as ‘Director: Johannesburg Biennale’. 28 Skotnes (b1957) is a South African visual artist and curator. She has a Master of Fine Art and a Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Cape Town, where she is now a professor of fine art and director of the Centre for Curating the Archive at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Currently, Skotnes is also the co-curator of the Katrine Harries Print Cabinet. 29 Enwezor (1963 - 2019) is a Nigerian curator who operated predominantly in America and Germany. He is considered a ‘household name’ alongside other celebrity curators such as Hans Ulrich Obrist, Klaus Biesenbach and Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, who are regarded as “sought after brands, dispensing their wisdom and intellectual cachet via exhibitions, projects and conferences” (Milliard 2016:7). Enwezor curated numerous exhibitions, most noteworthy for this study are the Johannesburg biennale Trade Routes, Documenta XI (1998 - 2002), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945 - 1994, (2001) and The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (2012). 30 Njami (b1962) is a writer and independent curator, lecturer, art critic and essayist. He curated many international exhibitions and was among the first to think about and show African contemporary artists’ work on international stages. He served as Artistic Director of Bamako Encounters, the African Photography Biennale, from 2001 to 2007. Njami is the curator of Africa Remix, shown in Düsseldorf (Museum Kunst Palast), London (Hayward Gallery), Paris (Centre Pompidou), Tokyo (Mori Museum), Stockholm (Moderna Museet) and Johannesburg (Johannesburg Art Gallery), from 2004 to 2007. He co-curated the first African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He curated the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008, and was the Artistic Director of Luanda Triennale (2010), Picha (Lumumbashi Biennale — 2010), SUD (Douala Triennale — 2010), among others.
24 changes in local curatorial discourse and practice has not yet been undertaken.31 I emphasise, in this chapter, how new approaches towards curatorial projects often coincide with political dispensations in South Africa, and that frequently the curatorial approaches and methodologies adopted were adapted from traditional approaches in response to local requirements. It is not, however, within the scope of this chapter to discuss, in detail, every exhibition wherein curators challenged previous approaches towards exhibition practice in South Africa, and so focus is maintained on local mega-exhibitions, as well as significant exhibitions and training programmes that received wide press coverage and were thus influential. Many important exhibitions that were, perhaps, not dealt with on such a wide scale in the press, but that should still be acknowledged, are referred to in footnotes.
Tributaries: A View of Contemporary South African Art (1985), curated by Ricky Burnett
Before 1994 in South Africa, art spaces were largely exclusionary, aimed at the white middle to upper classes and the educated elite. Bennett and Duncan (cited in Chandler 2009) “[identif[y] the roles that public art museums perform as powerful representatives of the state and its ideologies, capable of shaping and authorizing representations of various cultures for their audiences”. Curators working in these institutions would often establish exhibitions that served to construct meaning in support of the institution. Up until this point, South African exhibitions often articulated the problematic institutional control of apartheid by excluding black32 artists from participating in institutional cultural practices, or by discrediting their contributions by applying categories that would demean the object’s contribution when contrasted with those by white artists. However, there are examples of South
31 Same Mdluli (2015) completed a PhD titled ‘From state of emergency to the dawn of democracy: Revisiting exhibitions of South African art held in South Africa (1984-1997)’, wherein she outlined the “role of art exhibitions in bringing the work of African artists, in this case ‘rural’ South Africa artists, to the attention of the contemporary world” (Mdluli 2015:ii). Mdluli (2015) considers Tributaries (1985), The Neglected Tradition: Towards a New History of South African Art (1930-1988), and The Third Cape Town Triennial (1988). Although Mdluli’s focus is different to mine, the contribution towards writing an exhibition history for South Africa, and tracing the impact of this history on contemporary praxis/understanding, is duly acknowledged. 32 In the context of this study, the use of the term ‘black’ is used inclusively to represent all those who were not classified as ‘white’, in line with Steve Biko’s (Hadfield 2017) use of the term black in the context of the Black Consciousness movement.
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African curators working during the time of apartheid in an independent capacity.33 Of particular significance in this regard was Burnett’s work on Tributaries (1985). The exhibition was held at the Africana Museum (now MuseumAfrica), in a part of the building that was normally disused. Burnett selected the space specifically, as the museum did not exert any influence on his approach towards curating and installing Tributaries (and nor indeed did BMW, its sponsor).34
Burnett intended Tributaries to represent a cross-section of South African art produced by artists from all demographics, which was generally not offered during the apartheid era. Apart from fine art, Burnett included objects across a broad range of so-called ‘problematic’ categories, such as craft, folk art, township art and ritual objects, all in one exhibition under the banner of contemporary South African art. Ivor Powell (c.1985) states that the exhibition “largely ignore[d] the official face of South African art [at the time]. Very few accepted establishment figures [were] represented”. He argues that Tributaries thus questioned the ideology around what was considered art, which was “perpetuated through the official media” (Powell c. 1985).
This critical position was accentuated by Burnett’s pairing of certain works in a manner that articulated complex aesthetic connections that disrupted the categories within which viewers would previously consider works. This can be seen specifically in the way in which Jackson Hlungwani’s Crucifix was installed (Figure 1.1) using a white plinth with a base to hold up the object. Burnett states in the video hosted by Powell (c. 1985), “[o]ne might take in example the crucifix of Hlungwani, which has
33 There are examples of curators who acted as independent curators in the 1980s and years leading up to 1995; particularly noteworthy is the exhibition The Neglected Tradition: Towards a New History of South African Art of 1988, which was guest curated by Steven Sack at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG). The exhibition was initiated by Till, who had approached Sack to take on the task. The exhibition included a curated selection of black artists’ works. Sack’s revelatory exhibition dealt with the marginalised history of black art in South Africa. The exhibition also included three white artists’ works, largely owing to the educational role that they played in relation to black artists, namely Cecil Skotnes, Edoardo Villa and Douglas Portway. The level of independent agency of Sack, however, is not as pronounced when compared to Burnett’s role in Tributaries. Another important exhibition, which was also curated by Burnett (in 1989), is Jackson Hlungwani’s retrospective exhibition. In the context of this study, however, focus is maintained on curatorial approaches regarding group exhibitions, and thus this exhibition is not discussed. 34 In an interview with Burnett (6 April 2017), he mentioned to me that he had originally approached Till in the hopes of presenting Tributaries at the JAG. However, he opted not to go ahead with this arrangement, as Till had set limitations in place and expected to have final say about which artists’ works would be included.
26 very strong Romanesque qualities. It is almost very hard to believe that it’s an indigenous African piece of work”. I would argue that the uses of western sculptural display techniques were employed to highlight these Romanesque qualities for the art audience. I have deduced that this display technique was arrived at by Burnett and not the artist, as alternative available images of Crucifix, such as those photographed by David Goldblatt for Leadership South Africa journal (Figure 1.2), as well as the image of Crucifix featured in the Tributaries catalogue (Figure 1.3), do not show a similar display base/plinth. Powell (c. 1985) criticised Burnett for doing this, arguing that it amounted to a form of ‘imperialism’. Sidney Kasfir (1992:47) emphasises that, problematically, it is mainly western curators, collectors and critics who have contributed to creating meaning for African art, which, she argues, “is not to suggest that the original work possesses no intentionality”. She goes on to say that by displaying African objects in museum contexts, the objects are ‘invented anew’ either by the curator attempting to align the object to some sort of Modernist aesthetic, or by assimilating the object within western ‘material culture’. This approach can be seen as contributing to the teleological understanding of the development of African art along the trajectory established by the ‘vanguard’ West. Kasfir (1992:47) emphasises, however, that some museum curators have found alternative ways of reinventing African art, as “anti-Modernist and anti-hegemonic”, such as Jean Martin Hubert’s Magiciens de la Terre.35
It must be noted, however, that Tributaries has been acknowledged, albeit briefly, by John Peffer (2009:284)36 as an important precedent to Magiciens. Furthermore, the ‘anti-hegemonic’ approach Kasfir refers to can be traced to Burnett’s Tributaries, prior to Hubert’s Magiciens. Powell (c. 1985) argues how, by using these devices, and displaying the work as equal to accepted ‘fine art’ counterparts, the show “challenges the existing categories that define our experience of art, and by the same token, the
35 Hereafter referred to as Magiciens, the exhibition was curated by Hubert at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in 1989. It was controversial, in that it was both criticised for defying accepted conceptions of ‘fine’ art in the West, and for “decontextualizing” ritual objects. African art included in Magiciens was presented as “the art of the conjurer (magicien) and at the same time this act of conjuring was equated (quite misleadingly) with the cultural production of a Western avant-garde” in an attempt to demonstrate ‘affinities’ between western and non-western cultural production (Kasfir 1992:41). Artists selected for inclusion in Tributaries, particularly paintings by Esther Mahlangu and unnamed Ndebele painters, were also included in Magiciens. Smith (2012a:118) states that “Magiciens de le Terre must be acknowledged as offering the first European foothold to artists from outside the West”. 36 This was done by adding a note to the end of a chapter in his book.
27 ideologies that underlie them”. Despite the curatorial renunciation of the original context of the objects by presenting them as artworks, Burnett made use of a democratic curatorial composition to display the varying objects, which I consider to be devoid of categories or hierarchical distinctions. In other words, Burnett challenged inherited state/museum-sponsored practices of the time, firstly by opting to include varying objects, and secondly, by opting to not group the objects according to categories in their display, such as such as ‘high art’, ‘craft’ or ‘ritual’ objects.37 Grouping the objects, and thereby implying a hierarchy, would have been an accepted approach to distinguish between white and black practitioners’ artworks implicit at the time. In contrast, however, Burnett’s democratic technique defies these normal limitations with regards to inclusion and exclusion. I argue that, despite many problematic decisions, Burnett’s Tributaries expressed the possibilities of adopting a democratic exhibition selection that had far greater influence on current curatorial methodologies than much literature credits.
Dubin (2006:42) has also pointed out that Tributaries ‘presaged’ a democratic technique that became popular in major South African galleries post-1994,38 but little more is available that highlights how Burnett’s approach demonstrates an early shift in thinking about the curatorial project. Although much has been written of Tributaries’ significance in relation to Burnett’s catholic approach towards making selections, minimal focus has been applied to identifying the influence Tributaries had on changing South African curatorial methodologies and approaches. In an interview with Burnett, Sean O’Toole (2010:74) questions Burnett about the “consequences of his 1985 curatorial provocation”, to which Burnett responds by outlining a vague reference to Andrew Verster’s (1985) acknowledgement that after
37 Such classifications denote hierarchical implications as ‘high’ art is distinguished as the “privileged sphere of art” and should be “free from commercial motive”, as this reduces objects to domestic decoration (Kasfir 1999:102). ‘High’ art in the western sense is non-utilitarian, non-commercial and élite (Kasfir 1999:102). Craft, a western distinction, has historically been a term associated with African art, and more specifically non-academically trained black artists, where objects are considered ‘lesser’ as opposed to their elitist ‘high’ art counterparts, and are often replications or replicated, and easily commodified. Ritual objects, on the other hand, are mostly identified as art by western curators owing to their aesthetic applications, but to their makers, the objects are important rather because they possess “visual power and ritual efficacy” (Kasfir 1999:104). Accordingly, such categorisations highlight the favouring of western high art as elitist, craft as easily commodifiable, and ritual objects as created by authentically naïve artists. 38 An aspect of Burnett’s career not often mentioned, and which emerged during an interview, was that he opened a gallery in Newtown during the early 1990s, which was independently funded and run, and which adopted a similar democratic approach in its exhibitions.
28
Tributaries, Verster claimed “[n]othing will ever be the same again” (cited in O’Toole 2010:79). When pressed further, Burnett (cited in O’Toole 2010:79) states:
I’m not sure what the devastating effects were. Universities changed the way they thought about how they taught art history, museums rethought what they were collecting and why they were collecting it, commercial galleries thought more openly about who could be makers of art, buyers of art thought more openly about it, there was a whole lot of stuff that went on about how to write about it, how should we talk about this, and so on.
Thus, although the influence, and impact, that Tributaries had on South African history and approach to curating is implied, it has never been explicitly traced in a comprehensive study.
Although Burnett was radical in terms of making inclusive selections, and installing the works in an uncategorised manner in the exhibition, the catalogue entries were still cast in a way where black artists’ works could be read as inferior. This can be deduced from Figure 1.3, where Jackson Hlungwani’s work is rendered in the context of his role as a rural spiritual healer, and not necessarily to outline the artistic qualities of the object. The Romanesque qualities of the piece, which Burnett highlighted in the display, are not read in this articulation of Hlungwani’s work; instead, the object is considered in association with Hlungwani’s position and context. The catalogue’s interpretation of the categories is thus a point of criticism, as it diverges from the exhibition’s installation, which can be read as a critique of the representation of South African objects in terms of categories. Carman’s (2007) article similarly discusses how, despite the selections and inclusions, the manner in which the art was presented and discussed in the exhibition statements and catalogues still positions black artists’ work as outside of the historical context of contemporary urban art. When considering the curatorial statement available on the exhibition, the focus remains on the critique of autonomous art objects rather than on the consideration of the exhibition as a whole. Neither the catalogue nor archival matter includes installation views of Tributaries,39 which I find problematic, as it is in
39 Most of the photographs Burnett had of the exhibition’s installation were lost in a robbery during the 1990s. Reviews of the exhibition include images of the individual art objects, and not the installation shots of the exhibitions — which indicate the spirit of the time, namely an interest in the objects, and not necessarily the curatorial methodologies and relationships created between works on exhibition. A major source is the UNISA video, hosted by Powell; however, the copy available is not the best quality from which to extract installation images.
29 the installation itself where the criticisms towards categorising art according to dichotomies (white/black, art/craft, high/low) emerge.
Tributaries is celebrated for being progressive by making the leap to include black, marginalised artists, and thereby indirectly criticising the current dominant political situation. I maintain that, in addition, Tributaries is worth mentioning as it indicated the potential for a curator working from an independent curatorial position to challenge accepted hierarchies and categories. Tributaries can thus be noted as conveying an early shift in thinking about the curatorial project. Although the BMW sponsorship has been regarded as a point of suspicion when considering Burnett’s independence, and much of the literature available on Tributaries was focused on BMW’s corporate sponsorship, Burnett (2017, see Appendix 1A) recently reiterated that BMW exerted no influence on his decisions as curator.40 Dubin (2006:42) has also quoted an art critic who defended Burnett’s independent position at the time, stating “[p]urity is neither relevant nor possible in the South African political and aesthetic contexts today. Everything comes already tainted and the issue is what the organisers have done with the sponsorship, not where it came from”. Here, the implication is that despite accepting sponsorship from BMW, the funding was used in a way that allowed Burnett to circumvent institutional pressures that aligned with political legislature of the time, and therefore to maintain a level of autonomy. I would contend that Burnett’s decision to work independently came from a desire to be free of institutional restraint.
Although at the time Burnett’s curatorial approach was regarded as quasi- experimental in his autonomous positioning and democratic selection and installation of objects, he still used a traditional curatorial methodology of hanging the works in a white-cube style space that he had constructed in the Africana Museum (Figure 1.4). It can be argued that during the apartheid years, and in the context of the cultural boycott, it was far more important to the cultural community that the curator questioned the dominant political system by making what was then considered ‘radical inclusions’, rather than the curator questioning the conventions of curatorial
40 In the interview, Burnett did acknowledge, for the record, that BMW Chief Executive, Eberhardt van Kobe, did request that he consult with the managing director’s wife, and her best friend, who was Karen Skawran, Head of Fine Arts, UNISA, at the time. Burnett highlights that when meeting, they were supportive and did not interfere, but rather endorsed his decisions.
30 practice itself. Tributaries thus expressed the ability of the autonomous curatorial project to critique political dispositions and question the underlying ideologies evident in the manner in which artworks were categorised. Burnett’s autonomous role in Tributaries, and the freedoms this afforded him, may also have had an influence in steering local curators towards adopting independent strategies, an approach similarly used by the facilitators of Africus, the first Johannesburg biennale, a decade after Tributaries.
Africus: Johannesburg (1995), curated by Lorna Ferguson and Christopher Till
Africus (1995) was the first large-scale mega-exhibition held in South Africa, and was contextualised as a promotional tool that would show to the world, and South Africa itself, that a more democratic cultural politics was emerging. The biennale model, first conceived in Venice in 1895,41 has come to signify a large-scale international group exhibition that recurs every two to five years, characterised by a focus on ‘internationalism’ and cultural globalism rather than a unified curatorial concept (O’Neill 2012:52). This means that biennales are often used as “promotional [tools] for nations” in solidifying international and transnational ties, and thus prove valuable for cultural policymakers (O’Neill 2012:51). Recognising this appeal, Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B) began conceptualising ways of initiating a biennale that could create “new visions, alliances and realities” in order to establish South Africa as a major site for art production in the “international cultural arena” (Ferguson 1995:9).
Africus opened in February 1995, just short of one year after the first democratic election in South Africa. However, despite its inauguration in a post-apartheid climate, Ferguson began the conceptualisation for the biennale as early as 1993, and it was announced to the public by Till in that same year, according to Natasha Becker (2011:86).42 Africus was thus realised during tumultuous political change that saw the
41 The first biennale, established in 1895 in Venice, Italy, included mainly Italian art, with one room reserved for art from various nations, selected by a jury (O’Neill 2012:147). More than 50 years later, the São Paulo Biennale (1951) was established as part of a post-war reconstructive initiative, followed shortly by Germany’s establishment of Documenta in 1955, a large-scale exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Germany, which was used as a tool to reconnect it to the world following the atrocities of World War II (O’Neill 2012:147). 42 Powell (1995b:[sp]) argued that Africus was a project of the ‘old’ Johannesburg City Council, a position similarly supported by Becker (2011:87), who argues that although Africus “was promoted
31 establishment of the interim South African Constitution (1993), the official dissolution of apartheid after the first democratic election in 1994, and the beginning of the ANC’s first term in power. In the Foreword to the catalogue, Till (1995:7) also expresses the view that the biennale was intended as a catalyst to begin processes of reparation and development in the South African arts; a main focus for the biennale was to deal with the “uneven distribution of cultural resources in South Africa”. Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B) stresses that part of conceptualising the biennale involved an initial visit with Hubert (curator of the Pompidou Centre in Paris) to discuss the exhibition Magiciens (1989), which was premised on curating an inclusive, African exhibition. Tributaries has been acknowledged as an important precedent to Magiciens, and thus I suggest that Tributaries was an important example for the curatorial origin of Africus. This is particularly evident in Africus’ use of independent space, as well as its catholic approach towards selecting local artists’ works, which was facilitated by using selection committees (discussed later in this section).
Ferguson and Till worked in an autonomous fashion in an attempt to facilitate an independent Johannesburg biennale that could contrast directly with the previous political and socio-cultural policies of apartheid South Africa. Both Ferguson and Till were aware that the curation and facilitation of Africus needed to remain sensitive at this political moment. Till (1995:7) refers to the curatorial methodology for Africus as premised through ‘indirect involvement’, initiated through setting up a complex committee43 system to select South African artists for inclusion. Breitz (1995:89) argues that the system was formulated to respond to the anxiety around equal representation. In fact, much of the available literature on Africus focuses on discussing the complex selection committee system.44 Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B) professes that the committee system process, which comprises a large
under the rhetoric of post-apartheid nation-building” and funded by the African National Congress (ANC), the premature announcement meant that Till was “speaking as a functionary of a bureaucratic and institutional structure that belonged to the ‘old’ South Africa”. 43 As listed in the catalogue of Africus, there were three major committees: the ‘Biennale Advisory Committee’ consisting of Alan Crump, Rory Doepel, Linda Givon, Rochelle Keene, Eric Lubisi, Napo Mokoena and Leslie Spiro; the ‘Curatorial Advisory Committee’ made up of Julia Charlton, Wilma Cruise, Neil Dundas, Kendell Geers, Karel Nel, Durant Sihlali and Linos Siwedi; and the ‘Educational Advisory Committee’ made up of Arlene Amaler-Raviv, Rayda Becker, Willem Boshoff, Keith Dietrich, Gordon Froud, Elsa Miles, Brent Record and Sydney Malefo Selepe (Bowyer & Breitz 1995:4). 44 Breitz’s (1995) article also focuses on outlining the complex consultative committee system.
32 part of the overall curatorial methodology, was inspired by talks surrounding the new constitution,45 which encouraged a democratic stance towards inclusion and representation. The collective curatorial selection process thus bypassed responsibility being held by any single curator,46 showing a shift away from curators in an authorial position (typically in museums) towards more collective curatorial practices.
Becker (2011:89-90) considers Africus a failure, highlighting that what she terms the limited curatorial vision and lack of “conceptual rigour” contributed towards reinforcing, rather than undermining, apartheid mentality. Africus was contextualised using the curatorial themes “Decolonising the mind” and “Volatile Alliances”. These themes were mentioned only briefly in a five-sentence paragraph in the Foreword to the catalogue (Till 1995:7), and the curatorial statement in the catalogue circumvents any elaboration on the theme.47 The themes framing the biennale seem to have been sidestepped in order to accommodate the selection committee processes that attempted to respond to the sensitive issue of equal representation. In contrast to Becker’s position, Breitz’s (1995:89) article defends the biennale, calling attention to the ‘launch effect’ that Africus had in terms of South Africa’s ‘coming out’ to the international art community.
45 The interim constitution of the country began being formulated in 1993. Ferguson was privy to some of the information in these talks because her brother, Malcom Ferguson, was involved in discussions while being a part of the Department of Foreign Affairs (Ferguson 2016, see Appendix 1B). 46 Powell (1995b:[sp]) highlights that, while the biennale professed to be concerned with the issue of representation, only one South African curator was not white. Despite the aim to attend to uneven distributions of cultural resources locally, of the fifteen main exhibition venues listed in the catalogue, only two were located in black townships, namely the Molofo Art Centre and the Funda Art Centre. The Molofo Art Centre was used as the venue for the Soweto Outreach Programme, which included a myriad of exhibitions and projects that showed what local artists were producing. This venue is not traditionally used as an exhibition venue per se, but rather as a space where programmes for artists working outside the Johannesburg city centre are presented. This approach is set in stark contrast to the South African exhibitions included in the biennale, all shown in the central exhibition venues in Johannesburg. The Funda Art Centre, although referred to in the catalogue, has no listed participating artists, despite the curator, Sokhaya Nkosi, being mentioned. The outline that accompanies the dedicated entry in the catalogue reads as a future plan for the centre in terms of the fine art programme that is offered there, and thus it provides an outline of the educational enterprise, rather than a curatorial framework. Furthermore, these two venues were not developed by biennale funding, and did not include international, or funded, curatorial components in the biennale (Powell 1995b:[sp]). Overall, less than five per cent of funding resources were allocated to community projects and development (Powell 1995b:[sp]). The main venues for the biennale were in Johannesburg central, which was probably thought to be more accessible to the white elite than marginal communities. Jane Duncan (2001:300) also emphasises that the country’s need “to address the huge disparities in the arts” was not initiated in the biennale, and thus it seemed to signify the deeper issues around power struggles, evident in the spaces of the city. 47 The Foreword seemed to focus on defending ‘why’ the Johannesburg biennale should have taken place, rather than on elaborating on its thematic conception.
33
Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B), discussing the biennale in retrospect, describes it as the first example of ‘soft-curating’,48 which in this context implies that the curatorial model was “infinitely flexible, encouraging of multiple voices and [devoid of] prescribed limitations”. Soft curating has further been defined by the artist Kendell Geers (1999) as “a method for producing exhibitions where the artists determine the content and presentation of the exhibition”, and the intention is that the curatorial procedure would be transparent and democratic. I would argue, then, that the reason the thematic framework was not emphasised or enforced more was that this would have required the facilitators to adopt a stricter selection process, which would work against their remedial stance: any artist, or any person who considered him/herself to be a practising artist, despite their educational background, technical mastery or acknowledgement in the field, was invited to compile a catalogue of works for consideration by the curatorial advisory committee. The division and allocation of exhibition space49 was predetermined to avoid a strong European contingent; Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B) wished to ensure that the South African and African countries’ exhibitions intersected with the European components. This refusal to impose dichotomies, which could imply hierarchy, challenged the typical representations of African art in the context of European art (Breitz 1995:89). The lack of strict thematic parameters and prerequisites for including work in the exhibition culminated in what Breitz (1995:91-95) describes as a biennale that she sees as un-curated — “a chaotic discursive space” that “disrupted the neat parameters which we have come to expect from international exhibitions representing ‘Africa’”.50
48 A term discussed by Ferguson, along with Bruce Ferguson, during a panel discussion at the São Paulo Biennale in 1995. Bruce Ferguson (curator of Site Santa Fe and art critic for Art Forum) and Ferguson (co-ordinator of the Johannesburg Biennial 1995) entered into a discussion on the issue of soft curating. 49 This was the responsibility of Thomas Mulcaire and the appointed architects, and was then approved by Ferguson. Mulcaire and Breitz were appointed as assistants or interns to Ferguson during the biennale. 50 Becker’s (2011:89) contrasting position should be acknowledged, as she argues that the “lack of conceptual rigour”, which Ferguson is quoted as defending owing to the biennale’s political focus around self-representation, served to further highlight the overall ‘unevenness’ of the quality of works on display. Breitz (1995:94) would argue, however, that focusing on the ‘quality’ of the work on exhibition is “symptomatic of the same colonial hangover which gave rise to the disappointment of some in the lack of a rational organising principle for the Biennale”, with which I agree. I would emphasise that it was the inclusive approach towards selections that would influence curatorial methodologies in future.
34
Ferguson (2016, see Appendix 1B) claims that Africus was not based on the Venetian ‘pavilion model’, and that it was not intended to reflect a national voice. Yet, despite Ferguson’s stated intention, each curator’s display was indicated by their country of origin, both in the exhibition layout, as well as the catalogue account. International curators were, however, encouraged to include South African artists in their country’s exhibition in order to reduce the impact of a geographically oriented biennale. The Electric Workshop, one of the key venues of the biennale, could be seen as a curatorial tool that distinguishes the local curatorial aesthetic in opposition to the ‘Venetian formula’ for curating a biennale (see Figures 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 & 1.8 for installation views) (Breitz 1995:92).51 Although Breitz (1995:92) acknowledges that this “irony was often lost on the curator[s]” — the “industrial warehouse complete with hanging cranes, dusty alleys and unfathomable nooks and crannies” set a tone for the biennale that emulated the contentious planning and installation of the event.52 The transience, chaos and energy of the Electric Workshop (whether conscious or not), however, can be directly contrasted with the failure of the installation at MuseumAfrica. The MuseumAfrica installation echoed the ‘sanitised ambience’ (Breitz 1995:91) inherent in western conceptions of museums, which did not sit well in the local context. Figure 1.9 shows Geers’ installation of Volatile Colonies at MuseumAfrica, showing that although the installation was experimental, the space itself used a white cube-like formula, with white walls and geometric floor space. Despite the structured pavilion-style layout where each space was divided into a ‘booth’ (seen in Figure 1.10), the Venetian biennale model was adjusted for local requirements by ensuring South African artist’s works were included in country-
51 Arguably, the repeated focus on democratic processes laid the foundation for the tempestuous reception that surrounded the initiation and installation of the 1995 biennale. According to Breitz (1995:90), “It was by virtue of the dissonances which resulted from the loosely conducted interactions of the various components of the Biennale, that the viewers were privy to a performance which reflected far more elaborately on the status quo of South African art than they might have been had Ferguson elected to wield a more authoritarian conductor’s baton”. 52 However, in stark contrast to this position, in a personal conversation with Elizabeth Rankin (2016), who taught at the University of the Witwatersrand in the early 1990s, she revealed that at the last minute, a mezzanine floor was installed at the workshop, which altered the space and disrupted the sculptors’ plans — all of whom were creating works in response to the space itself. Rankin had been asked to write a statement on the sculpture exhibition curated by Wilma Cruise at the time, indicating her insider knowledge. As the wall heights, lighting and overall impact were changed by the curator’s last-minute decision, the sculptures were not received in the manner intended, and the overall success of the show was negatively compromised. Although Breitz (1995:92) argues that the curators often overlooked the impact of the space, it can be argued that the artists intended to work with the space closely, as a tool that could inform their works.
35 specific pavilions.53 Despite this adaptation, however, the biennale was still considered ‘ensnared’ between the local demands of the art community on issues of representation and the bureaucracy of the Johannesburg City Council, which was criticised for being more focused on promoting the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) than on issues of cultural redress.54
Breitz (1995:89) states that Africus had “fail[ed] to emulate the Venetian formula”, a position she implies was Africus’ greatest coup, even if it was unintentional. Although Breitz focuses on explaining the committee system and the resultant lack of a descriptive ‘African’ aesthetic55 in the exhibitions, she overlooks the impact the biennale may have had on curating practices in the long run. I argue that the biennale’s committee system had further impact, not only in terms of questioning ways of exhibiting African art, but also in terms of giving prominence to curatorial methodologies that could contest the categorisation of African objects, such as high versus low art, art versus craft and contemporary versus traditional. I maintain that the curators’ attempt at adapting the received Venetian formula highlights an acknowledgement that it was insufficient for South Africa in 1995, and thus this approach provided a space for acknowledging possibilities in formulating local solutions (whether successful or not). Africus served to demonstrate how Euro- American or international approaches towards curatorial methodologies should not simply be imported, but need to be adapted in response to the local context.
Vogel (2013:46) argues that the curatorial courses and training programmes linked to Africus contributed most critically to a newfound interest in exhibition histories and
53 Considering the South African popular voice and the call for diverse representation of local artists, it can be deduced that there would not be sufficient exhibiting opportunities for local artists had this approach not been implemented. 54 The biennale was used as a springboard to develop policies that advocated the conception of the ‘new’ South Africa in arts and culture. This culminated in the establishment of the Arts and Culture Task Group (Actag) — a representative policy-making body aimed at radically revising the cultural sector by focusing on higher representations of marginalised groups, and insisting on a multicultural and pluralistic approach in arts and culture. These reports, released at a time that coincided with the end of the biennale, revealed that there was still a need to account for under-representation in South Africa. The Actag policies thus failed to be reflected in the biennale itself. Becker’s (2011:86) investigation titled Butisi Tart? focuses on accounting for why, despite being “conceived, promoted and contextualized within the rhetoric of post-apartheid nation-building”, Africus cannot be seen as a project of the new South Africa. Butisi Tart was also the title of Chicken-man Mkhize’s artwork, a faux traffic sign, included in the biennale, which was used in its publicity material. 55 Breitz (1995:90) states that “[m]any of [the biennale’s] detractors felt that they would have liked ‘Africus’ to have been more ‘African’ in character”.
36 curatorial practice: “[an] important reason [for the extensive interest in the history of exhibitions] is the establishment of curatorial studies programs — since these are conceived as places for practical training as well as theoretical research”. Africus’ initiation of the Trainee Curator Programme seemed to inject the South African art arena with new interest in the discipline and practice of curatorship itself.56 However, the trainee programme and its impact on local curatorial practice have tended to be overlooked both in the biennale catalogue and in literature that discusses it (reviews, curatorial statements, newspaper articles, etc.). Both Vogel (2013:46) and, later, Millard (2016:7) highlight that academic curatorial studies programmes were conceived of in the West only during the late 1980s, gaining traction in the 1990s, and becoming more popular in the 2000s. However, in South Africa, curatorial programmes had not been established prior to the curatorial training programme that was directly linked to Africus.57
According to Clive Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C), the Trainee Curator Programme was an official course of the Africus Johannesburg Biennale. It was, however, facilitated by Stephen Sack, who was head of the Johannesburg Art Foundation.58 The Trainee Curator Programme comprised a series of guest lectures on various topics concerning curatorial practice; assignments; critical reviews of exhibitions; and practical training gained through internships. Trainees were also partnered with an experienced international curator throughout the programme, wherein the trainee
56 The curator trainee programme was 18 months long, and culminated in the biennale exhibition. Thus, the programme was initiated mid-1993. 57 In an email conversation with Rankin (2017/07/27), who was seminal in establishing a formalised course on museum practice at Wits in 1998, she outlines how the idea of establishing a ‘Museum Studies’ course took its origin from a joint course taught between Art History and Anthropology, which was available to the respective BA Honours students. Rankin (2017/07/27) states that a variety of lecturers were involved, and the vision was that the course would be applicable to a variety of disciplines (Arts and Sciences) that could be part of a museum programme. The core focus of the course was therefore museology, culminating in a research essay/dissertation with a museum focus. However, curatorial courses are not the same as courses in museology and archiving, which focus on caring for the objects as opposed to activating the objects in context to particular thematic enquiries. In an interview, Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C), a seminal South African curator who was also a trainee in the Africus curator trainee programme, highlights that prior to seeing the advertisement asking for applicants, he had not encountered alternative options where curatorial practice formed the main focus. Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) even states that in his academic Fine Arts study programme at Natal Technikon, “[t]here was no mention of the word curator or curating at any time during my four years and very little, if any, exposure to contemporary artistic practice”. The lack of international focus at Natal Technikon does not necessarily tally with what was happening elsewhere. However, it does reflect that in the 1990s a focus on curatorial practice was not part of the expected offering of a course in Fine Arts / Art History, as it has become in more recent years. 58 The Johannesburg Art Foundation was an independent art school founded by Bill Ainslie.
37 was expected to assist the curator in all tasks (organising, conceptualising, liaising with artists, etc.) in order to gain experience. Upon completion, trainees were provided with certificates.59 Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) argues that the Trainee Curatorial Programme’s greatest contribution can be attributed to it being “the first multicultural programme of curators and [the] first formal study programme for independent curators in South Africa”.60 According to Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C), the trainee programme, and the biennale itself, had a vast impact on introducing the notion of curating as a professional practice, and more importantly “making manifest the various curatorial approaches applied by curators to their exhibitions”. As Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) observes:
Africus contributed to a general consciousness [and] a launch of the notion of curating. The result was a series of curated exhibitions over the years in museums and institutions but also in non-conventional spaces, encompassing the fundamentals of independent curating in South African art. It was a period where a curator came up with a concept, engaged with artists in producing or selecting works, produced a curatorial text, ensured some basic marketing (posters, press release) oversaw the installation in the venue, did a public opening and a series of talks. It led to a lot of important shows and debates.61
Thus, it is clear that the establishment of the Trainee Curatorial Programme for Africus was instrumental in instigating further interest in the curatorial in South Africa. As the curatorial approach of Africus can be directly linked to the political moment at the time, the dismantling of apartheid and the end of the cultural boycott can also be seen as accelerating contemporary curatorial discourse. However, the political moment also made other issues more pertinent in South Africa, as opposed to just critically questioning the role of curating practices. As a result, curating practices
59 According to Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C), “[t]he programme involved guest lecturers or speakers on a variety of topics, some local and some international, i.e. a visit to the Johannesburg Art Gallery and discussion with the curators. A talk by Michael Kaiser (US) on fundraising. I think there were also assignments. We all also undertook an internship in a local institution. Each trainee curator also travelled overseas to work with a foreign curator. In terms of what was expected of the trainee curators, we were expected to attend the programme, be available 5 days a week and commit to the final Biennale exhibition working together with the foreign curators on the exhibition. We also undertook a national tour of South Africa together with all the foreign curators, travelling by air and road (mini buses) to meet with artists, i.e. Venda, Cape Town etc”. 60 The programme included a broad selection of candidates from all over South Africa, reflecting a strong gender balance and comprising 15 trainees, of whom three were white (Kellner 2017, see Appendix 1C). 61 Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) highlights that this comment implies the period before the market becomes dominant and museums still produced important shows; there were no art fairs and one auction house, therefore ideas still drove curating and artistic production in fundamental ways.
38 were not as ‘reflexive’ of curating as the western curatorial counterparts were at this time, but instead show how South African curatorial strategies were adjusted in response to local conditions. More pressing than questioning curatorial practice was the need to formulate methods of dealing with issues around representation in the (then) newly formed democratic society. Furthermore, it can be argued that Africus influenced ways of curating locally, as curating — in this instance — was recognised as a professional practice and a tool that could be used to engage socio-cultural or political issues in the public domain, as is evident through the number of reviews and newspaper articles dealing with the exhibition. Although Africus was seen as a failure in many ways, it did accelerate engagement with the nuances of the practice of curating, and arguably inspired further practitioners to challenge curatorial parameters in an attempt to respond to these failures. It is thus this position, I maintain, that led to the initiation of alternative approaches towards conceptualising and installing exhibitions, as seen in Miscast, which is discussed in the next section.
Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture (1996), curated by Pippa Skotnes
Miscast,62 guest-curated by the artist Skotnes at the South African National Gallery (SANG) in 1996, was a “critical and visual exploration” of the various relationships to which the term ‘Bushmen’63 gave rise, and how this was articulated in material culture (Skotnes 1996:18). The exhibition investigated issues of imbalance, extreme objectification and the genocide of the Khoisan people in South African history. The objectification of the Khoisan people was often entrenched through various museum displays of them as standing outside the processes of history and change. Skotnes’ exhibition directly responded to one such example, ‘The Bushman Diorama’ display
62 It is interesting to note that the title of the exhibition, Miscast: Negotiating Khoisan History and Material Culture, and the title of its catalogue differ, the latter being entitled Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen. Skotnes wanted the same title for the exhibition; however, the South African National Gallery was unwilling to include the term ‘Bushmen’ since it has “historically carried pejorative connotations for many people in the Western Cape who were classified as ‘coloured’ during the apartheid era” (Butler 2000:74). 63 The term ‘Bushmen’ is highly fraught in South African history as a result of its derogatory use. I opt to use the term for the purposes of this discussion of Miscast as Skotnes’ curatorial investigation was centered on exploring the contentious relationship between the term and material culture. At the time, the term ‘Bushmen’ was largely deemed offensive and constituent of hate-speech; however, much of the material culture was still openly displayed in museums at the same time (and was equally offensive).
39 at the South African Museum64 (Figure 1.11) that showed Bushmen “cast out of time, out of politics and out of history” — or ‘miscast’ as Skotnes (1996:17) draws attention to in the title.
According to Butler (2000:80), for the exhibition Skotnes displayed material evidence of this violent history: Miscast displayed in a prominent fashion artifacts and images of colonial control and violence. Picture a stack of rifles, photos of colonial brutality, images of naked native bodies on public display, boxes representing colonial archives with labels such as ‘Human Remains. Not Suitable for Display,’ and displays of medical and scientific instruments used to measure and codify racial difference. As counterpoints to these evocations of forms of colonial violence, there was a series of cases displaying historical examples of Khoisan material culture. […] A second resource room included copies of Khoisan rock paintings, contemporary photographs of the Khoisan by Paul Weinberg, as well as a vinyl floor covered in a montage of photographs, documents, and newspaper clippings related to the colonization and exhibition of the Khoisan.
In the exhibition, Skotnes referred to twelve cases of Khoisan individuals, and one instance of a female ethnographer, Lucy Lloyd, who was responsible for compiling an extensive archive of the /Xam and !Kung.65 Skotnes (1997:12) explains that the thirteen cases referred to the Last Supper “in which individuals have been sacrificed in the interests of pervasive displays of a collective racial type”. A grey brick structure was installed to evoke “fort, jail and tomb as well as church” (Skotnes 1997:12). Skotnes (1996:18) states: “The representations that form the substance of this exhibition, and the images and articles that constitute [the catalogue], are representations of relationships” that suggest issues of imbalance, extreme objectification, dispossession and marginalisation.
64 According to Butler (2000:79), at the time, “the diorama [was] situated alongside exhibits of fossils, skeletons of dinosaurs and whales, and animal and plant specimens. Implicitly, the exhibit [reinforced] popular stereotypes of ‘the primitive’ as being prehistoric and unchanging, and as being linked to animality and nature, as opposed to culture and history”. I have changed the quotation by Butler to past tense, as in April 2001 the exhibit was closed down, symbolising the museum’s commitment to change. When James Drury originally modelled the casts in 1912, “[h]is mission was to cast Bushmen for scientific study and his intention was to put them on display as examples of a pure racial type” (News24 Archives 2001). 65 What made Lloyd’s archive unique was that it was an extensive, sensitive attempt to “preserve the memories of cultures and traditions that were fatally threatened” (Skotnes 1996:23).
40
As her starting point, Skotnes investigated the colonialists’ obsessive fascination with the Bushmen, as well as their ultimate responsibility for constructing the primitivist ideology around them. This, Skotnes attempted to show, is ultimately foregrounded through the European manner of exhibiting Bushmen, often taking them to Europe to be put on display to emphasise the Bushman body’s perceived peculiarities (Skotnes 1996:17).66 Most museums67 gave Skotnes unreserved access to their material, as well as permission to reproduce the disturbing images that she included in the exhibition and in the publication. Her intention was to provide the public with evidence of the violence enacted upon the Khoisan, most of which was normally hidden from public access: In the end, and despite the horror of some of the images, I decided to include examples of the full range of the material I have collected, believing that these images are the material evidence of the attitudes people held toward each other, and that this evidence should be exposed for all to see. One exception, [sic] was the decision not to feature any of the many photographs of women’s genitals (Skotnes 1996:19).
Miscast acknowledges that it was the Europeans who were mostly responsible for the destruction of Khoisan (or Bushmen) culture and, furthermore, for homogenising the many San and Khoi groups into a single unit, referred to as ‘Bushmen’ (Skotnes 1996:17).
The exhibition received much attention in the press, and was explored (and criticised) for adopting an unconventional approach towards curating and display. Skotnes chose a collaborative curatorial position in an attempt to avoid presenting a single perspective on Khoisan history. She aimed to highlight the genocide enacted against the Khoisan, and to bring into the public eye a critical examination of the erasure of Khoisan history. The exhibition, however, is predominantly discussed by focusing on issues of inclusion, consultation and sensitivity towards the display practices. My aim is rather to contextualise how Skotnes’ position as an autonomous curator provided her with an opportunity to think progressively around the politics of display and to
66 The most famous of the individuals placed on display in Europe was Sarah Baartman (the so-called ‘Hottentot Venus’), whose naked body, plaster casts, and preserved brain and genitals were displayed in Paris at the Musée de l’Homme up until 1974. 67 With the exception of the Natural History Museum in London.
41 show how the role of collaborative-curator / guest-curator / artist-curator indicates a shift in approach towards traditional curatorial methodologies prevalent at that time.
Skotnes employed curatorial methodologies to attempt to outline the relationships between ‘Bushmen’ and white settlers, and to highlight the consequences of these encounters. Figure 1.12 shows the installation in which Skotnes covered the floor with colonial images of Khoisan ‘miscast’, upon which visitors were invited to walk in order to explore the displays — a technique that elicited much criticism. Skotnes’ goal was to highlight the genocide enacted against the Khoisan by bringing it into the public eye through a critical examination of the erasure of history reiterated through the “innocence that surrounds the Bushman diorama [display] at the South African Museum” (Butler 2000:80). Skotnes thus attempted to provide a meta-critique of the static institution of colonial curating in South African museums. Her curatorial position, as guest curator with no working ties to the SANG, and her critical curatorial methodology, which innovated ways of showing multiple Khoisan histories that critiqued the ahistorical colonial display techniques of the colonialists, attempted to expose the problematic methodologies of western practices of exhibiting the Khoisan and their material culture.
Although Skotnes’ position was independent of the institution, the space itself is an important aspect of the exhibition and influences the context in which viewers read it. Mieke Bal (1992:561) notes that the “museum is a product of colonialism in a postcolonial era”.68 In light of the relationship between South African museums and apartheid spatial politics (Butler 2000:74), and considering that space in curatorial practice can be seen as the vehicle that frames the contextual reading of the exhibition, Skotnes’ decision to install the exhibition at SANG — a museum with an extensive colonial history in South Africa — can be considered transgressive, and an attempt at presenting a new kind of exhibition within a space associated with colonial histories. Thus, Miscast can be considered an attempt to critique the broader power relations and histories associated with exhibiting Bushmen using curatorial techniques. Butler (2000:86), however, criticises Skotnes for making the assumption
68 According to Butler (2000:74), “critical museology associates museums with a politics of domination, especially with regard to questions of how the West exhibits non-western cultures. It focuses on museum practices of collecting, classifying, and displaying material culture”.
42 that her audience would be mainly white, and ostensible lack of sensitivity towards the descendants of those victimised by colonial brutality. This position is shared by Yvette Abrahams69 (cited in Butler 2000:85), who stated: “The display of casts, nudity, and images of colonial humiliation were deeply sensitive issues for descendants of the Khoisan, [which served to] reinforce feelings of shame and dishonour”.
Skotnes, perhaps anticipating the possibilities of such a response, chose a collaborative curatorial position when researching possible display approaches for Miscast. She consulted community elders, drew on the expertise of colleagues in museums and universities, and embarked on ten years of research prior to staging the exhibition (Martin 1996:10). Skotnes’ attempts to negotiate the different subject positions (as a white curator attempting to “re-present colonial and modernist practices of exhibiting culture and objectification in a critical light” [Butler 2000:74]), led her to work from the position of artist-curator, wherein the curator installs an exhibition using the elements for display as one would use media in an artwork. Accordingly, as Marilyn Martin70 (1996:10) states, “[c]uratorship itself becomes the creative act”. Skotnes’ exploration and negotiation of various curatorial positions, namely guest-curator, artist-curator and collective research-curator, expresses her intentions to use curating and her curatorial position as a tool to critique traditional display techniques. It can be inferred that Skotnes’ consultative process was an attempt to acknowledge multiple possible readings of a history, and thus to mount an exhibition display that might offer a more appropriate solution for a postcolonial, multicultural South African society than traditionalist shows.
Miscast was conceived to reconceptualise outmoded curatorial methodologies employed in museums, and particularly, it can be regarded as an attempt to critique “western practices of exhibiting the Khoisan, Khoisan artefacts and material culture” (Butler 2000:74). Despite the wide criticism it received, it was the starting point for much debate around issues of representation, inclusion, exclusion and othering, specifically those in exhibition displays. Skotnes’ approach towards Miscast
69 Evette Abrahams, a visitor to the exhibition, was a PhD student in History at the University of Cape Town at the time, as well as a member of the !Hurikamma Cultural Movement (Butler 2000:85). 70 Martin, at the time of Miscast, was the Director of the South African National Gallery.
43 demonstrates an extension in thinking about the curatorial project and the reflexive nature of the curator this entailed. Skotnes’ role as collaborative-curator / guest- curator / artist-curator expresses a shift in approach towards previous methodologies, and, despite the criticisms outlined above, Miscast indicates a change in attitude towards curatorial convention at the time. It is clear that Skotnes’ approach towards curatorship was one that regarded the practice as a vehicle that could mobilise a critical position, criticise dominant histories and power relations, and reconceptualise received display methodologies.
Trade Routes: History and Geography (1997), directed by Okwui Enwezor
The second Johannesburg biennale opened in 1997. Enwezor, the biennale director, stayed independent from institutions in South Africa that were shrouded by the legacy of separatist ideology. Under his artistic directorship, the second Johannesburg biennale was modelled around the conceptual framework of Trade Routes: History and Geography. Enwezor avoided the traditional Venetian biennale pavilion model: no reference was given to the artists’, curators’ or artworks’ geographic or national allegiance, and the biennale was premised on a strict thematic framework, reflected in its title (see Figures 1.13, 1.14 & 1.15). It can thus be reasoned that Enwezor’s Trade Routes reflected the international shift of approaching the biennale in a manner that transcended geographic pavilion-style exhibitions, albeit adapted for local considerations.
While Christopher Till was Executive Director of Trade Routes, Enwezor took up the position of Director, and it was Enwezor who took sole responsibility for the selection of curators, and thus artists, to lead the planning and implementing of the biennale. This approach directly contrasted with the previous biennale, Africus, which was more traditionally oriented by being facilitated by committee organisations. Enwezor, although not solely responsible for selecting artists, selected the curators and theme through an autonomous authorial position. In retrospect, he stated: “I assembled all the people. The selection of curators came from direct personal conversations; my own inclinations of people could bring different dialogues into the exhibition” (Enwezor 2012:17). He appointed Hou Hanru, Kellie Jones, Yu Yeon Kim, Gerardo Mosquera, Colin Richards, and Octavio Zaya as the curators, who were then
44 responsible, together with him, for developing the matrix of exhibitions and events (Till 1997:5). Enwezor’s ‘central role’ as Director of Trade Routes can be likened to the position of curator-as-author (a position similar to that taken originally by Szeemann when curating Documenta 5 in 1972).71 In a similar fashion, Enwezor’s centralised and authorial position was heavily criticised, particularly by the critic Hazel Friedman (1997), who titled her newspaper article on Enwezor ‘The curator as God’, painting a picture of Enwezor as someone who abused authority, took liberties, and maintained a hierarchical position above the artists.
Trade Routes was approached as an independent event, unrestricted by former biennale models or histories, which, according to Till (1997:5), provided Enwezor freedom to adopt a thematic approach and to introduce dialogue around the exhibition’s theme. Enwezor treated the biennale more as an international, group mega-exhibition than a pavilion-inspired biennale. O’Neill (2012:52) argues: “contemporary curatorship transcends geographical boundaries and looks to global networks of cultural production for its source material”, and thus it can be contended that Enwezor’s approach towards the biennale was more contemporary when compared to Africus. The artists privileged in the selections included those who were addressing “new readings and renderings of citizenship and nationality, nations and nationalism, exile, immigration, technology, the city, indeterminacy, [and] hybridity” and not those exploring individual, geographically pertinent issues (Enwezor 1997:9). Enwezor (1997:8) intended to curate a collection of artworks that highlighted an exploration of the more complex issues that result from economic globalisation, that explored the tensions between local and global, and specifically those that regarded the complications that manifest in philosophy, political narrative, culture and history.
71 Richter (2013:43) highlights that in 1972, for the first time in Documenta history, Szeemann took on a position of authorial curator and autonomous creative producer, meaning that he was solely responsible for the selection of artists (previously artists had been chosen by a committee made up of art historians, politicians, and association chairmen). Richter (2013:45) speaks of Szeemann by analysing his distinctive posture and positioning surrounded by artists in a photograph taken on the last day of Documenta 5, which Richter argues depicts Szeemann as a curator and god/king/man among artists. Richter (2013:47) argues “even though exhibitions had been deployed since the French Revolution as new overall contexts of signification, capable of ideologically representing the state, nation, or the bourgeoisie, the focus on a single curator organizing an exhibition was new”. Richter (2013:45) stresses that Szeeman’s view for Documenta was “focused entirely on himself as author” where he took certain liberties that resulted in him being criticised (and in some cases celebrated) for assuming such a centralised position — a position similarly likened to Enwezor’s (for which he was criticised) in 1997.
45
Enwezor’s position towards exploring globalisation was specifically critical of Marshall McLuhan, Fiore & Agel’s (1967) concept of the ‘global village’ that argues that, owing to increased mediatisation and exchange systems of information and images, there is an increase of common interest globally. Enwezor’s (1997:7) standpoint articulates a distinct distrust of such a well-rounded ‘conclusion’ to globalisation.72 Enwezor (1997:9) thus maintained that the discourse about globalisation in 1997 was still “transmitted from a very limited enclosure of eurocentrism”, and his approach instead involved a broad investigation of social, political and cultural procedures in operation, both locally and abroad. More specifically, Enwezor (1997:9) outlines the following, which I summarise in three points:
1) Trade Routes aims to examine the history of globalisation by exploring how economic imperatives resulted in cultural fusion and disjunction 2) Trade Routes provides critical significance to contemporary artworks operating as modes of contestation, analysis or interpretation, producing new temporalities with regard to race, nationality and gender, and thus contributing to the redefinition of society 3) Trade Routes examines the capacity of art to promote discussion of culture, philosophy, aesthetics, and technology.
These objectives echo the same keywords that Cătălin Gheorghe (2013:3) uses when discussing curating contemporary art as a social tool, which he highlights as an investigation into “issues of inequality, injustice, marginality, exploitation, precarity and inaccessibility”. Gheorghe (2013:3) defines the role of the social curator as “a critical form of intervention”, wherein he or she reflects on problematic situations in a society in order to inspire dialogue, collaboration and critical participation on the part of the audience.
One of the major criticisms of social curating is that often the public intended to be addressed is alienated from the production, as frequently the same issues are raised in spaces that, despite being marketed to the general public, commonly attract
72 Enwezor (1997:7) referred to Sarat Maharaj’s quotation to elaborate on his position towards transnational or global cultural transactions, which states that the outcomes “do not always arrive in neatly tied packages”.
46 educated professionals who are interested in art and visual culture (Gheorghe 2013:3). Thus, social curating has its roots in re-formulating curatorial projects, as the exhibition needs to be considered through the production value, as well as through regard for the technique, physical accessibility of the space, and the audience likely to attend (or encounter) the exhibition (Grzinic 2013:4).
Till (1997:5) argues that, owing to extended local accessibility, exhibition sites were set up in informal spaces and public areas, satellite exhibitions were showcased in more than one city, and various site-specific activations were offered that intersected everyday public activity. Trade Routes thus encouraged wider community engagement (Figure 1.16). In direct response to this, some artworks were showcased as bus stop signage and billboards73 (Figures 1.17, 1.18 & 1.19). A newspaper exhibition/intervention was staged to access a different audience74 (Figure 1.20), and the Workers Library, which was kept open for 24 hours a day, was also announced in the Johannesburg daily, The Star. Activations such as these directly intervened in public space, and thus intersected with an audience not necessarily familiar with contemporary art (Till 1997:5). O’Neill (2012:52) argues that biennales “are interfaces between art and wider publics — publics that are at once local and global, resident and nomadic, nonspecialist and art-worldly”, which, similarly, seems to be the position that Enwezor took with regard to Trade Routes. This guerrilla approach towards curating artworks can be seen as transforming understandings about curatorial practice.
Brenda Atkinson (1997) contended that the biennale should be viewed as a ‘catalyst’ for further cultural engagement with regard to South Africa’s socio-political milieu, seemingly echoing Enwezor’s desire to generate directed discussion around the issues raised by these curating practices. However, Enwezor’s curatorial framework has been criticised for being non-responsive towards the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) amnesty hearings, which were being conducted a few blocks away from the main exhibition site. Rory Bester (2012:96) states that, although Enwezor had conceptually framed the biennale in response to a history of
73 A big billboard was installed close to where the Nelson Mandela Bridge and Stevenson Johannesburg Gallery is now (Enwezor 2012:16). 74 Peter Robinson and Geers staged artworks in the newspaper (Enwezor 2012:16).
47 colonialism, a framework with parallels to those dealt with by the TRC,75 Trade Routes did not directly confront these contemporaneous processes. Bester (2012:96) comments that Enwezor viewed South Africa as one of many geographies wherein a postcolonial struggle was taking place, and thus explored the issues from a more generic position in order to appeal to the international visitor (after all, the biennale was conceived as an international biennale). However, with regard to the pluralistic nature of social curatorial practices, Enwezor’s deliberate exclusion of important local dialogues served to alienate a large part of the potential audience. Much of the information on Trade Routes — available through archives — focuses on this, exploring the adequacy of Enwezor’s response to South Africa’s sensitive histories and efforts of retribution in order to present an internationally relevant biennale.76
Since the 1980s, Euro-American curatorial practice transformed from focusing on practical skills to a more contemporary praxis linked to “developing a critical apparatus” and contributing to “constructing collective knowledge in the field by producing symposia, publications and relevant research projects” (Niemojewski 2016:9). Enwezor’s biennale programme included a symposium with speakers from all over the world, invited to present academic papers in response to Trade Routes. Enwezor (2012:16) recalls “[t]he attempt to realise the event as a meeting of worlds meant we had to bring the best of the world. It would not be about charity, or about Africa’s marginalisation. I didn’t want to pretend that my experiences in New York counted for nothing”. The conference boasted a number of important activist and postcolonial thinkers, such as Mbembe,77 Spivak,78 Kobena Mercer,79 and Paulo Herkenhoff.80 Rankin81 recalled how the conference was highly intellectual and
75 TRC (1995 - 1998) meetings were held in an attempt to assemble a record of the nature, cause and extent of the gross violations of human rights enacted under apartheid law — and thus similarly reflecting on issues of gross injustice. 76 For example, Jen Budney (1998:89) probes the exhibition’s disregard for accessibility and the resultant ‘bourgeois philistinism’ of the locals and Jane Duncan’s (2001) investigation of both Africus and Trade Routes focuses on the link between cultural policy and the inequalities that can be identified. Other texts, such as Hoffman’s (2014:102) book Show time: The 50 most influential exhibitions of contemporary art, acknowledges Trade Routes as seminal in curatorial history; however, the text merely lists the exhibition, and does not sufficiently interrogate what aspects were influential, or how these influences emerge in subsequent practices. 77 Mbembe is a philosopher, political scientist, and public intellectual. 78 Spivak is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is University Professor at Columbia University, where she is a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. 79 Kobena Mercer is an art historian and writer on contemporary art and visual culture. 80 Paulo Herkenhoff is an independent curator and critic, and has since curated many biennales.
48 difficult to follow — even for an academic. She felt concerned that the vast majority of attendees (consisting of the artists and public, as well as academics) could have felt alienated or excluded, as the content was intellectually elitist. The approach to the conference reiterated the vast divide in South African society at the time. Furthermore, the catalogue and the curatorial statement framing the biennale were also academically oriented and alienating to people not from an academic arts background. At a socio-politically tumultuous time, when a local focus was maintained on representation, issues such as inclusion and accessibility should have been considered more judiciously.
Trade Routes was closed early as a result of a lack of funds and general interest. Speaking about his disappointment of the early ‘culling’ of the biennale, Enwezor (2012:13) felt that it “became a victim of the rancid politics of the country, where the scope of imagination was not very broad”. Enwezor’s position was that the South African community was being narrow-minded and insular. His authorial, hierarchical approach can be regarded as insensitive towards South Africa’s history, and suggests that he had failed to adapt the event to a local context. This, perhaps, is where the double-bind presents itself: Enwezor aimed to present an internationally relevant and progressive contemporary biennale, which he arguably achieved; however, South Africa seems to have required a biennale that was self-reflexive and conducive to critical dialogue about the country. Enwezor was fiercely criticised for not including more South Africans in the biennale, which he argued would have been parochial and something he opposed.82 Even in retrospect, Enwezor (2012:16) states, despite the call for more local artists, “I wanted to show a competent international exhibition in Africa”. However, as foregrounded by Budney (1998:90), hosting an international art show at a time when South Africa’s upper-middle class
81 As mentioned previously, Rankin and I had a personal conversation regarding aspects of the first and second Johannesburg biennales. Her work for Africus has already been mentioned, and she attended the second Johannesburg biennale and related conference. 82 Enwezor (2012:16) has said in retrospect: “for some reason, in South Africa, only a few critics really addressed the effort we had given, which was a pity. I had done an interview with Hazel Friedman; when asked about South African representation I told her I wanted to reduce the quantity by 90 percent from the previous biennale. She published it and it got me in hot water, I was actually being honest. If we played the numbers game, we would not have had as strong a show. That said, South African artists are really responsible for making the biennale and the subsequent art scene possible”. Bester (2012:96), the co-ordinator of the conference for Trade Routes recalls, “when there was grumbling in the media about the lack of South African artists, I remember us doing a count and comparing it to local representation at other biennales at the time. There were so many more ‘locals’ in our biennale compared to ‘locals’ in other biennales”.
49 was still the minority served to emphasise problems in exhibition practices. Questioning “whose story is being told, whose history, whose religion, whose meaning, whose future”, the biennale raised issues such as “who gets to participate in the making of institutionalised culture and which audience benefits and how” (Budney 1998:90).83
Trade Routes was arguably one of the most ground-breaking and influential exhibitions in South Africa in its brief period of democracy. As Enwezor (2012) highlights, despite the early closure and perceived ‘failure’ of the show itself, “the most important thing is the direction in which things have moved since [1997]”. One could argue that the failure of Trade Routes became a catalyst for the professionalisation of the current South African curatorial landscape. Bester (2012:96) describes Trade Routes as a watershed moment, which brought international expertise on curatorial practice to South Africa, which was shared locally and then reflected upon: “[T]he attention that we as South Africans now pay to the exhibition as a form, from documentation to catalogues to archives, has its origins in the biennale”. Trade Routes thus communicated to local practitioners the potential of the exhibition as a critical form for social engagement. One can argue that Trade Routes inspired a new understanding of not only the institution of the biennale, but also of the institution of curatorial practice — by outlining the potentials within the praxis itself. Trade Routes underscored that western curatorial strategies should not simply be imported, but rather need to be adapted and reinterpreted in ways that enable exhibitions to respond to local socio-cultural and economic circumstances.
Trade Routes was the last instance of the intention of hosting regular biennales in South Africa. It also marked the beginning of the period between 1997 and 2007 that was noticeably lacking in substantial mega-exhibitions that considered South African art and curatorial practice.84 Major exhibitions concerned with South African art
83 Budney (1998) commented in her Third Text article that “little economic redistribution or reparation ha[d] taken place since the collapse of the apartheid system, leaving the social structure of apartheid basically intact. For example, many museum directors ha[d] kept their positions from apartheid’s bleakest years; apparently, some of them refused to visit the Biennale on the claim that it had nothing to do with their activities or ideas of culture”. 84 Although there are a number of exhibitions that offered a view on South African art after 1997, the majority of these were not held in South Africa. Smith (2012a:152) lists the exhibitions 10 years 10 artists, Art in a Democratic South Africa (Cape Town, 2004) and A Decade of Democracy, South African Art 1994 - 2004 (Cape Town, 2004) as “pathbreaking exhibitions … relating to Africa”, which
50 generally remained off the continent and out of reach of South African audiences.85 Of significance during this period, however, was the appointment of the SANG trainee curator, which formed part of a mentorship programme in 2006.86 In 2006, the Young Curators at Cape Africa Platform (CAPE) was established, which initiated the CAPE young curators programme87 focused on training curators88 in reconsidering
were both instated at Iziko Museum in Cape Town in 2004. Smith does not, however, acknowledge curator Tumelo Mosaka for 10 Years 100 Artists. Smith (2012a:151) refers to these exhibitions as ‘pathbreaking’ owing to their decolonising themes evident in the use of a survey format. However, these exhibitions, although seminal, are not necessarily contemporary in terms of their display (considering their planning, installation, space, etc.), and furthermore, are commonly referred to in relation to the catalogues that accompanied each exhibition, and not the exhibition itself. The exhibitions seemed to become subservient to the accompanying publication, and thus they are not referred to extensively in my study. 85 South African artists were included in significant shows such as Enwezor’s The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945 - 1994, shown in 2001 and 2002 in Munich, Berlin, Chicago and New York, and Documenta XI (2002). However, these exhibitions were often curated by international figures, and/or shown to international audiences and were not seen locally. Chikukwa (2011:227) discusses issues in mega-exhibitions, which include the questions regarding inclusion and exclusion. Chikukwa (2011:227) draws our attention to the fact that artists in these exhibitions are often recycled, and he takes issue with “South Africa being over-represented in a number of mega-exhibitions”. Chikukwa (2011:228) cites the following exhibitions, that took place in the Western metropolis, that contributed immensely to the critical framework for interrogating contemporary African art, but which problematically were not shown (or originally intended to be shown) in Africa itself: “Magiciens de la Terre, curated by Jean Martin Hubert at the Centre Pompidou Paris in 1989; Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa, curated by Clementine Deliss at the Whitechapel London in 1995; The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945 - 1995, curated by Enwezor in 2001; the 49th Venice Biennale Authentic/Ex-Centric: Conceptualism in Contemporary African Art in 2001, curated by Salah Hassan and Olu Oguibe; Africa Remix at Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf in 2004, London in 2005, Paris, Japan and Sweden in 2006 and Johannesburg in 2007, curated by Njami; and Check-List Luanda Pop in the 52nd Venice Biennale African Pavilion in 2007, curated by Njami and Fernando Alvim”. 86 Unfortunately, information about the results of this pursuit are sparse. Loyiso Qanya is cited as the SANG trainee curator, which seems to have culminated in his exhibition titled Imbacu: Art from the Inside/Outside held from January 2007 — October 2007. The exhibition focused on artists who were directly and indirectly affected by ‘exile’, both inside and outside South Africa. 87 Despite being set up as a platform that may regularly train curators, the CAPE young curators programme was not continued. Many socio-political grievances shrouded the initiative — Chikukwa (2011:228; original emphasis) speaks of “the downside of the contemporary South African art scene” which he argues, “is still faced by the challenges of race and identity — as much as they talk about the so-called rainbow nation”. Chikukwa (2011:228) argues: “The events and contentions over racial inclusion and exclusion debated in 2005 at the SESSION eKapa, a conference organised by Cape Africa Platform towards CAPE’s first biennial to take place in 2007, were and are a constant reminder that the issue of representation is yet to be resolved in the South African contemporary art scene”. 88 The programme commenced in 2008, and included four aspiring South African curators: Loyiso Qanya, Lerato Bereng, Nonkululeko Mlangeni, Bongani Mkhonza, and Ntando Xorile (Rossouw 2008). The course took place over 18 months, and included a combination of practical training (in curating and mounting exhibitions), as well as conceptual training (the trainees attended seminars in art history, critical theory and discourse, which were presented by curators, critics and other arts professionals). Trainees were expected to conduct independent research, conceptualise exhibitions, and participate as interns with identified partners, and produce writing projects during the programme. The training programme culminated in the final projects represented at CAPE09, and these components were instrumental in shaping the CAPE09 exhibition (Archive: Issue No. 122, October 2007). Mlangeni, curated So Who is Brenda Fassie, a site- and context-specific, oral history, pop art exhibition, hosted in Langa for CAPE, and Qanya, curated Umahluko for CAPE, a multimedia celebration of difference, held at Lookout Hill in Khayelitsha and featured work by Jane Alexander
51 the format and approach towards exhibitions and displaying art and/or cultural objects. In the ‘Call for Applications’ for CAPE (Archive: Issue No. 122, October 2007), the programme was introduced as follows:
In the last decade the South African visual arts field has flourished, with artists receiving increased support and attention both locally and internationally. Despite this recognition, the visual arts are still lagging in some areas. There are, for instance, still no formal academic curatorial programmes within the country. This is resulting in a growing skills gap and slowed transformation in the sector as many aspiring curators leave to pursue their training and careers abroad. In response, the Cape Africa Platform is launching a new Young Curators' Development Programme geared at nurturing local curatorial talent by providing an exciting environment for both critical and practical engagement.
This training initiative shows that, around the mid-2000s in South Africa, curatorial practice began being challenged in ways similar to the Euro-American curatorial history experienced in the 1970s. It can be argued that curatorial practice was emerging locally as a contemporary critical approach, a perspective evident to local practitioners owing to mega-exhibitions such as Tributaries, Africus, Miscast and Trade Routes introducing ways in which the practice of curating could be used as a critical tool, capable of confronting socio-cultural or political circumstances in the public domain.
Africa Remix: Art of a Continent (2007), curated by Simon Njami
Of particular significance, and arguably the exhibition that served to once more influence curating in South Africa, was the 2007 mega-exhibition Africa Remix: Art of a Continent, curated by Njami. Installed at the JAG a decade after Trade Routes, the last mega-exhibition in Johannesburg, Njami’s Africa Remix aimed to respond to the critique of Magiciens (1989). Despite having been conceptualised and curated by Njami as part of the African diaspora for the West, the exhibition included a number of artists still living and working in South Africa and elsewhere on the African
(SA), Thomas Mulcaire & Joseph Kpobly (SA/Brazil & Benin), Antonio Etona (Angola), Rosy Sbrana (Botswana), Cremildo Walter Zandamela (Moxambique) and others (Leibbrandt 2009). Unfortunately, not much is written about the results of the young trainee curators of CAPE. It should be noted, however, that Bereng, is currently the curator of Stevenson Johannesburg, and Mkhonza is currently the curator of the UNISA gallery, Pretoria; both of whom have significantly contributed to curatorial discourse locally since.
52 continent.89 Chikukwa (2011:225) speaks of the African diaspora curator who came to the fore in the late 1980s as a figure who “must be commended for taking on the critical need to address negative, sometimes racist contradictions made about contemporary African art by other dominant cultures”. He argues that these curators (including Enwezor and Njami) “provided a starting point for a number of mega- exhibitions that would flourish in subsequent decades” (Chikukwa 2011:225).
Africa Remix was curated around the themes of Identity and History, City and Land, and Body and Soul. Njami intended to represent art from Northern, Central and Southern Africa that was “off the beaten track of pseudo-naïve art for the tourist industry” (Haupt & Binder 2004). Africa Remix included 88 artists from 25 African countries. According to Njami (cited in Haupt & Binder 2004), the show was an interrogation of contemporary Africa, and the curatorial concept was to provide an overview of current African art in order to escape the “numerous traps related to the general vision of Africa”. For Kellner90 (2017), Africa Remix
was precisely a re(mix) of various current approaches to artistic production in Africa (and the diaspora) using the widest definition of African (including white and Arab). But it was also very much about conveying current artistic sensibilities, trends and directions. This allowed for a richness of expression but also showed a contemporaneity in the artists and their works.
Much of the writing on Africa Remix critiques Njami’s homogenisation of Africa in the exhibition. Bester (2008a:83) describes Africa Remix as “an exhibition that not only engages and confronts the delineation of cultural capital in Western contemporary art but also uses symbolic capital as a manoeuvre against the borders and blinkers of artistic gatekeeping at the center”. Njami has also been criticised for capitalising on Africa itself, as Johannesburg was not originally an intended destination for the travelling exhibition.
89 Chikukwa (2011:227) highlights how Africa Remix broke with the custom of mega-exhibitions showcasing contemporary African art, including diaspora artists, that were not seen in Africa. 90 The exhibition had been travelling Europe and Japan. The original exhibition schedule did not include any exhibitions on the African continent. At the time, Kellner held the position of Chief Curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and championed the initiative to bring Africa Remix to JAG, which involved raising R5 million to pay the required fee, ship the works, insurance, install the exhibition, print a South Africa version of the catalogue, produce extensive educational material, and market the exhibition.
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Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) ensured that the catalogue was produced specifically for the South African exhibition and was not simply imported from the Hayward Gallery in London, which would have had to be paid royalties (Figure 1.21). This proved successful, as the essays in the catalogue responded directly to local needs and aspirations. Bester (2008a:83) highlights the contribution of two notable voices to the Johannesburg catalogue, Mbembe and Kellner, who offer “important critical voices on art, politics and identity”. Kellner’s (2007b:22) essay considered issues around defining ‘Africa’ and who creates the definition, notions of authenticity, and what contemporary means in Africa — all important questions that were still being grappled with just over a decade into the new democracy. Mbembe’s (2007:26) contribution also investigates the notion of Afropolitanism in an attempt to better understand the notion of contemporary ‘Africanism’ as a way of being in the world. David Elliot’s (2007) essay investigates the notion of African art through the lens of the “curator’s graveyard”, highlighting how Africa is impossible to pin down, and that an answer to the question ‘What is Africa?’ can simply never be answered. Most interesting for this study, however, is Hubert’s (2007:44) contribution to the Africa Remix catalogue, which attempts to respond to Africa Remix by recalling his preparation for and approach to Magiciens (1989). He reconsiders the role the curator plays in describing artistic practice when removed from the work’s original context. As such, the literature produced in response to Africa Remix at JAG was seminal in injecting further interest into the practice of South African curating.
According to Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C), the South African iteration of Africa Remix needed to include all of the seminal pieces Africa Remix had to offer (see Figures 1.22 & 1.23 for installation images). Nonetheless, in some areas the logistics had to be considered: for example, the exhibition included a work by Yinka Shonibare from a South African collection rather than from the installation included elsewhere. Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) saw the South African Africa Remix as the exhibition’s ‘coming home’ and, as a result, the exhibition was of utmost importance. Bester (2008a:83) focuses on discussing Africa Remix by outlining the symbolic capital the show had, despite its shortcomings and/or successes. He also discusses the curatorial approach, but focuses on criticising the overcrowded installation and the use of dry walling that bisected views of works, creating awkward, mismatched relationships (Bester 2008a:83). Although much has been said about the inadequate
54 and cramped installation at JAG, what is often overlooked is the wide interest in the exhibition.91 Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) describes the opening as “the biggest opening in the history of JAG blocking the streets of Johannesburg with traffic” (Figure 1.24).
Africa Remix was intended as a curatorial answer to the failures of Enwezor’s Documenta XI (nicknamed ‘African Documenta’).92 Interestingly, as Enwezor has acknowledged that he came to curate Documenta XI (2002) as a result of his experience in curating Trade Routes in 1997, Trade Routes can moreover be understood as a factor that led Njami to curate Africa Remix. Furthermore, Njami’s Africa Remix aimed to respond to the critique around Hubert’s Magiciens (1989), which was influenced by Tributaries (1985), and moreover shaped Ferguson’s approach in Africus (1995). It should furthermore be noted that Kellner’s curatorial journey began over a decade earlier as a curator-in-training on Africus’ curatorial trainee programme, and, as Chief Curator at JAG in 2007, he was responsible for overseeing Africa Remix’s installation there. As such, it is essential to acknowledge that the afore-mentioned exhibitions had a significant influence on ways of contemporary curating, both internationally and in South Africa.
Chapter conclusion
In tracing South African curatorial practices from 1985 when Tributaries was mounted, to just over two decades later in 2007 when Africa Remix was shown in Johannesburg, a shift in curating practices can be identified. While in the mid-1980s, curator Burnett attempted to provide an overview of contemporary art in South Africa, almost two decades later, Njami’s Africa Remix seems underpinned by an
91 Kellner (2017, see Appendix 1C) discusses how 25 of the artists who were included in the exhibition were able to be at the opening. 92 Documenta XI (2002) was the eleventh edition of the Documenta exhibition, held in Kassel, Germany, and was curated by Enwezor (whose official title was Artistic Director). Documenta XI took place over five platforms, each platform consisting of mini-exhibitions, panel discussions, lectures or debates: The first platform was titled Democracy Unrealized held in Vienna (2001), the second was titled Experiments with the Truth: Transitional Justice and the Processes of Truth and Reconciliation hosted in New Delhi (2001), the third was titled Créolité and Creolization held in the Carribbean (2002), the fourth was a symposium titled Under Siege: Four African Cities, Freetown, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos held in Lagos (2002) and the final platform was the major Documenta exhibition held in Kassel, Germany (2002) (Exhibition Documenta XI 2002, cited in Crawshay-Hall 2013:45). According to Kobena Mercer (2002), Documenta XI was the first “multicultural […] post-colonial Documenta”.
55 understanding that defining what contemporary Africa (and thus South Africa) might look like is a futile and ultimately naïve or essentialist approach. Curating practices and methodologies thus required modification, from being descriptive, to providing a platform wherein multiple readings could be acknowledged, depending on the context.
Particularly notable was the shift from the understanding of the curator-as-carer, still prominent in South Africa in the early 1980s, towards a conception in which curatorship began being used as a tool to contextualise art’s production and mediation. Hereafter, the curator tended to adopt a more contemporary role, often autonomous and devoid of institutional limitations. Furthermore, this indicated the potential for curatorship to be regarded as a critical form for social engagement in the public domain. As such, the contemporary curator often uses roles such as ‘curator- as-social-agent’, ‘curator-as-author’, ‘curator-as-artist’ and ‘curator-as-researcher’ in order to challenge, comment on, or elicit response towards socio-cultural or political conditions. A new trend started to emerge in curatorial practice, as fresh approaches towards curatorial projects often coincided with changing political dispensations in South Africa: Burnett’s Tributaries challenged the parameters enforced by apartheid; Ferguson’s and Till’s Africus attempted to respond to the newly transforming government after the first democratic election; Skotnes’ Micast attempted to reconsider identity definitions in a democratic society; Enwezor’s Trade Routes endeavoured to respond to the new global position of South Africa after the economic and cultural boycotts of the former political regime; and Njami’s Africa Remix tried to contextualise what ‘contemporary Africa’ entailed, just over a decade into the new democratic, re-envisioned South Africa.
Of particular interest for this study is how the curators in the above-mentioned exhibitions adopted independent positions in an attempt to tackle socio-cultural and political shortcomings in their practices — a position not always possible when directly linked to an institution. Chikukwa (2011:226), speaking of the Cape Africa Platform, stresses that “contemporary African art events in Africa have also played a very important role in curatorial development” and that “[i]ndependent efforts have not been neglected in contributing to the curatorial development on the continent”. Chikukwa (2011:226) argues that, “[d]espite the challenges of poor infrastructure and
56 a lack of funding on the continent, some of these independent efforts are breaking through the international art scene”. In the following chapters, I discuss how the mega-exhibitions considered in this chapter indicated possibilities for more nuanced positions in autonomous curatorial practice, and thus had an impact on ways of contemporary curating in South Africa. I begin, in Chapter Two, with a consideration of how the nomadic curator makes use of adaptive curatorial models to respond to site-specific contexts in order to critically question, and in some cases, dismantle mechanisms of exclusion inherent in institutional spaces.
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CHAPTER TWO: THE NOMADIC CURATOR
Introduction
Upon researching some of the more active Johannesburg curators who identify their practice as independent, and through reading their comprehensive curricula vitae and exhibition listings, it became evident that there are a wide variety of venues and types of spaces listed in their curatorial contributions. A case in point is the curriculum vitae of Ngcobo,93 a self-proclaimed independent curator, who having started organising exhibitions and curatorial platforms early on in her career,94 has recently been afforded international acclaim through significant appointments such as co-curator of the 32nd São Paulo Biennale, Brazil, and curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale, Germany. The venues Ngcobo has selected for her exhibitions include traditional museum type spaces,95 gallery spaces,96 residency spaces, academic art spaces,97 as well as various events in spaces not necessarily dedicated to art practice.98
Smith (2015:20, 156) contrasts the increased availability of a variety of exhibition venues in Euro-America directly with the limited availability of South African exhibition venues, which he refers to as “the elusive infrastructure for the arts in South Africa”. He acknowledges that “in many places around the world it is a daily
93 Please refer to Appendix 2A: Gabi Ngcobo biography. 94 Early projects by Ngcobo include 3rd Eye Vision collective, of which she was the founding member. The collective of artists operated in Durban between 2000 and 2006. Ngcobo is also a founding member of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA, founded in 2003), and served as its Western Cape co-chair and National Representative in its formative years. In 2004, she worked as KwaZulu-Natal editor for ArtThrob webzine and contributes regularly to Art South Africa, a quarterly journal of the arts. Ncgobo has worked as Assistant Curator at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town. 95 Including the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas, the Canary Islands, the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, and the Johannesburg Art Gallery. 96 AVA Gallery and Cabinet (New York), experimental art spaces (VANSA). 97 Such as at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York. 98 A notable early project was Ngcobo’s co-curation of the CAPE07 Biennale (2007, Cape Town), a large-scale independent art event — positioned as a biennale — that took place at various locations across Cape Town in order to establish dialogue between artists in the different regions. Ngcobo curated and facilitated CAPE07 in her capacity as Head of Research for Cape Africa Platform, as well as initiating a Young Curators Workshop Curatorial Trainee Programme for this event (discussed in Chapter One). Through the event and the workshop, emphasis was placed on using alternative spaces, not specifically linked to institutions, in order to enhance independent curatorial practice. The CAPE07 art activations were facilitated across the city of Cape Town.
58 struggle to simply build basic infrastructure for art to be seen and interpreted” — which he terms “the problem of infrastructural inequity” (Smith 2015:20). As previously noted, there is a general shortage of funding allocated to the arts in South Africa, which results in a lack of accessibility to the infrastructure and a lack of investment in new infrastructure. This subsequently creates a shortfall of spaces/venues and full-time permanent curatorial positions (outside of the private space of corporate business). Local institutional spaces are also underpinned by western ideologies, or affected by colonial and/or apartheid ideologies, and thus resonate with this history. The current commercial gallery system, which dominates the art community in South Africa, often results in curators being invited to run group show programmes on a shared commission basis, as there is no budget to employ or remunerate them properly. However, smaller galleries may battle to afford the shared commission structures. I have observed that as a result of limited funding, few available spaces in and around Johannesburg, and strong ideological associations often linked to those spaces, access to space is hard to come by.
Enwezor, in a discussion at the curators’ roundtable (in Okeke-Agula 2008:166), invites a comparison between the West and Africa as regards the availability of curatorial positions, and questions whether anyone has researched how many African curators are permanently employed in curatorial positions. He argues that more curatorial positions would provide curators with the “consistent access” to produce exhibitions in a space, with artists of their own choosing, on a regular basis. Nonetheless, he suggests that the “pitiable state” of these local art academies contributes to this lack of curatorial employment — which he attributes to his conception of Africa’s lagging headway in curatorial practice (Enwezor in Okeke- Agula 2008:166). In contrast to Enwezor’s position, I assert that local curators have responded to the lack of spatial opportunities by establishing themselves as nomadic, thus gaining access to various spaces. I argue that the mega-exhibitions of the 1990s, discussed in Chapter One, drew attention to the allure of adopting a nomadic position, as curators were reminded that curatorial practice could occur in alternative spaces and not only those spaces that were dedicated to displaying art.
Nomadism in the arts is not a new concept. O’Neill (2007b:19) recalls Ralph Rugoff’s identification of the nomadic curator as a jet-set flâneur who “appears to know no
59 geographic boundaries”. Magali Arriola (2009/2010:23) refers to Miwon Kwon, who suggests that “curatorial practice has migrated in recent years from a sedentary model to a nomadic one”, which has thus resulted in the transformation of exhibitions from passive receptacles into discursive sites. Matt Rodda (2015:856) observes Pascal Gielen’s (2013) argument that art discourse tends to romanticise “aspects of travel, mobility and unattachment” associated with nomadism, so much so that Gielen (2013:18) coined the term ‘nomadeology’ (as opposed to nomadology) in criticism, as a means to highlight the extent to which the art world’s major players have adopted nomadism as an ideology. Zygman Bauman (2000:13, 187) comments that Modernity identified “progress” as “the abandonment of nomadism in favour of a sedentary life”. Bauman (2000:13) says that contemporary society has entered a “fluid stage” with “nomadic habits”, and that “[w]e are witnessing the revenge of nomadism over the principle of territoriality and settlement”.
Heather Felty (2013:12) attempts to define ‘nomad’ in contrast to ‘migrant’ and, drawing from a definition proffered by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1987) in A thousand plateaus, argues that migrants maintain a sense of belonging to a place and are often subject to moving (stemming from being destitute), whereas nomads are characterised by movement. Gielen (2013:24) similarly argues that nomads are not bound by an origin, and thus operate from a “highly individual position”. Gielen’s position, as understood by Rodda (2015:856), is that, because of this, nomads are often “too weak to develop ‘sufficient strength to accumulate any appreciable political influence’”. Lamia Joreige (2013:32) argues that today’s artist fits the ideal of the migrant better than the nomad, citing that — in Rodda’s (2015:857) understanding of Joreige — “the nomad is a rootless individual in a state of vital displacement who breaks down mechanisms of recognition”. The above-mentioned authors tend to discuss nomadism in a negative sense — alluding to a nomadic practitioner as someone who has no place and no point of origin, which they consider to work against their practice. The implication is that, without a point of origin, the nomadic practitioner may battle to gain recognition or political/cultural impetus. I disagree with this understanding of nomadism, as I find it limiting and insufficient to describe the South African art context. Rather, in this chapter I suggest that a nomadic curatorial role, in addition to allowing wider access to space, also allows the curator to make use of adaptive curatorial models, to be selective with space, and to be able to use
60 and respond to site-specific contexts. Furthermore, when working in traditional art spaces, the nomadic curator is unrestricted by policies or expectations imposed on permanent employees.
As it is not within the scope of this chapter to discuss every exhibition associated with the nomadic curator, nor every Johannesburg curator whose practices can be identified as nomadic, my focus is highly selective. My selections are informed by considering well-known practitioners who have shaped Johannesburg curatorial practice, and whose nomadic roles enhanced the exhibition’s concept. Furthermore, I made the choices according to the types of spaces used by the nomadic curators, which include commercial gallery spaces, traditional museum spaces, studio spaces or independently operated cultural spaces, and lastly spaces that are not traditionally used for displaying art. I therefore consider the following four (nomadic) curatorial initiatives:
o Ntombela’s99 Modern Fabrics: Urban Culture and Artists Connected to the City Landscape (2008)100 o Ngcobo’s PASS-AGES: References & Footnotes (2010)101 o Buys’102 Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010)103 o Butcher’s104 If a Tree ... (2012)105
99 Please refer to Appendix 2B: Nontobeko Ntombela biography. 100 Hereafter referred to as Modern Fabrics; there is not much information available about the exhibition, apart from Bester’s (2008b) article in Art South Africa that briefly mentions it in the context of other exhibitions that explore the city as a theme. 101 Hereafter referred to as PASS-AGES, the exhibition has not been widely written about, apart from Bethlehem’s (2010) discussion, or superficial mentions and acknowledgements in reviews of Ngcobo’s curatorial oeuvre. Khwezi Gule (2015) discusses PASS-AGES in his paper ‘Center for Historical Reenactments: Is the tale chasing its own tail?’ Gule’s focus is not, however, on critically interrogating PASS-AGES itself, but rather on contextualising the memory work of the Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), which he does by drawing on examples of public outputs of the CHR, such as PASS-AGES (2010), Fr(agile) (2012), and Digging Our Own Graves 101 (2014). 102 Please refer to Appendix 2D: Anthea Buys biography. 103 Hereafter referred to as Time’s Arrow; apart from Buys’ own appraisals, curated in the exhibition and written on the blog, and Bester’s (2010) review of the exhibition published in Art South Africa, there has been no further interrogation of the show or its contribution to contemporary museum/curatorial practice. 104 Please refer to Appendix 2E: Clare Butcher biography. 105 Apart from in the Trade Routes Revisited series, the If a Tree ... exhibition has not been appraised in a comprehensive study by critics or theorists.
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In this chapter, I consider whether a nomadic role can free the curator from limitations imposed by traditional art institutions and/or transform the conventional notions of curatorial practice, the expanded elements of the exhibition and their conceptual frameworks. By considering Johannesburg practices in terms of how space contributes to an audience’s reading of an exhibition in that the space provides a framework for the conceptual underpinning of the show, I identify the extent to which being nomadic may provide the curator with the means to challenge the conceptions of curating by showcasing creative practices in an unexpected space, or in an innovative way.
Modern Fabrics: Urban Culture and Artists Connected to the City Landscape (2008), curated by Nontobeko Ntombela
Ntombela curated Modern Fabrics106 in an independent capacity in 2008. Thematically, the exhibition considered the “idea of urban fabric, using the metaphor of cloth to stand for the ever evolving visual language that is the city” (Listings: 'Modern Fabrics' at the Bag Factory 2008). The term ‘fabric’ thus calls attention to her intention of exploring mediums of making in an exhibition, including painting, video, installation works, and sculpture (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). According to Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C):
There was also a tension that I was presenting with this idea of ‘modern’, and what ‘modern’ mediums were being pushed by the selection of artists that I was working with. […] In this sense, [Modern Fabrics] was about me citing a kind of shift in terms of practices and mediums. It was recording a particular kind of impulse.
The exhibition consisted of work by Zamaxolo Dunywa (photographs), Bongi Bengu (collage), Yvette Dunn (video), Nothando Mkhize (mixed media), Rike Sitas (photography), Bronwen Vaughan-Evans (gesso ‘painting’), Mlu Zondi (performance), Mary Sibande (sculpture), Sharlene Khan (painting), Dineo Bopape (video), Thando Mama (video) and Mfundo Xaba (printmaking).107
106 Modern Fabrics opened on 22 September 2008 and ran until 8 October 2008. 107 Although Lawrence Lemaoana was listed as a participating artist by ArtThrob (Listings: 'Modern Fabrics' at the Bag Factory 2008), his work never appeared in the exhibition (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) also states that as a young curator at the time in 2008, galleries often overlooked her and/or were possessive of their “discovery artists”. These
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At the time of curating Modern Fabrics, Ntombela was permanently employed as the curator of the art gallery at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). By curating Modern Fabrics, Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) was aware that she was “taking a stance outside of DUT because it was extra work that was not going to be recognised by DUT”.108 Although at that time Ntombela recalls not being consciously aware of working in an independent capacity, she emphasises that she was at a point where she was questioning what it meant to be a curator, and how she could experiment with different ways of conceptualising exhibitions. Referring to Modern Fabrics, Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) stresses that it did not arise from an institutional way of curating: “From an institution, it would have been more hands off, there would be more budget put in. Things would have been sent from one courier company to another”. By adopting a nomadic position and selecting a space outside Durban, she recalls how she was able to work on ‘ground-level’ and tap into conversations that she had been having for some time. She says that the driving impetus for adopting a position independent of DUT was to establish a broader curatorial voice, and to challenge herself in working with spaces outside of “what was becoming a very comfortable space at DUT” (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). She therefore took on a nomadic role and travelled to Johannesburg to mount the exhibition. Although she received a small grant that assisted with transportation and invitation costs, Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) refers to her methodology for putting the show together as a form of “guerrilla curating”109 — implying that it was a form of curating that was not organised by an institution and that was perhaps ‘irregular’ in the context of institutional standards.
Modern Fabrics was installed at the Bag Factory, which is situated in the city centre in Johannesburg in a converted warehouse that provides national and international limitations contributed to Lemaoana not showing work on Modern Fabrics (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). 108 Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) remembers: “I think it was a space where I was starting to think about [consciously occupying an independent curatorial space] because this show followed another show which I co-curated with Storm van Rensburg [in Cape Town] which was called ‘From here to there’, which was part of a fringe platform at the AVA in relation to CAPE07. So, I suppose, that was kind of like a seed planted for me in terms of thinking about practices outside of DUT”. 109 An interesting analogy can be made here in terms of Ngcobo’s ‘guerrilla curating’ and the ideas associated herein of resistance towards the inherent exclusions made in the South African art arena, and the Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous group of feminist, female artists, which emerged in 1985 in New York, who were devoted to fighting sexism and racism in the art world.
63 artists studio opportunities, mentorship programmes, and residency options. Ntombela carefully considered the manner in which the viewer would encounter the works in the exhibition. Zamaxolo Dunywa’s photographic series, one of which, Uthini Ngami (2000), is seen in Figure 2.1, was installed at the entrance of the exhibition. According to Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C), Dunywa’s work was provocative: “Dunywa’s images were photographs of herself in relation to two other women who were dressed in traditional [sic] garb, but the traditional garb had questions on it […] so, one question was ‘Who am I to you?’ [Another was] ‘What are you looking at?’”. Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) indicated that the placement of this work at the entrance meant that it would be the first work a viewer would encounter (Figure 2.2). The placement was thus a way of “making the viewer conscious of their own participation in the viewing” (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). The viewer would then pass through the entrance area into the main space of the exhibition, where the next most likely encounter was Mary Sibande’s sculpture — an early version of her now renowned Sophie (Figure 2.2). According to Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C):
[…] this headless body, in this semi-Victorian gown,110 [was] a kind of a ghostly figure, that was somehow dressed in this dress that was very resonant to maids [sic] garments in terms of the colour, the apron, almost confronting [the viewer]. [It appeared as] this hovering ghost, and it was the next thing that you saw after Dunywa had asked her questions.
Sibande’s work was also placed to remind viewers of their participation in the practice of viewing. By means of her curatorial composition, Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) “was interested in startling the viewer”. I maintain that Ntombela was interested in confronting viewers by asking questions about their gaze, questioning their understanding of the black body, and highlighting that there was still a need for political redress in 2008. Although I do not discuss each individual artwork included in the exhibition, as I have previously noted, it should be stressed that this curatorial intention was carried throughout the rest of the exhibition in various ways.
The viewer could then move to alcoves either to the left or right (see Figure 2.3). Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) described the left alcove as the ‘ephemeral
110 Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) stated in her interview with me that Sibande had not yet developed the features of her now famous figure of Sophie, and particularly that there were no hands or face in this version.
64 section’, indicating that she included works there that were more experimental in nature, such as Nothando Mkhize’s mixed media installation work (Figure 2.4),111 Rita Sika’s photographic installation,112 and Dineo Sheshee Bopabe’s video pieces113 (see the screenshot in Figure 2.5). Thando Mama114 and Yvette Dunn’s video works were installed in a passage-way (Figure 2.2). The alcove on the right housed works that were executed in more traditional mediums and genres by Bongi Bengu (collage), Sharlene Khan (traditional oil paintings of portraiture), Bronwyn Vaughn- Evans’ gesso ‘painting-like’ works and Mfundo Xaba’s print works. These works still confronted the limitations and/or understandings of these more traditional mediums and genres. This was articulated by Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) in reference to Bronwyn Vaughn-Evans’ so-called ‘paintings’, wherein she uses a process of layering gesso from dark to light, and then etches out images to arrive at a final composition.
In addition, Mfundo Xaba’s print work contests South African historical understandings of printmaking, questioning the value of the medium and the stereotype that relief printmaking (woodcut and/or linocut) is predominantly a black artist’s medium. This notion arose as a result of black artists’ training centres established during apartheid, such as the one at Rorke’s Drift. Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) recalls that her interest in including Xaba’s work was that he was a
111 Mkhize’s work is made from of an old, discarded umbrella, something fragile and vulnerable, but that is also supposed to protect one against rain and the elements. Mkhize then deconstructs the umbrella, destroying it and reconstructing it, and embedding it with other mediums and found objects. Conceptually, the work questions the manner with which we construct value, “Nothando is speaking about the city that hides or that limits those that are impoverished” (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). 112 Although I have not managed to locate an image of this work, Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) did provide a verbal description: “Rita Sika’s City Series [indicated] a kind of journeying. […] [it] speaks about the fragmented city. She had these small photos that went on as a line [in sequence] talking about the presence of architecture but pointing to this fragmented sense of the city. [This series] was also something that you would be viewing as a voyeur in a way, because you would be walking alongside the photos, looking. They had blurbs (if I remember correctly) and these blurbs were a critique [and were written] as though the buildings were talking and as if someone else was talking back to the building”. 113 Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) was interested in Bopape’s work because there was a sense of ‘playfulness’ in the video, while also “critiquing how black bodies perform”. According to Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C), “the one [video] was [of Bopape] carrying an umbrella and bubbles, wearing a beard, wearing white underwear, and this skirt made out of [plastic] bags. [The work touches on] this idea of material that starts to create a different form, this idea of dressing up, of being masculine and not being masculine, being in a female body, this idea of the gaze [of the female body], and the expectation of this, and upsetting that by questioning what you would be viewing”. 114 According to Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C), “Thando Mama’s work [included in Modern Fabrics] was the famous piece with which he won the MTN new contemporaries, where he sits crouched, a naked person looking at a screen with white noise”. The work is titled Back to Me (2003).
65 young graduate who was insisting that there was potential to explore this relief printmaking, beyond these stereotypes. Ntombela also included Mlu Zondo’s performance titled Umlabalaba wherein he inserted his own body into the traditional Zulu board game (see the experimental image documentation from the invitation in Figure 2.6). Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) recalls that her exhibition therefore explored a variety of mediums that were becoming part of the current of art making at the time, and posed the question: “What does it mean to have a show that speaks, and allows, and presents these different ways of presenting work?”
Bester (2008b:91), who refers to Ntombela’s Modern Fabrics in an article titled ‘The Curatorial Moment’, briefly discusses the show in terms of the exhibition space,115 which he describes as ‘compromised’. Bester (2008b:91) regarded the space as “an afterthought” — implying that it was cramped, and not conducive to viewing art. Robert Storr (2003, also cited in Smith 2012a:48-49) argues that the exhibition setting inspires conversations. Accordingly, it can be argued that despite being a compromised ‘white cube’ space, the objectives of the Bag Factory, namely to “bring together artists from different racial, cultural and educational backgrounds”, resonated with Ntombela’s curatorial focus to identify new voices emerging in the visual arts, and thus enhanced the reading of the exhibition (Bag Factory — About us 2017). As outlined in the Introduction to this study, the white space, made popular by Euro-American Modernism, tends to be an elitist, intellectual arena, characterised by white walls, regulated rhythms and repeated floors. For Modern Fabrics, Ntombela essentially rebuffed this spatial canon and solution for display. She professes that she has never been enticed by the white cube, remarking that “even when I do go into the white cube, it is always about revolting against [it]” (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). Ntombela’s approach acknowledges that the white space is not always an optimal setting to fully contextualise art in or from Johannesburg, and quite simply, is not in any case always available. I contend that Bester failed to see that by using the Bag Factory as the exhibition venue, an organisation whose mission is to
115 In the same article, Bester (2008a) also discusses the venues associated with some other exhibitions at the same time: Production Marks: Geometry, Psychology and the Electronic Age (2008/9, curated by Brenton Maart at Goethe Institute, Johannesburg) and Jozi and the (M)other City (2008, curated by Carine Zaayman at the Michaelis School of Fine Art Gallery, Cape Town). Bester (2008a:80) notes that “[f]or a school of fine arts as prestigious as Michaelis, with all its associated centres and institutes, the lack of a proper gallery to showcase research output is a glaring omission and a wasted opportunity to link the university to its wider publics”.
66 encourage inclusion and diversity in the arts, the exhibition’s concept and intention were enhanced.
Smith (2012a:36, 153; original emphasis) states that exhibitions are not “evenhanded anthropological surveys of the art of a place, people, or region”, and that the ‘how’ of selecting the artists’ works, and the action of activating the exhibition display is as important as considering “what it is for and why it is consequential”. Similarly, Boris Groys (2015:61) remarks that curators either “show a fragment of a traditional narrative about the history of art”, or they reveal a ‘subjective selection’ — in this case, made possible by Ntombela’s nomadic, independent role. Ntombela focused on including artists who were reconceptualising the boundaries and limitations of the mediums they were using. She argues that, by extension, many of the mediums spoke to themes of identity (Ntombela 2018, see Appendix 2C). Ntombela brought together artists from various backgrounds that formed part of the urban culture of Johannesburg. The works indicated that the artists felt connected to, or influenced by, the city in some way, which was articulated through their ways of making.
Bester (2008b:91) suggests, however, that despite being conceived as an investigation of the visual language of the city, the exhibition seemed to be less of a critical interrogation of the city itself than “personal responses to what the city does to personal identity” by each of the artists. Bester’s (2008b:91) discussion of Modern Fabrics was situated in the context of his intention to outline ‘identifying characteristics’ of South African curatorial practice at the time — or what he refers to as “the curatorial moment”. He did this by discussing various exhibitions he selected based on their focus on the city as a theme. Bester (2008b:91) argues, however, that Modern Fabrics indicates how the city is being “overtraded as an exhibition theme” and that, rather, it is time to consider more specific forms, such as neighbourhoods and communities. Bester (2008b:91) criticises Modern Fabrics, which he asserts was too concerned with “Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall’s theorization of Johannesburg as a cosmopolitan African city” as opposed to being a “critical curatorial engagement of how artists are interrogating notions of cosmopolitanism in a city recently marked by xenophobia”.116 Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C),
116 During 2008, xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg had reached a high point.
67 however, has drawn attention to her hesitations of speaking to identity in a universalising manner, as she argues this causes a loss of the ability to “hone into moments that are particular to that artist’s position”. Thus, themes of identity in Modern Fabrics were driven by arguing for particularities of each artist, and not by attempting to identify the city itself.
Ntombela was able to carefully consider the selection of artists included in the exhibition in a way that challenged the status quo evident in exhibitions at the time. As the majority of the artists in the exhibition were black female artists, the selections can be seen as an indirect questioning of the South African canon of art at the time, which held that so-called ‘quality’ works were by a group of white, male artists represented by the majority of established South African galleries, or what Bester (2008b:91) briefly referred to as the ‘mould’ for South African curating.117 Furthermore, this ‘mould’ is inherited from western conceptions of successful art/artists: as Lucy Lippard (2018:11) argues, the canon for artists is “white, male, western”, and Maura Reilly (2018:17) titles the first chapter in her book, Curatorial activism: Towards an ethics of curating, “Western art: It’s a white male thing” in response to Linda Nochlin’s (1998, cited in Reilly 2018:17) well known statement: “In the West, greatness has been defined since antiquity as white, Western, privileged, and, above all, male”. Despite receiving criticism from Bester (2008b:91) for being less critical in the show’s curatorial display, or that “the pieces seemed to work together due to the materiality of their make-up rather than their critical comment”, what is important is how the curatorial selection stands out.
Colin Richards, in a discussion at the curators’ roundtable focusing on the state of curatorial practices for mega-exhibitions of contemporary African art (in Okeke-Agula 2008:169), comments on the issue of selection and representation in exhibitions:
It is worrying that the institutional reception of work around ‘quality’ remains a stumbling block. Not because we do not agree that quality is crucial, but that consensus about quality is hard to achieve, especially if it diverges from some kind of canon or norm. Often, weak work fits a curatorial bill, sometimes instrumentally, and so gets included. We all know the pressures of representation are always already there. Here the categories of an imposed art history often do not help, where
117 Again, an analogy can be made here between Ngcobo’s ideas and those of the Guerrilla Girls.
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classifications are used to deal simplistically with the much more complex and conflicted problem of value.
African curators need to question the Euro-American canons that delineate what ‘quality’ work should look like when making selections — which is reiterated by Richards (Okeke-Agula 2008:169), who remarks: “Curators seem to me to have a special responsibly in taking up these issues with some assertiveness; hence the need for deep and intimate experience of the work, the artists, the operating histories, the conditions of production”. In the same discussion, Elizabeth Harney (in Okeke-Agula 2008:178-180) articulates how the figure of the curator can thus be taken as an intellectual, interlocutor, or bricoleur, and is therefore responsible, in part, for “shaping the discourse surrounding contemporary African arts (and by extension the processes of canonization)”. She continues:
As shaper of a canon, a curator/intellectual engages with the longstanding art-historical concerns about artistic intention, tackles the thorny and often evasive processes of assigning value (cultural, aesthetic, monetary, political, spiritual); and advances diverse methodologies from worn-out anthropological approaches to more sophisticated readings of local art histories and the texture of individual oeuvres (Harney in Okeke-Agula 2008:178-180).
Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) emphasises that “[c]anons are formed only from the point of what Anne Brzyski argues is an idea of familiarity and repetition: when things are in your surroundings, they are repeated, they are referenced all the time … That, in a way, is a moment when canons are formed”. Although Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) is uncertain that she consciously ‘chose’ a majority of black female artists, she attests to this selection as being ‘intuitive’118 and perhaps an “unconscious and conscious decision to make visible these voices” that were responding to redress. Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) also emphasises how “[the] Bag Factory has a long history in the way that it has created opportunities. It is a space that speaks to a particular history, a history that responds to historical exclusions” — and so in terms of conceptually framing the selections for Modern Fabrics, the exhibition can also be read as an attempt to provide a voice for often overlooked artists. Arguably, by presenting a selection of artists’ works that broke
118 Ntombela (2018, see Appendix 2C) argues that for her, to think about selections in terms of using ‘demographics’ as a conceptual tool “would water down a whole lot of intellectual work that artists do, and I am opposed to that kind of thinking”.
69 with Bester’s so-called ‘mould’, and by selecting a space that does not subscribe to the typical conventions imposed by the ‘white cube’, Ntombela’s exhibition critically questioned the South African art canon at the time.119
The role of the nomadic curator, as formulated by O’Neill (2007b:19), is to select and display art of an international standard, in a manner that makes the work visible. He implies that it is the nomadic curator who follows “a subjective (curatorial) system of mediation that has the notion of inclusivity as one of its central thematics” (O’Neill 2007b:19). Ntombela’s independent position, I argue, provided her with the autonomy to challenge issues of inclusion, exclusion and uneven acknowledgement, both historically and in curatorial practice itself. Pressures to include artists who are acknowledged widely, or who align with the Johannesburg art canon, were lessened through her independent role. Ntombela’s nomadic approach to curating granted access to the Bag Factory as a venue for Modern Fabrics. Her exhibition can thus be seen as a critical interrogation of the custom of showing exhibitions in neutral, white spaces. As space, selection and mounting are important aspects in curatorial praxis that work together to articulate critical curatorial thought, it is important to acknowledge the move towards ‘aesthetic de-institutionalisation’ — which opposes traditional display frameworks and the canons associated therewith — and which Ntombela embraced in Modern Fabrics. Pieter Weibel (cited in Smith 2012a:169) acknowledges the tension that the white space proposes, and thus, it should be recognised that African curators, such as Ntombela, attempt to dismantle the excluding mechanisms of the white space, rather than replicate them — an approach that breaks with the West.
PASS-AGES: References & Footnotes (2010), curated by Gabi Ngcobo
PASS-AGES (2010) was a project that Ngcobo curated to coincide with the inaugural launch of the Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR, 2010 - 2014)120 — a
119 Interestingly, Ntombela’s selection of artists consists of many of South Africa’s most seminal practising artists today —bearing in mind people such as Mary Sibanda, Lawrence Lemoana, Dineo Sheshee Bopape and Thando Mama. At that time, however, apart from Mama having been awarded the MTN Young Contemporaries award in 2003, none of the other artists included had yet received critical acclaim. 120 The CHR was co-founded by Ngcobo and artist Kemang Wa Lehulere in July 2010, and launched in a project space located in the east part of Johannesburg with a performance by Wa Lehulere and a
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Johannesburg based curatorial platform that responds to the immediate demands of contemporary art practices from a South African perspective. PASS-AGES was organised in collaboration with the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC), which, according to Khwezi Gule (2015:91), is a group similar to the CHR that “aims to speak to local concerns in ways that resonate with an international context”.
As indicated in the exhibition’s title, PASS-AGES, the exhibition interrogated the history of the pass system and the ‘ripple effect’ incurred as a result of the violations the system imposed.121 PASS-AGES was a site-specific exhibition that took place at the historical location of the former Pass Office122 in Johannesburg — a site that had not been acknowledged as an official ‘struggle site’. The controversial history of the Pass Office remains relatively unknown, as it is believed that the records and evidence from the site were burned or destroyed after the pass system was abolished in 1986. The physical space of the exhibition summoned up traumatic memories of the primary objectives of the apartheid state, which was ultimately “the control of black bodies across the South African landscape”, and contextualised the reading of the exhibition (Ngcobo 2010). Gule (2015:92) acknowledges how PASS- AGES alerted him to the existence of the building, “a symbol of oppression” that invoked what he sarcastically refers to as “the crowning achievement of both colonialism and apartheid: the institutionalisation of the idea of humans as chattel”. James Balloi ([sa]) states: “Despite having great cultural significance, the building’s
talk by Eungie Joo, then Curator of Education and Public Programs at the New Museum in New York. The CHR, according to Ngcobo (Gabi Ngcobo / Radio Papesse 2010), “explores how artistic production can help to deconstruct particular readings of history and how historical context informs artistic practices” realised through exhibitions, publications, screenings, discussions, performances, workshops and seminars, in an attempt to “reveal how within their constellation certain histories are formed or formulated, repeated, universalized and preserved” (Smith 2012a:156—157). Ngcobo’s (2017) interests, both as an individual, and within the context of the CHR platform, are underpinned by historical narratives and re-enactments, and consider particularly how contemporary artists’ practices are shaped by history. 121 According to Gule (2015:92), the pass (also nicknamed ipasi or dompas) was an internal passport that identified Black Africans, and was “instrumental in the implementation of racial segregation laws such as the Population Registration Act or the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act, which sought to regulate the inflow of Black Africans into South Africa’s urban centres”. 122 The former Pass Office is situated at the corner of Albert and Polly Streets in Johannesburg. According to Balloi ([sa]), “In June 1954, a new building was completed at 80 Albert Street to the east of the Johannesburg CBD (just south of the Barclays / ABSA precinct today). It was designed as the head office of Johannesburg’s Non-European Affairs Department (JNEAD) and became the nerve centre for controlling the lives of black people in Johannesburg for over three decades”.
71 controversial and complex history remains relatively unknown outside heritage circles” — a circumstance also investigated in PASS-AGES.
PASS-AGES drew on artworks and texts to expose a political space and the narratives intertwined in the nexus of what it represents (Ngcobo 2010:2). Ngcobo included the works of five artists in PASS-AGES: Dineo Seshee Bopape, Ernest Cole (included posthumously), Kemang Wa Lehulere, Zanele Muholi and Mary Sibande. Each of the artists specifically engaged with historical narratives as a departure point in their artwork (Ngcobo 2010:2), and questioned issues surrounding identity. They also interrogated the role and position of the black body and the stigma and lasting effects that the system of racial classification has had and continues to have.
According to Smith (2012a:58): “Sites of exhibition are the most visible elements of the infrastructure within which art curating is practiced today”. Ydessa Hendeles (2011) emphasises how the practice of the curator is still heavily entrenched in space, and often, it is space itself that acts in a manner that “interweaves narratives from disparate discourses using disparate elements”. During a curators’ roundtable discussion moderated by Okeke-Agulu, Harney (2008:181), similarly, positions space as “so much more than a site of spectacle” and as a “specific, well-crafted ‘text,’ authored by an individual and open to multiple readings”. In PASS-AGES, space became an important tool in establishing the conceptual underpinning of the exhibition. Installed in the basement section of the site of the old Johannesburg Pass Office that was converted into a women’s shelter,123 the space is described by Gule (2015:92) as
a stark, concrete interior with fluorescent lights. There appeared to have been no attempt to convert the space into a neat white cube; wooden cabinets that were used to display the exhibition material had the look of retro furniture. Everything exuded an oppressive state of being.
Based on my close reading of the images of the installation,124 the exhibition site appeared dilapidated, and the lighting seemed uninspired and artificial (Figure 2.7).
123 The Usindiso Women’s Shelter is run by Usindiso Ministries. The exhibition was installed in the basement section that was not being used by the shelter (Gule 2015:91). 124 Please note that, as I have been unable to make contact with Ngcobo, my description of the exhibition is based on close readings of the numerous photographic records of the installation. I have also included quotes by authors who had described the exhibition, namely Bethlehem and Gule, that I
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Left-over, damaged cupboards and unfashionable, discoloured steel window-blinds provide contextualisation to the exhibition space, recalling the typical governmental office settings that one may find at old Home Affairs offices or police departments. The space is described by Ngcobo (2010:2) as “a non-sterilized space that promotes exchange”, and thus provides a palpable physical context to a history that the National Party attempted to erase:
The documents that may have served as testimony to the site’s activities have been destroyed, thus denied their roles as witnesses and spared the interrogation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Ironically, it is this very emptiness that creates a space for us to call upon our abilities to remember and inject memory (unreliable and slippery as it may be) to the site (Ngcobo 2010:2).
Set in stark contrast to the neutral white spaces or museum spaces usually reserved for processes of historical examination, Ngcobo (Radio Papesse 2010; Ngcobo 2010:2) makes it clear that her practice does not concede to contextual, spatial, or methodological limitations that come with their own ideological frameworks, and that ultimately contribute to reading an exhibition (sometimes to the exhibition’s detriment). This ‘non-concession’ is made possible by Ngcobo acting in a nomadic curatorial position. As Gule (2015:92) recalls: “Had the exhibition taken place in a white cube, it would not have had nearly the impact that it did at the women’s shelter: the bareness of the space spoke of a cold and impersonal past”. Ngcobo did not neutralise the space of the exhibition for the sake of displaying the artworks, but rather inserted them into the space as she found it, and so the viewer may imagine that this was exactly how the space was left the moment the Pass Office was hastily vacated, with the artworks incorporated as testimonial evidence of a history otherwise denied.
In addition to the site-specific reference that forms the framework for reading the works in the exhibition, Ngcobo also experimented with the curatorial composition. Recognising the potential for using dynamic display formats to further mobilise a curatorial concept, she brings memory to the fore by installing the artworks at the Pass Office as re-enactments of the evidence that was destroyed. Ngcobo inverted have used to assess my readings of the photographic records of the installation. Unfortunately, the only images available from the exhibition were available on the website for The Center for Historical Re-enactments.
73 the ‘traditional’ hanging or installation style125 one may expect from an exhibition display, and rather, ‘sets a stage’ using the artworks to prompt the viewer into reading into the narrative and effects of the pass system. In Figure 2.8, one can see how unframed photographs taken from Zanele Muholi’s series Work as Usual (c. 2010)126 have been ‘haphazardly’ tacked to an old wooden board that leans against the wall to the right. To the left, the photographs are installed on a freestanding notice board, in a similarly impermanent and seemingly disordered manner. The series “investigates the problematic of domestic work” by juxtaposing the high-heeled legs of a white woman, the ‘madam’ figure according to Louise Bethlehem (2010), against the figure of a ‘maid’ washing the floor on her knees behind the ‘madam’ (Figure 2.9 shows a detail of one of the images). According to Bethlehem (2010), this work becomes “a footnote, if you like, to the hierarchical relations prevailing between them”.127 In the same installation image (Figure 2.8), in the far-background, one sees a glimpse of the blue fabric of Mary Sibande’s sculptural installation piece, Long Live the Dead Queen, positioned alongside photographs from the same series that have been installed below eye level and clipped onto temporary display wires. Again, the installation style recalls the way evidence is typically displayed in crime films and television shows, alluding to the fact that these photographic artworks should be read as a testament to truth. Sibande’s Long live the Dead Queen also interrogates the figure of the ‘maid’ in a South African context, wherein she ‘reworks’ “Victorian costume through the use of fabric typically associated with the uniforms of domestic workers in South Africa” (Bethlehem 2010). Both Muholi’s and Sibande’s works question the legacy of the ‘madam’/‘maid’ relationship that has continued in the wake of democracy — a hierarchical result of the racial classification system that continues to plague contemporary society.
125 Where pieces are framed or objects are formally displayed on plinths as neutral ‘objects’ to be consumed in a gallery display by a discerning art critic or informed gallery viewer. 126 Muholi’s series’ title Work as Usual is a direct reference to a newspaper article titled ‘Work as Usual for Bester’ — published in The Sun newspaper on 13 December 2002 which acknowledges Muholi’s late mother, Bester Muholi, at the time of her retirement from employment as a domestic worker after 41 years working for the same family. This newspaper article was included in the curatorial programme for the exhibition PASS-AGES. 127 As Irene E. Bronner (2016) has indicated in her analysis of Muholi’s Massa and Mina(h) series, in her study ‘Representations of domestic workers in post-apartheid South African art practice’, the work also has an underlying homoeroticism. Bronner (2016:186) states, “Muholi has created a fictional and unconventional figure in ‘Mina’ the ‘maid’ who has an ambivalent sexual relationship with her ‘madam’, a story line that encourages the viewer to self-consciously evaluate how narratives from various origins may be imposed upon both ‘maid’ and ‘madam’”. Bronner (2016:186) also attributes Muholi’s decision to use the trope of the domestic worker-employer relationship to explore hierarchies due to “[Muholi’s] personal connection to domestic workers, through her mother, Bester Muholi”.
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Ernest Cole’s iconic photograph titled “Young boy is stopped for his pass as white plainclothesman looks on” (Figure 2.10) was repeated in an installation that formed a backdrop to one of Kemang Wa Lehulere’s works mounted in the exhibition128 — a desk that recalls one typical of South African schools but that is rendered dysfunctional in its compositional make-up (Figure 2.11). This desk is installed next to chairs that invite viewers to sit and watch an old box-screen television set, simply placed in an old cupboard left behind in the space. On the screen is documentation of a previous performance by Wa Lehulere, titled uGuqul’ibhatyi129 (2008; Figure 2.12). This performance work took place in the back garden of a house in Gugulethu130 wherein Wa Lehulere excavated a hole using an Afro-comb and, in the process of digging, discovers a cow’s skeleton (Bethlehem 2010). The Afro-comb used to dig out the soil in the performance is particularly important, as it alludes to the fact that apartheid officials assessed Afro-hair to classify citizens racially — referred to as the ‘pencil test’. As described by Gule (2015:92-93), “a pencil was inserted into the hair of the person being tested and, depending on the ease with which it moved through the hair, the test subject would be allocated to one racial group or the other”. By installing this work in relation to the backdrop of Cole’s repeated image, Ngcobo presents a “dense nexus”, as described by Bethlehem (2010), of the “lived archive” of the “production of race in apartheid South Africa”. In a different wing of the exhibition space, Wa Lehulere’s Afro-combs are displayed in a wooden case laid on the floor in the centre of the room (Figure 2.13). The objects are ‘amplified’ by the accompanying installation of photographic documentation of the performance piece, which forms the backdrop to viewing the objects. The installation also recalls the manner in which images are typically strung up as evidence — how one would imagine evidence being tracked by forensic detectives at a crime scene.
128 The repetition of photographs in a wallpaper-like manner by Ngcobo recalls the artist-curator role, as exemplified in Skotnes’ early exhibition Miscast, discussed in Chapter One, who also installed photographs as a backdrop to the objects curated for the exhibition. 129 Translated loosely from Xhosa, meaning to turn a coat inside out (Bethlehem 2010). According to Gule (2015:92), “The performance is titled after the isiXhosa term for a turncoat, used to refer to Black Africans who altered their identity so as to be identified as ‘coloured’, since under the apartheid system so-called ‘coloured people’ held more privileges than Africans”. The work was originally performed as part of the exhibition Scratching the Surface Vol. 1 curated by Ngcobo and Mwenya Kabwe at the AVA Gallery in Cape Town, 4 — 22 August 2008 (Gule 2015:92). 130 Gugulethu is a township in Cape Town, South Africa, which is where Wa Lehulere grew up (Gule 2015:92).
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The exhibition is thus staged as an act of gathering data, and presenting the ‘truths’ or testimonials of those affected by the pass system — in this case, the artists.
In addition, the inclusion of Dineo Seshee Bopape’s performance piece, titled The Performance has been Deferred, draws further attention to the tensions created by the space of the Pass Office that was essentially denied as both a site of struggle and of having a role in reconciliation and redress (see Figure 2.14 indicating the image included for the performance as part of the curatorial programme). As described in a later account of the performance,131 Bopape (or an actor) exits from the gathered audience crowd, who would essentially be waiting in anticipation for the performance to begin, “to go onto the stage, adorned with a microphone, spotlight and speakerphones” and announce that ‘the performance has been deferred,’ before returning into the crowd (Salley 2013:358). According to Raél Jero Salley (2013:355), to ‘defer’ something implies that that which has been deferred has “never been given as fully present”. He emphasises, then, that “[d]elay, tension and hope mark Bopape’s The Performance has been Deferred (2008)”, which also directly refers to the lingering effects of the pass system, imposed on people never fully acknowledged as present or entitled citizens in their own land, and whose standing as South African was essentially deferred (Salley 2013:357-358). This can be considered in terms of Derridean thought, specifically considering the notion of ‘trace’, wherein the sign, for Jacques Derrida (1967/1997:xvii), is always already inhabited by that which is forever absent.
Curatorial thought, as Smith (2012a:38, 191) notes, is “always deeply embedded in the practice of ‘actually mounting an exhibition’”, of creating ‘unexpected’ connections through installation techniques, or by hanging works in sight of each other. Thus, the curatorial composition is informed by a combination of how the curator critically considers, unpacks or reframes elements in an exhibition in order to bring about meaning. Ngcobo arguably recognised the potential for dynamic display formats to mobilise a curatorial concept of re-enactment, and brings memory to the fore by
131 It should be noted that Salley’s (2013) discussion of Bopape’s The Performance has been Deferred (2008) is made in the context of its inclusion in Black Womanhood: Images, Icons and Ideologies of the African Body curated by Barbara Thompson for the Hood Museum of Art (New Hampshire, United States). However, as the title of the performed work is maintained from the original 2008 performance, my assumption is that the intention and happenings of the performance remain similar to that included in PASS-AGES.
76 presenting artworks as references to extract memories. The works are then further activated through their installation at the site where the traumas connected to these memories may have been committed. The viewer walking through the exhibition might use these references to ‘re-enact’ the denied history, and recall the atrocities the Pass Laws sanctioned by considering each artist’s citation in context of the struggle. This made the arrangement and installation of the works an additional ‘text’ that mobilises the concept in terms of the space. Re-enactment, in this case, is thus used with a certain degree of irony and criticality, as usually the very notion of ‘historical re-enactment’ calls to mind a group of people, dressed in costumes, re- enacting battles in a celebratory way. Ngcobo’s re-enactment is rather a criticism and a call for accountability. In the curatorial statement, Ngcobo (2010:2) argues that PASS-AGES “pulls together ideas that have helped shape practices of contemporary artists from South Africa alongside ideas that have and continue to shape history and our memories of it”. The exhibition thus became a (ironical) ‘re-enactment’ — a way of unearthing testimonies and gathering ‘evidence’ of a history in the context of the site in which the narrative took place, and in a way that could elicit responses to apartheid’s crimes against humanity.
Ngcobo (2010:2) argues that PASS-AGES “explores how certain codes and cultural signifiers are repeated, universalized and preserved” and that the exhibition “calls for a communal and interdisciplinary investigation into the construction of historical legacies and their potential impact on the local art scene”. The aim of the exhibition was to “promote reinterpretations of the past through proposals for future reflections” (Ngcobo 2010:2). This position is reiterated in the curatorial statement framing the exhibition, and furthermore, in the curation and presentation of the statement itself in the curatorial programme: the text about the exhibition was represented in the format of an accompanying “newspaper” (seen on the table in Figure 2.15), which featured the curatorial statement, essays, conversations, opinions and images.132 Furthermore, the artworks and related testimonials were also repeatedly referred to throughout the installation of fabricated ‘front-page’ newspaper excerpts in the exhibition (seen on the wall in Figure 2.15). According to Ngcobo (2010:2), the
132 The curatorial statement was written by Ngcobo, and the programme included contributions from herself, Sean Jacobs, Coco Fusco, Desiree Lewis, Hlonipha Mokoena, and Zamani Xolo.
77 newspaper was “compiled to suggest the various ways of sifting through the rubble of history”.
The framing of the curatorial statement and related writing in a newspaper-like format transforms the reading of the provided information, as the statement now contributes, not only by explaining the curatorial concept, but also by allowing the spatial arrangement to visually and conceptually assemble further frameworks in which to read the exhibition. Newspapers during the apartheid years were often white owned, white controlled, and published in support of the National Party’s (NP) political regime — or if not, they were generally shut down or censored. Most black independent newspapers ceased to exist prior to apartheid (Touwen 2011). Journalism was restricted under PW Botha’s leadership (1978 - 1989), and newspapers — being state controlled — often curated information for the people and avoided much of the resistance news that was going on at the time (Touwen 2011). There were only a few white-owned newspaper platforms that raised criticism of the government, notably the Rand Daily Mail and subsequently the Weekly Mail133 (Touwen 2011).
Carlien Touwen (2011) discusses the link between controls imposed by the apartheid government (as with the Pass Office) and controls imposed on press journalism during apartheid:
In 1982 the government appointed the Steyn Commission of Inquiry into the Media. The commission report recommended the ‘compulsory registration of all journalists on a central roll from which those found guilty of improper conduct could be struck off by a General Council for Journalists which would control entry into the profession’. The whole media world protested fiercefully [sic] and Minister Botha was forced to back off from these proposals. But the government found other ways to restrict journalists, both national and foreign. New press identity cards, accreditation rules and a broadening of police authority [were introduced] to remove journalists from incidents and detain them as soon as they reported on anything labeled as ‘subversive’.
Newspapers challenged the government’s new legislations, but there was resistance. The Natal Witness went so far as to take the matter to the Natal High Court, which granted a few weeks of free publications until stricter rules were put in place (Touwen
133 The Rand Daily Mail closed in 1985, and a few journalists then went on to form the Weekly Mail — which later became the Mail & Guardian.
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2011). The Sowetan printed a run of blank pages in a subversive protest to the censorship (Touwen 2011). Touwen (2011) says the following with regard to the use of newspapers in the anti-apartheid struggle (1980 - 1994):
[…] innovation in publication and news gathering due to automation and digitalization opened up a whole spectrum of new possibilities. Communication became a vital weapon in the anti-apartheid struggle, both inside and outside the country. Inside it developed into a real battle between the authorities and alternative press as the government soon recognized the power of communication in their attempt to keep control.
Despite the stringent attempts at censorship, newspapers served a seminal role in the resistance struggle against apartheid, and the efforts to highlight awareness of the racial injustice that was occurring against black people in South Africa. The image of Hector Pieterson’s134 lifeless body being carried down the street during the 1976 Soweto Uprising, published widely in newspapers, is an example of how they helped to emphasise, and possibly even revive, resistance action in society. Importantly, this reference to histories of resistance by the youth is also called to the fore in PASS-AGES through the use of the curatorial statement hand-written on a blackboard — albeit in a didactic manner owing to the blackboard composition (Figure 2.16).135 In this context, I use the term ‘didactic’ rather than statement, with a certain amount of criticality: Didactic implies 'teaching', but the blackboard formulation may also have been used to 're-enact', or call to the fore, past resistance to the unequal education at white and black schools.
As such, similar to the manner in which the site of the Pass Office proffers a framework for the curatorial project of PASS-AGES, the composition of the curatorial framework into a newspaper format responds to the resistance. The exhibition statement, which is still widely available, thus offers longevity to framing the curatorial concept for the exhibition, whereas the exhibition, framed by the site of the Pass
134 According to the website on Gauteng Tourist Attractions (©1999 — 2018) that refers to the Hector Pieterson Memorial Site, “[s]ince June 1976, Hector's surname has been spelled Peterson and Pietersen by the press but the family insists that the correct spelling is Pieterson. The Pieterson family was originally the Pitso family but decided to adopt the Pieterson name to try to pass as ‘Coloured’ (the apartheid-era name for people of mixed race), as Coloured people enjoyed somewhat better privileges under apartheid than blacks did”. Thus, for the purposes of this study, I have opted to use the spelling indicated as correct by Pieterson’s family. 135Education, and the politics around the histories of education in South Africa, is also a main theme in Kemang Wa Lehulere’s works, who uses typical school desks, as seen in Figure 2.8.
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Office, is no longer accessible (and images of the installation are difficult to find). Thus, similarly to how space can be used as a tool to enhance the curatorial concept of the exhibition, so too can the installation/presentation of the curatorial statement. Interestingly, a link can also be drawn to the Trade Routes biennale of 1997, which cleverly used the newspaper format to marshal ideas around racial issues and globalisation — and thus, an influence can arguably be inferred. Furthermore, Ngcobo’s curatorial programme makes a direct reference to Coco Fusco’s Trade Routes performance, Rights of Passage, by including an image of the cover of Fusco’s passbook in the self-published newspaper (or curatorial programme). Fusco’s performance interrogated the pass system by handing out passbooks to visitors at Trade Routes in lieu of a ticket to view the performance (Gule 2015:93).
Exhibitions function as sites for critical engagement around a concept or theme, and serve as critical arguments or insights. Smith (2012a:21) discusses the notion of ‘activist curating’ as often being enacted beyond the venues of the art world. By means of this, the exhibition is mounted as an argument and conceptual framework to spark response, highlight issues that need further engagement, and bring about political and social change. According to Smith (2012a:51), curators join “artists, public commentators, politicians, expert scholars, and many others as definers of the public discourse” in that curators work in the domain of the symbolic (ideological), and frame a position wherein “nothing is neutral”. Smith (2012a:162-163), speaking about the purpose of the exhibition as argument, states:
While the format is a familiar one — the exhibition as argument — the stakes are specific to a time and place: the curator wants to offer a clarified view, retrospective yet realistic, of how a certain body of artists (a variety, a group, even an individual) wrestled with their contemporary circumstances, or are doing so now.
Ngcobo’s (2017; 2010:2) argument was to signal how contemporary artists’ practices are significantly shaped by the construction of historical legacies. By maintaining autonomy through her independence, she was able to select an unconventional space as a tool to conceptually frame the exhibition, and to adopt an unusual curatorial composition that served to activate its reading. The use of space and curatorial composition in PASS-AGES imbues the exhibition with meaning, galvanising the exhibition’s narrative of uncovering testimonies, and thus contributing
80 to probing the manner in which society responds to these denied narratives (Ngcobo 2010:2). These techniques provided further critical comment about socio-cultural and political issues regarding histories, the erasure of histories, and the need to acknowledge, address and contextualise these histories for the remediable future. In light of the discussion around PASS-AGES, it can be argued that Ngcobo’s nomadic role allowed her to highlight socio-cultural and economic challenges, and to participate in social issues in a manner that may otherwise have been moderated in an institutional context.
Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection (2010), curated by Anthea Buys
Exhibited in the East Wing (see Figure 2.17) of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), Time’s Arrow136 was guest-curated137 by Buys. The exhibition was time-based, spanning eight weeks, and so the installation changed in weekly increments: works were removed, new works were made and added, and some installed works were transformed or shifted during the exhibition. These changes were applied according to a ‘programme of removal’ Buys compiled “in response to the exhibition’s own progress, its public reception and curatorial difficulties, mistakes and successes” (Time’s Arrow 2010e; 2010f). Time’s Arrow included a selection of works from the JAG permanent collection, as well as a selection of contemporary artworks created by artists in reaction to the permanent collection. Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010e) expressed that, in compiling the exhibition, she was “interested in exploring the extent to which an archive might be reversible, that is, how it might trace the disappearance of histories and remember forgetting (rather than memorialise in order
136 The exhibition took place from 21 February - 13 April 2010. According to the JAG registrar Tara Walker (2018), it was likely that Room 9 would not have been used for the exhibition, as up until the time she began working at JAG in 2014, the room was titled ‘The Foundation Room’ and housed a semi-permanent exhibition that was representative of the permanent collection. It is likely, too, that Gerard Sekoto’s painting, Yellow Houses: A Street in Sophiatown, was included in the Foundation Room exhibition, which explains why Time’s Arrow included only the watercolour study to the work, and not the well-known painting that was a part of the permanent collection. 137 Although Buys’ exhibition was funded by the University of Johannesburg’s Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Center (VIAD), Buys conceived the exhibition during a month-long residency at the Gwangju Biennale Foundation in 2009, during which she participated in the first Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course, which was directed by Yong Woo Lee, Barbara Vanderlinden and Massimiliano Gioni. Buys facilitated the exhibition in her independent capacity, maintaining full autonomy over the show.
81 to guard against forgetting)”.138 Using the temporally based organisational structure, Time’s Arrow considered “the relationship between the formation of Johannesburg Art Gallery’s permanent collection, and how this collection is viewed, read, imagined, forgotten, resented, buried, and dug up again years later” (Press release: Time’s Arrow: Live readings of the JAG collection 2010).
For the first 50 years of the JAG’s existence, its acquisitions were based firmly on the “tradition of western art”, with works needing to conform to the rhetoric of a western aesthetic (Carman 2010:21-22). In 2010, One hundred years of collecting: The Johannesburg Art Gallery (edited by Carman), which provides a framework to the history of the JAG collection, was published.139 As the book was published in the same year that the exhibition Time's Arrow took place, it would be fair to suggest that working with the histories of the JAG collection for its production influenced Buys' concern and position. According to Bester (2010:104), Buys “became ensconced in the roles of Florence Phillips and the Randlords in the formation of the gallery and development of its collection”. This led to her particular interest in the “mining motif” — both in terms of the works collected by the JAG, as well as “in the curatorial act of subterranean digging that surfaced items of interest for display” while researching the collection. He asserts, from this, that “the conversation evolved into a brief for a series of modest curated exhibitions of works by younger artists, and eventually became Time’s Arrow, a single exhibition of whose outstanding feature was a series of curator- and artist-driven changes effected during the course of its two-month display” (Bester 2010:104).140
The exhibition opened with a display of a selection of works taken from the JAG permanent collection that represented a strand of its collection history. The displays of the permanent collection pieces were then intersected with works made by
138 I would argue that Skotnes’ Miscast (discussed in Chapter One) is an important precedent in relation to Buys’ Time’s Arrow. Both exhibitions critique modes of collecting and display (and the histories of their display as part of their transgression) enacted by colonial museums. Both exhibitions are also mounted in the very spaces associated with the prejudicial collection, allowing the curator to use the exhibition to critique broader power relations and histories associated with the collections and the institution. 139 Antoinette Murdoch (2010a:17), at the time Chief Curator and Head at JAG, thanks Buys for having "contributed to the overall production of the book". 140 According to Bester (2010:104), the exhibition originated from a conversation between Buys and Murdoch about the long-term prospects for JAG’s downstairs project space, which eventually led to the idea of Time’s Arrow.
82 contemporary artists and researchers that responded to these collection pieces (Time’s Arrow ©2015).141 Correspondence between Buys and the JAG indicates that the permanent collection works were selected based on themes of mining, historical omissions and erasures, and incomplete archives.142 Their inclusion indicated attempts to “retrace the past, reversals and recoveries” (JAG Library Archives, A Book 33). Details of what was on display in week one can be seen in Figures 2.18, 2.19 and 2.20.143
Owing to the impact it had on the curatorial agenda, Rodan Kane Hart’s Developments of Space. 96 to 0sqm in 8 Weeks: A Time Based Intervention requires some elaboration. Hart’s instructional work formed the basis upon which Buys scheduled curatorial edits in Room 8 of the exhibition (see Figure 2.21 showing the instructions). The work prompted Buys to tape a ‘line’ across the floor of the room, starting at the northern-most point in Room 8, and at weekly intervals thereafter, Buys had to tape an additional line, two metres parallel to the prior laid line, causing the taped lines to replicate across the floor (see Figure 2.22). As the taped lines were duplicated, any works that fell within their boundary were removed, causing “a displacement of artworks” (Buys in Time’s Arrow 2010f). Buys also shifted Serge Alain Nitigeka’s work from the northern-most part of Room 8 to the southern-most part, in order to avoid the work being included in the boundary of the taped line. The removed works were then replaced with Murray Kruger's text excerpts from a series of interviews with the JAG librarian at the time of the exhibition, Jo Burger, titled Archiving Absence (seen in Figure 2.22 on the right, and 2.23 on the left) and Mikasa Sonnenberg’s framed photographs “of the shrinking exhibition” (referring to Time’s Arrow) on the wall opposite (seen in Figure 2.22 and 2.23).
141 The contemporary participants ranged from established to emerging artists at the time, and included Alexander Opper, Thenjiwe Nkosi, James Sey, Alex Dodd, Alexandra Makhlouf, Phillip Raiford Johnson, Chaaya Dubashi, Tegan Bristow, Mitch Said, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Nina Barnett, Murray Kruger and Rodan Kane Hart. 142 JAG Library Archives, A Book 33 — library file provided by Ziphezinhle Gwala, JAG librarian. 143 These details were gathered based on a combination of the photographic records of the exhibition, a schedule of incremented changes intended by Buys seen in the JAG archive file, as well as information provided by JAG’s registrar and librarian. I visited the JAG library on 7 March 2018 and looked through an archival file wherein a number of documents outlining the permanent works on exhibition, and the intention of the show and individual pieces, were found. Furthermore, as noted above, Tara Walker, the Registrar for JAG, helped me to help identify a number of works and archival references in the photographic reference I had.
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By week five of the eight-week exhibition, Buys had removed all the works extracted from the JAG permanent collection that she had originally included. With the exhibition entering the second half of its opening time, further major curatorial changes were implemented.144 These changes involved the inclusion of James Sey’s contemporary installation work, titled Sublimation and Reversibility, comprising a video projection and installation of painted x-rays extracted from the JAG conservation archives, and the installation of ‘The Coroner’s Corner’.145 Sey’s work was installed in Room 7, judging from the photograph, and thus would have replaced the installation of the permanent collection works and Philip Raiford Johnson’s contemporary work that was previously installed in this space. It can also be surmised that Thenjiwe Nkosi’s Gallery paintings and the display case containing archives of the JAG building and architect were removed in Room 8, and replaced by ‘The Coroner’s Corner’ installation (seen in detail in Figure 2.24, and in the context of the exhibition layout in Figure 2.22, in the right-hand corner of the southern-most side of Room 8). A coroner, generally an official who conducts inquests into violent, sudden, or suspicious deaths, thus refers to the forensic investigation of theft, disappearance or damage to works in the collection. This corner installation included archival images of artworks that have required conservation work, or artworks that have been damaged, and of artworks that have been stolen from JAG.
Alongside the original frame of the El Greco painting that was cut out of the frame and stolen from the JAG, Buys had installed a selection of archival materials that referred to this theft, and which according to Buys, “probe [at] the possibilities of loss, erasure and reversal as archival fu[n]ctions” (Time’s Arrow 2010h). The conceptual reference here, again, is to the exhibition’s major theme of ‘remembering’ loss or forgetting. The corner/coroner installation also links to the themes introduced by Sey’s work, which was installed in the context of three X-rays (Figure 2.25: Rossetti’s Regina Cordium (1860), Maggie Laubser’s Lake Garda (1927), and either Girl with the Pitcher or The Huntsman (c.18thC) attributed to Dominicus van Tol (the ambiguity
144 According to a planned schedule of changes Buys had indicated in correspondence with the JAG, major changes were planned from 18 March (JAG Library Archives, A Book 33). According to Buys’ on the Time’s Arrow blog, these changes were implemented from 23 - 28 March. 145 On downloading an installation image from the blog, I noticed that the file was titled ‘The Coroner’s Corner’. Although the installation was not officially referred to as ‘The Coroner’s Corner’ on the blog, this file name for the image led me to presume Buys had titled the installation ‘The Coroner’s Corner’ (Time’s Arrow 2010h).
84 of this X-ray is acknowledged). According to Sey’s artist statement (Time’s Arrow 2010b):
Two of the X-rays selected for this installation are unusual in that they reveal different images underneath the one apparent as the work in the JAG collection — the paintings attributed to van Tol obscure a two-panel image of a Virgin and Child, whose provenance and authorship is uncertain; and the painting of Lake Garda by Laubser obscures a self- portrait by the artist. The Rossetti, on the other hand, reveals in X-ray the brushwork and layers of pigmentation which make up the ‘mechanical’ constituents of the finished painting.
These archival documents thus serve to reveal the layers of paint and process underneath the visible paintings, and, according to Sey (Time’s Arrow 2010b), bring together “technological palimpsests of women — the Virgin, the artist, and, in the subject of Rossetti’s painting, the idealised lover”. The film that accompanies these X-rays shows a visual attempt to reverse the X-ray process, and digitally retouch these referents to appear as completed prints. According to Sey (Time’s Arrow 2010b), “[r]eversibility — a key component of film technology — serves as a technological means to investigate the aesthetic dimensions of the relationship between sublimation, the palimpsest and temporal flow, and this forms the core theme of the film” — which enhances the overall exhibition theme of uncovering fragments of a collection, a ‘time’s arrow’, that may have been forgotten, and to superimpose or intersect these archives with contemporary works to invert their original way of being read. Bester (2010:104) claims that the changes made as the exhibition’s halfway mark, particularly referring to ‘The Coroner’s Corner’, “while small and not exhaustive, provides the most readily available clue for understanding the intentions and methods behind Time’s Arrow”.
Thus, the exhibition was ‘modified’ throughout its duration, with curatorial edits being applied each Monday when the museum was closed to the public. The exhibition was ‘complete’ only once it concluded, inverting the exhibition’s ‘conventional chronology’, which requires that an exhibition be completed in time for an opening (Time’s Arrow 2010e). According to Bester (2010:104), one of Buys’ areas of enquiry was “the powerful role of the curator in the production of exhibition meaning. By facilitating artist-driven changes to the exhibition space, Buys challenged her own ability to control the space and tested the extent to which she would have to adapt her own
85 intentions, based on the artists’ responses and changes”. Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010f) admits that the very act of removing works — particularly popular or strong works — was difficult. She recalled on her blog, “[p]icking a bit of vinyl text off the wall letter by letter — a citation from Jacques Derrida’s Memoirs of the Blind of which I am very fond — was almost heartbreaking [sic]”.146 She considers that “duration on a gallery wall carries with it an implicit value ascription”, and that “[i]t is hard to break the habit of thinking that certain works deserve more wall-time than others, that preservation and endurance are signs of importance” (Buys in Time’s Arrow 2010f). This is significant when considering that duration in an institution’s collection (and the initial action of acquiring a work for a collection) carries with it a similar, if not stronger, value ascription.
The JAG was founded in the rhetoric of imperialism, as the museum and collection was founded on Randlord money, with the intention of bringing ‘civilisation’ to what was perceived as an uncultured mining town. All artworks beyond western aesthetic parameters were considered “primitive, exotic or merely ‘other’” and led to exclusions from the collection (Carman 2010:22).147 In the late 1930s, the acquisitions budget allowed the Art Gallery Committee (AGC),148 the committee structure that deals with all matters relating to collections, scope to begin addressing the issue of the lack of South African art in the collection, although this scope referred only to art made by
146 Furthermore, Buys recalls that visitors also felt particularly ‘grumpy’ when works had been removed — recalling specifically the reactions to the early removal of William Kentridge’s video piece, Mine (Time’s Arrow 2010 — March 18). 147 According to Carman (2010:21), JAG’s various collections “constitute a unique record of the development of public culture over the past 100 years. It is a visual archive and a witness of political and social change, as well as of the huge shifts in assessing ‘what is art’ and what objects are worthy of collecting and holding in trust for the citizens of Johannesburg; and, indeed, of who the people are who are considered citizens”. 148 The Art Gallery Committee (AGC) is a committee and structure that has been in existence since 1913. The wealth of the Randlords established the Johannesburg Art Collection between 1910 and 1915 (Time’s Arrow 2010e), and according to Carman (2010:21), since 1913, “[a]ll decisions concerning JAG’s collections and related matters are made by the AGC before going through various municipal committees, and before reaching the full council for ratification. Council may refuse to ratify any acquisition […] or withhold adequate maintenance and purchase funds, but it has no power to treat JAG’s collections as disposable assets, or to instruct the AGC to act in an immoral or illegal way. The AGC has seven trustees: three political representatives (two municipal councillors — one usually the mayor — and a government appointee) and four worthy citizens. Political interests cannot overrule those of Johannesburg citizens, and the terms of the trust cannot be changed”. As emphasised by Carman (2010:21), this policy has “ensured the safe-keeping of JAG’s collections, but it has also ensured an often conservative grip on JAG’s policies through lack of change in the committee”. In 1992, the first black person was appointed to sit on the AGC committee — Bongi Dhlomo. She is currently still a member of the AGC.
86 white artists (Carman 2010:22). From 1966, under the direction of Nel Erasmus,149 the acquisitions were made on the basis of obtaining international artworks, and although “the best South African works”, as Erasmus is quoted as saying, would be considered, the AGC would not focus on this, as “other South African galleries and museums [were] doing this” (Erasmus, cited in Carman 2010:23). Thus, the JAG’s collection has a long history of pandering to a colonial canon, which undermined the assigning of value to South African art production, particularly with regard to the work of black artists. In a similar way, it can be argued that, by removing the permanent collection pieces included in Time’s Arrow systematically during the exhibition, Buys was criticising the impact this legacy has had on culture, thus drawing attention to the need to recontextualise the collection in relation to the present day. The collection policy drawn up in 1994 accordingly aims to acquire works that address the gaps and omissions in its collection, and to build on the JAG’s ability to be “a major international centre and archive of South African Art” (Carman 2010:23).
Buys’ position is that a collection is a temporal phenomenon, and that “archives, including art collections, as processes of accumulation, are emblems of time” (Press release: Time’s Arrow: … 2010). Gule (2010:126), referring to the JAG collection, similarly regards “acts of collecting and archiving” as “deeply political” and “intricately bound with the politics of the time and its rhetoric”.150 Buys’ exhibition aimed to destabilise the temporal hierarchies assigned to works in the permanent collection, and thus served to question the historical narratives connected to these works (Press release: Time’s Arrow: … 2010). Therefore, by using the collection and the format of the museum exhibition itself as a critical comment, Buys questions notions of preservation, endurance, omission and removal in the context to the JAG collection. According to Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010e):
‘Time’s arrow’ is a term, normally associated with the disciplines of philosophy and physics, that refers to the apparent directionality of time. Time seems to ‘flow’ in one direction and this flow is apparent in causal interactions, aging, entropy, accumulation and other processes. It would seem that archives, including art collections, as processes of accumulation, are emblems of time’s arrow. However, philosophical and
149 Nel Erasmus became the curator of JAG in 1966. 150 Gule was appointed as the new director of the JAG (January 2018). Prior to this appointment, he was the Chief Curator at the Soweto Museums, but before that he was Curator of the Contemporary Collections at the JAG.
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scientific enquiry has suggested that time might not operate so deterministically and may in fact comprise symmetries, reversals and dissipations that are unapparent to us. In other words, the directionality of time might be a structure that is merely perceived rather than actual and effective (although, as perceiving subjects we would not very easily ascertain this).
She states that the exhibition was “inspired by her observation of how the personal decisions made at the beginning of establishing the gallery’s archive had influenced art history” (Buys in Botha 2012a). By observing the archival trend in scholarship and displaying reflections on this ‘time’s arrow’ from JAG, “the exhibition invites new works to be reread or recast older ones in such a way that newer works implicitly modify those that came ‘before’ them” (Press release: Time’s Arrow: … 2010).
Marjatta Hölz (2012:4), discussing the tendency to ‘recurate’ permanent collections, observes that central figures for doing so, and for reinterpreting collections, are often guest curators, which I believe is possibly a result of a detachment from institutional bureaucracy. Hölz (2012:3) suggests “new curatorial concepts can show the collection in a different light” and “create a dialogue between the contemporary and the historical”. Considering Serge Alain Nitegeka’s work, Equalibrium (Figure 2.26), which I have selected to discuss as it survived many of the weekly curatorial edits by being moved rather than removed, the large, dark, bent panels occupy an abundance of space, and create tension between the older works and the contemporary works. The looming presence of Equalibrium, with the large bent pieces that seem to be encroaching, overshadows the permanent collection pieces (represented by Alexandra Dodd’s installation piece, Making Room, seen in Figure 2.27). Nitigeka’s work, therefore, casts these pieces in the shadow of their contemporary South African counterparts. According to Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010d), Nitegeka’s works, “inspired by [burdened] figures surging forward […] set up tension between load and movement. They present dichotomies between presence and absence of subjects. In their bent state, the panels test the truce, temporary truce, attained by the respective forces to facilitate movement”. As indicated in Figure 2.27, by Buys moving the panels across the room and their presence surviving the curatorial modifications despite the taped line replicating across the space, the work in the context of Time’s
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Arrow speaks of an altering of position, of agility and of an impetus to embrace change.
Hölz (2012:2) explores whether new contexts can “trigger new interpretations of old works and methods” that negatively affect museum structures, which she stresses places museums at risk of ‘fossilising’. Buys, I argue, attempted to redefine many of the negative associations relating to the legacy of JAG’s collection by dismantling associations with the institutional legacy of colonialism and apartheid and emphasising, rather, the power of the presence that new works in a collection can serve, which arguably helps to reconstitute readings of a collection. By recurating works from the collection in the context of contemporary work, the exhibition thus became the curator’s argument, a visual way of presenting a critique of the JAG collection and exploring the museum’s shortcomings.
Curatorship is acknowledged as a platform to highlight social injustice and encourage social mobility, and a crucial aspect of contemporary curatorial practice is thus about enabling the public visibility of works to encourage interest. The curator is therefore “crucial to the work being made public” (Smith 2012a:43), and consequently to encourage ‘interest’ in art. In this sense, the curator’s approach could be to induce interest from an audience that was previously uninterested in art, or to display to interested audiences already familiar with the works new ways to view and understand them. Buys adopted both approaches simultaneously, as the exhibition components displayed inside the museum could be more easily grasped by an audience that has prior interests in art and/or the JAG collection, but the works shown outdoors served to draw in an audience who may not have been familiar with art to begin with. Buys, through her nomadic and autonomous curatorial role, exerted her authority to place exhibition pieces in unexpected sites outside the secure space of the institution. This indicates how Time’s Arrow renegotiated the common divide between object and audience, and more obviously, the very divide between the museum space and the public.
Alexander Opper’s work Negotiation (Figures 2.28 and 2.29, and over-grown in week eight in Figure 2.30), was a site-specific work that literally displaced ground from the surrounding Joubert Park and placed this in the museum courtyard to spell out the
89 word ‘Park’, whereas the excavated ground in the park spelled out the word ‘museum’. Negotiation dissolved the boundaries between the ordered, sterile museum space and the chaotic, public outdoors. According to Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010a), the work addressed “the strangely dysfunctional relationship between the institution of the museum and the 'institution' of the park. It looks at the space of the park, adjacent to the museum, as another form of the archive, i.e. a sort of produced and lived archive, versus the calculated accumulation which constitutes the mausoleum-like and inanimate archive of the JAG’s collection”. The work further exemplified Buys’ curatorial position to use the exhibition format to dissolve boundaries between private/public, and to examine the relationship between the JAG permanent collection of artworks and what the collection represents to the public in a post-apartheid situation (Time’s Arrow ©2015). By taking artworks outside of the museum grounds, Buys tested the limits of what it meant to present a temporally contextualised ‘museum’ exhibition.
Smith (2012a:59) comments that museum spaces often occupy “pride of cultural place in most metropolitan centers” and are thus important spaces in the context of exhibition practice and curatorial thought. This is not necessarily true of the South African context, however. Given a general lack of funding, a museum does not have the ability to be responsive and experimental, resulting in a lack of public visitors and a wider divide between the museum space and the public. Negotiating this divide was also achieved by Buys’ inclusion of performance in the exhibition, particularly Myer Taub’s work titled Only When it Rains, enacted during the exhibition (Figure 2.31). According to Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010j):
On Friday April 9, Myer Taub conducted an ‘invisible’ performance within the grounds of the JAG and in Joubert Park. This is the first of three related performances that foreground the relationships between the JAG's history and its engagements of different publics in the present. In Only When It Rains, Taub, disguised in a luminous yellow protective suit and a mask, embarked on a journey from the JAG buildings to the Joubert Park fountain. However, he was intercepted along the way by a group of children who proceeded to direct his actions. They were interested in showing him 'their' Joubert Park, and took him to play on the jungle gym, to look at the ‘Weather Stone’ (a stone whose surface regularly changes pre-empting changes in the weather) and to watch a chess match on the Joubert Park public chess boards.
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Taub also staged a second performance, Three Acts to Florence, for the closing event of Time’s Arrow. Malte Roloff and Iris Ströbel (2012:8) draw attention to how “museums play a pivotal role in legitimising social inclusions and exclusions, and defining the positions of subjects and objects within their knowledge-power-relations”. I thus argue that Buys’ critical approach towards the museum, and her attempt to ‘spill’ the exhibition into the public, and thus include an audience not generally interested in it, demonstrates how the museum’s role might be revised in the wake of democratic society. Furthermore, I posit that this approach exemplifies Buys’ criticism of inclusions, exclusions and power positions established in the act of collecting, making known her stance that, despite a collection indicating a certain socio-cultural and political trajectory, curators must assume responsibility to disrupt these ‘time’s arrows’ and explore ways of curating exhibitions that cast a different light on old conceptions.
Smith (2012a:236) indicates that while “exhibition formats undergo constant reinvention”, the viewer or exhibition visitor ceases to be considered a passive ‘quiescent’ observer, but instead the curator addresses the viewer as an active participant in the exhibition, contributing, in a sense, to how it will be read and understood. When evaluating the manner in which visitors to Time’s Arrow interacted with the wall installations, Buys noted that she found it troublesome that many visitors did not engage with the text on the wall:
They head straight for the pictures. Of course, reading text is widely thought to be more work than looking at pictures, but I think this tendency points to habits of looking in galleries, we tend to consume pictures without thinking of the possibilities of looking through them or around them. We don’t doubt them enough (Time’s Arrow 2010h).
In light of this, Buys made her own criticisms accessible in the context of the exhibition format — by curating these into the final edit of the exhibition. According to Buys (cited in Botha 2012a): “The curated thing is an utterance and there needs to be a response to that, which is what I have found is quite frustrating about curating here — that there is very seldom a serious critical response in a public forum”. In response to a general lack of critical appraisal of the exhibition,151 Buys decided to
151 Time’s Arrow did not, unfortunately, get significant attention. The exhibition was not widely written about, apart from in-depth discussions of single artworks or performances, Buys’ own blog which
91 look frankly at its shortcomings, and ‘curate’ the appraisal of the exhibition into the installation itself. Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010g) remarked: “I wanted this appraisal to have some manifestation in the exhibition spaces, but I didn’t want it to adopt any of the textual forms that are proper to the exhibition and are already present in it, coding it as a museum exhibition”. As seen in Figure 2.32, however, Buys critiqued her process herself in the last week of the exhibition, writing her considerations directly onto the walls, calling attention to aspects that may have been overlooked. Buys looked particularly at the negative wall space between works by highlighting glitches in the unblemished museum space: pencil marks on the wall left over from an installation, old nails/screws that had not been removed, and writing in the lower spaces of the wall outside of eye-level (seen in Figures 2.22 and 2.23). Bester (2010:105) was concerned, however, that the process itself was insufficiently self- critical, suggesting that its changes were ‘gratuitous’ and “lacked self-reflexivity about the curatorial process”. However, I argue that by drawing this into the exhibition, Buys was highlighting the references to the exhibition’s changes — informing a viewer who may not have seen the previous instantiation that changes have occurred, and that the exhibition seen in one instance, is incomplete. The viewer is thus encouraged to be reflexive of the curatorial process.
JJ Charlesworth (2007:97) deliberates: “it is not surprising that the nomadic, culturally foot-loose independent curator should be the main source of expression of an individuated and personalized form of curating”. In light of this, the implication of Buys’ curatorial argument is that these works can be referred to in a manner that is reflexive, that indicates shifts and changes and that, if tucked away in the storeroom of JAG, avoided or hidden from public view, these works lose the potential of possessing the symbolic value that they have in the context of the curator’s argument. Thus, as a result of the curatorial arrangement in the space of the museum, and the temporal qualities of Time’s Arrow, new associations were elicited by Buys.
spans a six-week self-reflexive review of the exhibition, and Bester’s short review in Art South Africa. Bester (2010:105) remarked on the lack of audience for such an exhibition, observing: “This kind of exhibition needs passersby [sic], regular traffic that intentionally and unintentionally re-encounters the same view with a memory of what was there before”.
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According to Buys (Time’s Arrow 2010g), Time’s Arrow became “an experiment in exhibition temporality, an attempt to move away from the conventions of exhibition- viewing that tie the perception of art to fixed structures of time and space [and] from the assumption that an exhibition can ever be mastered by its viewer”. Maintaining autonomy, and curating in her nomadic capacity, or as Charlesworth (2007:96) defines it: “untethered to the edifice of the major institution”, Buys upheld the ability to critique the collection, comment on possibilities of transforming ways of reading the collection, reconsider the museum audience, and invite contemporary artists to respond to the collection — all positions which may not have been possible as a permanent employee of the institution.152 Buys (Press release: Time’s Arrow: … 2010) expressed her hopes as a curator that in the context of Time’s Arrow, “the conventional ‘narrative voice’ of the art museum, which so dogmatically determines the ways in which the exhibitions are experienced and recorded, will give way to a gentler tongue”. Buys reconsidered the format of the exhibition — allowing a museum exhibition (something traditionally static) to transform in a manner that responds to her own expression of the collection, and by adopting a guest curatorial role, Buys was able to critique the museum from inside, reconsider the format of a museum exhibition, and encourage a re-conception of the role the museum plays in society — even though she had just “scratched the surface”, according to Bester (2010:105).
If a Tree ... (2012), curated by Clare Butcher
Butcher curated If a Tree ... (2012) in Johannesburg; it formed part of a larger project that responded to Trade Routes, the 1997 Johannesburg biennale, and was co- ordinated by Joost Bosland for the Stevenson Gallery. This project, titled Trade Routes Revisited, was launched to coincide with the fifteenth anniversary of the second Johannesburg biennale. Including a publication (titled Trade Routes Revisited), it involved three exhibitions: Trade Routes Over Time, 4 April - 19 May 2012, curated by Bosland at Stevenson Cape Town; If a Tree … , 5 July - 3 August 2012, curated by Butcher at Stevenson Johannesburg; and Fiction as Fiction (Or, A Ninth Johannesburg Biennale), 29 November 2012 - 12 January 2013, curated by
152 Interestingly, in a later interview, Buys (cited in Botha 2012a) referred to her resignation from the Iziko National Art Gallery in Cape Town as a result of the gallery’s management being “unyieldingly bureaucratic”. This comment highlights the value Buys places on maintaining autonomy in terms of the curatorial project.
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Bosland at Stevenson Cape Town. The exhibitions were intended to be reflections on what Bosland (2012b:9) calls “arguably the most important exhibition in South Africa ever, and a seminal exhibition in the history of biennales”.
Butcher, a curator and researcher, wanted her exhibition to bear witness to the effects Trade Routes may have had on the art community rather than to research the “historical veracity” of the biennale. Thus, Butcher’s exhibition, If a Tree … , comprised a set of visual connections that formed a metaphorical record of the impact the biennale had on selected artists, and did not focus on the archive, the bureaucratic scandals or the factual happenings associated with Trade Routes. The project also raised a series of questions:
What is the efficacy of reviving such a moment in the country's all too recent past: — a time of interregnum and uncertainty, with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in full swing? Are the biennale's original themes still relevant in today's immigration and economic crises? And how do we realise the generative possibilities embedded within this contested archive of art history in the present? (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012).
Butcher’s If a Tree ... thus offers a curated response to the “dilemma about cause, effect and the contingency of witnessing history in the making” (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012).
Of prominence in the curatorial selection of artists is Butcher’s emphasis on including artists whose mediums were processual, performative, and often ephemeral. According to the curatorial outline, “[t]he artists' projects included in the exhibition alternate between intimate reflections on direct encounters with the biennale 15 years ago, and broader comments on art's political economy in the surrounding city context” (Archive and public culture: Research initiative 2012). The artists selected were not direct artist-contributors to Trade Routes; rather, “some acted as installation technicians, one as a curator, some were audience members and others still in school” (Butcher 2012:130), but all bore witness, in some way, to the biennale’s influence. Symbolically, the majority of artworks included in Butcher’s exhibition were ephemeral, fleeting, and focused on the experiential.
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Selecting artworks for discussion is a difficult task, as each of the pieces in the exhibition served to imply the greater narrative around the ‘impact’ Trade Routes had. Thus all the works are notable and worth mentioning. I include in this introductory section a short description of each artist’s contribution in order to contextualise the show: Kemang Wa Lehulere exhibited 30 Minutes of Amnesia — an installation work that calls memory to mind (Figure 2.33). Mary Corrigall (2012) commented on both Wa Lehulere’s work and James Beckett’s pieces, Berea in Soap (an installation piece made up of a display of five small objects, seen in Figure 2.34), as ‘remarkable’ works that expressed a “dislocation between time and place”. Installation works formed a crucial aspect to the artist selection, and notable is Dineo Seshee Bopape’s work L.L.T.I., an installation displayed in the entrance hall to Stevenson that activated the access area of the gallery, creating an initial impact for visitors entering (Figure 2.35). Also focusing on installation was Nicholas Hlobo, who created Sit - On or Stand Up and Be Counted, an installation comprising twelve small penis-like objects, eight bum-like objects, one chair of average chair size, and ceramic objects (Figure 2.36); Simon Gush’s installation of three ceiling fans, titled Perfect Lovers (Tripartite) (Figure 2.37); and Phillip Raiford Johnson’s digital video installation titled Aperture (Figure 2.38). Also notable were Paul Edmunds’ smaller objects on display (Figure 2.39), Antonis Pittas’ graphite drawing on verges in the city, titled Where to go from Here (Figure 2.40), and Robin Rhode’s newspaper diptych, The Star 23 February 2011 (Figure 2.41).
Lerato Shadi’s performance piece, Seipone (Figure 2.42), consisted of a private, three-day performance in the gallery wherein she wrote directly onto the wall with a charcoal pencil, erased everything, and wrote over it again. Although visitors were unable to witness the actual performance, the writings left on the wall formed the artwork on display.153 Shadi wrote: “What remains to be seen by the exhibition visitor is the residue of the event: imperfect erasures and subtle suggestions of what happened” (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012) — similar to how If a Tree ... forms a visual recollection of the traces of Trade Routes and the residual effect this
153 In the artist’s statement (Stevenson: exhibitions 2012), Shadi states “[t]he prevailing theme in my current body of work deals with absence and presence, subject and object and their transformation through performance. I use elements such as concentration, breath, tension and duration to reflect this research in my oeuvre. My new performance Seipone brings these concerns to the fore — involving a long strip of blank wall, and a step of the same length”.
95 had on the art community. Further examples include Yvonne Dröge Wendel’s Black Ball — a larger-than-life felt and latex ball that was rolled around Newtown and performed in the periphery areas to where the gallery was situated, thus involving direct public intervention (Figure 2.43) — and Colin Richards’ False Wall installed in the gallery space (Figure 2.44). Heman Chong, who met with Eduardo Cachucho to conceptualise a work for the exhibition, commissioned the South African writer Sean O’Toole to write an essay for their contribution to the exhibition. Their instruction was that he should “write a description of what he saw during the 1997 Johannesburg Biennial” — which O’Toole titled A Beautiful Mess (Appendix 2F). The piece consists of 1014 words, and was distributed freely during the course of the exhibition (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012).
Butcher thus undertook the role of tying together the broader narratives, associations and encounters with Trade Routes, whether direct or not. Butcher (2013) understands curating as a form of ‘blocking’ — or the action of physically arranging actors on a stage set. In this case, the actors are the artists and their works, and the impact of this arrangement tends to question, in many ways, issues around authorship, as Butcher probes, ‘who is the author?’ (or artist in this case) and what result did the subsequent impact amount to as it continues to author its own story in the broader narrative? Butcher’s exhibition was responsive and not static, and did not only offer one perspective of the impact of Trade Routes on contemporary artists.
Butcher’s role in If a Tree ... can be associated with the role of the curator as one that is informed by translating art historical narratives in a manner that questions the impact of selected histories, and the subsequent approach in which they are portrayed and given meaning. Instead of using the curatorial role as a means to gain celebrity status amongst global art audiences, Butcher’s understanding of the role of the curator is informed by the root words ‘to care’ (Botha 2012b). In an interview with Nadine Botha (2012b), Butcher contextualised her curatorial position as being informed, mainly, by realising what type of curator she did not want to be. Butcher (cited in Botha 2012b) regards the question “How do we reinvent the institution?” as seminal, and uses this to guide her in terms of her curatorial role and the work she produces, particularly in a “world still recovering from colonial domination”. This position, I would argue, can be pinpointed as a main reason for Butcher to remain
96 independent and to work in a nomadic way, as it grants her access to multiple spaces wherein she can use curatorial practice to offer alternative methods for approaching curating in the context of the gallery.
Niemojewski (2016:9) speaks about the ‘new’ contemporary curator, arguing that the role “metamorphosed from a historian with a long-term commitment to a particular location or historical narrative into a mobile worker willing to trade his or her skills and services anywhere in the world”. It is thus crucial to Butcher’s interest that her role is exemplified by her ability to travel between exhibition spaces. Furthermore, maintaining a nomadic position allows the guest curator to select artists who are perhaps not listed as part of the gallery’s stable of represented artists and whose work may, as a result of its intangible nature, not be commercially oriented. This allowed Butcher the freedom to select artists who were broadly influenced by the second Johannesburg biennale.154
Spatio-temporal elements, and the notion of expanding exhibition infrastructure, are important characteristics of contemporary curatorial practice, which Butcher explored through the implementation of an ancillary programme for If a Tree ... . This programme, which was hosted at the independent project space, Parking Gallery, included a display of the Trade Routes archive and involved hosted conversations and screenings in response to If a Tree ... . As part of the discursive programme, the conversation, Biennial Necessities,155 entered into by Butcher as the curator and various guests from arts practice and administration explored issues around censorship, the discontinuation of local mega-exhibitions, and fiscal cuts affecting the
154 The artists included in If a Tree ... were James Beckett (South Africa/Netherlands), Dineo Seshee Bopape (South Africa), Heman Chong (Singapore) with Eduardo Cachucho (South Africa), Yvonne Dröge Wendel (Netherlands), Paul Edmunds (South Africa), Simon Gush (South Africa), Nicholas Hlobo (South Africa), Phillip Raiford Johnson (South Africa/UK), and Antonis Pittas. (Greece/Netherlands), Colin Richards (South Africa), Robin Rhode (South Africa/Germany), Lerato Shadi (South Africa/Germany) and Kemang Wa Lehulere (South Africa). 155 According to the Facebook event (Biennial Necessities — after the Bible and WB Yeats 2012), “On the 11th of July, the Parking Gallery with guest curator Clare Butcher, will host a discussion with guests from arts practice and administration whereby these questions may be opened up anew in the framework of an archive and discursive programme running alongside the exhibition 'If a Tree ...' at Stevenson Gallery (5 July — 4 August, 2012). Guests include Joseph Gaylard, Melissa Goba, Dawn Robertson and others. Questions were posed, such as “What are the material and social requirements which would necessitate artistic production and presentation on the level of an international biennial in South Africa once more? Are there, or could we imagine alternate, more viable infrastructures that would answer those same needs? If continued, what would a 10th chapter of the Johannesburg Biennial need to be and do?”.
97 arts in order to explore what “art’s position [is] in relation to notions of dignity and necessity in society” (Biennial Necessities — after the Bible and WB Yeats 2012). Thus, bearing in mind the expansive nature of Enwezor’s Trade Routes, which implemented an expanded method of curating (discussed in Chapter One), Butcher aimed to ‘recurate’ the impact of Trade Routes in If a Tree ... in order to “make connections not only between the biennale and the included artists but between the exhibition and the contemporary cultural landscape of the city of Johannesburg” (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012).
According to Smith (2012a:194), ‘recuration’ grants curators the chance to “recover forgotten histories or to adjust distorted memory but also to rethink current practice and do so by restaging past exhibitions or developing a fresh one that reworks aspects of a past exhibition or event”.156 This action, according to Smith (2012a:199), results in the ‘exhibiting’ of the ‘layers of memory’, an action Butcher emphasised by inviting artists to create work that exhibits a visual trajectory of the impact that Trade Routes had on “local and transnational contemporary art practice” (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012). If a Tree ... thus served as a visual ‘witness’ to the history of the second Johannesburg biennale that saw “the wood for the trees”, so to speak (Stevenson: Exhibitions — If A Tree 2012). Butcher’s curatorial call asked artists to be reflexive in their response, and thus she did not ‘recurate’ actual artworks from the biennale itself, but rather ‘recurated’ aspects of the impact the biennale may have had on the artists’ work (see Figure 2.45 for an installation image).
According to Smith (2012a:204), “exhibitions themselves are the intertexts that curators use to speak”, and by ‘recurating’, the curator is able to add meaning and demonstrate reflexivity towards the original exhibition and surrounding events and responses. Smith (2012a:198) states that an emergent vogue manifest in contemporary curating is the act of ‘recurating’ — of which the “goal does not seem to be antiquarian repetition but rather to make a contemporary exhibition, one recommended as relevant to current concerns”. Thus, Butcher’s argument can be
156 Smith (2012a:194) here refers specifically to Euro-American curators working in the 1960s and 1970s, during a time when curatorial practice was being scrutinised internationally and contested. As argued in Chapter One, it is evident that the act of reconsidering the received values of curating seemed to gain momentum only in the 1990s.
98 seen as a claim that, despite its perceived failures, the Johannesburg biennale had a much vaster impact on contemporary art than was possibly acknowledged. I contend that Butcher’s approach to recurating the exhibition using works predominantly informed by process and performativity in the context of a commercial gallery space works towards critiquing this Johannesburg (and South African) emphasis on commercial viability in an art community dominated by the gallery system. Art galleries have a basic commercial orientation and are positioned to serve the art market; however, Butcher’s exhibition challenges the very notion of exhibitions traditionally installed in a commercial gallery context.
Thus, Butcher’s exhibition indicates a way of staging new possibilities in the format of the gallery exhibition itself, and offers the gallery the opportunity to contribute to broader academic and/or historical discourse, a position that is often neglected. Furthermore, I maintain that by means of If a Tree ... , which is ultimately an exercise in re-curating, Butcher was able to invert the general, negative responses towards Trade Routes157 — and focus rather on the impact it has had on successful contemporary art practice in a way that is less measurable or tangible than the ‘facts’ of the biennale’s shortcomings that are so often cited. This sentiment is echoed in the often ephemeral, ‘intangible’ nature of the works included in the exhibition: Butcher’s independent role allowed her to select works that inform the wider discourse to which the exhibition responds, rather than focusing on the ‘object for sale’. Thus, I affirm that, as a result of her unaffiliated position in the gallery system, Butcher was able to disrupt the precedent of curating a ‘typical’ commercial exhibition that generally emphasises the commercial obligation of the gallery space.
Chapter conclusion
As space is fundamental in framing the reading of an exhibition, space can also be used as a critical tool to stimulate further engagement. Space serves as a direct contributor to the conceptualisation and realisation of an exhibition, of the curator’s role, and the visitor’s reading and understanding of an exhibition. As has been shown in this chapter, despite the scarcity of permanent curatorial positions, Johannesburg
157 Many of which were negative as a result of its perceived failure, early closure, and inability to launch further instantiations of the Johannesburg biennale (as discussed in Chapter One).
99 curators continue to assume independent and nomadic positions in order to gain access to spaces. Nomadism has afforded curators the opportunity to practise consistently and, furthermore, has forced them to develop new creative solutions that inspire a dynamic approach to curating in South Africa. In the light of this position, curators have, moreover, assumed the agency to critique traditional or institutional curatorial methodologies, and have reconceptualised their approaches to curating — accelerating the critical quality of curatorial practice in a way that may be minimised by a curator associated with a specific institution.
In particular, Johannesburg nomadic curators have reconsidered the limiting parameters of the white cube space by either reconceptualising western institutional approaches to them or simply by not using them. Ntombela and Ngcobo explored the possibilities of using space as a mechanism to lessen the elitist associations of an art exhibition, and, rather, contextualise an egalitarian space that makes art more accessible to the public. Ntombela shows how, by embracing a nomadic role, the curator is granted the opportunity to question canons by engaging with them practically in a way that may be ‘irregular’ in the context to institutional practice in terms of space, artist selections, the quality of works, and curatorial methodologies. However, in this chapter I indicated that these approaches enhanced the curatorial project itself. Ngcobo’s experimental approach rejected the neutral display of art objects habitually used in modernist exhibition practices, and rather reflects how curatorial composition can be marshalled as an additional text to enhance the curator’s concept, alongside the curatorial framework, curatorial programme and additional textual elements. Curatorial practice is thus no longer limited to conceptualising exhibitions and installing art objects in a space, but is rather the work of creating an experience through activating elements in unexpected ways.
Buys’ Time’s Arrow further demonstrates how the nomadic guest-curator can seize the opportunity to critique institutional practices and invert conventional readings of a collection or institution. Buys reconsidered the chronology of an exhibition and used spatio-temporal modifications to destabilise historical hierarchies and narratives. This alternative approach to curating in an art institution was also utilised by Butcher, whose project indicated the ability to invert the typical commercial gallery’s approach to curating by focusing on temporality and ephemerality as themes in a space often
100 limited by its need to present art objects for sale in a commercial context. Most notably, however, curators are able to use curating as a platform to emphasise social injustice and interrogate legacies related to socio-politics. By revising the conventions of conceptualising, installing, exhibiting, viewing and producing exhibitions, curators are able to present differing perspectives.
Smith (2012a:252) asserts that in contemporary curatorial practice, it is ‘necessary’ for curators to be experimental and to be able to move between institutional spaces, public spaces, virtual domains and infrastructures not typically associated with art. This type of experimentation is often prevented in the context of South African institutions — either because of institutional bureaucracy, institutional ideology, or funding or spatial limitations. By working from a nomadic position, with ‘nomadic’ implying, in this context, that the curator is not bound by a place, origin, institution or practice, the ‘placelessness’ of this role bestows agency on the curator, who is then not limited by any institutional expectations. Smith (2012a:99, 259) refers to those who actively move between spaces as “infrastructural activists”, which he argues ‘“deprivileg[es …] the artist from his/her position as the core producer within the art system”. Thus, the Johannesburg nomadic curator becomes a producer, moving between spaces and producing critical arguments beyond the limitations of institutional art spaces or the western rhetoric of curatorial practice.
In the following chapter, I interrogate the role of what I refer to as the curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator. I consider whether this position also allows the practitioner to neutralise domination, in this case between the curator and/or artist roles. I explore whether this process nurtures sensitivity towards South African histories of power positions and speaking on behalf of another in a manner that enhances the project.
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CHAPTER THREE: THE CURATOR-AS-ARTIST/ARTIST-AS-CURATOR
Introduction
Curator Harald Szeemann (cited in Obrist 2008/1996) described his pivotal exhibition Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form (1969),158 in the Kunsthalle in Bern, as “structured chaos”. Positioned as Szeemann’s “coup de grace”, the exhibition was the first to “bring together post-Minimalist and Conceptual artists in a European institution” (Obrist 2008/1996). Szeemann (cited in Obrist 2008/1996) recalls the processes involved in developing the show:
It was an adventure from beginning to end, and the catalogue, discussing how the works could either assume material form or remain immaterial, documents this revolution in the visual arts. It was a moment of great intensity and freedom, when you could either produce a work or just imagine it, as Lawrence Weiner put it. Sixty-nine artists, Europeans and Americans, took over the institution. Robert Barry irradiated the roof; Richard Long did a walk in the mountains; Mario Merz made one of his first igloos; Michael Heizer opened the sidewalk; Walter de Maria produced his telephone piece; Richard Serra showed lead sculptures, the belt piece, and a splash piece; Weiner took a square meter out of the wall; Beuys made a grease sculpture. The Kunsthalle became a real laboratory and a new exhibition style was born — one of structured chaos.
Hans Olrich Obrist (2008/1996) refers to this exhibition as one that created “new structures for exhibitions”. Bruce Altshuler (Phaidon News 2017) states: “‘Attitudes’ has also come to represent the romantic conception of the curator as inspired partner of the artist, a creative actor who generates original ideas and structures through which art enters public consciousness”. According to Francesca Manacorda (2005:118), Szeemann’s major contribution was that he started to question “presentation and display as non-neutral discourse”, and that Szeemann’s curatorial model was “pursuing an investigation first triggered by artists”. This contentious positioning was perceived to be encroaching on the artist’s role, and caused Szeemann to face much criticism. Robert Smithson (cited in Misiano 2005:112), an artist in Attitudes, addressed a letter to Szeemann in response to the show, remarking that “[c]ultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own
158 Hereafter referred to as Attitudes.
102 limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits”. Manacorda (2005:118) describes Smithson’s address to Szeemann as an “allegation that he was curatorially invading the artist’s position”. Viktor Misiano (2005:112) remarks in light of this comment: “Thus the competitive, at times contentious and definitely ambiguous relations between an artist and a curator made one-self known”. In turn, this exhibition seemed to mark a turning point, where the curator’s role became conflated with that of the artist’s.159 Szeemann’s exhibition is one of a number that have complicated the relationship between curators and artists, leading to a rethinking of their respective roles.
I would argue that in South Africa, the reasons for the converging or conflating of the roles of curators and artists differ from Euro-American instances as a result of contextual differences, as well as varying limitations, funding opportunities, spatial access, ideological frameworks, and importantly, local historical trajectories in curatorial practice. Despite there being many similarities in techniques and approaches when compared with Johannesburg practitioners, there is no comprehensive study regarding the articulations of this relationship. Most of the discourse is also concerned with the structure of the ‘relationship’ between the curator and artist, and although convergence is discussed, the roles always seem to be defined in the context to a dominant position: either artist or curator. However, in outlining whether it is the curator adopting the practice of the artist (curator-as-artist), or the artist acting as a curator (artist-as-curator), I question whether the potential advancements of both practices are overlooked.
Thus, I adopt the device of ‘curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator’ that contains the strikethrough and thus places the component ‘-as-’ under erasure. Derrida (1967/1997),160 discussing deconstruction, uses the term ‘sous rature’ (French for
159 This exhibition also marked a turning point for Szeemann’s career, as the show became increasingly controversial, and the Kunsthalle’s board placed pressure on him to adjust his curatorial approach, which in turn resulted in his resignation and setting himself up as an independent curator (Obrist 2008/1996). Altshuler argues: “‘When Attitudes Become Form’ holds a special place in the curatorial imagination. It was the exhibition that brought international acclaim to the most important curator of the post-war period, Harald Szeemann. And it was the show that led Szeemann to re-create himself as an independent exhibition maker, founding a career path that would be followed by generations of curators” (Phaidon News 2017). 160 Derrida wrote De la grammatologie in 1967, which was first translated to English by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in 1974.
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‘under erasure’), and printed both the word and the deletion to show that signs are always inhabited by other signs — implying a move away from binary constructions (Spivak 1974:ixi). Derrida’s use of the sign under erasure was influenced by Heidegger’s adoptions of writing ‘Being’ as crossed out; as Heidegger argued “Being cannot be contained by, is always prior to something, indeed transcends signification” (Spivak 1974:xxxiv). Bruce Checefsky (2015:97, 110; original emphasis) uses the title Erasure: Curator as Artist, but in his text, implies that this erasure means that the “artist is curator”, which offers an alternative to the problematic ‘as’ designation. To explore his use of placing ‘curator’ under erasure, he provides the following anecdote:
As a young artist in 1965, Robert Rauschenberg erased a drawing given to him by William de Kooning in a theatrical performance of the Oedipal Complex. He took it a step further by exhibiting Erased de Kooning as his own work of art. De Kooning felt betrayed at the appropriation of his work by another artist. A single act of defiance, fuelled by generational differences, complicated the relationship between the two men because of what literally and figuratively vanished. Rauschenberg erased de Kooning in order to replace him (Checefsky 2015:99).
Checefsky (2015:97, 110; original emphasis) points out that “[t]he artist as curator faces a dilemma of identity when organising an exhibition, a struggle to become the specialist; curator as artist lacks certain credibility among artists”. Checefsky’s reading, however, is ‘intentionalist’, and Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning could rather be read as raising questions about authorship, appropriation and value, thereby complicating our understanding of these concepts. My standpoint, similarly, is that the previous adoption of ‘-as-’, indicates a binary hierarchy in the contextualisation of the role by placing the dominant role first and indicating that the secondary role is used as the ‘justification’ of unconventional practices. I do not seek to distinguish the dominant practice, as I argue that the roles can, and should, be fully integrated through a constant back-and-forth negotiation between the position/ contribution. In other words, in any one instance, the role of curator may have been taken on to construct a connection, but in the same instance the artist position or role is used to initiate that connection, and vice versa. Thus, I deliberate on whether both roles can be operative at the same time, indicating a non-binary, non-oppositional position, where one is never privileged over the other: the strikethrough makes this clear visually. I furthermore question whether the ‘curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator’
104 position neutralises authority and indicates sensitivity towards a history of problematic power/authorial positions and of speaking on behalf of another. This position indicates possibility (in a post-structuralist, Derridean sense) in that curators and artists can extend and advance their practice. This proposed neutralising effect on the hierarchical relationship between curator and artist is important for South Africa in particular, as a country still grappling with issues of speaking on behalf of another (or the curator speaking on behalf of the artist). I argue, however, that when independent curators and/or artists act as curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator, no single voice/history/authority is privileged or undermined.
This chapter does not function as a survey of all Johannesburg projects wherein the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator role can be inferred to have been enacted, as this is not possible in the scope of this study. Thus, my selections are informed by considering projects by independent Johannesburg practitioners that have garnered attention, that fall within the period of 2007 - 2016, and more importantly, wherein the artist’s role has expanded to include curatorial practice as part of their medium, or where the curator’s role converges with the artist’s in the same way. I begin this chapter with a brief overview of complications in the curator/artist relationship, wherein I consider issues around the curator and author as dealt with in the literature in more depth. I then consider Terry Kurgan’s161 Hotel Yeoville (2008 - 2011) and Floating Reverie, curated by Carly Whitaker162 (2014 -). I focus specifically on these two projects as they were organised by practitioners who are known by their dominant practice (Kurgan as artist and Whitaker as curator of Floating Reverie), in order to suggest the extent to which they negotiate (and thereby neutralise) these dominant roles. Although my choices contextualise the curator-as-artist/artist-as- curator in terms of their declared role (either as artist or curator), this chapter attempts to show that the success of the projects relied on operating between the roles of artist and curator, and thus that these positions cannot be made binary oppositions.
161 Please refer to Appendix 3A: Terry Kurgan biography. 162 Please refer to Appendix 3B: Carly Whitaker biography.
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Contextualising prior theories regarding the idea of the curator as author
In 1969, in the same year as Szeemann’s Attitudes exhibition, Lucy Lippard initiated the blurring of boundaries between the role of the artist and the curator in her exhibition 557,087. In this exhibition, Lippard installed, or made, work based on the instructions of absent artists. Peter Plagens (cited in O’Neill 2012:14) suggested in a review of 557,087 that, through Lippard’s curatorial treatment, this resulted in a “total style” throughout the exhibition, which can be likened to an artist’s style. Lippard, in this case, functioned as both artist and curator by using the artworks of other artists as her medium. Thus, both Lippard’s and Szeemann’s exhibitions, which have been acknowledged as seminal for Euro-American curatorial history, ushered in the contentious relationship between the artist and curator, and promoted the need to interrogate the roles of artists, curators, and/or artists-as-curators/curators-as-artists.
The artist and curator relationship is complex and, according to Misiano (2005:112), not easily combined as “both entities — artists and curator — are determined by a complex system of inter-sections and inter-repulsion”. Dorothee Richter (2013:55) refers to this complexity as “a power-shaped constellation”, emphasising the hierarchical issue at stake, which results in the question of who claims authorship. Michel Foucault (1969/1992), in ‘What is an author?’, suggests a need to question authorship and the function of the author. He states that the function of an author is “to characterize the existence, circulation and operation of certain discourses within a society” (Foucault 1969/1992:305). For Foucault, authorship implied a limitation. Traditionally, the curator needs the artists, and works in the service of art and the artists: the artist needs the curator, but without the artists, the curator ceases to exist (as with art critics and art historians). The artist claims authorship over the work produced, and the curator simply organises the work in the space of the exhibition. However, the contemporary curator and the contemporary artist are no longer bound by these limitations:163 Misiano (2005:112) argues that a curator now does not simply select artists, choose works, and mount those works according to a conceptual
163 As previously noted, the customary role of the curator was that of ‘carer’, most often limited to the museum sphere, and, according to Barak (2005:114), curatorial projects most regularly took the form of chronological explorations, or used monographic principles.
106 narrative: the curator, he claims, has become “performative”.164 Alex Farqharson (2003) first referred to the notion of the “performative curator” to show that curators, occupying a performative role, “understand what they do as a kind of art practice”. His understanding of performative curating, however, required artists to work in a manner associated with Bourriaud’s conceptions of postproduction/relational aesthetics which Misiano (2005:113) describes as “artist[s] no longer work[ing] in an isolated, autonomous manner”.
According to Ami Barak (2005:115), an observation that has often been made since the 1970s is that curators are “going beyond their brief by usurping the artists’ place or taking liberties involving artistic creation”. During the 1970s, this was often referred to as “institutional critique” (Farqharson 2003).165 This gave rise to a fear, according to Barak (2005:115), that the curator is taking on the functions of the artist. Dan Fox (2013) discusses a short statement written by Daniel Buren, titled ‘Exposition d’une exposition’ (or ‘Exhibiting Exhibitions’), which was published in the 1972 catalogue for Documenta V. Fox (2013) contextualises how Buren complained in this statement that “[t]he subject of exhibitions tends more and more to be not so much the exhibition of works of art, as the exhibition of the exhibition as a work of art”.166 Misiano (2005:112) acknowledges that the curator began embracing agency, and began “defending this autonomy” by “appeal[ng] to the inventive resources of his
164 Farqharson (2003) refers to Bourriaud’s texts Relational Aesthetics and The Radicant to contextualise what he means by performative curating. He outlines Bourriaud’s approach, which was to refer to a predominant art practice by a well-known group of artists (namely, “Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Pierre Huyghe, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija, adding ‘et al’ to signify their ubiquity in this area of discussion”) in order to frame an argument around his notions of ‘Postproduction’ and ‘Relational Aesthetics’ in a manner that explains “what these artists do” (Farqharson 2003). Farqharson (2003) defines Bourriaud’s ‘Postproduction’ as “the transformation of spectators into participants, or consumers into producers”. He goes on to contextualise ‘relational’: “‘Relational’ in Bourriaud’s discussion of ‘Relational Aesthetics’ is used in a social sense to identify works that incorporate viewers or groups of people in the form of the work itself” (Farqharson 2003). Farqharson (2003) emphasises, however, that despite being a curator himself, Bourriaud failed “to address the ways in which this group has moved in on what has traditionally been the curator’s domain, and how these encroachments relate to and have contributed to the development of what has become known as ‘performative curating’”. For Farqharson (2003), “In these contexts the division of labour between artist and curator is all but erased: the performative curator and postproduction artist collaborate in the business of deconstructing the mediating systems of the exhibition and institution”. 165 Farqharson (2003) explains: “The main difference between the institutional critique of these artists and the ‘mediating strategies’ of artists today is that the former still tended to regard the framework of the institution as anterior and hostile to the work of art, and therefore something to confront or shut down, while ‘postproduction’ […] insinuates itself within the mediating systems of the institution, implying that the two [roles] are indivisible”. 166 According to Fox (2013), this statement was translated into English in 1992.
107 activity”. In other words, the curator began distinguishing between the largely administrative/managerial functions the curator traditionally took on, and the creative role, by pushing boundaries in exhibition-making to the extent that the exhibition became the object and the artist’s works the medium. Similarly, artists began to use curatorial strategies as a way of showcasing their work, in conjunction with other artists’ works, to create composite public outcomes (O’Neill 2012:105). Artists thus began emphasising curatorial practice as a way of legitimating their work.
When researching these tendencies, it becomes clear that most literature defines these roles by referring to the ‘curator-as-artist’ or the ‘artist-as-curator’. In 2005, Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curatorship dedicated an entire issue to discussing discourse around the artist and curator. In the introduction to the issue, Misiano (2005:114) asserts that:
A curator could be seen by an artist as a disturbing mediator to representations, as a surplus creative ego to his own creative ego, as a major agent of the alienated institutional system. At the same time a curator as a creative element of the system could be considered its minor evil, even an ally, in a strategically counterpoint within the market and bureaucracy (especially if that curator is not an institutional, but an independent one).
Misiano thus distinguishes clearly between the practices of the artist and the curator (which is arguably reiterated in the title of the journal ‘Artist & Curator’). Charlesworth (2007:91) discusses “the identity of the ‘artist-curator’, the role of the independent curator, and the politics of ‘self-reflexive’ curating” in Curating Doubt. Charlesworth’s (2007:94) discussion focuses on distinguishing between the roles of artist and curating, and argues that the conflation amounts to a “critical opposition to orthodox formulations of gallery-bound, commercialised and institutionalised forms of artistic production and presentation”.
O’Neill (2012) discusses the rise of the independent curator and curatorial discourses in The culture of curating and the curating of culture(s). He identifies and discusses the ‘curator-as-artist’ model, wherein the curator begins engaging with creative praxis in his work. Kate Fowle (2017) in ‘Who cares? — cautionary tales: Critical curating’ shows how curatorial practice is moving closer towards the space of
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“experimentation and inquiry of artists’ practices than to the academic or bureaucratic journey of the traditional curator”. Smith’s essay ‘Artists as curators/curators as artists’, which was published in Thinking contemporary curating (2012), also positions the ‘artist-as-curator’ or ‘curator-as-artist’ — which he contextualised by discussing Fred Wilson’s formative exhibition, Mining the Museum (1992 - 1993), in the context of contemporary art discourse, history and theory.167
Smith (2012a:225; original emphasis) states: “Far from managing the situation from above, the curator ‘lies amongst art (or objects, space, and audience)’”. Smith (2012a:225) refers to the “curator as producer”, meaning that “the desired relationship is close to the model of that between the film director and the producer on the set of a movie”. Celina Jeffrey (2015:8), who edited the book The artist as curator, says of Smith’s essay that he “identifies conceptual art’s anti-institutional impulse as resulting in artists […] rearticulating assemblage and display as a ‘work of art’”. Jeffrey’s (2015) book, which comprises a collection of essays on the subject of the ‘artist-as-curator’, offers perspectives about the functions and designations of this role. According to Jeffery (2015:13), “The Artist as Curator explores the porosity between art and curating in its most nuanced forms: ‘the artist is curator’; case studies of artists who have curated seminal ‘interventionist’ museum exhibitions; and the aesthetic and conceptual slippages between the artist and curator in some performative, socially engaged and site-specific projects’”. In her paper ‘Artists and curators as authors — competitors, or team-workers?’ Richter (2013:55) declares that “[a]rtists and curators become collaborators” — and in a similar vein, she argues: “Only through shared content-related interests, political articulation, and joint
167 Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum (1992 — 1993) at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore (US), is cited by Smith (2012a:121) as an important exhibition in the 1990s where the artist-as-curator role had impact, not only on the practice of curating, but in terms of highlighting the extent that curating can be used to comment critically on socio-political conditions. Wilson’s exhibition took place across the whole institution, which was unusual as exhibitions at the Maryland Historical Society generally took place in a confined room. More importantly, however, he “deployed curatorial display techniques to make visible the African American stories that the museum had previously rendered minor or invisible” by displaying objects from storage that had not been displayed for years (Smith 2012a:122). He also inserted language as a means to provoke response — which starts to position him in the space of the artist: “The largest stand supported a silver globe with the word ‘TRUTH’ embossed across it in gold” (Smith 2012a:122). Wilson also deliberately failed to acknowledge some artists, and thereby made absent the names of various artists (not least African American artists), and paired white portraits with photographs of forgotten black artists, while audio tapes of young children asking questions looped in the background. According to Smith (2012a:124—125), not only has the “impact” of this exhibition been great in terms of communicating possibilities of exploring the complexities of museum collections within institutions/museums, but that “Wilson’s projects raised the level of possibility for the artist as curator”.
109 positioning strategies can concerns be formulated that shift hierarchical arrangements into the background.”
Thus, although it is not within the scope of this study to list all the texts on the topic, it is possible to see from the examples above that the topic of artist and curator, artist as curator and curator as artist, has been widely considered. When theorising this role, however, it is interesting to note that the bulk of relevant literature originates from Euro-American contexts and discusses related Euro-American exhibitions/projects. Although Smith (2012a) considers decisive exhibitions in South America, he excludes Africa and Asia. It is thus clear that the mentioned literature does not adequately interrogate the concept of the artist-as-curator/curator-as-artist outside of predominantly western art practices, and that this deserves further elaboration. Discussions also need to move beyond distinguishing whether it is considered ‘pushing the curator-as-artist boundaries’ or ‘pushing the artist-as-curator boundaries’, as this limits authorship and thus limits the debate. Rather, the back- and-forth negotiation between the position/contribution/role can be explicated in the context of the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator’ in the discussions below.
Hotel Yeoville (2008 - 2011), conceptualised by Terry Kurgan
Kurgan conceptualised and initiated the public art project Hotel Yeoville, which took place between 2008 and 2011. According to Kurgan (2013:30), Hotel Yeoville could be described as a social and public art “experiment” that comprised a website, an interactive exhibition, and, in 2013, a book titled Hotel Yeoville: Terry Kurgan. Prior to initiating the Hotel Yeoville project, Kurgan’s work often interrogated “the ways in which we construct personal meaning” (Dodd 2013:3).168 Her photography blurs the lines between private and public space, and provokes questions around domestic photographs, public presentation and representation, and the power images have “to mediate our experience of ourselves in the world” (Kurgan, cited in Dodd 2013:3). Alexandra Dodd (2013:3) argues that Kurgan’s work is “[d]riven by a desire to
168 Two important projects Kurgan produced leading up to the Hotel Yeoville project were Joubert Park project (2001) and Park Pictures (2004). Dodd (2013:7), referring to the former, highlights that “[t]wo potential vectors had emerged: the desire of immigrants to be perceived of and imagined as having ‘made good’, and the capacity for a ‘social history’ archive to represent experiences of the shifting city”.
110 establish relationships and directly engage with people, community and place”. She continuously seeks new ways to interrogate and visually represent social concerns in South Africa (Dodd 2013:3). Similarly, Kurgan’s Hotel Yeoville took form in response to the underlying current of xenophobia in South Africa and reacted to the xenophobic attacks that took place in May 2008.169 The project ran for just a few weeks short of one year, for five days a week.
Kurgan’s initial interest in Yeoville arose after photographing the space with a colleague who was doing research there for an urban management plan.170 Her experience of Yeoville, a diverse neighbourhood in Johannesburg made up of a striking mixture of South Africans and immigrants from various African countries, deviated considerably from stereotypical images predominant in the mainstream media of refugees and migrants as ‘alien’, ‘foreign’ and as desperate, helpless, victims of war and poverty (Kurgan 2013:33).171 Kurgan (cited in Dodd 2013:2; original emphasis) wanted to present a project that would invert these stereotypical images, and arguably show a view of Yeoville that she encountered herself:
My hope was to put a different conversation out into the world than the one that emerged through the extremes of xenophobic violence. […] I wanted to find a way to speak back to the big, abstract political story about migration and xenophobia with little, detailed, personal, intimate stories.
Dodd (2013:2) describes Kurgan’s Hotel Yeoville as a project that considered the ways in which Yeoville inhabitants “had adapted the built environment to meet their
169 In May 2008, 62 people were killed in xenophobic attacks and almost 100 000 others were forced from their homes (Dodd 2013:7). According to an article published in the Mail & Guardian, ‘Toll from xenophobic attacks rises’ (2008), 52 of those killed came from the Gauteng province, and the article implies that the majority of the anti-immigrant attacks occurred in Johannesburg and Pretoria. 170 Kurgan (2013:32) describes the background to Yeoville: “Until the early 1990s Yeoville was a densely populated, working-class, student and immigrant white neighbourhood. It was always the place that white immigrants started from before they began their journey — both north and upwards into the middle classes of Johannesburg. After the first democratic elections in 1994, its proximity to employment and the city centre made Yeoville the preferred destination for a predominantly black, working-class population now rapidly moving to the city from the far-flung black townships and rural areas of South Africa, and from elsewhere on the African continent. As a consequence, white residents slowly began to move away, taking their business and their money with them”. 171 Kurgan (cited in Dodd 2013: 33) argues that: “Television and print media relentlessly direct our gaze towards the violence and conflict between South Africans and Africans who have come here from other parts of the continent. Very rarely is a successful immigrant, with an ordinarily mundane and repetitive life, reported upon. The images of migrants and refugees that we are presented with are usually of abject and universalized types, standing in for oppression and (always noble) suffering, and are of course integral to the representational politics that surround mobility — symbols of a much larger argument”.
111 own social and business needs”, which reveals an alternative story to the economically desolate image of the refugee/migrant, and that provides “shifting insights into how migration is reconfiguring the huge sprawling Afropolitan city she calls home”. Thus, the basis of the project, Hotel Yeoville, was born from the intention to use the photograph for its capacity to bear witness to a particular version of reality, one that shows refugees as people, overcoming a displaced past, and going about their daily routines as citizens of Johannesburg. Dodd (2013:15) explains that the project also attempted to “establish new ways of communication within a complex social space”, highlighting how Kurgan wanted to take the story of immigrants away from the body politic, to rather make the ‘everyday,’ intimate stories the focus, in ways that “went beyond simply making them [refugees and migrants] visible” (Dodd 2013:2).172
Kurgan embarked on eighteen months of research prior to initiating the final, physical project. She describes her research approach:
My practice entails defining a new project first, and only then finding the right medium and space for the job. This research involves looking at the physical and social conditions ‘on the ground’, paying attention to the details of the build environment and also to how people live in and move through this space, accommodating it to their own needs (Kurgan 2013:34).
Aware that the project required input from a diverse range of practitioners, Kurgan began putting a project/team together. According to Kurgan (2013:34),
[The] initial project team comprised John Spiropoulos, an urban practitioner, with whom my early thinking about the project developed; George Lebone, a Yeoville community activist who facilitated our initial access to people and places in the neighbourhood; Jean-Pierre Misago, a PhD student at ACMS from Burundi who helped us design a first research process aligned with his own enquiry into the experiences of migrant communities in Johannesburg; and Belinda Blignaut, an artist and designer who came up with the look and feel of our first website.
172 Kurgan (2013:42), however, states: “While a measure of the impact of the project is contained within its hundreds of analogue and digital products, and in its enthusiastic take up by so many people in the neighbourhood, it was also reflected in the number of people who came up the stairs to ask questions and to argue with us about things like our politics, our formal means and ideas”.
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She decided on the title Hotel Yeoville, with ‘hotel’ implying “a place that offers intimate and temporary private space to people from many different places of origin” combined with Yeoville, “a place where many people […] seemed to have a tenuous hold on both” (Kurgan 2013:35). The initial project resulted in a customised website, produced in response to the ubiquitous internet café culture of Yeoville, coupled with the equal prevalence of notice boards.173 Central to the early concept was the objective for the website to become the homepage for all internet cafés — and so Tegan Bristow (digital media artist) and Jason Hobbs (web architect) joined the team to investigate ways of creating a meaningful “three-dimensional website” that emphasised personal identity according to the themes of “home, faith, play and more” (Kurgan 2013:41). The next “challenge” — to refer to the description Kurgan (2013:41) provided in retrospect — was to conceptualise the way in which the project would be implemented in an attempt to ‘launch’ it in the suburb. This resulted in the transformation of the virtual space of the project “into a real-space and real-time exhibition experience” (Kurgan 2013:41).
The ‘real-space’ exhibition was installed at the top level of Yeoville’s new public library, which was described as a “transparent glass box” by Dodd (2013:10), and which could be seen from the street to invite participation (Figure 3.1). The Hotel Yeoville website (Hotel Yeoville 2010) broadly describes the installation of the final project as
an interactive exhibition which took the form of a series of private booths in which members of the public were invited to document themselves through a range of digital interfaces, interactive media and online applications. Every physical actual space (there were 12 booths) was represented online by a virtual space. The exhibition produces itself through public participation. […] The products were uploaded to http://www.hotelyeoville.co.za, and the exhibition produced both itself, and the content for the website.
The booths, designed by Alexander Opper and Amir Livneh of Notion Architects (see Figure 3.2 for the plans and sketches, and Figure 3.3 for examples of the installation shots), were developed “to be accessed and interacted with” and took inspiration
173 There is a high density of internet cafés — about 30 cafés distributed in about four blocks. Furthermore, there was also an entire suburban block wall space covered in hand-written notices, advertising “lessons, accommodation, employment, money transfers, baby clothes, lounge suites, faith, romance, marriage and more” (Kurgan 2013:35).
113 from the communal context of Raleigh/Rockey Streets in Yeoville, from which the installation could be seen (Opper 2013:67). The characteristics of the city, in terms of movement, focal space and transitional space, were incorporated in order for Hotel Yeoville to represent a “micro ‘city’” (Opper 2013:68).
The booths were then adorned with Afro-Pop images and signwriting by Guylain Melki, which helped to establish a look-and-feel for the project in order to welcome public interest and participation (Figure 3.4) (Dodd 2013:12). Bristow wrote the code to build a “series of playful, self-documenting applications, each to be housed in its own dedicated booth” (Kurgan 2013:41) (see Figure 3.5 for an example of her wire frame planning). According to Dodd (2013:12), each visual element for Hotel Yeoville was designed to entice participation from the public. Farqharson (2003) observes: “Renovating doors, designing display systems and devising labels is usually the domain of the curator and the institution in general. Normally these activities belong to the framework that surrounds and mediates the work, not to the work itself”. In Hotel Yeoville, however, Kurgan directly intervened in the space, and selected a group of experts that could help her realise this intention. I thus maintain that each aspect of Hotel Yeoville indicates that Kurgan occupied a role in-between, and back- and-forth between, artist and curator.
In the private booths, visitors could access the digital interfaces and upload videos, images, personal anecdotes and business listings according to the prompts on the walls (see Figures 3.6 & 3.7). The digital interfaces made navigating the applications, both online and offline, simple and accessible (Dodd 2013:12). According to Dodd (2013:7, 10), the booths acted as “equalising parameters” that allowed the participants to direct the ways they would like to be represented within the standard format prescribed by Kurgan. Hotel Yeoville also incorporated social media platforms (Facebook, Flickr, YouTube) in its design in order to benefit from the “performative behaviour to which these platforms give rise”, as the idea was that the results from user-generated images would likely “counter the stereotypical and iconic images of migrants and refugees” (Dodd 2013:8). In a sense, therefore, the audience acted as creators, selecting appropriate methods for self-representation according to the parameters outlined. The decision to use interactive digital media to construct Hotel Yeoville communicated the desire for the project to “forge a healing response to the
114 bruised atmosphere of muted hostility and fear” that had plagued the community since the xenophobic attacks in May 2008 (Dodd 2013:7). Furthermore, by giving the attendees to the ‘exhibition’ authorship of how they would represent themselves, a strategy that underpinned the project, as ultimately the migrants and refugees were the subject of the project, the exhibition suggested a welcoming atmosphere of inclusion, acceptance and interest, and indicated a reluctance to revert to ‘documentary’ strategies “which are tainted by a heritage of colonial representations of the other and an incapacity to shake off the unequal author/subject power relations implicit in the ethnographic gaze” (Dodd 2013:8, 10).
Kurgan (2013:42) describes the project as relying on participatory practice. At the outset, therefore, she had to carefully consider what the correct medium would be to encourage people to participate, and to build trust (Dodd 2013:2). In order to distance the project from the politics around xenophobia, and in an attempt to rather deal with people in terms of their private, everyday lives, Kurgan (2013:42) states that she “very consciously made Hotel Yeoville a utopian or idealised space”.174 She acknowledges that the encounters that resulted from the project carry ‘traces’ of this utopian desire — the hope for “a world in which power (us) and citizens (our participants) existed on a plane of co-dependence and equal exchange” (Kurgan 2013:43). According to Dodd (2013:7), this method of overturning the traditional documentary approach in representing migrants or refugees resulted in images that “expressly blurred the boundaries and the implicit power relations between author and subject” (see Figures 3.8 & 3.9 for image sheets of participation). This can be seen as “a gestural response to critical debates about the symbolic violence that often accompanies attempts to speak on behalf of others” (Dodd 2013:10).
In this case, the artist, Kurgan, can be seen as a type of “facilitator within connected social space” as described by Dodd (2013:15), “gaining currency through the rise in participatory art practice”. Dodd (2013:15) goes on to quote Declan McGonagle (in The art of negotiation, Butler & Reiss 2007, cited in Dodd 2013:15) who also discusses a shift in practice “towards the collaborative, participatory and communal”
174 According to Dodd (2013:10), “[a]t the heart of Hotel Yeoville was a stubborn flame of idealism, an insistence on humanism and a belief that we share the capacity not just to tolerate one another, but to appreciate the different shapes of each other’s lives no matter how foreign or strange they may initially seem”.
115 in order to “reconnect art and lived experience as social process”. Dodd (2013:15) argues that Hotel Yeoville “can be seen against this backdrop of a rise in socially based art across the globe”. Hotel Yeoville has mainly been discussed through the lens of participation art, and as ‘art as social practice’ — however, the advantages offered by Kurgan occupying the space of the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator have not been explored. Checefsky (2015:100) emphasises that “civic discourse is enhanced when standard curatorial practice is applied to general art production” — which I contend was the intention of Kurgan’s Hotel Yeoville. In order to enter into dialogue with people from Yeoville more effectively, in a manner that focused on finding out more about them (their everyday lives, dreams, loves, faith, etc.) and not simply their politics, Kurgan needed to negotiate her own role and power dynamic — made possible by a curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator position.
Kurgan (2013:30) claimed to have “directed and produced” the multiplatform project as an artist. As a result, she conceptualised the project, which was intended as a stimulus to new ways of seeing migrants/refugees. She then invited experts175 to assist her in realising the best approach to achieve the concept, which is not dissimilar to how a curator may conceptualise an exhibition and invite artists to participate in order to realise the curator’s idea. The curator may then select works, based on this extended invitation in order to compose a final exhibition. In terms of considering Hotel Yeoville, what is further negotiated is the role Kurgan took during the project’s various stages. The project, I would say, consisted of two major stages, both of which require consideration. The first entailed completing research, formulating a website and interactive components, and setting these interfaces up in thematic booths to encourage participation. The second stage entailed reviewing the uploaded content, shared stories and photographs, selecting contributions from this
175 Kurgan acknowledges the following contributors “who worked with her in the making of this project through its many different phases between 2007 and 2010”: Research and development: John Spiropoulos (urban planner), George Lebone (community activist), Ginibel Forsuh Mabih (researcher and Internet cafe manager), Michael Onyeneto (researcher and handyman), Raphael Bope (researcher and engineer), Siphiwe Zwane (photographer and researcher), Jason Hobbs (information architect), Andre Graaf (developer); Website design/development/ build: Jason Hobbs (information architect), Belinda Blignault (artist), Andre Graaf (developer and programmer), Greg Ilchenko (developer), Richard Stupart (developer); Brittany Wheeler (project facilitator); Exhibition design and production: Tegan Bristow (digital media developer and artist); Alexander Opper and Amir Livneh of Notion Architects; Guylain Melki (artist and sign writer); Exhibition facilitators: Godfrey Tshis Talabulu; Brittany Wheeler; Raphael Bope; Sian Miranda Singh Ófaoláin.
116 collection, and presenting these selections to an extended audience via the website and the book.
Curatorial practice is understood to appeal to the public domain, whereas art practice is, traditionally, more associated with appeal to a private domain, with the curator being responsible for activating a work for the public. In this case, Kurgan’s work is directly driven by a community, and is activated in the space to which that community is connected. Thus, although posited as a private appeal, the results of that appeal become public. This ‘appeal’ to the audience was mobilised through the use of display techniques that, through placement and aesthetic value, work to prompt response, inspire atmosphere and encourage participation in order for Kurgan to collect and record representations (see Figure 3.10). As previously noted, Dodd (2013:8) acknowledges that there was an intentional deviation from ‘representing’ the refugee or migrant person in the project on behalf of the artist/curator, for fear of reiterating images of “alienation, foreignness, xenophobia, migrancy and otherness”. This critical tendency resulted in Kurgan neutralising her own authorship, which she relinquished in order to allow the audience to adopt authorship and control as to how they themselves would like to be represented. However, authorship and agency, in this case, should not be misconstrued. Kurgan’s agency over the intention of the project did not falter, despite pressures to make the project more protest oriented. According to Kurgan (2013:42):
Several university academics and Yeoville community activists wanted me to make the project more strictly about activism and human rights. When this pressure was coupled with the terrible human rights abuses that some of our visitors reported, it was sometimes difficult to keep firm and steady on my original path, which was more open-ended, conceptually risky and about the potential of intimacy and private lives being accorded the most public of stages.
In essence, Kurgan’s Hotel Yeoville can be understood as a window into the social lives of migrants and refugees, and as an attempt to ‘collect’, and ‘curate’ a lived archive, “a kind of inventory of personal and collective relations” (Dodd 2013:10). The project, as a whole, can be seen as “a utopian attempt to bind a community” through this type of account (Dodd 2013:10).
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Both the process and the results (the records of the processes) can be read as a curatorial project, with the events directed by Kurgan in the manner a curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator would, and the book and website, a record of the processes, responses, and research findings of the project, representing a collection of selections that a curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator might make. According to Kurgan (2013:30), “[the] book also binds the work. Itself a new object and product of the project, it is a point of navigation through the many inter-related processes that brought the work into being, and the one place where these are represented and interpreted in relation to each other” (see Figure 3.11 for images of the book).
Lewis Kachur (2015:50) discusses the position of the ‘artist-as-curator’, arguing that he or she takes on a “‘self-interested’ partisanship”. He warns that an artist-as- curator role may result in an exhibition that is lacking in “curatorial ‘distance’” as the space created by the artist-as-curator provides “licence to operate more freely than a curator would or could” (Kachur 2015:50). Kachur’s argument, therefore, implies that the artist-as-curator lacks critical distance, and may adjust the context (via installation, reception, connection) in order to modify the object to appeal directly to his/her curatorial position. I, however, regard Kurgan’s role as merging the two dominant positions by collaborating between them, similar to a poststructuralist conception of power-sharing. Jeffery (2015:10), discussing the artist as curator, states: “As the processes of the artist and curator continue to fold into one another, the concept of authorship and agency raises a central question: what informs the conscious distinction or elision of artist production and theoretically informed curatorial considerations?”
Although Kurgan identifies herself as an artist, I suggest that she occupies a role in Hotel Yeoville wherein the divide between artist and curator is difficult to define, and where this type of position could be read as a technique to neutralise a hierarchical position that could have affected the project negatively. By acting as the curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator, Kurgan was able to counterbalance her power positions, whether as artist or curator, which for the sake of this project required a subtlety and an avoidance of speaking on behalf of another. This point is particularly relevant considering South African history in terms of the privileged white citizen taking liberties to speak on behalf of the other, as well as the similar privileged position of
118 the curator, who, working in an institution, may be seen as speaking for, or on behalf of, another. Kurgan, aware of these power positions and authorship issues, attempted to respond in a manner to enhance the project by relinquishing authorial processes in setting up the project, and forgoing creative authorship in the development of the results of the project. Kurgan’s role of curator-as-artist/artist-as- curator can be described as processual and adaptable176 and open to consulting with experts assisting with the project. I suggest that, by adopting a curator-as-artist/artist- as-curator role, Kurgan was able to negotiate issues of authorship, and to participate in non-static production processes. This resulted in a provocative work that served to challenge socio-cultural and economic misconceptions of refugees and migrants in a community in Johannesburg.
Floating Reverie (2014 -), curated by Carly Whitaker
Floating Reverie is an independent online residency programme that was initiated in early 2014 by Johannesburg artists Whitaker and Nicola Kritzinger. At the time of writing, the programme was being facilitated and curated by Whitaker.177 Artists are invited to participate in the residency for two weeks by posting daily iterations of artworks/processes onto the digital platforms that Floating Reverie provides: namely, the website, the Facebook page, and related events pages for each residency. Artists may also choose to register their own web page for the residency and post links on the various platforms. Posting their ‘daily iterations’ means that the artists should produce a new work, a development of the same work, or part of a body of work (and so forth) and post a record of this online at a similar time each day.
There are three main components to Floating Reverie:
176 It became evident during the project that certain elements would need to be adapted, reconsidered and disregarded as the team gained better understanding, and as certain conditions changed. One example was that the initial installation plan for the exhibition component had to change in response to a lack of available retail, ‘shop-front’ space at a reasonable price. Kurgan had originally wanted the exhibition booths to be mounted in a shop front set-up, which she then adapted when the Yeoville library renovations were completed and the top floor with the glass windows was revealed. 177 Whitaker and Kritzinger studied together, and initiated the project together. However, Kritzinger became less involved over time, while Whitaker has continued with the project. Kritzinger is cited as being involved at the first instantiation of the post-digital exhibition (5 — 7 January 2015); thereafter it seems that she was not involved.
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1) The residency programme is the primary component. As noted above, during the digital residency, the residency artists are required to post updates/progressions of their digital works daily. Whitaker provides the artist with the curatorial (or residency) ‘outline’, which in the case of Floating Reverie comprises a set of limitations/instructions that encourage the artist to produce a ‘body of work’ or ‘series of processes’ over fourteen days. These iterations, which at the end of the residency essentially form the ‘artwork’, are posted online daily (either on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, webpages, etc.). Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) aims to host six residencies per year. 178
2) The record of all the digital residencies (or the on-going exhibition) is the second component, and is available on the Floating Reverie website (where possible).179 The current exhibition is available online (www.floatingreverie.co.za), where every residency is listed, along with hyperlinks to the various artworks available on multiple platforms. This component forms the exhibition of all the works created during the residency. This collection, however, is not an ‘archive’ of the residencies, but rather a list of hyperlinks where one can go to view all the works online; this forms the central space for all the work, and thus the curated exhibition. According to Dew Harrison (2015:86) in his article ‘Curating between worlds: How digital collaborations became curative project’, “Curators of online shows can gather clusters of sites/work together into an online database for a space of time but then have to archive the exhibition as a data maze in another format for longevity”. Whitaker has acknowledged that she needs to focus on the process of archiving work, in addition to the on-going exhibition that should be always available to view and engage with; however, the archive has not yet been developed.
178 Whitaker’s (2017a) initial idea was to hold two residencies per month, with a post-digital exhibition taking place every third month. However, this proved to be too ambitious and unmanageable. 179 Whitaker has discussed how her archiving processes require further conceptualisation. She is interested in researching how to archive a digital body of work, as currently if an artist takes their site down or uses an impermanent digital medium (such as Insta-Stories, which have a 24-hour life span), Whitaker loses the record of the work. For Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), “there is this archive of work that has been made, but it hasn’t been successfully presented. I have archived it, but I haven’t curated the archive”. The archive is thus not available to the public.
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3) The post-digital exhibitions180 form the third component, which are organised annually in retrospect regarding the previous year’s bouquet of residencies. Whitaker curates this retrospective exhibition at various hosting galleries. In this show, artists who participated in the residency during the preceding year are invited to create physical works in response to those done during their residencies.
In this discussion, I consider the digital residency and the online record of the residencies that have taken place, as this, in the context of my study, serves as what would traditionally be ‘the exhibition’. Thus, the website functions as both the central site of the exhibition of Floating Reverie, as this is where all the residencies are recorded and can be accessed, as well as the catalogue of the residencies that have taken place with links to the satellite platforms that were used. (The Facebook page is also a record, and includes the daily posts from all the residencies since 2014.) Although I discuss a number of specific residencies (or artworks) to frame my argument, these instances are contextualised in relation to the curatorial project of Floating Reverie as a whole, and are thus detailed in context of the residency. I also refer to the ‘post-digital’ exhibitions selectively.
Floating Reverie “aims to explore and expand on the digital medium through developing a constructive dialogue with multiple artists and creatives based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and internationally” (Floating Reverie ©2014 - 2018). According to Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), there are many creative practitioners exploring the digital medium, but this is contrasted with the lack of a central supportive space, “or a coming together in a single location, of digital practitioners or digital artists in South Africa”. By this, I also feel Whitaker infers that there are no gallery or museum spaces that are dedicated to showing digital practice, as the gallery system is dominated by a commercial emphasis in response to the lack of funding in the arts. In addition, Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) acknowledges that in 2014 she felt frustrated by a lack of platforms available to young, emerging
180 Whitaker has curated three ‘post-digital’ exhibitions to date: ‘the first was at Kalashnikovv from 5 — 7 January 2015, which was a review of 2014’s digital residencies; the second took place at NO END Contemporary Art Space in February 2016, and reviewed 2015’s digital residencies; the third post- digital exhibition took place at Kalashnikovv in January 2018, and was a record of the 2016/2017 digital residencies; and the most recent instantiation took place in February 2019 at NO END Contemporary Art Space, and was a record of the 2018 digital residencies.
121 artists in South Africa, more specifically, in Johannesburg. Thus, the online residency programme was formulated in reaction to this lack of sufficient funding and non- commercial gallery space in Johannesburg. Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) had also experienced frustration in desperately wanting to do an artist’s residency, but not being accepted:
I had been applying to lots of residencies and I had been turned down by lots as well […] I felt frustrated by the platforms and the lack of platforms. I wanted to take matters into my own hands, and I thought that I should just start my own residency programme.
At the time, Whitaker had been making work predominantly online, as it was easier to access and complete in between her freelance work commitments. This resulted in her coming up with the idea of launching a digital residency space that would be available to artists working online. The accumulation of residencies, recorded on the website and various digital platforms (notably Facebook and Instagram), would then result in a digital exhibition.
In January 2014, Nicola Kritzinger181 completed the first residency (see Figure 3.12 for screenshots), followed shortly thereafter by Whitaker182 herself (see Figure 3.13 for screenshots). Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) referred to her own participation as a type of ‘user testing’ to ensure that the constraints she set up were possible to manage, that the processes were easy to work with and respond to, that the concept was easy to access, and that the platform was uncomplicated to navigate. Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) says:
When I came up with the concept, I had been putting a lot of constraints on my practice. And I had been doing this data collection of how productive I was because I was freelancing. I was driving the same route, and doing the same thing, every day and I had kept a log of all the time I had spent doing things according to four or
181 Kritzinger’s (First // 2 Weeks residency 2014) artist statement, available on the Floating Reverie website, outlined that her intention during the residency was to produce “time relevant written works that track productivity and the way in which I utilize and understand time”. The texts would thus consider “the meaning of time within one’s own context” and the final product would result in abstract pencil drawings that attempt to map her daily use of time. 182 Whitaker’s residency, which she titled WORKBITCH, tracked and monitored her daily actions and activities from 2 October 2013 to 16 October 2013 (First // 2 Weeks residency 2014). The aim was to legitimise her daily actions and to prove her productivity as an artist by appraising her routine, journeys, and activities. Each day was translated into a .GIF tracking the pressures of the “desire to achieve, maintain a certain lifestyle and be successful” (First // 2 weeks residency 2014).
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five categories. That analytical way of thinking and making, and the constraints on your making, was something that had interested me. And I also felt that, if I put constraints on my way of making, it would force me to make in a certain way.
From this, Whitaker developed the idea of providing restrictions to artists participating in the residency so that they would have to adhere to the parameters she set up and complete a similar iteration each day. The idea to apply constraints around the digital residency arose from Whitaker’s own practice of placing limitations on her processes in an attempt to force herself to produce in a certain way. Whitaker then adapted this in order to apply similar restrictions to other artists, packaged as a type of ‘instruction’ in terms of how to complete the residency. The Floating Reverie digital residency, therefore, is premised on the notion of its controls, where for two weeks artists should do the same thing every day, iterating and reflecting on the process. Harrison (2015:83) describes digital practice as focusing on experimentation and process, and it can be argued that Floating Reverie similarly encourages multiple restatements, rather than a final outcome for an exhibition.
In a sense, the instructions replace the curatorial call or invitation, and instead attempt to provide restrictions to the artists to force them to ‘make’ in a particular way. Traditionally, the curator would be provided with the instructions on how to install or present the artist’s work. However, in this instance, Whitaker inverts this transaction, as it is now the ‘curator’ who provides the instructions to the artist and who places limitations on the artists’ ways of making and/or process. This, in a sense, blurs the customary understandings of the dichotomy between artist and curator. According to Ron Goldin (2002, cited in Harrison 2015:84):
Online curators (usually artists) create a set of restrictions on the creative process both aesthetically and conceptually which results in a collaboration between artist and curator: • Aesthetically — by limiting art to a particular medium i.e. the Internet (a particularly modernist practice). • Conceptually — by forcing a work to recognize its place within the context created by the author/curator.
I would argue that Whitaker further challenges the artists, as Floating Reverie requires them to transform their practice in order to suit the digital space provided.
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The ‘type’ of work is determined greatly by the type of space, which in this case is digital and thus influences the artists’ medium, in addition to the added limitations that the artists have to conform with in order to respond to the curatorial call. Referring specifically to Leanne Shakenovsky’s residency, Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) emphasises how Shakenovsky was obliged to adapt her conceptual approach in order to appeal to the digital space of Floating Reverie (see documentation of her residency in Figure 3.14).183 Bakker,184 a Johannesburg artist who works predominantly in traditional physical materials in physical space (ink on paper, acrylic on canvas, installation works, etc.), also adapted her practice to appeal to the digital space of Floating Reverie, thus transforming her art process in order to adhere to the curatorial instructions (see Figure 3.15).
Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) regards the digital exhibition space as comparable to a ‘gallery space’ in that it is a space created for the display of artwork. Although the ‘online residency’ can be assimilated in a gallery’s exhibition programme, the work is never taken down (unless an artist chooses to remove his or her web pages, which would result in the relevant hyperlinks not working).185 Therefore, although it is premised on a residency programme, the record and online evidence becomes the Floating Reverie exhibition. However, Floating Reverie deliberately inverts the notion of the ‘traditional’ gallery or exhibition space one is most likely to encounter in Johannesburg in that the space is not physical, nor is the space commercially relevant. Work does not need to be displayed on the wall in a certain way; it does not come down, and the show is not only open at certain times of the day/week. For Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), this was an attempt to critique the local gallery system, and “certain ways of thinking or doing or making”
183 Another artist Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) refers to as an example is Bianca Bondi. Bondi is not a digital artist, and thus had to adapt her conceptual approach in order to appeal to the space of Floating Reverie. Bondi, who Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) studied with, was in Paris when her residency took place. The concept was premised on the fact that Bondi was often reprimanded for daydreaming. Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) recalls that for her residency, Bondi aimed to “legitimate her daydreaming, or meditation or trans-status-ness”. She would time her daydreams and write down words afterwards. She thus recorded her daydreams daily for her residency. For Bondi’s post-digital exhibition component (Post-digital 2014, Kalashnikovv), she held a Google Hang Out in the gallery, on a screen, where she watched a clock. The clock, however, was at Kalashnikovv Gallery (Johannesburg). Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) describes it as “daydreaming in the gallery when she [was] not there”. 184 Please refer to Appendix 4D: Maaike Bakker biography. 185 Some artists have taken down their webpages, which has resulted in incomplete works and links. Whitaker has emphasised that in cases like this, it is imperative that an archive of Floating Reverie be developed, as this way, the works would not be lost and links would not be broken.
124 that emerge when dealing with traditional commercial gallery practice. Floating Reverie aimed to “enable creative expression to manifest” beyond the confines of the gallery walls or funding allocation (Whitaker 2017a, see Appendix 3C). Thus, Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) describes the space of Floating Reverie as “a safe space of inclusion, and a safe space for creative practice for people, for a medium, for a specific type of practitioner, to exist, and to be a space to get recognition [in] … a space where there is no emphasis on sales”. For Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), Floating Reverie is thus an exercise in de- institutionalising, and a reaction against what she refers to as “stuffy contemporary art galleries” that dominate the Johannesburg art community.186
Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) describes her role in Floating Reverie as a ‘curator’ or ‘curator-programmer’, which she says she has only been able to define upon reflection. In explaining her role, she discusses how she was ultimately responsible for creating the platform, and is then responsible for selecting the artists participating in the residency programmes,187 establishing the curatorial framework, setting up the information for the residency, having conversations with the artists to help establish their approach,188 and posting the daily iterations the artist produces. For Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), the intention was never to be ‘a curator’, but as she states, her role became something of a ‘curator-programmer’ as she became involved in “networked curatorial practice”. According to Whitaker (2014), “[n]etworked production and curation is the use of a network of people to help create and curate a series of artworks”. The curator is therefore directly linked to the act of helping ‘create’ the artwork. Furthermore, the process of recording the residencies and creating hyperlinks to the artist’s works, although a curatorial process, can also be assimilated with the processes of compiling or creating an artwork, except in this
186 Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) points out how, at the time (circa 2014), it felt to her that the same art and the same artists were always being shown. Whitaker felt despondent about there being limited spaces where new, young, emerging artists could go to play, create and explore, without pandering to the pressures of the commercial gallery system. 187 In terms of making artist selections, Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) depended on her own network in the art community, and the connections of this network, to encourage participation. Although the residency is “by invitation only”, Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) states that she is not a ‘gatekeeper’, and that “[i]t is not often that someone will send me a proposal or a concept description [that] I will dismiss”. 188 Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) restates that most of these interactions are digitally mediated, with conversations, critical sessions and responses/feedback occurring on email, WhatsApp, etc., and which can be seen as the digital equivalent to a studio visit by a curator.
125 case it is the work of other artists that forms the medium for Floating Reverie. Harrison (2015:81) argues that there are “commonalities between hypertext/media technologies and concept-based art practice”. Floating Reverie becomes the result of this process of influencing the aesthetics and the concepts, and thus it turns into the ‘thing’ itself, the artwork made up of the medium of all the other contributions by other participating artists.
Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) has commented that initially, she anticipated more collaboration across projects and between artists participating in the residency. This expectation can be related to her earlier understanding of networked curation, as she links this to what W Lance Bennett, Alexandra Segerberg and Shawn Walker (2014) refer to as “network stitching”, a similar method where “the production, curation, and dynamic integration of various types of information content and other sources” are used within a crowd or group. The limitations of Whitaker’s role as a curator became more evident as it became clearer to her that it is difficult for a curator to force collaboration between artists. To date, the only cross-collaboration was between 2014 residency artists Tegan Bristow189 and João Orecchia.190 Bristow created daily generative code patterns, based on an online learning programme, during her June 2014 residency (see Figure 3.16). According to Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), “[t]hese code patterns, apart from visually representing data, also generated data”. Orecchia then used the data from Bristow’s code patterns, and added code to make the patterns generate sound — transforming the visual patterns
189 Bristow’s artist statement is listed as follows: “‘Draw a straight line and follow it’ a quote by La Mont Young, the American musician and minimalist composer, who’s [sic] spirito-mathematical music is made of semi-stationary waves and slowly evolving amorphous sounds. I am no composer but am a coder of little bits of art in computers. For me the basis for coding is deriving instructions for the computer to visually manifest, much like La Mont Youngs. In this floating reverie [sic] I will be writing lines of code and following them, like drawing a straight line and following it, one piece will lead to the development of the next as I sketch out lines of code. These two weeks should produce 14 code sketches some more different than others, but all with experimental outcomes. This line may very well keep drawing, Joao Orecchia who starts half way through my reverie, may choose data generating and looping in these bits of code to produce lines in waves of sound, forming extended audio forms” (June // 2 Weeks 2014). 190 Orecchia’s artist statement is listed as follows: “Composer Steve Reich spoke about Music as a Gradual Process, where musical compositions are themselves processes, and sought to make these processes audible. A process in this case is a set of rules or parameters over time, devised pathways through which to send sonic material. A kind of labyrinth, which will give form to a composition. For my two week long Floating Reverie, I will be creating processes in response to another participant, Tegan Bristow’s experiments in code. The resulting loops of sound might be seen as an echo, an extension of a process, a process informed by another process. I find it fitting that Bristow’s works are created in a programming language called Processing …” (July // 2 Weeks 2014).
126 of Bristow into a series of sound works (see Figure 3.17 for the screenshot of Orecchia’s posts).191
It is also worth noting, however, that Whitaker herself becomes a type of collaborator in each of the artist’s residencies, as in a sense she participates as an artist- collaborator, negotiating authorship and the divide between the artist and curator roles. Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) comments that she works with each artist, consulting with them and guiding them through the planning and preparation for their residency. As a result, it can be argued that she actively shares in the conceptualisation and planning of their works, and by default, she collaborates by setting limitations for the artist to adhere to through the curatorial ‘call’. According to Goldin (2002, cited in Harrison 2015:85), “‘curator’ (the semantic space creator) [is] the initiator of a project who is, therefore, attributed a part-authorship in any resulting artefact”. Harrison (2015:85) furthermore argues: “Collaboration can be understood as an essential element of the Internet online society” and is, in my opinion, unavoidable. Although Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) does not consider this ‘collaboration’ in the traditional sense, but rather where her role as curator- programmer comes to the fore, I postulate that she navigates her role (between curator and collaborating artist) by connecting with the artists in a manner that places her in the context of their residency projects. Most interesting is that, in Whitaker’s artist website, she tends not to distinguish between her practice as curator and artist on Floating Reverie (see Figure 3.18 for a screenshot).
In addition to the online residency, Whitaker organises annual post-digital exhibitions, which take place after a year of residency instantiations, and where artists are invited to create work for a traditional, physical exhibition, based on the work they produced during their Floating Reverie residency. Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) devised the post-digital exhibitions as an answer to the question: “What happens once the work is done. What happens to the process, concepts, research?” Harrison (2015:83) refers to this type of ‘convergence’ as “cross-curating”, where the artists are encouraged to work with that which is (or was devised) online, in “real-time events”. According to Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), her role in the post-digital
191 The sound works are unfortunately no longer available.
127 exhibitions “comes in mainly in managing, facilitation and organising”. The post- digital exhibitions thus “attempt to engage in the dialogue between the online works, and the physical works created for the post-digital exhibition” (Whitaker 2017). For Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C), “bringing it into, ironically, a gallery space, allows [the work] to be accessible and allows for the reflection” beyond the digital space of Floating Reverie.
Artist Chloë Hugo-Hammond collaborated with 2Bop, a local streetwear label, in 2014. The garments (Figure 3.20), which can be described as a range of “wearable art works (You Are What You Eat) in the form of fashion items” were then made available in fourteen Sportscene stores nationwide (Skattie 2014).192 For her residency, which was called 14 stores nationwide, Hugo-Hammond documented her visits to the stores that she could physically access, and for those that were too far, she documented her visit via Google Earth or asked acquaintances to visit and document the clothing displays (see some results of her daily visits in Figure 3.19). Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) recalls how “each day she would document a store or an interaction with it […] She created a very specific space that sort of archived her visits and her location”, thus foregrounding her probing of capitalism and commercialism in people’s everyday lives. This residency instantiation was then translated to Hugo-Hamman’s post-digital application, wherein she created an ‘altar’ with Just-Juice cans with the old branding “as a type of memorial to our consumerist ways and behaviour” (Whitaker 2017). The aim was thus to transform digital works into physical works, which placed limits on the invited artist’s practice as the work had to revisit the processes and results arrived at through the residency (see Figure 3.21). Farqharson (2003) states: “When curators seize the conceptual ground usually occupied by artists, this places artists — often in vast numbers — in the subservient role of interpreting and delivering the curator’s a priori, overarching premise. The hierarchy is dissolved when curators invite artists to postproduce their exhibitions.”
Although each residency occurs in isolation, in the post-digital exhibitions Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) includes the accumulation of the past year’s residencies in one space, which she notes as being challenging: “There is no guarantee that there
192 These stores have been described as the ‘top tier’ Sportscene stores, across five provinces and seven cities.
128 are themes that are the same, apart from the fact that the works presented are a response to the artists’ participation on the digital residency”. Thus, similar to the way that the Floating Reverie digital website instigates artists’ approaches and records the results (often with no connection or collaboration between residencies), the post- digital exhibitions act as a retrospective, postproduction, of the year’s residencies, translated into the physical, with no connection between the bodies of work produced.
Floating Reverie is, I believe, a lens through which Whitaker can examine her own artistic practice and meditate on differences between functions and forms. Whitaker (2017a, see Appendix 3C) states: “[…] in terms of my art, and my practice, I don't know if I can differentiate between myself being a curator and an artist. I think I am primarily an artist, and I think the curating happens because that is part of my medium”. As the name suggests, Floating Reverie asks artists to meditate on their daily iteration, their thought processes revealed through their creative process. This, in a sense, relates immediately to Whitaker’s own artistic practice, particularly her Bae Magick (2017) exhibition. The exhibition first occurred online, on a similarly constructed digital residency platform hosted by X-contemporary.org,193 wherein Whitaker cast spells for every phase of the moon, through daily iterations (see Figure 3.22 for a screenshot).194 After the online digital residency, Whitaker then created a post-digital exhibition of this work, also titled Bae Magick (2017), which was self- curated and installed at Kalashnikovv Gallery’s ‘Wreck Room’ (see Figure 3.23). Although these works fall outside the scope of this study, they are worth considering in that they articulate the extent to which Whitaker is able to examine her own practice through curating Floating Reverie.
Harrison (2015) notes that, although writers like O’Neill reflect on the moment when curating and artistic practice converge, the majority of these discussions consider “real-world exhibitions such as the biennales”. He contrasts this by arguing that “a
193 X-contemporary.org is a digital residency that was initiated by Marenka Krasomil (Berlin), and functions in a similar manner to Floating Reverie. 194 The online instantiation “explored casting spells in line with the phases of the moon, allowing the viewer to capture a digital energy. The spells enabled the artist and the viewer to prepare their space, set an intention, and through repetition, cast a bae spell” (Carly Whitaker: Bae Magick 2017). For this work, “[Whitaker] uses fragments of Tinder profiles, WhatsApp emojis, Facebook messages and fortune teller flyers to comment on the digital discourse we have around the absurd and exciting phenomenon of forming relationships online” (Pinto 2017).
129 further dimension to that convergence” is specific to digital media work, as he argues that “the medium itself […] instructs a form of curatorial process that emerges from an art practice” (O’Neill 2015:81). Similarly, Whitaker approaches her practice as both ‘artist’ and ‘curator’ equally, and I contend that no position is ever dominant or favoured over the other. Whitaker thus consistently adopts the position of curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator. The digital media work in Whitaker’s Floating Reverie not only responds to Johannesburg socio-cultural, political or economic limitations, but also draws on liberties that arise from the convergence of artistic and curatorial practice in a way that enhances the project and its response to these constraints.
Chapter conclusion
‘Artists’ and ‘curators’ are no longer functions or roles that can be separated in each and every case — and both are involved as cultural producers in signifying processes. I showed in the previous discussions that it is possible for one person to adopt the role of both artist and curator simultaneously, while negotiating these positionalities consistently so that neither position (or role) is more dominant. Richter (2013:55) speaks about both artists and curators as ‘cultural producers’, stating “[s]ome curators first considered themselves artists […], while in other cases artistic practice contains elements of curating”. She proposes the term ‘cultural producers’, rather, to make sense of the role and move away from trying to make a distinction between the two, but in the same breath, states “[n]evertheless, it is imperative that concrete situations are discussed in relation to how power evolves in their cases” — highlighting the contradiction (Richter 2013:55). By working from what I indicate is a curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator position, the established hierarchy between curator and artist is contested as there is a constant negotiation between the two approaches in order to advance a project. By taking on both roles simultaneously, curator-as- artist/artist-as-curator’, both artistic and curatorial conventions can be explored — allowing space for sensitivity toward power relations, neutralising dominance, and providing creative and conceptual freedom in order to extend the practice. I suggested that, by taking on this position, issues of authorship are negotiated, hierarchies are questioned, creative control is adopted and adapted, and production processes are reinvented and become non-static and responsive to the context in a
130 way that enhances the project (particularly in a way where the original position/approach may be too-easily outmoded).
It should furthermore be noted that many South Africa curators studied in Fine Arts, and then moved over to participate in curatorial practice. As discussed in Chapter One, curatorial courses were not established in South Africa until recently, and for those that were established, they seemed to gain support only with the increase in popularity established by the celebrity-curator emerging in Euro-America in the 1970s and 1980s,195 and in South Africa in the late 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of mega-exhibitions (see Chapter One). As artists ‘turned’ curators often approach curating as an artistic practice,196 the term curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator would seem particularly applicable for many local articulations of curatorial practice.
In the following chapter, I consider the collective/collaborative curator who participates in group curatorial strategies. Through this, I interrogate whether collective/collaborative praxis makes provisions for the curator to avoid hierarchical/authorial positionalities, making it possible to approach curating in a democratic manner.
195 In South African, there are no super-star/celebrity curators that have emerged, as seen in Euro- America with people such as Szeemann, Enwezor, Obrist, Hoffman, and more. This can be ascribed to limited museum space, and the role museums play in a post-apartheid social space in that they possibly do not hold the same ‘pride of cultural space’ when compared to Euro-American counterparts, in that they lack budget, standing, etc. 196 This positionality was also discussed in context to Skotnes’ assumed role for Miscast, and her approach as artist-curator (Chapter One).
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CHAPTER FOUR: THE COLLECTIVE/COLLABORATIVE CURATOR
Introduction
As outlined in Chapter One, Enwezor was heavily criticised for his centralised position when curating Trade Routes (1997), Johannesburg’s second biennale. Friedman (1997) even described him as “The curator as God” in the title of her newspaper article. However, over a decade later, O’Neill (2009/2010:43) refers to Enwezor as having “acknowledged the failure of the single-author model of exhibition making”, and as “sustain[ing] a common argument for collaborative curatorial models” in his practice.197 Although Enwezor experimented with this type of group approach in 1997, an approach that may then have been considered experimental, but which O’Neill (2009/2010:43) later refers to as being “a mainstay on the biennial circuit”, perhaps the overwhelming criticism he received led him to acknowledge co- curatorial strategies in his later practice more fully. Interestingly, O’Neill (2009/2010:45) draws attention to this tendency for major curators to “underplay” contributions made by co-curators in their practice. Naming this “the Obrist paradox”, O’Neill (2009/2010:45) indicates how even “the most visible curator of the last decade, Obrist, has curated almost all of his projects in collaboration with many others”, but rarely acknowledged this.
Perhaps this lack of acknowledgement of collaborative curatorial strategies can be linked to the traditional understanding of the authorial figure of the curator as successful and powerful, and as the person who ‘legitimises’ works (Arriola 2009/2010:21). The customary approach to curating is therefore “one curator — one show” (Misiano 2009/2010:3). Arriola (2009/2010:21) observes that this authorial position has “rendered the curator a mediating figure invested with the know-how, authority and power to redistribute forces within the field”. The solo curator is often criticised for being a ‘canon maker’, harnessing the ability to legitimate artists’ careers through his/her selections, and ‘gate keeping’ art markets. Owing to Euro-
197 In this acknowledgement, O’Neill (2009/2010:43) refers specifically to Documenta XI (2002), or ‘Africa’s Documenta’, wherein Enwezor accepted the position of artistic director, supported by a group of selected co-curators.
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American art circuits placing so much value on the single, celebrity curator, the lack of acknowledgement by well-known curators that O’Neill refers to may be a symptom of a broader unease at the prospect of losing this power.
However, Misiano (2009/2010:3) points out that, as a ‘counterpoint’ to this emphasis on the single figure of the authorial curator, which he says may be linked to a “postwar liberal glorification of the individual”, the idea of collective curatorship came into being — a phenomenon that can be attributed to the “post-Cold War decade”. Arriola (2009/2010:21) argues that individual curators began to represent an “authorial maladie that reached its nadir during the late 1990s and early 2000s” as a result of the many criticisms and interrogations, most often led by artists.198 O’Neil (2012:52) similarly posits that there was a notable shift from the 1990s “away from the single-author curatorial model, toward more collaborative, discursive, and collective models of curating”.199 O’Neill (2009/2010:41) attributes this to a “rallying cry for collaboration as a productive strategy for countercultural organization”. Individual, dominantly positioned curators were openly criticised for their inflated roles, for abusing authority, and for maintaining a hierarchical position above the artists participating in an exhibition. As a result, group, participatory and community- driven curatorial approaches became more popular.
Group curatorial practice provides an opportunity to democratise access and to pluralise inclusion in a way that can question mainstream artistic production (Arriola (2009/2010:26). In this study, I use ‘group curatorial practice’ as an overarching term to refer to any practice that is not single-authored. However, it is necessary to distinguish between collective and collaborative curatorial practices, and to
198 As discussed in Chapter Three of this study, Daniel Buren published a statement in the catalogue to Documenta V in 1972, wherein he complained that Szeemann’s approach to curating was mostly concerned with ‘the exhibition’ as the object. More than thirty years later, Buren (2003, cited in Arriola 2009/2010:22) updated his ongoing critique of the spectacular visibility that Szeemann’s curatorial position had demanded, which he argued “[cast] a shadow on the artist” and allowed Szeemann to take liberties as the curator. 199 O’Neill (2009/2010:41) refers to curatorial collectives, General Idea, Group Material, and Arts & Language, to support the findings of his study, arguing that the collective designation meant that “working in a group had freed them from ‘the tyranny of the individual genius’” allowing for ‘unrestricted’ creativity and offering an “alternative to the autonomous figures of the artist, the curator and the critic”. Art and curatorial collective ‘Chamber of Public Secrets’ (2009/2010:72), a collective made up of three participants, namely Alfredo Cramerotti, Rían Lozano and Khaled Ramadan, describes how there was a general shift from an individual to participatory and community-driven approach.
133 acknowledge the nuances in each category. O’Neill (2009/2010:40) argues that when speaking in general of the notion of the ‘collective’, and arguably this can be expanded to include ‘group’ or ‘collaborative’ as descriptors, the general terms serve to “[translate] into a flattening-out of each specific group formation”. Thus, the distinctions are lost as the term implies an interchangeability in approach and undermines each group’s unique composition and strategy (O’Neill 2009/2010:40). It is important to recognise nuanced approaches to group curatorial praxis. Below I provide broad parameters for each configuration of group praxis, which I use for the purposes of this study: 1) Collective curating: According to Bronson (cited in O’Neill 2009/2010:38), a collective is “a restrictive structure limited by a dominant ideological or organizational principle”. Arriola (2009/2010:26) provides further nuances, by maintaining a distinction between “collective curating as the shared responsibility of selecting, confronting and putting into dialogue a series of artworks and curatorial visions” as opposed to “setting up a collaborative endeavor of shared authorship uttered as a single voice”. Thus, it is necessary to distinguish between a formalised ‘collective’ and a group that shares responsibility for the sake of a single project, working collectively. 2) Collaborative curating: O’Neill (2009/2010:44) argues that “[a]s curatorial work has become more collaborative, exhibitions have tended to include non-specialist art practitioners and involve participation across cultural fields of inquiry”. Thus, collaborative curating does not necessarily take place through a formalised collective, nor is it limited to specialist art practitioners.
When researching collaborative praxis and the related literature, it is evident that this matter has not been adequately explored beyond discussions about collaborative art practices,200 biennales and mega-exhibitions that contextualise the advantages of using a group curatorial approach,201 or curatorial practices arising from Euro-
200 There has been an increase in critical exploration of collaborative and/or participatory praxis since the publishing of Bourriaud’s book Relational aesthetics. 201 Smith (2012a:119) refers to a team of curators as a ‘curatorium’. The term curatorium can thus be used for mega-exhibitions, biennales and triennials, and according to Smith (2012a:119) contributes to sharing responsibilities and democratising artist selections.
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America. According to Maria-Alina Asavei (2014:89-95), it is difficult to be precise when tracing the histories of collective production, particularly because of a prevailing culture wherein the individual is prized above the collective. This is applicable to collective curatorial production, particularly concerning Johannesburg.
In 2009/2010, an edition of Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curatorship dedicated an entire issue to discussing collective curating. However, it focuses almost entirely on group and collective practices by Euro-American practitioners and excludes any consideration of group curatorial praxis beyond the West. The 2011 summer edition of Art South Africa focuses on collaborative practice in a section dedicated to reflecting on the FADA Collaborations/Articulations exhibition (2011), curated by Brenden Gray at the University of Johannesburg. It should be noted, however, that the curatorial approach was not in fact collaborative: Gray conceptualised and curated the exhibition himself, and thus the insights focus on aspects of collaborative practice led by the members of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) invited to participate. These insights nevertheless prove astute and complement my reading of collaborative curatorial praxis and the role of the collective/collaborative curator.
More recently, an issue of OnCurating.org titled ‘In this context: collaborations & biennials’ (2016) was edited by Nkule Mabaso202 and focuses on collaborative practice in Africa. Mabaso explores collaboration in two parts: firstly, she researches collaborative work enacted by African collectives, with a particular focus on southern Africa; and secondly, she investigates collaborative practice as a strategy used in developing biennials on the African continent. Mabaso (2016:2), speaking of collaborative practice in general, says that “collaboration positions individualistic practice as a problem of cultural form — its use-values — it brings the category of art face to face with it [sic] most cherished expectations and ideals — individual
202 Nkule Mabaso’s biography, as listed on the OnCurating.org site, reads as follows: Nkule Mabaso, b. 1988, graduated with a Fine Arts degree from the University of Cape Town and received a Master’s in Curating at the Zurich University of the Arts. She has worked as Assistant Editor of the journal OnCurating.org and founded the Newcastle Creative Network in KwaZulu-Natal. As an artist, she has shown work in Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa, Germany, and Zimbabwe. She has curated shows and organised public talks in Switzerland, Malawi, Tanzania, and South Africa. At the time of writing she was a PhD candidate at Rhodes University as part of the research team SARChI Chair 'Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa', and curator of the Michaelis Galleries at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town.
135 authorship and autonomy — and addresses the basis of art’s relationship to democracy, the art world, and capitalist relations of production”. Although Mabaso’s issue informs my reading of collaborative practice when considered in the context of the African continent, my focus is on independent curatorial practice in Johannesburg itself, particularly in terms of how collaboration may have transformed the curatorial project. Although Mabaso’s research bears some similarity to mine in this chapter, her research on collaborative work is not specifically focused on curatorial practice, and she tends to focus primarily on formalised collectives.203 Mabaso (2016) does however include an interview that Abongile Gwele conducted with Marcus Neustetter of The Trinity Session. The Trinity Session, formed in 2001, is an early example of a formalised collective engaging in curatorial and art practice in Johannesburg. I acknowledge The Trinity Session as instrumental in creating momentum around collaborative practice in the Johannesburg art scene; however, The Trinity Session was linked to a particular space, called The | Premises Gallery, which was pivotal in the beginning stages of establishing their approach (Gwele 2016:24). Thus, although I acknowledge their contribution towards embracing and normalising collaborative practices in Johannesburg, I have chosen to discuss their practice in the context of the curator-gallerist in Chapter Five.
As it is not possible to discuss all group curatorial projects in Johannesburg between 2007 and 2016 in the scope of this study,204 particularly because Johannesburg has
203 Mabaso focuses on Chimurenga, Burning Museum and The Trinity Session, all formal organised collectives. Chimurenga is a “project-based mutable object, a print magazine, a workspace, and platform for editorial and curatorial activities. Chimurenga initiatives include: Chimurenga Chronic a pan-African gazette that that documents the way African societies invent themselves; African Cities Reader a bi-annual compendium of writing and art from multiple genres, forms of representation and points of view which embodies diversity of emergent urbanisms across Africa; Chimurenga Library, an online archive of black periodicals and an exhibition research method, and Pan African Space Station a musical platform on the internet and in venues across the continent” (Edjabe 2016:11). Burning Museum is an arts collective based in Cape Town, South Africa. They work specifically with Wheat Pasting, “which is a specific medium with a history of its own. It is a way of executing. Wheat pasting does have a sense of performativity in a literal sense” (Davy 2016:13). It “is a collaborative interdisciplinary collective … Its members Tazneem Wentzel, Grant Jurius, Jarret Erasmus, and Justin Davy move fluidly between the stations of artist, historian, and cultural activist. While their work is primarily street-based, they have also exhibited in white-cube spaces, both locally and internationally. Most recently, their work was exhibited in the solo exhibition Cover Version at Gallery MOMO in Cape Town and in Boundary Objects at Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid” (Davy 2016:18). 204 There has been an increase in South African curators, artists and art writers working in group curatorial practice. Important examples of this include seminal collectives such as Gugulective (art collective, founded by Kemang Wa Lehulere in 2006); Centre for Historical Reenactments (curatorial collective, founded by Ngcobo and discussed in Chapter Two); The Dead Bunny Society (curatorial collective, founded by Dirk Bahmann, Peter Mammes, Neil Nieuwoudt and Stephan Erasmus in 2014);
136 a rich history of collaborative curating practices, my selections are based on those that can be defined according to the collaborative curatorial configurations I define above, namely a collaborative project that involves multi-disciplinary contributions; a collective that collaborates for the sake of one project, and a formalised collective collaborating on a project. Furthermore, the collective/collaborative curator must have functioned independently and used this role as a strategy to enhance the project in a manner that the individual curator may not have been able to.
My discussion focuses on the collective/collaborative curator in three examples, and although I discuss individual artworks selectively, this is done only to contextualise the curatorial methodologies and processes that framed these works. I therefore discuss the following exhibitions in this chapter: o
Black Mark (a Johannesburg-based reading and writing group founded by Ntombela, Mdluli, Gule and Londiwe Langa in 2013); The Trinity Session (founded in 2001); and influential exhibitions occurring as a result of group practices, such as the exhibition, Space: Currencies in Contemporary African Art, curated by Thembinkosi Goniwe and Melissa Mboweni (11 May — 11 July 2010 at MuseumAfrica); Shoe Shop, curated by Marie-Hélène Guberlet and Cara Snyman), and many more. 205 Hereafter referred to as PLAY. 206 Please refer to Appendix 4H: Beathur Mgoza Baker biography. 207 Please refer to Appendix 4G: Isabel Mertz biography. 208 Please refer to Appendix 4F: Jayne Crawshay-Hall biography. 209 Fluxus Now opened on 30 December 2016, and closed on 13 January 2017. I define the scope of this study according to one decade, from the beginning of 2007 to the end of 2016. Although Fluxus Now was open during 2017, the exhibition was conceptualised, planned and opened in 2016, which is thus why I refer to it in this study. 210 Hereafter referred to as SPACE SPACE. 211 Please refer to Appendix 4I: SPACE SPACE / Ella Křivánek biography. 212 Although neither Křivánek nor Siemens are local to Johannesburg or South Africa, their exhibition, Fluxus Now, exemplifies their practice to find solutions for a specific space, which in this case was Johannesburg, the geographical area covered by this study.
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Malatjie,213 discussing the details of
213 Please see Appendix 4A: Portia Malatjie biography. 214 Assemblage was founded in 2010 by Johannesburg-based artists Anthea Pokroy and Louise van der Bijl. It is a non-profit organisation that “intends for the visual arts community of Johannesburg to connect, to share ideas, information and advice and to collaborate. It provides an inclusive forum where visual art students, graduates and professionals can network. Assemblage encourages production, participation, professionalism and the sharing of resources, knowledge and skills. Through an informative website, peer mentoring groups, workshops, group exhibitions and other collaborative projects, it hopes to contribute and promote artistic innovation, collaboration and a proactive vibrancy within Johannesburg” (extract from About
138 with emerging/established visual artists” (About
The overall curatorial concept of ‘play’, reflected in the title of the exhibition, which breaks up the word ‘display’ in an attempt to draw attention to ‘play’ being a crucial part of the creative process, developed from the question conceived between the collaborating participants: “how can a child without a playground play?” (Malatjie 2012:16). Thus, the concept was arrived at through dialogical processes between the collaborators. Malatjie (2012:16) realised that “[t]his question assumed that the socio- political and class issues of living in the Johannesburg CBD inhibited the kids’ ability to play freely, but it failed to recognise that there are different kinds of play and therefore different kinds of playgrounds”. Therefore, according to Malatjie (2012:16), “[t]he project was influenced by the need to understand the complexities of how children play in the Johannesburg inner city”. Malatjie (2012a), quoting Douglas Hofstadter in her curatorial statement, outlines: “Creativity is having a concept and simply making variations of it”. She asserted, through her reading of Hofstadter, that “creativity is not coming up with something new — rather, an artist has to take an existing idea, [and] reinterpret or appropriate it, in order to achieve creativity” (Malatjie 2012a). Accordingly, Malatjie, again invoking Hofstadter, argues that an artist only fully engages creativity through engaging play. Thus,
217 This project was initiated between January and March 2012, and was facilitated by Assemblage and Urban Arts Platform. 218 This is thought to have occurred between April and July (after the workshops, and leading up to the exhibition). 219 The Anstey’s Building exhibition component opened on 18 July 2012, and the GoetheOn Main exhibition component opened on 19 July 2012. This exhibition ran until 4 August 2012.
139 to as “an exploration of the possibilities that play can bring to the growth not only of the children involved, but also of the artists” (Malatjie 2012:15).
The concept of the exhibition also drove Malatjie’s (2018) selection of artists, as she mentioned that “[a] number of artists have in the past employed strategies and concepts of play to speak provocatively about socio-political issues”; she thus favoured artists who had previously used the thematics of play in their works. It should be noted, however, that although she finalised the concept and selected the initial pool of artists, Assemblage also requested that some of their associated artists be represented, which resulted in a collaborative conversation regarding participation (Van der Bijl 2018, see Appendix 4C). The selected artists included Poorvi Bhana, Catherine Dickerson, Mandy Johnston, Mbali Khoza, Donna Kukama, Benon Lutaaya, Lehlogonolo Mashaba, Tiffany Mentoor and Anthea Moys, decided on as a result of “a series of exchanges between different intelligences”, which is a characteristic of the advantages of group curatorial strategies (Raqs Media Collective 2009/2010:12). As Katharina Schlieben (2009/2010:18) argues, collective approaches “push the dynamics of democratic and dialogical processes” and thus consensus can be seen as indicative of a discussion around subjectivity and a negotiation of authority.
As previously noted, the project launched with nine one-day workshops held over a period of eight weeks for the children associated with the Anstey’s Kids Project. 220 Twenty-one children with ages ranging between five and sixteen are listed as participating in the project.221 Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B) had proposed that
220 Leading up to the launch of the workshops, the collaborators drove a fundraising and support campaign, as they needed materials, facilities and funds for the project. Many items/facilities were donated or offered free of charge. They also ran a support campaign, where people were encouraged to donate R250 towards the project, and as an incentive, they would receive a print (Acknowledgements 2012:7). 221 The children listed as participating are: Bheki Hlongwane (15); Brian Tyindyi (14); Felicia Makhoba (11); Gamu (6); Girvan Dunn (15); Glory (8); Gugulethu Mncube (10); Karabo Ratshidi (15); Lebogang ‘Lebo’ Moleta (9); Matlhogonolo (Mazaza) Moleta (10); Naledi Matlejoane (11); Neo Ratshidi (12); Ntombi Dube (12); Otsibile Prince Nare (9); Pumelela Nkonkile (9); Reabetswe Seetelo (16); Taboka (6); Thabang Mogale (13); Thatiso (5); Thato (6); Thato Mahlaela (12); Tlhalefo Seetelo (11); and Victory Seetelo (7). The names listed on the website differ slightly from those mentioned in the catalogue (some names are not on the website, and vice versa), however it should be noted that the manner in which the Anstey’s Kids Programme worked, and consequently the manner in which the workshop programme worked, was that it was never compulsory to attend. Thus, some children may have attended some workshops, and not others. Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B) notes that running, managing, organising and planning the workshops was difficult as a result of this.
140 each one-day workshop focus on one of the selected artists’ specific mediums, which resulted in the eight-week programme with workshops in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, collage, photography, film and animation, and performance art. These workshops were mainly organised and facilitated by Assemblage and the Urban Arts Platform,222 and provided a basic introduction to the techniques for each medium with time allocated afterwards for the children to experiment with the mediums. By equipping children with new skills in the workshops, and then later pairing them with artists to produce collaborative artworks for an exhibition, Malatjie’s (2012a) exhibition can be understood as an attempt to encourage “an exploration of the possibilities that play can bring to the growth not only of the children involved, but also of the artists”.
Following the workshop programme, Malatjie (2012:17) grouped the artists with children according to the children’s preferences of medium; however, this later developed to include conceptual interests. In the same way that collaborative processes were enlisted to realise
222 The introductory workshop was facilitated by Malatjie (curator of the exhibition), and Louise van der Bijl and Johnston (representatives of Assemblage). Malatjie was living in Port Elizabeth at the time, and so could not be present for every workshop session. The drawing workshop was given by Nathan Jansen Van Vuuren. The painting workshop was facilitated by Laura de Harde. The printmaking workshop was produced by Lehlogonolo Mashaba, who was also an artist included in the exhibition. Anthea Moys offered the Performance workshop and Benon Lutuuya facilitated the collage workshop. Johnston (artist) and Gordon Froud worked together to offer the sculpture workshop, David Dini and the Umuzi Photo Club facilitated the Photography workshop, and finally, Puleng Plessie, who was also the exhibition administrator, gave the workshop on Film and Animation (Workshops
141 more than just an organising process for the facilitators of
Michael Burchall and Philipp Sack (2014:4) discuss how, as a direct result of the educational turn in curating, independent structures “have convened themselves as sites of learning, perhaps inadvertently collapsing the divisions between sites of formal education and those of creative practice, performance and activism”. They contextualise this turn as curating that uses an educational model as a mechanism for “facilitating curatorial agendas to a wide audience” (Burchall & Sack 2014:4). The prospect of working closely with a group of children in an educational context was one of the main appeals for Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B). She emphasised: “I am very passionate about education, and this was certainly one of the motivations for doing this project” (Malatjie 2018/03/10). Although her exhibition was not originally intended as a mentorship programme, and was facilitated far more informally than an educational programme, the process encouraged learning through interaction and exchange, and the outcomes of this collaboration comprised the final exhibition (Malatjie 2012b). Without collaborating with the various parties involved, this project, and the ideas associated with it, would not have been realised.
Malatjie installed the exhibition components concurrently across two venues.223 The primary exhibition venue was at GoetheOnMain, Goethe Institute’s224 non- commercial, independently programmed project space dedicated to promoting
223 Malatjie (2011) conducted an interview with independent curator Claudia Marion Stemberger from Germany prior to curating
142 opportunity for cultural exchange. The Goethe Institute also provides funding for selected projects, which was also part of the appeal for Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B). The Anstey’s Building225 was used as an additional venue to showcase the performance art piece, which was facilitated by Anthea Moys in collaboration with the children from the Anstey’s Kids Project.226 Using both spaces expanded Malatjie’s access to a wider audience. By hosting the performance in the Anstey’s Building itself, the exhibition addressed the community linked to the children who are directly affected by the lack of play resources and/or spaces.
Malatjie worked between both spaces to achieve an exhibition that was neither commercially oriented, nor solely focused on the final iteration of the art object to an elitist audience — both thought to be typically legitimating mechanisms. Arriola (2009/2010:31) considers collective curatorial strategies as a means to provide opportunity to curate exhibitions that critique the capitalist art world’s systems of legitimation — arguably done by Malatjie de-emphasising sales emanating from art objects for sale. Many of the works required some level of interaction from the audience, and she set out to display the works in an intuitive manner that would invite the audience to connect with the works. Tiffany Mentoor, working with a large group of children from the Anstey’s Kids Project, made sound recording of them while they were playing in the Anstey’s Building. The work was installed by hanging six headphone sets in a circular format from the ceiling in GoetheOnMain (see Figure 4.1). This circular format can be regarded as a tactic to entice the audience to participate by listening to the sounds; as Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B) argues, “[in] many games you play, you have to start off in a circular position to play them”. Similarly, Mbali Khoza’s video pieces, displayed on box-set televisions set out in an imprecise circular installation directly on the floor (see Figure 4.2), showed a series of videos in which she and the Anstey’s children blow bubbles with bubble-gum until they popped. One of Johnston’s collaborative works with her co-workers Pumulela Nkonkile, Victory Seetelo and Ntombi Dube, was a reconstruction of the ancient
225 The Anstey’s Building is an Art Deco style building that was sectionalised in 1995 by the ‘New Housing Company’ to create Johannesburg’s first affordable inner city housing project (Kent [sa]). 226 No other work was installed at the Anstey’s Building, which Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B) explained, was owing to logistical reasons, as there was no formal, lock-up gallery facility.
143 board game known, in Shangaan, as ncuva (Malatjie 2012:18-19).227 Installed at a low height on a Perspex plinth with the game pieces appearing like sweet wrappers filled with soil, the installation invited audience members to sit on the floor around the plinth and participate in a game. An image from the opening night (see Figure 4.3) shows a group, perhaps Johnston and her collaborators, demonstrating the game- play. Thus, the exhibition encouraged participation and emphasised the value of creative exchange, articulated through the curatorial composition (see Figure 4.4 for an overall installation shot).
The works that perhaps did not require further participation from the audience, but that resulted from collaborative processes, were also installed in a more playful manner. The collaborations between Benon Lutaaya and Felicia Makhoba, three portrait paintings, were installed unframed (see Figure 4.5), and the collaborative drawings between Lehlogonolo Mashaba and his co-workers Mathlogonolo Moleta and Lebogang Moleta228 were tacked to the wall, recalling the informal manner in which children’s drawings are often displayed in a school setting (Figure 4.6). Johnston’s drawing works, created from printing processes using soil as a medium, were installed at eye level, also unframed (see Figure 4.7). Poorvi Bhana’s collaboration works, painted ceramic bowls, were all installed on one plinth (see Figure 4.8). Catherine Dickerson’s collaborative sugar casts were crowded over three plinths, displaying all the results from the collective processes and indicating that no selections were made, that all the works were valued — perhaps not on account of the final result, but rather, because of the collaborative processes used to make these works (Figure 4.9). This is also reiterated in the ‘found object’ works Dickerson made collaboratively, depicted in Figure 4.10. These works’ mediums also invoke play and exploration — objects created from found materials and transformed into something new; sculptures made from casting sugar and ceramics painted in bright colours and displayed despite being asymmetrical. The exhibition can thus be considered the final result of an attempt to address, and, where possible, offer
227 In the catalogue for
144 alternative solutions to everyday social issues affecting the community of the Anstey’s Building, using different modes of collaboration.
Malatjie took on the role of the socially engaged curator, which is seminal to this discussion. Working with Assemblage and Urban Arts Platform, Malatjie attempted to address the needs of the Anstey’s Kids project and the related community using curatorial practice. Socially conscious curating came about as a result of the ‘social turn’ in curating, and, similarly to the educational turn in curating, refers to the practice of curators employing “pedagogical methodologies and approaches as part of the curatorial premise and process” (Johnston 2014:24). Megan Johnston (2014:24) defines socially engaged curating as “an approach that focuses on the production, distribution, and consumption of art through multiple platforms with an emphasis on process and connecting with audiences”, which she terms “slow curating".229 She emphasises the use of collaboration, involvement with the community, and balancing education and mediation, as imperative to the practice, and argues that slow curating is “a framework that enables, explores, and expands” exhibition experiences for more relevant audience engagement (Johnston 2014:24- 25). Accordingly, Malatjie (2018, see Appendix 4B) foregrounds how “[t]he different organisations brought in different strengths and experiences”, enabling them to expand their framework and push the boundaries of the curatorial project. Common practice in slow curating, according to Johnston (2014:26), is that of curators “working with artists to create space for meaningful and deep understandings of local context, working with local experts in the community to investigate issues that affect everyday lives”. Similarly, Malatjie’s collaborative project focused on confronting issues that the Anstey’s community was facing, and thus
229 Slow curating and its concept makes implicit reference to the “slow food” movement, a global movement that encourages people to take time to prepare locally sourced, organic foods rather than consume fast foods. Therefore, the focus is not only on eating the food, but also acknowledging food as linked to culture, heritage and history. 230 Malatjie (2018/03/10) is frank about what she considers problematical associations with the term ‘community’ and her preference is to avoid using it. She explains: “part of the process of working with three organisations was constantly negotiating terminology and contending with different ideologies […] The term community was constantly contested, primarily from my side” (Malatjie 2018/03/10). Malatjie (2018/03/10) argues that terms such as ‘community’ and ‘community engagement’ have negative connotations, particularly when working with black communities. She argues that community is too “heterogeneous” a term as it suggests a bigger commitment than what
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Malatjie proposed that solutions to everyday issues can easily be targeted by working collaboratively and exchanging ideas, skills and positions. One can argue that by conceptualising
Johnston (2014:23) talks about working in “varied formats” in order to open up space, “to mediate a site where socio-political and historical issues and creativity converge with visual culture and civil engagement”. Malatjie shows that by varying the format of the exhibition, curatorial practice has the ability to mobilise social issues. By inspiring collaboration between unexpected participants and framing the exhibition in spaces that cross-contextualise both the inner-city community and the typical art community, Malatjie and her collaborators successfully focused attention on the issues around the lack of secure recreational space for inner-city youths, and emphasised art- making as a possible recreational event.
PLAY_An exhibition (2014), curated by Maaike Bakker, Jayne Crawshay-Hall, Isabel Mertz and Beathur Mgoza Baker
PLAY, installed at the Nirox Sculpture Park (2014), is an example of a group-curated exhibition that employed a non-formalised, collaborative strategy. Curated by Bakker, Mertz, Mgoza Baker and myself, the exhibition took place from October to December 2014, at the change of season from spring to summer. The Nirox Sculpture park, which is a privately owned property about 40 minutes from Johannesburg city centre, is situated in The Cradle, close to the official heritage site for The Cradle of Humankind.231 The manner in which the Park is constructed, with its vast, meticulously manicured lawns and man-made bodies of water, inspired our
have chosen to continue using the term community in terms of discussing
146 conceptual ideation; its atmosphere is conducive to the ideas of play, recreation and exploration. Drawing from this, Mertz proposed an exhibition that explored the idea of ‘games’, or the ‘artwork as a game’. This evolved into an exploration of the concept of ‘play’ itself, in addition to nostalgia, freedom, and amusement.
The proximity to The Cradle of Humankind invokes a sense of “roots, memory and looking back”, as I had written in the curatorial outline (PLAY_An exhibition — Curated by_Collective 2014). At the outset, Mertz and I were intrigued by the space’s geographic location and used this as inspiration for the show’s concept. The show was originally conceptualised as a sculptural exhibition only, and we began inviting artists to create sculptural pieces that responded to the theme of play, and that encouraged viewers to interact directly with the works.232 Artists were asked to send a brief proposal for their intended work.233 We quickly realised, however, that the scale of the show that was demanded by the park would require additional input. D Thorne (cited in Sholette 2016:33), remarks on ‘collectivity’:
Working as a collective or collaborative means that we can do projects on a scale that one person could only do with great difficulty. Resources, skills, interests, knowledge and ideas are pooled. This contributes to the overall political and aesthetic complexity, diversity and effectiveness of the projects.
Consequently, Bakker and Mgoza Baker joined the curatorial team shortly after Mertz and I had sent out the first invitations. Bakker’s involvement was a natural development for me: she and I had already established an organised curatorial collective in 2014 called Curated by_Collective.234 We were thus comfortable working
232 The invitation to participate stated: “Dear Artist | You are invited to participate in an exhibition curated for the Nirox Sculpture Park (at The Cradle of Humankind). PLAY: The exhibition will take place outdoors at The Cradle during the month of October 2014. Artwork is required to be delivered to the venue during the last week in September. Confirmation of participation is required as soon as possible. A detailed contract will be sent through upon confirmation, and further details will be made available to you. The exhibition may have a component of events that will take place throughout the three months that the show will be at Nirox, further details regarding this will also be sent through as soon as the details are confirmed. Please read through the curatorial outline below, and feel free to contact us should you have any further questions. | Kind regards The Curators” 233 We supported proposals as far as possible, and if a proposal required further consideration, we often worked with the artist to come up with creative solutions. Often, in reading the proposals, our main concern was taking into account safety while ensuring the work had a collaborative component. At times, we over-estimated the safety of certain works, which were then revised during the show. 234 Curated by_Collective is curatorial team consisting of Bakker and myself. Our objectives are listed on our webpage: “As emerging curators, our general impression is that the space between the role of the artist and the role of the curator is still being treated as a no man’s land. We feel that the curator
147 collaboratively, and she had already been providing input informally and suggesting other sculpture artists.235 Mgoza Baker joined the curatorial team at the same time as Bakker. Coming from a film directing background, Mgoza Baker expanded the medium-specific approach of the exhibition by proposing that we include film, photography and performance components. By inviting more curators and collaborating as a group of four, a new curatorial focus was established that attempted to close the gap between the sculptures and digital mediums, expanding the medium-specific focus to a conceptual one. We were thus able to present a large-scale exhibition that included a performance component, film, print work and sculpture, and that appealed to the viewer to respond to, and participate with, each work directly.
Collaborating on the selection of artists was important. As a result of the curators combining their knowledge and exposing each other to various artists and their works in the context of the theme, the invitee list expanded considerably from the first round of invitations sent out. The selections thus became multi-authored, which can be considered a result of “a plurality of curatorial visions”, according to Francesco Bonami (cited in O’Neill 2012:80). Our intention was not to differentiate between emerging and established artists, but rather to include artists who had received recognition alongside those who perhaps had little or no experience of participating in an exhibition. Mertz and I had initiated the project in response to sculptors in Johannesburg having insufficient exhibiting opportunity, and also enduring spatial limitations when occasions did arise. Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E) reasoned: “I think there is still very little opportunity for artists, especially if artists are not
should be actively involved but not infringe on the artist’s intentions. We set out to develop exhibitions with a clear curatorial standpoint in which the artist’s individual intended meaning comes to fore, while at the same time our curatorial mission further articulates the dialogue. As curators, our intention is to be experimental in our curatorial mediation, to push boundaries and start new conversations. These conversations include artists which one might not usually find in the same context, due to location or due to being at different stages of their career. Curated by_Collective sets out to embrace the endless possibilities and 'what if's' that the field of curating offers” (About Us — Curated by_Collective 2014-8). 235 In April 2014, Bakker and I approached Benji Liebmann, one of the owners and founders of the Nirox Foundation (at that time, the Foundation included Nirox Project Space at ArtsOnMain, Johannesburg, and the Nirox Sculpture Park in The Cradle) to use the Nirox Project Space to host our first exhibition. At the same time, Mertz and I had been discussing the idea of curating a sculpture exhibition together, and so I asked Liebmann if we could curate a show in the sculpture park. Because of this conflation of working on the Curated by_Collective show, titled I Take it all Back for Nirox Projects, while at the same time as initiating PLAY, Bakker naturally became involved and assisted in an informal capacity; however, when Mgoza Baker joined the curatorial team in July/August, Bakker’s curatorial role also became formalised.
148 represented by a gallery. By curating group shows, one can include artists where you identify talent and you would like to see more of their work”. Mgoza Baker expanded the selection by extending the call beyond South African borders in order to include southern African artists with whom she was in contact. Furthermore, she applied the same approach to performance artists, who are often not catered for in the mainstream gallery system because of performance’s ephemeral qualities and difficulty in appealing to the commercial art market. Mgoza Baker concentrated on inviting artists who were exploring aspects that could be linked to ‘play,’ ‘memory,’ ‘nostalgia,’ ‘childhood’ and ‘looking back’. Furthermore, by working collaboratively, the selection of artists ultimately questioned mainstream representation; the curatorial approach can therefore be seen as probing the cultural production of the Johannesburg gallery system.
The participating artists were Jelili Atiku; Beezy Bailey; Maaike Bakker and Nadine Minnaar; Wayne Barker; Lothar Böttcher; Rehama Chachage; Milandi Coetzer; Wilma Cruise; Rivon Daniel; Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani; Guy Du Toit; Herman de Klerk; Gordon Froud; Jonathan Freemantle and Rodan Kane Hart; Jonathan Freemantle and Hannah Loewenthal; Danelle Janse van Renburg; Louise Kritzinger; Allen Laing; Jean Paul Lemmer; Givan Lötz; MARTHA Collective; Gerald Machona; Collen Maswanganyi; MEGABONANZA Collective; Isabel Mertz; Chriss Aghana Nwobu; Mamela Nyamza; Louis Olivier; Sarel Petrus; Lorinda Pretorius; Mellaney Ruiters; Sean Slemon; Robert Slingsby; Karin Smith; Talita Swarts; Egon Tanja; Hannalie Taute; Angus Taylor; Adejoke Tugbiyile; Nicolene Van Der Walt; Sybrand Wiechers; Izanne Wiid; and Nalisiwe Xaba (see Figure 4.11 for information on where most of the works were installed in the Park).236
Mgoza Baker negotiated with the Goodman Gallery to include the work of Gerald Machona, and secured the opportunity to exhibit a previously shown work by him, Untitled (six faces) (seen in Figure 4.12). Mgoza Baker felt that the work’s themes directly related to themes of play — as the work was ultimately a Rubik Cube, a popular puzzle-game for adults and children. Negotiating for inclusion of art through a gallery, however, and not being able to communicate directly with the artist, proved
236 Bantu Mtshiselwa, despite his name being listed as having participated, withdrew at the last minute owing to unforeseen circumstances.
149 difficult. In this case, new work was not proposed for the show, and despite there being conceptual overlap, it did not respond directly to the Park’s setting, nor the curatorial call that obliged artists to produce work that an audience could interact with first-hand. Furthermore, the work was at risk, as it was not tailored for an outdoor exhibition. Although we did install the work, this was done in the pavilion in order to give it some protection from the elements. The pavilion, however, is essentially a ‘roofed’ outdoor space — it is neither completely outdoors nor indoors. In this case, the curators collectively sought a solution to install the work so that its surface would not be damaged by the gravel floor.237
Mgoza Baker expanded the use of space by also employing the Park’s gallery cottage, which was used for an exhibition of photographs by Chriss Aghana Nwobu238 titled ‘Waiting to be Born’ (see Figure 4.13). This body of work was conceptualised as a solo exhibition, and PLAY was the first time it was shown to a public audience. Because Mgoza Baker proposed to use this space, we were able to include additional exhibition components for film and photography works. We also installed a booth at the back area of the gallery cottage to screen some of the films during the exhibition.239
At the opening weekend event, two live performances were included in the programme: Jonathan Freemantle240 and Hannah Loewenthal’s performance, Exploring ‘Mountain’ (Figure 4.14) and Mamela Nyamza’s performance, Hatched
237 We also indicated to Goodman Gallery that we could not insure the work against damage from the elements as the show was essentially an outdoors show, and the curatorial call was clear in indicating that the work needed to be able to withstand outdoor conditions. Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E) recalls that this was an “example of the institution becoming a bit of a challenge, instead of facilitating things”. 238 Chriss Aghana Nwobu (b1971) is an award-winning Nigerian visual artist and photographer. He is an experimental artist who explores the use of photography and video with different objects and materials in his environment as props or installations to visually communicate his ideas (Artist Profile: Chriss Aghana Nwobu 2017). 239 We screened The Second Burial of Nelson Mandela (2014) by Atiku (b1968) who is a Nigerian multimedia artist working in sculpture, performance and video, with political concerns for human rights and justice (Jelili Atiku ©2018). We also screened Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani’s Pharaoh in Paris (2013). Togolese-born Dermani is based in Stuttgart, Germany. Dermani (b1973), a multimedia artist, is curious and innovative in his outlook and approach to artmaking and representing African identities in the world (Abdoul-Ganiou Dermani [sa]). 240 Freemantle also participated as a collaborating sculpture artist on PLAY (with Rodan Kane Hart), and thus the play between mediums is important.
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(Figure 4.15).241 Outdoor film screenings were also held of Adejoke Tugbiyile’s AfroODESSEY V, Nalisiwe Xaba’s Uncles & Angels242 and Rahema Chachage’s243 Beautifully Decorated. 244 A performative effect was achieved by projecting these films outside. The aim was to use the space of the Park as a means of enhancing the works’ playful qualities, as the audience sitting on the grass would respond differently in the garden setting than in a white cube gallery. Thus, here too the curatorial collaboration served to expand the mediums and modes of exhibition. Working collaboratively meant we had the pooled resources to extend curating beyond the ‘exhibition space’ into multiple avenues of dissemination, so that everything worked in conjunction to assist in curating a playful experience.
Expanding on the parameters that artists might naturally adhere to in tailoring their work to a gallery environment was an aspect we actively ‘played with’. The South African art community, artists and gallery system place a heavy premium on the commercial quality of works. Works that are considered to be ‘sellable’ are often valorised, valued above works that do not ascribe to ‘art-market sensibility’ or, at the very least, present commercial potential. Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E) comments “because of the lack of funding [in South Africa], art is very much about its saleability; and us challenging that […] was important for PLAY”. Young art collective, MARTHA Collective,245 whose members had recently graduated, proposed creating a large- scale work titled Think About What You’ve Done (2014; Figures 4.16 & 4.17).246 The work, essentially a hole in the ground, recalls Michael Heizer’s Double Negative
241 Oupa Sibeko and Emma Tollman’s performance, titled The Escapades of Ice-cream, which was included in the programme, was cancelled by the artists at the last minute, and never took place. 242 Mocke J van Vueren is the filmmaker of the video of Nalisiwe Xaba’s performing Uncles & Angels. 243 Rehema Chachage (b1987) is from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, where she graduated in 2009. Rehema Chachage is a young, outspoken and experimental mixed-media artist working primarily in video and sculptural installations, intertwined with performance (PLAY_An exhibition — Curated by_Collective 2014). 244 The event’s screenings were once-off and were not shown again during the exhibition. 245 MARTHA Collective consisted of young artists, Molly Stevens, Rudi le Hane and Jake Singer. The collective biography reads as follows: “MARTHA is a young South African collective, comprising of three artists. Having recently graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art with majors in sculpture, the trio holds enough skill to assemble a rocket. The formation of MARTHA is a channel through which the artists can make art outside the context of their individual practices. Through collective participation and thought, there is an opportunity for creating larger scale works”. 246 In the proposal, combined with sketches and descriptions about the logistics of the piece, MARTHA Collective describe the concept: “It comprises of a trap door in a field. Once opened, it opens a deep hole in the ground — a dark tunnel with a single chair. It promises an adventure and the thrill of the treasure hunt in finding and locating this hidden work, only to reveal its most anti-climactic of discoveries — a dark hole”.
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(1969; Figure 4.18), in which he literally displaces the ground upon which people stand. Understood through Derrida’s theorisation of the notion of ‘diffèrance’, or the “splitting, the differing and deferring of presence and identity”, Heizer’s work can be seen as a questioning of the ‘master codes’ of society, similar to how Derrida looks at societal ‘master codes’ through a lens of suspicion (cited in Royle 2003:76-77). I would assert that in the same poststructuralist vein, the MARTHA Collective work’s strength was based in its questioning of the value of ‘non-commercial’ projects.247 By working as a collective, MARTHA could openly criticise the capitalistic community — in much the same way as the curators, functioning as a once-off collaborative, were doing. The curatorial conception of showing an exhibition more focused on curating an ‘experience’ by emphasising ‘interaction’, interrogates the canon of the value of the art ‘object’. After an incident where a park visitor, who was trying to view the work, could not get out of the pit easily, the safety of the work was called into question and the curators decided to demarcate the area as ‘not accessible’.248
Other works included in PLAY were more commercially relevant; however, the interactive component meant that the works had some level of ‘wear-and-tear’ on them by the end of the three-month exhibition. This is particularly applicable to Louis Olivier’s Rotating Totem (2014) (Figure 4.19), and Jean Paul Lemmer’s The Whistling Machine (2014) (Figure 4.20). Both works required maintenance during the exhibition, and as Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E) commented, just by showing work that is used and continually activated throughout an exhibition, “you end up losing interest from a commercial sector that might [have been] interested in the work”.
Curatorially, it was important for us to carefully consider the spatial qualities of the sculpture park so that we could install the exhibition in such a way that “it would be
247 Perhaps, in essence, by working as a group, the major concept for the work was a ‘play’ on the flaccid energy of experimentation interrogated by artists who are ultimately constricted by the commercial emphasis of the gallery system. 248 The MARTHA Collective had considered all safety requirements for reinforcing the pit itself, by using wooden frames to ensure the walls met safety standards, but unfortunately, the work still constituted a safety issue in the context of the Park. When it rained, the pit would fill with water and become ‘sludgy’. We worried about the animals falling into the pit, and negotiated with the art collective to secure the door so it could be locked. However, the weight of the upgraded door, and the awkwardness of lifting it from its position of lying flat over the hole, meant that it was easy to lose a foot-hold when trying to open the door. The incident referred to occurred while Bakker and I conducted a walkabout with a group of tourists from Belgium who were travelling South Africa to view art galleries, studios and museums (organised by MK Museum, Belgium).
152 possible for the audience to forget that they are interacting with art pieces and rather engage with the participatory invitation of each work in the context to the curated exhibition” (Bakker & Crawshay-Hall 2016:106). As curators, much of our collaboration came in deciding on strategies for installing the works and ensuring that the audience understood that they were invited to interact with the works directly. According to Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E), “our biggest success was getting the audience to understand what their role is”.
Bakker and I have written an academic article on PLAY (Bakker & Crawshay-Hall 2016:102). The article was positioned as a ‘coming to terms’ with the space and the practical requirements of curating in the sculpture park. It outlines how, in retrospect, “it became evident that audience engagement, dialogical practice, and the environment’s seasonal metamorphosis would mean that the exhibition would remain in constant flux” and so curatorial adjustments had to be made, meaning the exhibition was never “static” (Bakker & Crawshay-Hall 2016:107). The article focused on retrospectively analysing installation techniques, and the relationships we set up between artworks. Although the insights in the article still prove useful, it did not interrogate the role collaborative curatorial practice played in curating and conceptualising what PLAY ultimately became, which forms the focus of this chapter.
The nature of our curatorial collaboration on PLAY was non-hierarchical, and no one curator had a more prominent role than another, although individual interests were accommodated. For example, Mgoza Baker had a particular affinity with film and performance art, and Mertz knew of up-and-coming sculptural artists, as well as more established sculptors through working in the industry. The different stances and strengths from which the curatorial team operated therefore provided insights that neutralised customary power relations between artist/curator. Miwon Kwon (cited in Arriola 2009/2010:23) suggests that “collaborations that involve both artists and curators […] have worked towards questioning the configurations of the art world, and toward providing alternative networks within which the works can circulate”. He expresses the hope that this collaborative configuration could ‘alleviate’ “the power relations that sustain the art world” (Kwon, cited in Arriola 2009/2010:23). According to Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E), by working collaboratively, we were able to expand on the original curatorial intention, while ensuring that more than one
153 specialisation was consistently accommodated, and that no single perspective or voice was privileged.
Of course, as with any collaboration, negotiations became lengthier, and decision- making was more complex, as there were multiple voices to consider. However, the advantages of having several voices far outweighed the disadvantages. Mabaso (2016:2) questions whether collaboration “is inherently a better method, that produces better results”. She observes that “[t]he curatorial collective claims that the purpose of collaboration lies in producing something that would otherwise not take place; it has to make possible that which would otherwise be impossible” (Mabaso 2016:2). In a similar spirit, Bakker (2018, see Appendix 4E) concludes, “it is important to understand what your skills are, be realistic about them and to find someone to match to the practical skills”. Those of us curating PLAY were able to complement the skills of one another, and collaboration thus enabled us to achieve a result we would not have managed individually.
Fluxus Now (2016 - 2017), curated by SPACE SPACE Gallery (Ella Křivánek and Dorothy Siemens)
Fluxus Now (2016 - 2017) was curated by SPACE SPACE and shown in various spaces around Johannesburg city. Officially opening on 30 December 2016, the exhibition concluded on 13 January 2017. The participants were: Blazing Empress (SA),249 Aaron Carter (AUS), Spencer Lai (AUS),250 Tshepo Moloi (SA), OH!BLOOD (JAP),251 Roberta Joy Rich (SA),252 and Amber Wright (AUS) (12/16-01/17 Fluxus
249 Kim Windvogel used to be identified by the moniker, Blazing Empress. She is a Cape Town-born poet, activist, feminist and educator. Windvogel is, at the time of writing, a director for the NPO, Freedom of Education Motivates Empowerment (FEMME). FEMME works to educate and empower people in South Africa. To date, FEMME has facilitated nearly 4000 young womxn through their “taboo-free” workshops and has provided each young female attendee with menstrual cups and sanitary resources. Windvogel also writes a blog called Blazing Non-Binary, where she shares her personal stories, experiences and thoughts on issues pertaining to womxn (PLLR: Meet the 10 phenomenal womxn that make up 10and5’s Creative Womxn 2017). 250 Spencer Lai (b.1991, Malaysia) is a visual artist living and working in Melbourne, Australia. 251 OH!BLOOD is a Japanese artist collective, made up of two artists who go by the names Zmurf and Sneak. 252 Roberta Joy Rich was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1988. She identifies as both African and Australian. She is based in Melbourne, Australia. She is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work responds to constructions of identity, often referencing her (diaspora) African identity and experiences. Using language and satire in her video, performance, installation and mixed-media projects, Rich draws from historical, socio-political and popular contemporary culture, to work with notions of
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Now 2017; Křivánek 2018). The exhibition thus included three Australian artists, three South African artists, and one Japanese artist collective.253
SPACE SPACE, which at the time of Fluxus Now comprised Křivánek and Siemens,254 classify itself as a ‘gallery’. This identification is arguably as a result of the history of SPACE SPACE and the processes of establishing its identity. Having been conceptualised by Křivánek in Japan (2014), the project was launched in an old warehouse in south-west Tokyo.255 According to Christa Dee (2016), the idea for this space resulted from Křivánek’s awareness “of the limited spaces that artists had to create art for art’s sake, as well as what they identified as the hyper- commercialization of the art scene in Tokyo”. As Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) comes from Australia, she wanted to create a space where Australian artists could show their work without paying to do so, but the participants would not be limited to Australian artists. They thus began a “grassroots operation” to organise an art space in Tokyo city (Dee 2016).
When the lease for the warehouse space ran out, SPACE SPACE continued to operate in Japan by ‘popping up’ at various exhibitions in spaces open to the project. However, Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) recalls that when she was leaving Japan, she had to make a choice to either pass the project on to someone to continue with it in Japan, or to identify the “essence of the gallery”. Realising that the project had somewhat transformed from a ‘gallery space’, or a project linked to a specific space or city, into a transient curatorial project that although was ‘space-less’
'authentic' identity construction while ascertaining empowering forms of self-determination of African identities (About ©2018). 253 Aware of being ‘outsiders’ to the Johannesburg artist networks, and in order to get into contact with local artists to make further artist selections, Křivánek asked a friend who had recently done a residency in Johannesburg to introduce her to their contacts. Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) also made contact with queer organisations, such as Iranti, and asked if they could suggest some artists. Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) did, however highlight that owing to the time (it was December, when most artists are on holiday), it was difficult getting in touch with them. She also acknowledges the commercial emphasis of the Johannesburg (and more broadly, South African) art scene, wherein “[artists] are aware of the fact that their art needs to help them make a living”, which made the project less appealing to them (Křivánek 2018, see Appendix 4J). 254 Owing to personal reasons, Siemens has since left the project. Křivánek continues to curate under the name of SPACE SPACE. When asked whether she would think about curating under her name, Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) indicated that although she had considered it, she felt people understood what her practice was about, because they were familiar with SPACE SPACE. 255 After finding the space, Křivánek realised she required further help in renovating it, and was put in touch with Siemens. With both parties sharing similar outlooks, Křivánek formalised Siemens’ involvement, and the ‘gallery’ was run by both of them until Siemens returned home.
155 and a ‘moving’ gallery, was defined by the essence of the curatorial intention. Thus, SPACE SPACE chose to embrace this evolution and plan various projects in different spaces around the world. According to Dee (2016), “[i]n thinking about where to go next to continue the conversations they were having […] they both were excited about the political and art scene in Johannesburg”.
The title of the Johannesburg exhibition Fluxus Now clearly refers to the Fluxus collective of the 1960s, which was “a para-institution driven by collaborative, selfcurated projects, with a tradition of circumventing established institutions” (Holdar 2017:107-108). The Fluxus collective was founded in 1962 by George Maciunas, and is described by Magdalena Holdar (2017:107-108) as “a self-organized and artist driven initiative” that was “held together in large part through the system of shared resources, artistic interchanges, joint events, and dedicated scores and instructions”. The Fluxus collective made use of collaborative strategies in a network structure, and the Johannesburg iteration, Fluxus Now curated by SPACE SPACE, drew influences from this. SPACE SPACE similarly focused on exhibiting currents in art outside of the mainstream that were anti-institution and anti-global market.
In an email exchange with participating artist Roberta Joy Rich, Křivánek (2016/12/23) states her informal curatorial outline:
In reference to Fluxus, what I thought was interesting was their idea to ‘destroy the boundaries between art and life’, but that their aim was to do this in an expressly apolitical way, which I don't think is possible (desirable?) nowadays. […] I was interested in the idea that when you put work in a city like Johannesburg as an outsider, it takes [sic] makes a kind of political comment.
The curatorial synopsis, which Křivánek wrote while constructing the works and curating the exhibition, reads as follows:
can't ship the works to south africa [sic] if you don't have the big bucks. have you ever thought that you can't just treat the installation of art in public as something outside of race, place, time? geez i wanted to treat myself as an actor, so that you could see them and me, or just the third silence. but in context. not seperated [sic] from anything :) i worry about money all the time. my hair is going grey faster than my
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parents, my sisters and i all our hair is going grey. the thought that art was made at a distance, from the artist, from the curator, from the public, from institutions but it doesn't happen in a vacuum, it happens in an amniotic sack of stuff that's around it all, and in it. all this stuff is cool, it's just a communal game, but it's important nonetheless I reckon. not a cool idea even, i just have dumb ideas all the time, but. anyway miscommunication happens when you text emojis from an apple phone to an android (Fluxus Now 2017).
The writing style of the synopsis, which is maintained throughout all the writing associated with the exhibition, has a tone of self-reflexive, retrospective insight into the processes of planning and exhibiting such a show. Křivánek’s decision to subvert grammar prescriptions recalls bell hooks, who inverts language usage itself in order to distance herself from the sexism and racism that language often serves to construct. Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J), coming from a creative writing background, speaks about assuming a “stream of consciousness, light […], descriptive” tone, which is more accessible “both on an intellectual and an emotional level”. The style also relates to the manner in which communication occurs via social- media and mobile technologies, emphasising the accessibility around the public art activations. Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) believes that this allows her “words to speak in a more poetic manner”, as the writing is often designed as a prompt rather than an attempt to describe the show.
The synopsis alludes directly to SPACE SPACE wanting to ship the works using the postal service, but also acknowledges South Africa’s unreliable postal service as being an obstacle. According to Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J), "a big part of involving international artists in most countries [is] just to use a regular postal service”, which is a direct result of not having substantial funding for the transportation of art. Realising this would not be an option for the Johannesburg exhibition, SPACE SPACE had to rethink the ways in which they could produce the works (Křivánek 2018, see Appendix 4J). SPACE SPACE therefore adopted a Do It Yourself (DIY) approach and constructed the works themselves at a distance, using instructions provided by the artists (Křivánek 2018, see Appendix 4J). Thus, not only did the collaborations occur in the organisation of SPACE SPACE (between Křivánek
157 and Siemens), but furthermore, SPACE SPACE collaborated with the artists as both ‘makers’ and curators. O’Neill (2005:291) comments: “I am interested in a concept of curating as directing, the exhibition as a play and the play as an exhibition. It is the idea of the curator having a role in the set-up of an exhibition that is similar to the one of a director in the set-up of a theatre play.” SPACE SPACE took this one step further by allowing the artists to direct them to construct the works, which they then curated. The aesthetic, a result of transnational collaborations carried out through dialogical exchange, thus called into question notions of single authorship.256
The artworks were installed in various locations around the Johannesburg CBD (see Figure 4.21 for the placements). According to Dee (2016),
Several artworks [were] displayed at street level in commercial areas, others displayed in parks and street corners with greenery. As you move[d] through the exhibition it [became] more elevated. Even though these works [were] displayed on the second story of buildings and other higher spaces, they [were] still connected to the streets by being displayed near windows or over a ledge looking over the city.
Aaron Carter’s work was installed at the onramp entrance to the M31 in Anderson Street, Jeppestown (Figure 4.22). According to Křivánek (2017, 2 January), “the installation comprises a clear vinyl bag, and vinyl groundsheet, containing found objects from the site, and stuck with carter's digital works”. Carter’s digital works are ‘iPhone paintings’, namely works created using his iPhone as medium. It can be assumed that these works may have been created in-between movements, or as ‘past-times’, as a cell phone medium / mobile technology, would allow. This sentiment is exemplified by the curatorial decision to install the works at the transitional space of a highway onramp, housed in a plastic bag, which is a temporary object that is also used to transfer objects from one space to another. Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) observes that Carter was quite specific considering the construction and placement of his work, and the process entailed consistent negotiation, which took place over Skype meetings. She comments on
256 According to Holdar (2017:92) Fluxus “regularly worked with performance and experimented with crossovers of music, word art, DIY culture and film. Collaborations were carried out through mail art and other initiatives”. The Fluxus collective was well known for their transnational collaborations that mostly took place without ever meeting up or physically collaborating. Rather, “written scores and instructions for actions were sent around […] The artists curated each other’s work, without calling it ‘curating’, and in the process created an informal structure for the sharing of labour and resources that allowed them to remain institutionally independent” (Holdar 2017:92).
158 how the Johannesburg city space was quite different to Melbourne, Australia, which resulted in stark differences that needed to be considered that had not been anticipated. For example, Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) recalls how Carter wanted them to put debris from the ground in the bag, which he had anticipated to be old plastic bottles or litter. These items also signify hyper-consumerism, evidence of people moving in a space, and convenience (given the fact that the items are discarded as litter, and not carried to a dustbin). Instead, Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) recalls the debris being dead rats and bones. She emphasises that this difference in debris shows the stark contrast between Melbourne and Johannesburg (Křivánek 2018, see Appendix 4J). Perhaps the implication is that this particular space is not frequented on foot, indicating the socio-political reality of Johannesburg. Through collaborative processes, SPACE SPACE and Carter arrived at solutions for the installation of the piece that would best articulate the concept of the artist while remaining sensitive to the Johannesburg context.
Similarly, Spencer Lai’s work, a “delegated sculpture”,257 appeared to be a witch’s hat from a fairy tale, constructed from carpet underlay, aluminium wire, crab shell, tack, plastic buckle and black elastic, which was then left behind in Newtown community park (Křivánek 2017, 1 January; Figure 4.23). Lai’s use of felt as the main medium for the work can be considered in the context of the German Fluxus artist, Joseph Beuys, who was well known for his use of felt and fat, which is linked to his uncorroborated, and disproved biographical story wherein he alleged that he was shot down in the mountains where Tartar tribesmen found him and wrapped him in fat and felt to generate heat and keep him from freezing to death (Laing 2016).258 In considering the use of felt in Lai’s works, it can be deduced that the material inspired an investigation of the socio-historical injustices and historical links to apartheid South Africa, similar to the links between the Holocaust and felt invoked by Beuys. Displayed in the context of post-apartheid Johannesburg, particularly in an overgrown section of a community park, the work would seem to me to allude to the
257 Lai’s website indicates that the medium for their work in Fluxus Now was ‘delegated sculpture’ (Spencer Lai 2017). 258 Beuys’ work is thus associated with his thinking of the future, in the context to a secret narrative in his work wherein he worked with post-war discourse to interrogate the aftermath of the “catastrophe and genocide of the Nazi period” (Ray 2001:56). Stephanie Straine (2011) argues how “[f]elt played a central role in the imposing narrative and mythology of the artist’s life and work”.
159 complex aftermath of the politics that still have an effect on everyday social interactions between people. Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) also remarks on the urban planning of Johannesburg city, which still reflects apartheid politics, even in the post-apartheid period, owing to the limited space for social interaction in the city. The composition of the witch’s hat may also remind the viewer of gender tropes, and the history of female villains who were often represented as ‘witches’, but who have often been acclaimed in feminist discourse as the figure who “pushes boundaries, breaks the rules and punishes patriarchal authority” (The conversation 2017). SPACE SPACE’s curatorial synopsis reminds us “have you ever thought that you can't just treat the installation of art in public as something outside of race, place, time[?]” As such, Lai’s work installed in a public space, interrogates themes of social persecution, abuse, intolerance, as well as victory and the ability to overcome the boundaries of dogmatic authority.
Blazing Empress’s work (Figure 4.24), which is curatorially linked to Lai’s as a result of its proximity in installation, considers aspects of oppression as a result of the political past in South Africa. Blazing Empress delegated the development of a two- metre-long painted rayon banner inscribed with a poem to the curators (Křivánek 2017, 8 January), which also questions the female trope of ‘quietness’ by foregrounding the relationship between society and the South African domestic worker. The poem259 reflects on a moment wherein the Blazing Empress passes a domestic worker who is carefully washing an expensive car, presumably belonging to her employer, while her son looks on. A distinction is made between the quiet, unnoticed domestic worker and her son, and the loud recreational swimming that is happening close by. The poem highlights how distinctions between race and class are still prevalent in South Africa, a remnant of the segregationist past. The work is installed horizontally, despite its vertical composition, and drapes haphazardly over a half-height wall, at an elevated landing at the top of stairs in the city. The awkward installation makes one strain to read the poem, which is used to invoke a sense of the difficult present that we battle with as a result of the past. The slight elevation of the installation, from street level, also promotes the reading of the issue, both physically and metaphorically. The curatorial installation, as well as the placement of
259 Please refer to Appendix 4K: Blazing Empress poem.
160 the works in proximity to one other, enhances the meaning and reading of the works on exhibition.
Amber Wright’s work (Figure 4.25), which also potentially interrogated issues of gender as indicated in the use of a blank empty envelope sealed with false eyelashes, can be said to be a visual incarnation of the aspects unsaid or hidden away relating to gendered expectations regarding female ‘quietness’. The envelope was installed by inserting it into the tight space of an ajar window: “amber wright directed the construction of this envelope. her recent work renders visual things unsaid or un-sayable. the envelope is displayed in a crack near the corner of rissik and kerk streets, johannesburg” (Křivánek 2017, 7 January). The understated installation disrupts previous techniques of installing works.
Similarly, Tshepo Moloi’s work consists of a single photograph of a black man, sitting comfortably atop a white horse with grey speckles, smoking a cigarette that balances between his lips. The man holds the stirrups with one hand, while the other relaxes against the body of the horse (Figure 4.26). I believe that the image is a direct inversion of the infamous image of Eugene Terre’Blanche, a white supremacist and leader of the right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Party (AWB)260 riding a black horse on his release from Potchefstroom prison in 2004, surrounded by supporters waving AWB flags (Figure 4.27). In Křivánek’s (2017, 2 January) description of Moloi’s work, she writes: “tshepo moloi photographs subjects in his hometown of Mpumalanga-Daggakraal. he rarely rides horses himself”. In the background of Moloi’s image, two tin dwellings appear in the near distance on the open land — recalling a typical depiction of workers’ housing on South African farming land. Inadvertently, Moloi’s image refers to the murder of Terre’Blanche by two farmworkers in 2010, who allegedly rowed with him because he had not paid them for their labour. Terre’Blanche’s murder was discussed in the popular press in relation to the controversy triggered by Julius Malema, who had been in trouble for singing a song with words translating to ‘shoot the boer’ (or ‘farmer’ in English) at an ANC Youth League political rally (Smith 2010a) just before Terre’Blanche’s murder. Prior to this, Terre’Blanche had served three years in prison, “for assaulting a black
260 Translated to English as the Afrikaner Resistance Movement.
161 petrol attendant and the attempted murder of a black security guard” (Smith 2010a). Moloi’s work thus explores racism by recalling popular debate between two of South Africa’s most radical political figures related to race issues — Malema and Terre’Blanche. Moloi’s work was also mounted using an unorthodox curatorial technique, as the photograph was installed using wheat paste261 techniques on the surface of the red marble-like tiles framing the flowerbeds of the offices of the Gauteng Rental Tribunal (Křivánek 2017, 2 January; Figure 4.26). The work is easily missed and the curatorial installation emulates the impotence of public response to discourses around racial matters. The sensitive approach to curating the installation of both Wright and Moloi’s works, mounted in close proximity to each other, enhances the readings of both works, and emphasises the aspects of quietness, silence and indifference that the pieces deal with in the context of Fluxus Now.
Both OH!BLOOD’s work (Figure 4.28)262 and Roberta Joy Rich’s works (Figures 2.29 & 2.30) borrow stylistic tropes from flyers and posters typical of Johannesburg city, which are used by healers and spiritualists to advertise ‘remedies’ or ‘muti’ for societal issues. It has become commonplace to see the red-to-blue gradient and dense (amateur) text application flyers, offering remedies for ‘lost lovers’ or even promises to provide solutions for ‘penis enlargements’, ‘breasts and hip enlargement’, and many more. Rich’s work repeats the words “DENIED DENIAL DENY” right-aligned over an image of praying hands (Figure 4.29), and uses similar aesthetic qualities. This is enhanced by the curatorial installation of the posters on street poles and electricity boxes. Rich’s second poster, ‘DENY DENY DENY,’ says: “No side effects” and “Call for appointments — Coloureds TM” (Figure 4.30). The implication, in this context, is the paradox that there is a cure for being coloured — which is essentially to deny it. Historically, denial around so-called ‘coloured’ identity was common, and many coloured people passed for ‘white’ under apartheid rule. The ‘coloured’ group has also often been denied and overlooked in the context of South African history — representing an ‘in-betweenness’ in identity that is difficult to classify and, thus, difficult to understand.
261 Wheat paste is a gel or liquid adhesive made from wheat flour or starch and water. Often, street posters are installed as ‘wheat pastes’, implying that the paper poster has been adhered to the wall using the wheat flour adhesive. 262 OH!BLOOD’s work was pasted up adjacent to the heritage buildings in the New Doornfontein area (Křivánek 2017, 4 January). It consisted of a single poster with a Jimi Hendrix look-alike, flanked with the words “FINAL SALE” at the top, and “UP TO 70% OFF” at the bottom.
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Thus, all of the works included in Fluxus Now interrogated issues related to gender, race, and class and the expectations thereof in society. The installation of works and their curatorial composition, placement and disruption of inherited installation techniques, allowed their reading to be enhanced, set in motion through curation. Although my discussion is not focused on interrogating the individual artworks, a brief outline of the themes of each of the works included in the show demonstrates how each piece’s context was exemplified in-situ, linked to space in ways relevant to each project, and thus appealing to SPACE SPACE’s intention that each work should “hold a mirror to the societies in which it practices” (SPACE SPACE Gallery 18/08/2018). Křivánek (cited in Dee 2016), asserts that “[w]e need to understand [artworks] within a sociopolitical context”. Furthermore, the selection of artists, and the connection between the artworks themselves, reiterates the curatorial intention to emphasise them in a way that is not detached from the public, or in a vacuum as would happen in an institution, but rather that the message is curated, literally, at ‘street level’. SPACE SPACE highlight that the work “happens in an amniotic sack [sic] of stuff that's around it all, and in it”. An amniotic sac functions as a space in which an embryo can grow, and despite it functioning in its host, it also operates as a barrier between the space of the host and that of the embryo in order to protect the embryo. If considered in a similar way, the artwork functions as the embryo, protected by the context of the exhibition, conceived of in the context to the Johannesburg space, as something both intrinsic to it, but also completely separate, and which will hopefully grow in a way that prompts a response, sparks discourse or prompts reaction. This technique assigns value to the artworks, not in the same manner that a white cube gallery automatically ascribes value to objects, but rather in terms of how the space assigns the value of the discourse being relayed.
Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) attributes the success of the exhibition to the manner in which the curatorial collaborations took place; “the more shared ideas that you have […] the richer the thing gets. And there is more than enough recognition to go around”. SPACE SPACE thus emphasised their collaborative curatorial stance both in the construction of the works in tandem with the artists, as well as in their final placement of the works (Dee 2016). Furthermore, the collaborative approach that Křivánek and Siemens adopted is also possibly indicative of why the duo curated
163 under the guise of SPACE SPACE gallery, and not necessarily under their names: by naming their practice, they place emphasis on the collaborative strategies used.263
In the SPACE SPACE processes of both constructing and selecting appropriate spaces for exhibiting the artworks, Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) acknowledges that many artists consider the results to be “happy accidents”, which she sees as a direct outcome of the collaboration. Muf, an all-women collaboration of artists and architects, state “[c]ollaboration operates across a range from the accidental to the deliberate, from the shadowing or paralleling of work to various kinds of wanted and unwanted interference … although it sounds obvious to say it, collaboration is about difference, otherwise why bother?” (cited in Kurgan 2013:34). The intention is thus not only to represent art, but also to “question what makes an object an artwork” and to conceptualise strategies to mediate the artworks’ political intentions more clearly (Dee 2016).
Křivánek (2018, see Appendix 4J) has stressed that SPACE SPACE developed a particular ‘style’, which focuses on putting forward an alternative to everyday, institutionalised art spaces. SPACE SPACE thus aims to neutralise the hierarchies associated with art institutions and speak back to institutionalised spaces by interrogating how art is viewed and who has access to view it (Dee 2016). Accordingly, by taking art outside of institutions, SPACE SPACE attempts to flatten some of the hierarchies, which, according to Dee (2016), “puts into practice the breaking down of barriers between institutionalized art and the public”. This is reiterated in the style of writing that is used with regard to the exhibition: Fluxus Now “tries to make concrete the sense that because now our social circles are so politicized our art institutions need to adapt to reflect that” (Dee 2016), which they attempt to do through using unorthodox, collaborative methods. After all, Raqs Media
263 SPACE SPACE continue to operate under the banner of ‘gallery’ since Siemens left. Křivánek does not identify as a gallerist, but rather, as a curator: “Space Space gallery is a curatorial project. Space Space creates site-specific exhibitions with young artists”. Křivánek (2018; original emphasis) asserts, “[…] as long as I am not representing artists, and I am not selling their works, I consider myself more as a curator than a gallerist”.
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Collective264 (2009/2010:7) argue that “[t]o be an artist’s collective, or curatorial collective, is precisely not to paint by numbers”.
Chapter conclusion
O’Neill (2009/2010:37) enquires whether the ‘collective’ is just another marketable brand in disguise, formulated in resistance to the “culture of creative individualism”. In attempting to highlight the advantages of group curatorial practices, O’Neill (2009/2010:43) claims that “group work has demonstrated the advantages of pooling knowledge resources, networks and opinions together as well as prefacing them with a symbolic critique of the cult of individualism”, as group practices are often used when the projects “demand access to a wider network of artistic and cultural practices”. Although this consideration has merit, I attest in this chapter that in the context of Johannesburg exhibitions, collaborative curatorial practices can be seen as an oppositional tactic to apartheid sentiment in particular, as a politics that privileged a specific voice as having more value. I propose that post-apartheid curatorial practices express wariness around valuing one group over another, or one individual over another, and that collaborative curatorial approaches may instil a method of continuous self-reflection and regulation. I see this regulation being appropriated by collective selection processes (shown in
264 Raqs Media collective, based in Delhi, India, according to Arriola (2009/2010:27), define themselves as “a group of artists, media practitioners, curators, researchers, editors and catalysts of cultural processes that infiltrate and operate in liminal zones of society”.
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Curators also tend to work more collaboratively with the artists themselves, and emphasise a dialogical process in the collective curatorial format (as seen in
In the following chapter, I consider the role of the curator-gallerist who works towards establishing a physical, autonomous platform, and how the curated programme of this type of establishment may employ experimental solutions in a manner that responds to the artistic, social, cultural, or political issues endemic to Johannesburg.
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CHAPTER FIVE: THE CURATOR-GALLERIST
Introduction
The | Premises Gallery,265 an independent collective art space, founded and curated by The Trinity Session,266 was established in 2004 in Johannesburg and was operating until 2008. According to Simon Gush267 (in Cook 2016:76), in 2006 The | Premises was “the only space outside of a ‘traditional gallery/museum environment’” in Johannesburg. The | Premises was formed in reaction to a lack of gallery spaces in Johannesburg (Johnson 2004). More than ten years later, in 2015, I was similarly involved in conceptualising and establishing an independent gallery space in Johannesburg with two curator/artist colleagues, Bakker and Victor Meyer. Named NO END Contemporary Art Space,268 the space is meant to be experimental and not ‘mainstream’, thereby meaning that it is open to uses other than those associated with traditional gallery spaces. The purposes for establishing this space were linked to our awareness that there was a shortage of galleries amenable to providing a platform to rising curators and artists. The establishment of NO END was thus quite similar to the constitution of The | Premises.
Smith (2012:233) asserts that “[c]urators have recognized that building local infrastructure is a necessary condition for encouraging and enabling artists and audiences to think away from the vertical structures of local and international art
265 Hereafter referred to as The | Premises in this study, it is sometimes referred to as ‘The Premises Gallery’, or simply, ‘The Premises’. The name came from the lease agreement provided to The Trinity Session, which referred to the lease space as ‘the gallery premises’ [sic] (Hobbs 2018, see Appendix 5A). The name, ‘The Gallery Premises’ eventually became written as ‘The | Premises Gallery’. Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A) recalls that the collective was intrigued by the bureaucratic language of the agreement, which resulted in them using this name for the gallery itself. 266 Briefly introduced in Chapter Four on Collective Curating, The Trinity Session was founded in 2001 by Stephan Hobbs, Kathryn Smith and Jose Ferreira “as a response to a changing South Africa”. When Ferreira left for the UK, Neustetter took his place (Johnson 2004). In August 2004, Smith also left the collective (Johnson 2004). Currently, The Trinity Session still functions with Neustetter and Hobbs as its members (this tends to cause confusion between The Trinity Session as a collective and the Hobbs/Neustetter art collaboration). The collective has functioned “as artist, curator, and activist, while public art curating has been the collective’s main focus” (Gwele 2016:24). The collective has worked very closely with the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), resulting in them playing an instrumental role in shaping policy on public art. 267 Simon Gush, a South African artist and curator, established The Parking Gallery in 2006, in response to a lack of non-commercial exhibition spaces in Johannesburg (Cook 2017:76). 268 Hereafter referred to as NO END.
167 worlds”. I acknowledge Johannesburg curators and artists in particular for recognising that there is a need for accessible, independent spaces that can enable the development of curatorial and artistic practice. As discussed in Chapter Two, many curators now practice nomadically, but I indicate in this chapter that there is a further trend occurring in Johannesburg whereby curators/artists are establishing independent platforms. Some of these independent spaces that have appeared in
Johannesburg include The Trinity Session’s The | Premises (2004 - 2008); Gordon
Froud’s Gordart Gallery (2004 - 2006); Simon Gush’s The Parking Gallery (2006, revived in 2012 at the VANSA premises); Shane de Lange’s Outlet (2007 - 2012);
Rangoato Hlasane, Malose Malahlela and Bettina Malcomess’ Keleketla! (2008 -); Anthea Buys and Phillip Raiford Johnson’s Cloak & Dagger (2010); Anthea Pokroy and Louise van der Bijl’s (neé Ross) Assemblage (2010 -); Lauren von Gogh and
Robyn Cook’s Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art (2011 -); Maria Fidel
Regueros and Andrew Wessels’ ROOM Gallery (2011 -); Melissa Goba’s Assylem
Atalje (circa 2012); Ngcobo, Dineo Sheshee Bopape and Sinethemba Twalo’s NGO -
Nothing Gets Organised (2013); Turpin and Dowdle’s Kalashnikovv Gallery (2013 -);
Victor Meyer, Bakker and my NO END (2015 -); Same Mdluli, Johannes Phokela, Naomi Menyoko and Mauritz Cloete’s Sosesame Gallery (2016); and more recently
William Kentridge’s Centre for the Less Good Idea (2017 -), and Banele Khoza’s
BhKZ (2018 -).
However, I have found that these independent spaces are predominantly contextualised under the classification of ‘artist-run initiatives’ (ARI) or artist-run space. Smith (2015:28) refers to the emergence of “artist-run, collective ‘art spaces’” in the 1960s and 1970s, which he argues occurred “beyond the museum sector”. Although his focus is predominantly on Euro-American contexts, he views ARIs, in general, as a type of “infrastructural activism” wherein artists establish accessible platforms, open to experimental art expressions (Smith 2015:28).269 By considering all independent exhibition spaces together under the category of ARI, the emphasis
269 Briefly introduced in Chapter Two, in the context of the nomadic curator moving from place to place and curating as a type of infrastructural activism, Smith (2015:28) refers to infrastructural activism as a response to often delicate situations wherein contemporary art is considered a “rarity” or less important than other cultural outputs. Smith (2012a:28) considers that, in these contexts, contemporary art has a “fragile existence”, and unpacks “activist infrastructural initiatives” in the context of Kate Fowle’s (2012, cited in Smith 2012a:234) position that “contemporary curating ‘should be responsive to the situation in which it occurs; and it should creatively address timely artistic, social, cultural, or political issues’”.
168 generally stays on the establishment of the space/institution itself, and the role of the artist’s curatorial position in this context, or what Cook (2016:10) refers to as the artist as “double agent”. Cook (2016:10) specifically discusses ARIs that offer alternatives to the “conventional studio/gallery archetype” that are becoming prevalent in South Africa that focus specifically on non-commercially driven approaches. Cook (2016:10) maintains that “self-organised” spaces circumvent pressures from traditional institutional structures, and retain autonomy in their programming, which allows these spaces to host art “rarely encountered” in more commercial galleries.270 Cook (2016:10) describes the ARI as a space that sits between the studio/gallery archetype. Cook’s focus is, however, on the organisation of the space as representing ‘alternativeness’ itself, rather than focusing on what I consider to be a better indicator of alternativeness — which is the curatorial programming. Cook also focuses on non-commercially run spaces only, whereas I consider spaces that also operate commercially. Malatsie (2018) similarly discusses this notion of ‘autonomy’ in relation to what she refers to as “independent self- organised” institutions. However, her focus remains on the funding models of self- organised spaces and its effect on the institutional programming. Malatsie (2018:11) outlines her study as “a quest for models that can enable and foster artistic experimentation”, and thus focuses on how a funded institution can keep a level of autonomy.271
In an article titled ‘Alternative / experimental art spaces in Johannesburg’, Malatjie (2013) discusses her perception of the increase of what she refers to as “alternative” spaces in Johannesburg. Malatjie (2013:368) states: “Artists and curators who began alternative spaces or organizations had a different mandate from those in the mainstream”, which she contextualises as challenging the “status quo.” She considers the following as markers of ‘alternativeness’: “non-hierarchical managerial structures”, “more experimental, performative and installation-based” exhibits, and the geographic context of the space “away from the suburban context where most commercial galleries are” (Malatjie 2013:376). Malatjie’s (2013:367-368) use of the term “alternative” is broadly outlined as “challeng[ing] the notion of the white cube”
270 Cook focuses on The Parking Gallery, Keleketla! and her own space, Sober & Lonely Institute for Contemporary Art, which she established with Lauren van Gogh. 271 Malatsie (2018) studied the CHR; NGO; Bag Factory Artist’s Studios; Keleketla! Library and Chimurenga.
169 and “the commercial and exclusionary gallery scene”. Although she grapples with the idea that alternative spaces may function within a commercial sphere, this argument is left open to further deliberation.
Although the original intention for establishing independent art spaces, according to O’Neill (2012:40), may be explained as an attempt to “[eliminate] connotations of institutional conditions” and to provide spaces in a context where they are few and far between, by only taking into account the space itself as a form of institutional critique, the role of the facilitator(s) of the space is often overlooked. I thus focus on interrogating the role of independent curators operating as gallery owners and curators simultaneously, and focus on the manner in which the curatorial programming can be a marker of the space’s autonomy. Thus, I do not focus on individual exhibitions, but rather the curatorial programming as a whole.
Perhaps, however, the term ‘curator-run spaces’ is an oxymoron, as gallery spaces and museum spaces are traditionally curator-run, and thus the inflection is lost in the name. Therefore, I decided to use the term ‘curator-gallerist’ to refer to an autonomous curator who has established a semi-formal autonomous platform. In this chapter, I discuss independent gallery/art spaces that were functioning in Johannesburg between 2007 and 2016,272 and which operated like commercial galleries, but which are nonetheless alternative to the mainstream and therefore independent. I accordingly discuss the following: o The Trinity Session’s role in curating the programme for The | Premises (2004 - 2008)273 o Turpin and Dowdle’s role in facilitating Kalashnikovv Gallery274 (2013 -) o Bakker, Victor Meyer and my role in curating the programme for NO END275 (2015 -)
272 Although I focus on the years 2007 to 2016 in this study, I refer to spaces that opened prior to 2007 or operated beyond 2016, where applicable. 273 In terms of the previous footnote, although The | Premises was already established in 2004, its life- span intersects with the dates on which I focus (2007 - 2016). As it is also one of the flagships for gallery premises that were established by Johannesburg curators with an emphasis on operating independently, it would be an oversight not to include the space and its curation. I thus focus on the objectives the space communicated in its programme. Please refer to Appendix 5B: The | Premises Gallery: Reconstructed curatorial programme (2004 - 2008) for more information. 274 Hereafter referred to as Kalashnikovv. Please refer to Appendix 5D: Kalashnikovv Gallery: Reconstructed curatorial programme (2013 - 2018) for more information.
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Although these spaces may have been written about in popular platforms and mentioned across various peer-reviewed / academic texts,276 they have not been analysed extensively. My selections for this chapter were hence made by accounting for independent curators who eventually established independent physical premises. I focus on how the curated programme of these spaces employs the experimental in a manner that responds to the artistic, social, cultural, or political issues endemic to Johannesburg.
The | Premises Gallery (2004 - 2008), founded and curated by The Trinity Session
The | Premises officially opened in 2004,277 and boasted a 150m2 interior space, an almost double-volume ceiling and an equally large outdoor terrace, facing the Ameshoff Street piazza (see the floorplan in Figure 5.1) (Archive: Issue No. 76, December 2003). The Gallery, which was located in the Theatre Precinct in Braamfontein, Johannesburg,278 was founded by The Trinity Session, who collectively identify “as artist, curator, and activist, while public art curating has been the collective’s main focus” (Gwele 2016:24). The Trinity Session “creatively directed and managed” the gallery, and thus curated The | Premises’ programme (City of Johannesburg ©2018). At the time of launching The | Premises, apart from major galleries that were predominately operating with a select stable of artists, there were very few Johannesburg gallery spaces that were hosting contemporary art that were
275 Please refer to Appendix 5F: NO END Contemporary Art Space: Reconstructed curatorial programme (2015 - 2018) for more information. 276 Cook (2016:132) acknowledges both Kalashnikovv Gallery and NO END as ARIs; however, they fell outside of the scope of her non-commercial focus. John Zarobell’s text Art and the global economy (2017) includes a chapter by Lossgott titled ‘Emerging art center: Johannesburg’. Although Lossgott (2017:229) acknowledges Kalashnikovv and NO END as independent (along with other platforms), he does not probe these platforms in more detail. 277 In September 2001, The | Premises opened in the parking garage of the Johannesburg Civic Theatre — which was short-lived as a result of needing to move out so that renovations could be done in the building. Therefore, it closed in May of 2002. According to Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A), then theatre CEO Bernard Jay set up an agreement with The Trinity Session, offering an improved gallery space once renovations were completed, which was in 2004 when The | Premises re-launched. 278 Although in Braamfontein, which at that time did not have a large influx of public gallery goers, the gallery was still strategically located in proximity to the “Cultural Arc” as described by ArtThrob (Archive: Issue No. 76, December 2003). Today, Braamfontein hosts a string of galleries, studios, coffee shops and cultural happenings, which in 2004 was not the case, according to Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A).
171 available to artists wanting to undertake experimental exhibition projects.279 Robyn Sassen (2004a) mentions The | Premises as offering artists an exhibition space “away from the mainstream galleries and Johannesburg’s sometimes apologetic, sometimes not-so-kosher venues”. The | Premises hosted a total of 58 exhibitions during its lifespan.280 I thus refer to The | Premises as one of the flagship independent contemporary art gallery spaces in Johannesburg as it was established by curators in the early 2000s.281
Establishing The | Premises seemed to be a natural progression for The Trinity Session: the collective had formed in 2001 at a time when the national Arts and Culture Department had undergone budget cuts (Gwele 2016:24). The Trinity Session had been looking for office space to rent. At around the same time, the Civic Theatre Gallery had become defunct. Bernard Jay, who was the CEO of the Johannesburg Civic Theatre at that time, knew of Stephen Hobbs’ curatorial reputation from his success at the Market Theatre Gallery, and invited The Trinity Session to launch a gallery space at the Civic Theatre (Jay 2018:[sp]). The arrangement was that the space used for the gallery would not be charged rent, but the office spaces used for The Trinity Session would (Hobbs 2018, see Appendix 5A). The establishment of The | Premises intersected with the urban upgrading and new infrastructure development being implemented by the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) (Hobbs & Neustetter 2008:[sp]). The Trinity Session confirm, in the catalogue for the gallery, that “The Premises Gallery […] was born out of an interesting new force that would soon influence an entirely new trend in artistic production in Johannesburg namely urban regeneration” (On Air 2008:[sp]).
279 In 2004, prominent Johannesburg gallery spaces that were regularly listed on ArtThrob included Goodman Gallery, Gallery Momo, and Brodie/Stevenson, all of which worked with a select stable of artists. Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary mainly worked in the secondary art market, with Siebrits purchasing works to resell. Art on Paper and PhotoZA were often listed as hosting exhibitions, along with the museum exhibitions at venues like the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Standard Bank Art Gallery and MuseumAfrica. Although Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A) referred to Camouflage as an exciting space that offered alternatives to commercial gallery spaces, in 2004 this space had already closed. 280 See Appendix 5B for the full gallery programme (2004 — 2008). 281 Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A) recalls this being a direct result of the constitution of its directors: “Kathryn Smith was already a curator, journalist, writer in her own right. Neustetter, as part of his Master’s degree, curated a number of digital and analogue exhibitions, one was for the Urban Futures Conference. And I of course, had a background in managing and curating shows at The Market Theatre”.
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The | Premises’ aim, according to Sassen (2004a), was “[t]o present a series of contemporary art, public, educational and developmental projects with the objective to develop and enhance audience experience of visual arts and related activities”. Sassen (2004b) described The | Premises as “Johannesburg's newest art-critically aware space” and “[u]nlike any other gallery space” because it was “less about vast monies, belonging to a stable or showing off one's conceptual facility or ability to shock a public”. Neustetter (cited in Gwele 2016:24), referring to The | Premises, recalls:
The idea was to create a project space that didn’t exist in Johannesburg; only the commercial galleries existed. We needed a space that was creative, dynamic, and alternative to create platforms and profiles for artists who didn’t have the opportunity to do so. It was to a certain extent a curatorial experiment on managing a space.
Thus, The | Premises functioned as a platform that was geared towards the exploratory, and that hosted artists and exhibitions that did not merely emphasise saleability, but rather focused on probing what was occurring in South African, and particularly Johannesburg, art at that time. The | Premises represented a fundamental niche, maintaining a position in the gap between the commercial and the unorthodox. This was important at a time when the majority of art platforms were not available, since major museums/institutions rarely considered emerging artists, and because commercial spaces seemingly only hosted what the ‘art market’ was interested in.
Neustetter (cited in Gwele 2016:24) also acknowledges the closing down of major galleries282 as an additional prompt to establishing The | Premises. Sassen (2004b) hoped that The Trinity Session’s curatorial programme could potentially “redress previously held imbalances in the discipline”. This desire for an independent platform to alleviate the imbalances still prevalent in the South African gallery system was perhaps exaggerated following the failure of the second Johannesburg biennale in 1997,283 coupled with the lack of substantial redress in post-apartheid South Africa’s
282 In 2001, The Market Theatre Gallery closed its doors and other gallery spaces were less amenable to experimental art projects as they functioned in the interests of the art market. 283 As discussed in Chapter One, Trade Routes was criticised in the light of its failure to adequately address the needs of South Africa at the time (in terms of selections, space, redress, etc.). The benefit
173 art economy, even in 2004 — a decade after the fall of apartheid. Therefore, according to Hobbs and Neustetter (2008:[sp]), the “programming-logic” for The | Premises was to “create conditions for experimentation and the emergence of new talent”. They intended the platform to be accessible, supportive of diverse talent, and therefore less concerned with the expectations of the mainstream, dictated by the South African art economy. Therefore, in this discussion I focus on notable exhibitions within the curatorial programme, from 2007 to its closing at the end of 2008, that exemplify the motivations and goals of The | Premises, which I frame as an attempt to alleviate imbalances in the Johannesburg art scene, to redress racial division, and to exhibit alternatives to the mainstream.
Neustetter (cited in Gwele 2016:24), discussing The Trinity Session’s role in managing The | Premises, states “[w]e were the gallery curators, so to speak, showing other artists’ works”. Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A) distinguishes between two ways of curating: group shows and what he calls “hard-curatorial practice” — or engaging the artist as an artist curator. The implication is that the curator works closely with an artist “instigating praxis in a particular way” (Hobbs 2018, see Appendix 5A). Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A) argues that in this manner, one “plays with that tension between whose intellectual property is what”. As a result of wanting to work closely with the artists, continual dialogue by means of one-on-one conversations was used. The | Premises’ curatorial programming mainly comprised solo exhibitions, and in the following section, I focus on six (out of eleven) solo exhibitions held between 2007 and 2008, the first of which is a solo exhibition by a black artist, and the other five by female artists: o Lucas Nkgweng Corruption in my society (13 April - 21 April 2007) o Colleen Alborough The Night Journey (26 May - 9 June 2007) o Robyn Magowan Social Masquerade (16 June - 23 June 2007) o Antoinette Murdoch Karaoke Confessions (25 August - 15 September 2007) o Maja Marx As Far as the Eye can Touch (3 November - 24 November 2007) o Suzanne du Preez Views of the Edge (12 July 2008 - 26 July 2008)
was that Trade Routes called attention to the potentials of the curatorial as a medium to challenge socio-cultural or economic circumstances, as noted in Chapter One.
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The majority of black artists included in the programme at The | Premises between 2007 and 2008 were incorporated in group exhibitions. In April 2007, however, Lucas Nkgweng held a solo exhibition of print works, titled Corruption in my Society284 (12/4/2007 Press Release: Lucas Nkgweng 2007). Although The | Premises should have worked towards including more solo exhibitions by black artists in the curatorial programme,285 what is unique about Nkgweng’s solo exhibition is that its opening coincided with a live event: an interactive performance project, titled Performance: VED vs. Joburg. This experimental production, with digital visual presentations by Machfeld286 sound mixed by artist M18J92T287 (Figure 5.2), worked to create further interest in the opening. The closing of this exhibition was also paired with Mtkidu, a 24-minute outdoor musical performance (see Figure 5.3).288 Thus, in this case, the curatorial programming emphasised the exhibition of works by Nkgweng by holding peripheral events at the beginning and end of the exhibition, all of which entered into dialogue with the City of Johannesburg, its history or its social affects. As discussed in Chapter One, the use of supplementary programming or satellite exhibitions (a technique used by Enwezor during the 1997 Johannesburg biennale), works to encourage wider access to the public, and thus function as a type of community engagement as a result of these events intervening public spaces. As such, The Trinity Session can be regarded as taking on a social curatorial role in using technological, urban and experimental art applications to emphasise the exploration by Nkgweng of his society. The | Premises’ wanted to curate a programme that potentially addressed imbalances in the Johannesburg art world by engaging in the politics of the urban realm and urban regeneration discourses (Hobbs 2018, see Appendix 5A). This position is emphasised by the inclusion of Nkgweng’s exhibition in the curatorial programme, and the urban activations that signalled its opening and closing events. Hobbs (2018, see Appendix 5A) pointed out that The Trinity
284 ‘Corruption in my Society’ is a pivotal theme in Lucas Nkgweng’s work, as he argues that “he feels corruption against the public in South Africa”. Nkgweng’s exhibition included prints made using etching, Marley tile cuts, Collographs and wood cuts (12/4/2007 Press Release: Lucas Nkgweng 2007). 285 Leading up to 2007, apart from Titus Matiyane’s solo exhibition, Panoramas in 2004, and Phillemon Hlungwani’s solo exhibition in 2006, no other solo exhibitions by black artists were held. 286 Machfeld is an art collective comprising Sabine Maier and Michael Mastrototaro. 287 This contribution comprises sound taken from the students of CityVarsity and Wits School of Art, and then sound-mixed by artist M18J92T (also known as Murray (MJ) Turpin). 288 Unfortunately, no images are available of Nkgweng’s installation.
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Session’s interest in curating an “urban gallery” programme was influenced by their geographic location.
Most of the artists from the five solo exhibitions by female artists were in the early stages of their careers; Colleen Alborough was still reading towards her master’s degree at the University of the Witwatersrand at the time.289 Her exhibition was an interactive installation accompanied by a limited-edition artist’s book titled Before the Time (2007) (Figure 5.4) (25/5/2007 Press Release: Colleen Alborough 2007). Robyn Magowan’s exhibition was linked to the practical component of her master’s degree, which she was completing at the University of Johannesburg (Figure 5.5). Maja Marx’s exhibition is listed as her first solo exhibition on her CV (Figure 5.6). Suzanne du Preez was also in the early days of her career, with only one other listing of her exhibiting available online, which was a solo, site-specific project installed in Bokaap, Cape Town (Figure 5.7).
Historically, gallery access for female artists is difficult to achieve, and The | Premises attempted to counter this gap. Of all the women who held solo exhibitions, only Murdoch was semi-established as an artist. However, her exhibition was a consideration of themes she explored for her master’s degree at the University of the Witwatersrand (she graduated in 2010), and was more experimental and ephemeral in nature, mainly using installation and performance as her mediums (Figures 5.8 & 5.9) (Archive: Issue No. 121, September 2007). Although not exactly a fifty/fifty ratio between the male and female solo exhibitors at The | Premises between 2007 and 2008, it must be noted that in South Africa, particularly in the early 2000s, the majority of artists who were gaining traction and success in their careers were white, male artists.290 The | Premises’ emphasis on providing space to female artists,
289 She graduated with MA Fine Arts in 2010 (Murdoch 2010b). 290 In Section 2 of the Research Report: Assessment of Visual Arts in South Africa (2010:8, 60), it is noted that “the majority of visual artists are white” with a greater proportion of white men in senior positions, and “[t]he sector has a highly educated workforce, with 72% of artists and 48% of employees and contract workers in businesses and organisations having qualified with a tertiary degree or diploma. There is evidence of a changing demographic within the industry, which has traditionally been largely white and middle class in profile. Based on the survey results, just over 57% of the entire workforce is black and just over 50% comprised of women. It also has a comparatively young workforce, with approximately 53,4% of people working in the sector (including artists) falling into the under-35 age group. However, while women, youth and black people account for a substantial proportion of employment in the sector, the senior management and ownership of businesses and organisations continues to be largely vested in white people”. The implication here is that senior
176 particularly those in the early stages of their careers, is a notable contribution to redressing imbalance.
The | Premises can be deemed to have had a decided effect on other initiatives with more or less the same kinds of principles (such as Sosesame Gallery, the Kalashnikovv Gallery and Commune.1). I therefore trace this impact by referring to two group exhibitions: o Thought Traffic, which was co-curated by Brenden Gray and The Trinity Session (30 June - 28 July 2007) o Urbanstretch, co-curated by Leigh-Anne Niehaus and Turpin (26 March - 12 April 2008).
Thought Traffic included the artists Alison Kearney, Antoinette Murdoch, Cara Snyman, Paul Cooper, Rhett Martyn, Same Mdluli and Sonja Britz (Figure 5.10) (Archive: Issue No. 119, July 2007). The exhibition provided space to female artists, black artists, early career, and established artists. Therefore, the exhibition contested the exclusivity of the gallery system, and supported under-exposed artists. This was also done in the curatorial composition adopted, as the curators consciously negated the typical white cube, ‘centre-line’ installation practice referred to in the Introduction to this study. Rather, they chose to hang unframed works on paper, using a wire- hanging system and standard paper clips, and installed three rows of works hung one above the other (Figure 5.10). As the exhibition was co-curated by Gray and The Trinity Session, this approach indicates the desire to actively support egalitarian and experimental exhibition approaches, which I contend influenced Mdluli.291 She established a similarly conceptualised independent platform in April 2016, called Sosesame Gallery, in Melville, Johannesburg, along with colleagues Johannes Phokela, Naomi Menyoko and Mauritz Cloete.292 Sosesame Gallery proposed to positions are largely vested in white males during the years 2007 — 2009. More recently, Lossgott (2017:222) discusses the HSRC Report on the Visual Arts Industries in South Africa, highlighting that “58 percent of respondent practicing artists” are white, with black women in particular being poorly represented (12 percent)”. 291 Mdluli graduated with a PhD in Art History from the University of the Witwatersrand (2016). 292 Despite being short-lived (Sosesame Gallery only held two group shows, Otherwise from 26 April — 2 June 2016 and Habashwe from 15 June 2016, an end date is unknown), its mission was quite similar to that of The | Premises: “We aim to establish a professional gallery space that nurtures and showcases some of the most exciting and talented young artists practicing in the visual arts in South Africa today. This will be accompanied by a critical curatorial programme coupled with an arts education programme aimed at mentoring and guiding young artists in order to develop sustainable
177 nurture and showcase the talent of young South African artists, while also providing opportunity to “under exposed artists” (Sosesame — About Us 2016).
Niehaus and Turpin co-curated the group show Urbanstretch at The | Premises in 2008. The curators included the works of a selection of street artists, namely Black Koki and 351073, Elbowgrease, Kenny Sonono, Phillemon Hlungwani, Rhett Martyn, Rasty Knowles and Satta Collective (Figures 5.11 and 5.12). Each of the artists were requested to exhibit their ideas for “immoderate public art” (Urbanstretch, On Air 2008:[sp]) — the curators asked them to refrain from ideating “the type of work that would be funded and encouraged in the real world of judging panels and politics”, and rather to consider what alternatives to mainstream public art could be made possible. The final exhibition then comprised “sketches of process, studies and plans” of what the artists proposed (Urbanstretch, On Air 2008:[sp]). The exhibition embraced the experimental, “a place where contemporary street culture, traditional artistic practice and ‘pie-in-the-sky’ ideals overlap and coalesce” (Urbanstretch, On Air 2008:[sp]). This also resulted in the graffiti intervention by well-known artist Rasty Knowles, who exhibited his street art in the exhibition and gallery context (Archive: Issue No. 128, April 2008).
Apart from this exhibition’s experimental focus, its dismantling of traditional barriers in exhibition practices and its attention to urban discourse (common attributes of exhibitions included in The | Premises curatorial programme), of particular interest is that both Niehaus and Turpin went on to establish independent gallery spaces that undertook experimental art projects, that emphasised a programme that supported up-and-coming artists working in ways that were unconventional, and that also operated commercially in a contemporary context. Niehaus established Commune.1
careers through their artistic practice” (Sosesame — About Us 2016). They also aimed to include mentorship and educational components into their curatorial programme. The gallery statement also makes a case to attempt to address the gap between the arts and the “daily lives of ordinary people in South Africa” in order to make art less elitist and exclusive (Sosesame — About Us 2016). Although consisting of four directors, Sosesame Gallery was described as the “brain-child” of Mdluli (SOSESAME Gallery, interview by CM van Blerck 2016). Sosesame was a co-operative model gallery, implying that there was no managerial hierarchy, and that artists were expected to respond to open calls to participate, rather than the directors selecting artists (SOSESAME Gallery, interview by CM van Blerck 2016). Thus, although the model was different, both to The | Premises and to the mainstream, Sosesame Gallery expressed a similar cause for concern: “The exclusivity of the gallery system in South Africa” (SOSESAME Gallery, interview by CM van Blerck 2016). Up to this point, no comment has been made on the reasons for the gallery’s closure.
178 in 2011, along with Greg Dale.293 Turpin established Kalashnikovv in 2013, along with Dowdle (which I discuss in the following section). I show, therefore, that The | Premises demonstrated possibilities and showcased potentials for establishing similar autonomous gallery platforms. The | Premises’ impact on the Johannesburg art scene is thus important. The Africa Remix catalogue’s ‘Sampler’ section, which describes The | Premises as being “probably the most experimental exhibition venue in South Africa” at the time of the catalogue’s publication, also serves to acknowledge it as being “instrumental to the composition of African arts” (Boutoux & Vincent 2007:247).294
Previously, The | Premises had been referred to in the context of an ‘artist-run initiative’ (particularly by S Gush, cited in Cook 2016:76). Barak (2005:115) describes artist-run spaces as “those alternative venues that are often set up these days and that conduct activities parallel with official institutions”. This is problematic, however, since Barak (2005) deems artist-run spaces a threat to the ‘stature’ of the curator, signifying that the curator is now dispensable. Barak (2005:115), in fact, goes so far as to state that artist-run spaces have caused curators to be mindful that their roles are under threat, usurped by the artist. In contrast, however, Smith (2015:28) regards artist-run or collective art spaces to be sites most “conducive to […] reflexive curating”.295 Curators, recognising the value of working in a public space, have thus realised the advantages of infrastructural activism. I propose that The | Premises is an example where curators (who also practise as artists) participate in infrastructural activism by establishing a space conducive to and supportive of both their own, and others’ reflexive curating practices. Sassen (2004a) relates this position to The Trinity
293 Commune.1, established in Cape Town, also functioned as an independent gallery space. It was particularly dedicated to exhibiting large-scale installations and sculpture (Commune.1 About [sa]). Commune.1 closed in 2017. 294 The catalogue for the exhibition Africa Remix, as discussed in Chapter One, included a “Sampler” section, by Thomas Boutoux and Cédric Vincent (2007), which they describe as follows: “In the style of a sampler, this text, through its entries, breaks down the composition of contemporary African art into small elements. The entries provide an incomplete list of significant events, exhibitions, structures, reviews, and arts associations and movements. It also introduces the main political and thought movements that have impacted on contemporary Africa, such as négritude, Pan-Africanism or the African renaissance, thus constituting a discursive repertoire for the role-players involved in African contemporary art. Lastly, these entries introduce a number of political and cultural figures that have been instrumental in the creation of this field, whether they have contributed to it directly […] or played an influential or referential role […]”. 295 Here, Smith (2015:28) refers to Euro-American art spaces that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s; however, this argument is relevant to the increase in independent spaces established in Johannesburg since the early 2000s.
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Session’s “awareness of the need to empower or be empowered in Johannesburg's art world”. I maintain, therefore, that the ‘artist-run space’ label works to place all independent platforms under a homogeneous label, and therefore reduces the subtle differences in intentions of independent spaces established by curators, which is to support reflexive, experimental curating and art practices.
The | Premises closed in 2008, as The Trinity Session wanted to focus exclusively on public art projects, acting as a “public art commissioning agent service” (Hobbs & Neustetter 2008:[sp]). The Trinity Session continues to operate in this manner at the time of writing.
Kalashnikovv Gallery (2013 -), founded and curated by MJ Turpin and Matthew Dean Dowdle
Following his 2008 curatorial debut with Niehaus at The | Premises, Turpin partnered with Dowdle to start Satellite Spaces /// The Untitled Gallery.296 Satellite Spaces was a transient gallery concept, whereby the organisation would present a series of exhibitions according to a theme, each at a different location in the Johannesburg CBD. According to Dowdle (2018, see Appendix 5C), “The gallery was not a traditional gallery because it was not titled, it was not anchored”. The concept arose out of Turpin’s critical position towards the ‘white cube’ exhibition space. They describe Satellite Spaces as “[a] movement created by artist’s [sic] for artists, a natural and needed evolution of the ‘white cube’ exhibition AND space” (Satellite Spaces /// The Untitled Gallery [sa]). Turpin (2018, see Appendix 5C) outlines the main idea of Satellite Spaces, which was “to take people away from the banal, safe, white cube suburban gallery life, into a more energetic, kinetic, robust sort of urban environment”. Mainly focusing on group shows, Satellite Spaces offered five exhibitions: o The Painters Show: Our Space (2011) 297 at Main Street Life, Maboneng (Figure 5.13)
296 Hereafter referred to as Satellite Spaces. 297 Our Space took place in August 2011 and included works by the following artists: Frederick Clarke, Shane de Lange, Rasty, Tammy Osso, Ben Crossman, Breeze Yoko, Luiza Cachalia, Mzwandile Buthelezi, Andrew Sprawson, Nicholas Ker, Kyle Baille, Ludumo Maqabuka, Nicole Lindique, Nathan Janse van Vuuren, jana & koos and Tim Williamsom.
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o Nothing is Sacred (2011)298 in Braamfontein (Figure 5.14) o I Am Not You (2011)299 in Newtown (Figure 5.15) o Reaching for God (2011) 300 in Newtown (Figure 5.16) o Our House (2012)301 in Braamfontein (Figure 5.17).
Dowdle (2018, see Appendix 5C) recalls how the installation of the Our House exhibition led to their current landlord offering them a permanent space in which to continue to stage exhibitions. In December 2012, they installed The End Edition Exhibition,302 a pop-up of work from previous exhibitions in the Braamfontein space, which also functioned as a finale event for Satellite Spaces. Because a permanent space had been secured, Turpin and Dowdle felt the need to conceptualise a new brand, and so in January 2013 they introduced the Kalashnikovv by means of social media. The Facebook post read: “Welcome to our new Permanent Gallery and Project Space” (Satellite Spaces /// The Untitled Gallery 2011 - 2013). The gallery, like the Satellite Spaces project, was born out of “frustration with the current South African Contemporary Art world and by extension, the prevailing ‘white cube’ gallery discourse” (Kalashnikovv Gallery — About [sa]). Turpin (2018, see Appendix 5C) in particular expressed his dissatisfaction with the Johannesburg gallery system, which he cites as having inspired him to conceptualise Kalashnikovv as an alternative space. Kalashnikovv thus functioned as a ‘hybrid’ space — a juxtaposition of an artist-run space, a project space and a commercially operating gallery (Kalashnikovv Gallery — About [sa]).
298 Nothing is Sacred was a print-based installation collaboration by Niall Bingham and Murray Turpin (September 2011). 299 I Am Not You was a multimedia exhibition installed at The Mills, Carr Street in Newtown (November 2011). Artists were invited to respond to the phrase: “Systems are created for us to disrupt them, not abide by them”. The exhibition was curated by Turpin, and featured the artists Marcus Neustetter, Talya Lubinsky, Frederick Clarke, jana & koos, Chris Saunders, Nicole Lindeque, says who, Tamara Osso, Sanche Frolich, Niall Bingham, Alastair Mclachlan, Warren Van Rensburg, Givan Lötz, Serai Lobelo, Ross Garret, Hannah Hughes, Lard Buurman, Sean Buch, Nicholas Nesbitt, Byana, Murray Turpin, and Shane De Lange. 300 Reaching for God was a solo exhibition by Turpin (December 2011). 301 In March 2012, the exhibition Our House opened at 6 De Beer Street, Braamfontein, and included the artists Dokter & Misses, Maaike Bakker, Mødernist, Givan Lötz, Shane de Lange, Brak, Joe Paine, Jessica Webster, Niall Bingham, Turpin, Marcel Rossouw, Nicole Lindique, and Bogosi Sekhukhuni. 302 The End Edition featured a selection of the final prints and mixed mediums on paper from Turpin’s previous three solos: Reaching for God, Triangulate the Death Rate, and This Shit is Fukkin Cosmic, the Bastard Child of JK. The exhibition also included collaborations with Niall Bingham, Frederick Clarke and Lingo Rodrigues.
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According to Turpin and Dowdle (2018, see Appendix 5C), the decision to name the gallery ‘Kalashnikovv’ was inspired by the Russian weapon’s wide use in facilitating revolutions. Drawing from this symbolism, Turpin and Dowdle (2018, see Appendix 5C) initiated what they consider a revolution against the “‘white cube’ context within an African contemporary art world”. Turpin (2018, see Appendix 5C) considers the white cube to be “antiquated”, “slow”, “elitist”, “intimidating”, “separatist”, “inaccessible”, “not creative enough”, and “not in favour of the artist”. Even the Kalashnikovv logo depicts the unravelling of a cube, a symbolic gesture towards their reconceptualistion of a gallery space for a Johannesburg context.303
Curator Hoffman (2015:11) describes visiting an exhibition in a white cube space as a “unique social ritual” — involving both the staging (the exhibition) and the performance (the viewing). Most notable, however, is his description of the viewing performance, which he likens to “treading silently” — a symbolic gesture of “being alone together” (Hoffman 2015:11). This ‘social ritual’ functions as a framework for socio-behavioural expectations when visiting a white cube gallery, and serves to exclude a vast majority of potential viewers who may not feel ‘knowledgeable enough’, or who may feel that they do not possess the correct social standing to enter these spaces. Most often, the white cube space includes academics, regular art buyers, people who studied art, or artists themselves, and thereby excludes people who are not from a similar background. In his book Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste, Pierre Bourdieu (1984:2) outlines how ‘taste’ regarding the creative arts functions as a “marker of class”. Bourdieu (1984:7) argues that “art and cultural consumption are predisposed”, and by investigating the manner in which art is accessed, and the space in which it is housed, one can ‘legitimate’ social differences. For him, taste, which is linked to cultural activity and space, signifies social hierarchy. Bourdieu (1984:272) says that exhibitions “are the occasion or pretext for social ceremonies enabling a select audience to demonstrate and experience its membership of high society in obedience to the integrating and distinguishing rhythms of the 'society' calendar”. Thus, Bourdieu (1984:272) conflates bourgeois (upper-middle) class with taste and thereby a designation of someone with the “necessary cultural capital” to gain access to exhibitions. This indicates how
303 A gif depicting the unravelling of the cube is available on the old Kalashnikovv Gallery website (Kalashnikovv Gallery: Exhibitions [sa]).
182 spaces used for cultural interaction can be read as spaces of exclusion, a typical attitude and social perception towards the traditional white cube space. This essentialist position, along with the silent, structured conception of how one is supposed to view an exhibition, is what Kalashnikovv rejects, and consciously challenges.
For Kalashnikovv, being situated in the middle of urban Braamfontein is important. The geographic placement of the gallery means that it is accessible to a variety of people in the city, and not only the typical ‘gallery-goer’ or ‘art-lover’ crowd. Furthermore, Kalashnikovv’s ‘shop-front style’ entrance also entices the curious passer-by, as the space includes a street-facing glass window that provides a preview of what one can expect inside the gallery. This sparks curiosity for the passers-by and encourages them to enter the gallery, often resulting in people having their first gallery experience in the Kalashnikovv.304 This is unique when contrasted with many other Johannesburg galleries with street entrances, where the work is often not visible from the street, or which often use an intercom system at the entrance, making these galleries destination-oriented, rather than intriguing for the passer-by. Using this appeal, Kalashnikovv confronts this ‘white cube’ power structure, its approach to which has transformed over the gallery’s different phases. What follows is a discussion of Kalashnikovv according to its three phases: Kalashnikovv 1.0,305 Kalashnikovv 2.0,306 and Kalashnikovv 3.0307 (terms Kalashnikovv Gallery itself uses). I discuss selected exhibitions that exemplify the goals that drive Kalashnikovv outlined above, while at the same time, I contextualise the gallery more generally according to each phase.
304 According to Dowdle (2018, see Appendix 5C), “[a] lot of people have their first gallery experience at Kalashnikovv in Braamfontein. It is a fact, and it is super weird — because you set the bar. How you engage with them is how they are going to interpret the whole gallery world”. When I asked him how he makes the experience positive, he stated it is all about the vibe and the atmosphere: “Try not to say “Good afternoon, may I help you?” to 19-year-old students who just want to be greeted in the way they [sic] used to. You have to calm down the whole thing. We sort of go, ‘Hi — enjoy the art. If you have questions, ask us. We are here to talk to you, have fun’. This approach for Dowdle, is a critical response to Turpin’s prior experiences in a white cube space, and a reminder of why they initiated Kalashnikovv Gallery in the first place: “Don’t forget why you started this gallery — because when you walked into a lot of galleries, people saw that you were young, and that you were not wearing expensive clothes, and you didn’t arrive in an expensive car, and the gallerists didn’t have time for you”. 305 Kalashnikovv 1.0 at the original 70 Juta Street, Braamfontein address (January 2013 — April 2014). 306 Kalashnikovv 2.0 at 153 Smit Service Street, Braamfontein (May 2014 — May 2018). 307 Kalashnikovv 3.0 at the current, renovated 70 Juta Street location (June 2018 — present).
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Kalashnikovv 1.0’s curatorial programme showcases an aggressive approach towards challenging the white cube space. During this time (January 2013 - April 2014), Kalashnikovv produced 23 exhibitions, including the Basha Uhuru festival at Constitution Hill, of which five were solos or shows that focused on a single artist/collective’s body of work. These solo projects were: o The World of Evil John by Evl Jon (February 2013) o The Young and The Restless by Marcel Marcel (April 2013) o Maybe You Just Have Bad Taste by Mega Bonanza (July 2013) o "Ward 56" by Evl Jon (September 2013) o The Escape from Self by Turpin (February 2014).
In Evl Jon’s solo exhibition, The World of Evil John (Figure 5.18), he was permitted to fully transform the gallery into an installation project, which was then accessible via a live online feed for viewers to log in. Six months after The World of Evil John was shown at Kalashnikovv, a second solo for Evl Jon titled Ward 56 (Figure 5.19) was installed. Again, Kalashnikovv rebelled against traditional installation techniques, opting to showcase unframed works on paper, hung salon-style308 from floor to ceiling. What is further notable is that Evl Jon, as with many of the artists included into the Kalashnikovv programme, does not come from a traditional fine art or academic background.309 This approach appeals directly to Kalashnikovv’s aim to
308 A ‘salon-style’ hanging approach was implemented during the Salon des Refusés (originating in Paris, 1863) — where all work rejected by the Paris Salon was accommodated in a single exhibition display. The implication of a salon-style history, then, is that work installed in this manner is less ‘selected’ and garners some ‘chance’ in the installation, as the wall needs to accommodate as much art as possible. The salon-style hanging system was replaced by the white cube hanging system, providing each work with negative space, and composing the selected works in a neat, eye-level linear strategy so as not to influence the reading of the works, but rather allow them to be encountered as autonomous objects shown in a neutral space (previously referred to in this study as a centre-line hanging approach). 309 This is also illustrated in the informal writing style of his biography and artist statement, available on the Kalashnikovv Gallery website, where he is listed as an official Kalashnikovv Gallery artist (unedited): “Biography: Born 1980 to a normal family. After finishing my school sentnce I started couch serfing and exibeting in ppls houses. I exibeted in abandond houses and clubs showing and seling art on th streets. Thus my zeen development ‘ded dog press’ now ‘ded pressed’ witch has enjoyed just over 20 publications. This being a slow development I started colecting and seling trash witch I soon found to be more lucretive and actualy relevent. Trash and decay had always inspierd me as some form of natrel art, th art of god if u wil. So th mersher of trash wth art has been inriching not just for th chaos factor but for its deep reflective astetic and actualety. Hence ‘evl Jon’s amazing world of trash’. my multie perpose all round trash manigment efort, wich calminates in piels of trash aranged, constructed, shelved or just loos evry were I go as far
184 address issues of exclusion, as they do not show art that is solely validated through academic practice and saleability. According to the gallery’s biography, the directors highlight that they do not attempt to ‘compartmentalise’ creativity, but rather aim to “change perceptions around art, to move the industry forward as a whole, to be a catalyst for change and to make art accessible for all” (Kalashnikovv Gallery — About [sa]).
Kalashnikovv also celebrated the practice of Mega Bonanza, an artist collective that collaborates by working over and into each other’s works, thus defying white cube expectations regarding single authorship, originality and ownership.310 As depicted in Figure 5.20, the installation by Mega Bonanza for Maybe You Just Have Bad Taste was also salon-style. The walls of the Kalashnikovv were painted black, another direct rebellion against the traditional white cube space and installation.
Turpin himself exhibited a solo exhibition in the gallery, titled The Escape from Self (Figure 5.21), which comprised a small body of work, a site-specific work whereby Turpin worked directly on the walls and floor of the gallery, and a performance piece. By installing a solo exhibition in the gallery he co-owned, Turpin occupied the position of artist, curator and gallery-owner, and thus transgressed the traditional ‘roles’ the gallery system respects. Turpin (2018, see Appendix 5C) comments that this action “dismantle[s]” the gallery system, blurring the distinctions the system generally uses, such as ‘curator’, ‘director’, ‘artist’ and ‘gallerist’.
More Kalashnikovv 1.0 projects that show Kalashnikovv’s aim to be experimental include: o The Illustrator’s Show (March 2013) as PE, Cape town and al over jhb. this is how I descoverd trolys and invented my first mobiel studio wich secerd a place in th le-atlr absa art competition as th art work its self. Since IV been in th top hundred twice. I have exihbeted with kalashnikovv twice and onece at two by two. Shown a peace at the desighn endaba and been given a stall by sasol for ther inovation sumet. My last show at kalashnikovv beeing ‘ward 56’ a serios of life drawings dun in psch ward 56 bara psch hospital. Were I spent a month for painting myself yellow and advecating satan and bananas as a better life style to premot my then latest show, ‘apeal’ at two by two. Curently I am living on a farm growing vegies, n gathering trash. wth a chikon named Bookbuk and a cat named satan n two wierdows. Artist’s Statement: it is me that u lov, th theory ther of is nothing but testemnt to this. Justifecation a dream of th fact, a dream of art its self. For that ther is nothing but feeling, and thus only the waist that kils” (Evl Jon [sa]). 310 The notion of the collective was discussed in Chapter Four.
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o Rasty vs Veronika — Painting Installation (May 2013) o Performance Art Showcase (October 2013) o The Prelude — Final Installation (April 2014)
The curatorial programme also focused on showing disciplines that traditionally fall outside the parameters of ‘white cube’ gallery practice, such as The Illustrator’s Show (March 2013). The Kalashnikovv also included an exhibition titled Rasty vs Veronika — Painting Installation (Figure 5.22); this comprised a painting installation, or ‘battle’, between two well-known Johannesburg street artists. This consistent clouding of the lines between fine art and street art in the curatorial programme similarly confronts mainstream conceptions of ‘highbrow’ or Modern gallery practices, as well as public and private space in terms of exhibiting graffiti art on the walls of the gallery. Bourdieu (1984:7, 494) argues that lowbrow and middlebrow classes tend to adopt a naïve and reductive reading of the arts, as opposed to bourgeois (upper-middle) classes, who embrace interpretive readings. For Bourdieu (1984:2), “[a] work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded”. Thus, the ‘type’ of work included in a characteristic white cube space would veer towards Modernist conceptions of ‘highbrow’ tastes. Kalashnikovv found it imperative to display and organise the works in a manner that would reject these sentiments, and rather reflect its own gallery ethos, exemplified throughout the curatorial programme’s conceptualisation and production. For the Performance Art Showcase performative elements, art objects and site-specific projects were literally taken outside of the gallery and displayed on the street, visible to the passer-by, and thereby physically reducing the divide between the general public and the gallery (Figure 5.23).311 Deciding to expand to a bigger space in May 2014, Turpin and Dowdle devoted the final exhibition, The Prelude — Final Installation, in the original gallery space to experimental and processual praxis, by inviting all the artists who had been involved at the Kalashnikovv to work directly onto the walls of the gallery in a symbolic farewell gesture (Figure 5.24). Furthermore, viewers and members of the public were invited to participate in the interactive installation, blurring the line between audience and artist. I speculate that the event was successful in that it encouraged active
311 As discussed previously, white cube spaces are often considered spaces of exclusion.
186 participation from the public and dialogue between the public and gallery. I base this on the interaction on social media pages at the time leading up to the event (The Prelude — Final installation 2014), as well as the interaction by the public on the walls of the gallery (Figure 5.24). One can deduce, from the level of participation and response, that Kalashnikovv was successful in creating an egalitarian space that welcomed contribution and exchange.
Kalashnikovv 2.0 was inaugurated with the exhibition titled Death of the Old, framed as the “Kalashnikovv Gallery 2.0 Launch and Group Exhibition”.312 Although the exhibition still maintained a level of experimentation by including performance, digital works, and applications directly onto the walls of the gallery, the installation techniques veered more towards a traditional centre-line composition in comparison with techniques used for Kalashnikovv 1.0, which was mainly salon-style (Figure 5.25). This indicates a notable change, where Kalashnikovv started to take on a more traditional approach to curatorial composition, coinciding with the change in venue. Between May 2014 and the end of 2015, the curatorial programme still maintained an emphasis on group exhibitions employing experimental exhibition formats. During this period, of the 23 exhibitions held, only four focused on a single artist or collective’s body of work: o Mega Bonanza held their second solo, Bazooka (September 2014) (Figure 5.26) o Benjamin Pothier exhibited Svalbard ['Svalbad’] a photographic exhibition (December 2014) o Turpin exhibited a solo that built on the prior solo exhibition at Kalashnikovv 1.0 (March 2015) (Figure 5.27) o Marcel Marcel held a solo titled Merge (May 2014).
Kalashnikovv also hosted a number of shows by external curators or organisations during this period,313 including Mash-Ups, an exhibition curated by the curatorial
312 See Appendix 5D for more information on this show, and the others that formed part of the programme for Kalashnikovv 2.0. 313 'Gesture' — a group exhibition, curated by Lucy Turpin (August 2014), Fak’ugesi Digital Africa Festival with Onedotzero — artist in residence exhibition (September 2014), See without Looking, Hear without Listening, Breathe without Asking, curated by Kalashnikovv Gallery in association with the Joburg Photo Umbrella (November 2014), Mash-Ups curated by the Curated by_Collective (June 2015), and The Entropy of Ideology curated by Andre de Jong and the Kalashnikovv.
187 collective I had established with Bakker, namely Curated by_Collective.314 Mash-Ups (Figure 5.28) was an experimental exhibition that revisited work previously exhibited in a show titled Can’t Fool Me Now, curated by Curated by_Collective at the Institut vir alles Mögliche, in Berlin, Germany. Additional artists were invited, and so Mash- Ups was an expanded version of Can’t Fool Me Now, curated for the Johannesburg audience.315 More important to this discussion, however, is the freedom Kalashnikovv afforded us in organising this exhibition, as the gallery imposed no restrictions in terms of the brief, concept, artist selections or curatorial configuration. The experience of working with this gallery space would later become a major stimulus to Bakker and me in terms of establishing our own independent gallery space.
From 2016 onwards, the Kalashnikovv’s curatorial programme became more structured, with emphasis being placed on duo and solo exhibitions.316 The group exhibitions included also become far more focused, and fewer artists were included so as to allow each artist to include more than one work. This approach may also be connected to the Kalashnikovv’s establishment of a branch in Berlin, Germany, in 2016.317 The gallery was thus becoming more committed to ensuring that it supported artists on a national and international level, and more intent on advancing artists’ careers. Furthermore, with these added responsibilities, Kalashnikovv began relying on a more traditional commercial gallery structure in order to ensure its commercial longevity. It is thus evident, when tracing the patterns in the 2016 curatorial programme, that Kalashnikovv began to concentrate on particular artists, many of whom would, from 2017 onwards, be referred to specifically as Kalashnikovv
314 Curated by_Collective was introduced in Chapter Four. 315 The exhibition featured works by Carly Whitaker, Dalene Victor Meyer, Dale Lawrence, Givan Lötz, Jacques Kleynhans, jana & koos, Justin Dingwall, Mega Bonanza, MARTHA Collective, Nina Torr, and Skullboy. 316 During 2016, sixteen exhibitions were delivered by Kalashnikovv Gallery, seven of which were group shows, including the Kalashnikovv Gallery’s annual involvement with Constitution Hill for the Basha Uhuru project. Therefore, the majority of shows were duo and solo exhibitions (three duos and five solos). One exhibition was curated externally (please see Appendix 5D for further information). 317 Kalashnikovv Galeri, Berlin, launched in September 2016 with a group exhibition, titled Scramble for Africa. The exhibition explored concepts of occupation, division and colonisation of Africa by European powers during the late 1800s, and included the works of twelve contemporary South African artists who were invited to elaborate on these topics, namely Maaike Bakker, Ayanda Mabulu, Jason Bronkhorst, Elizaveta Rukavishnikova, Mxolisi Vusi Beauchamp, Andrew Kayser, Isaac Zavale, Minenkulu Ngoyi, Io Makandal, Jana Hamman, Craig Smith and Skullboy. Interestingly, many of these artists are currently noted as Kalashnikovv Gallery artists.
188 artists.318 The collection/stable can be described as including artists who generally challenge the boundaries of their practices, which furthermore sets Kalashnikovv apart from other galleries that may be more partial to working with artists who practice within traditional categories.
With the programme becoming more structured, and Kalashnikovv beginning to function more as a traditional white cube gallery space than a project space, the gallery duo decided at the end of 2016 to complete minor renovations to expand the Smit Service Street space to launch the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room space.319 Turpin (2018, see Appendix 5C) views the Wreck Room and/or The Viewing Room as an “incubator” or “project” space. Kalashnikovv has hosted a range of projects in the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room,320 most notable being o Sikelela Damane's toyi toyi (March 2017) o The Young Collectors Room (May 2017) o New Temples for New Times // Malware Poetry, by Alice Edy (June 2017) (Figure 5.29) o Bae Magick, by Whitaker (July 2017) (Figure 3.30, as discussed in Chapter Three) o Exhibition Y (August 2017) (Figure 5.30).
Although the space was established in 2017, and thus falls outside the scope of this study, it is important to note in the context of Kalashnikovv’s ongoing curatorial
318 The Kalashnikovv Gallery artists, as listed online at the time of writing, include Sikelela Damane, Felix Laband, Herman de Klerk, Lucy Jane Turpin, Theresa-Anne Mackintosh, Ayanda Mabulu, Mxolisi Vusi Beauchamp, Io Makandal, Jana Hamman, Elizaveta Rukavishnikova, Maja Maljevic, Jason Bronkhorst, Maaike Bakker, Luke Daniel, Louis de Villiers, Andrew Kayser, Nathan Vuuren, Evl Jon, Justin McGee, and Craig Smith. 319 The Wreck Room and The Viewing Room are different names to refer to the same space (Turpin 2018, see Appendix 5C). From what I can gauge, the term ‘The Viewing Room’ is used when referring to incubator projects that can be considered a sub-section of the Kalashnikovv programme, whereas ‘Wreck Room’ is used when referring to more experimental projects. These distinctions, however, are not always clear. 320 Fourteen shows have been held in the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room since its inception. Felix Laband was the first to show there in April 2017, followed by: The Young Collectors Room (May 2017), New Temples For New Times // Malware Poetry by Alice Edy (June 2017), Kerry Chaloner and Felix Laband! in the Wreckroom (July 2017) Bae Magick by Whitaker (July 2017), Exhibition Y (August 2017), Nathan Vuuren, Seeing the Future (September 2017), Maja Maljevic, Room With A View (October 2017), Synesthesia by Jana Hamman (November 2017), Dead Town, a film-only photographic showcase and zine launch (January 2018), Malformed by Dillon Harland (February 2018) Toyi Toyi by Sikelela Damane (April 2018), Bev Butkow Imposed (May 2018) and R1, A Solo (September 2018).
189 programming that it endeavours to maintain the integrity of its initial ethos and include project-based, experimental exhibitions by artists not formally considered Kalashnikovv artists, in this parallel programme. Furthermore, noteworthy influences that led Kalashnikovv to establish the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room occurred prior to 2017, and are worth considering in the context of my argument.
The Wreck Room and/or The Viewing Room, which opened with Sikelela Damane's solo, toyi toyi, demonstrated at the outset the experimental curatorial approach that is advocated in the space: Damane brought sand in to cover the floor of the gallery in order to transform the environment of a white cube into something more informal and in keeping with the artist’s subject matter — the toyi toyi dance employed during protest actions (Figure 5.31). Shortly thereafter, Kalashnikovv hosted The Young Collector’s Room at the Wreck Room, which focused on tracing the reasoning behind young collectors initiating and expanding their art collection. This was accompanied by an interview series shared on social-media platforms (Figure 5.32). The idea for this exhibition arguably emerged after the launch of the 2016 exhibition titled Not for Sale (Figure 5.33), wherein Turpin’s private art collection was curated in the gallery in an attempt to inspire others to begin collecting art. The Not for Sale exhibition was not commercially oriented, and showcased the potentials that a project space could offer, independent from commercial pressures. A further inspiration/influence for launching the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room could be linked to the ‘window space’ Kalashnikov 2.0 used, which was completely separated from the main gallery by a door, but viewable from the street (seen in Figure 5.26, on the left, as used by Mega Bonanza for their exhibition Bazooka).321 With no limitations provided in terms of what should be installed in the space or how the space could be used, many artists approached it as an additional, completely separate, exhibition space, an experimental advantage in the context of an exhibition (an exhibition within an exhibition).
Kalashnikovv has gone through a number of iterations during its existence, both in terms of its gallery size and address, as well as with regard to the approach of its curatorial programming. In light of these discussions, I show how, at the outset of the
321 Mega Bonanza used the space to present a site-specific mural to the public.
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Kalashnikovv, the programme was less structured, more experimental, and more overtly opposed to white cube conventions. With the launch of Kalashnikovv 2.0, and more particularly Kalashnikovv 3.0,322 the curatorial programming has become more conservative, with the clear opposition towards white cube praxis becoming less pronounced. However, in light of this transformation in the gallery itself, Dowdle and Turpin, the curator-gallerists, have expanded their approach by reconsidering their main curatorial programme in order to include performance, conversations, seminars, externally curated exhibitions (curated by Kalashnikovv),323 and exhibitions that are not commercially oriented. Hoffman (2015:11) similarly acknowledges that “[f]or many institutions and galleries, programming has supplanted the exhibition format at the center. In the name of innovation, many curators have abandoned exhibition making in favour of other forms”.
At the time of writing, Kalashnikovv’s approach towards exhibitions is more concerned with the exhibition format’s potential to stimulate discursive processes that enable dialogical spaces of negotiation between curators, artists and their publics. Furthermore, Kalashnikovv’s main focus now is the provision of an overall curatorial programme and exhibition structure that expands the practices of the Kalashnikovv artists. I would maintain that Kalashnikovv’s main contribution towards the Johannesburg art arena is that it successfully challenged ‘mainstream’, traditionalist perceptions of ‘taste’: many of the street-style aesthetics that Kalashnikovv formally introduced in its programming have been absorbed by mainstream galleries and even museums. Particularly significant is Mxolisi Vusi Beauchamp, described as Kalashnikovv’s “poster child” (Turpin 2018, see Appendix 5C),324 who was invited in 2015 to hold a solo exhibition at the Pretoria Art Museum (PAM) titled Paradyse of
322 As the Kalashnikovv Gallery 3.0 space falls outside the scope of this study, I have not expanded on the programming aspects, except in general terms related to the discussion. Important to acknowledge, however, is that the Wreck Room / The Viewing Room exhibitions that formed part of the parallel curatorial programme occur less frequently, and there is more emphasis placed on the main gallery curatorial programme. Please see Appendix 5D for more information, where I acknowledge the full curatorial programme from Kalashnikovv’s inception to the end of 2018. 323 Kalashnikovv continues to curate the Basha Uhuru festival for Constitution Hill. It has also curated a number of exhibitions at other galleries, such as Smith Gallery, Cape Town, Grahams Fine Art, Johannesburg, and Fried Contemporary, Pretoria, to name a few. 324 Turpin (2018, see Appendix 5C) mentions how Beauchamp does not categorise creativity, but is fluid within all disciplines. Coming from a graphic design background, Beauchamp blurs the boundaries between art and design. He also discusses how Beauchamp’s disregard for traditional art categories and traditional modes of practising (using spray paint with acrylic, silk screening, stencilling and drawing), and his satirical political commentary on the shifting social landscape in South Africa, exemplifies the Kalashnikovv ethos and aesthetic (Turpin 2018, see Appendix 5C).
191 the Damned, and in 2018 to exhibit a solo exhibition at the JAG, which had the same title and was a continuation of the PAM exhibition. Kalashnikovv has therefore indicated the potential for an independent/autonomous platform to confront mainstream opinion, and transform ideas about taste. Kalashnikovv Gallery is still operating at the time of writing (2019).
NO END Contemporary Art Space (2015 -), founded and curated by Maaike Bakker, Jayne Crawshay-Hall and Dalene Victor Meyer
NO END was established in November 2015. Our idea was to create an independent platform that was less intimidating to both the novice artist and curator, as well as the potential art collector. The gallery is situated on Fourth Avenue in Linden, which is a busy street in the Johannesburg suburb that boasts a variety of coffee shops, restaurants and shops, as well as a number of artist and film studios. This makes the suburb a popular destination and draws foot traffic to the gallery. The gallery layout also lends itself to experimental art and curatorial practices, as it is just short of 42 square metres, with a depth of around 13 metres, and a width of just over three metres (see Figure 5.34 for the floor plan). Furthermore, although NO END functions as an independent gallery space, it is branded as an ‘art space’ to emphasise its support of experimental applications there.
Prior to establishing NO END, Bakker and I had curated a number of exhibitions as Curated by Collective (cf. Chapter Three). According to Bakker (cited in Shuman 2016), finding regular spaces to work in as curators (and artists) was becoming increasingly difficult. At the time of opening NO END, Bakker, Victor Meyer and I felt that there was a general lack of opportunity for curators to experiment with their practice, and for artists to exhibit, as most of the established galleries were already working with a restricted stable of artists. These galleries, referred to by Lossgott (2017:229) as the “gallery triumvirate” (referring to Stevenson, Goodman, and Everard Read),325 are generally inaccessible to independent curators or curators at the beginning stages of their careers. As noted above, Kalashnikovv had a full
325 Lossgott (2017:229) speaking of Everard Read and Circa, draws attention to the fact that it “has built a market for modern contemporary art through the prominently placed and architecturally noteworthy Circa Gallery in Johannesburg, soon to open a duplicate in Cape Town”.
192 programme that was beginning to focus on particular artists’ works. Other spaces, such as the Nirox Project Space, had closed its doors. However, the increase of interest in independent Johannesburg art spaces, arguably influenced by the success Kalashnikovv was having, made it easier to conceptualise how an independent project space might work in Johannesburg. Furthermore, after Bakker and I were involved in curating independently at the Kalashnikovv, the prospect of opening a space of similar constitution seemed more possible.
From the outset, one of the main intentions of NO END was to nurture the ‘art cycle’ by recognising the need for the gallery to address potential collectors. Lossgott (2017:228), discussing Johannesburg as an emergent art centre, refers to the South African art market and raises alarming statistics: he emphasises that “the South African art market is based on [an] export of black artists (representing 80 percent of the population) by white gallerists (representing 8.9 percent) (statistics South Africa 2011), mainly selling works to non-South African collections through the fairs in Basel and Miami”. By appealing to potential collectors in Johannesburg, and by emphasising the cultural value of supporting the visual arts by ensuring that the art offered is more affordable, we hope to promote a more sustainable economic cycle. We also intend to create a less intimidating environment, often installing unframed works and always having a label on the wall with the artists’ and artworks’ details and price. This thereby increases the prospect of attainability as well as interest in the visual arts, so as to provide a platform that can both support and promote young artists, curators and collectors.
Although the above forms a focus of many of the exhibitions conceptualised at NO END, this intention is addressed primarily in the annual Fifteen Hundred series of exhibitions, which have become popular with buyers/collectors, as well as the participating artists. The Fifteen Hundred series calls upon artists to produce work that encourages audience members to begin collections or expand on their existing collections.326 The title of the show indicates the set selling price that artists have to adhere to (therefore work cannot sell for any more, or any less, than the amount
326 According to the curatorial brief: “As NO END is a contemporary art space that aims to create a platform that supports artists' careers, this exhibition is directed at encouraging emerging buyers to support and gain further interest in the arts, and to eventually expand on the usual crowd that supports JHB art openings”.
193 indicated in the title). According to Victor Meyer (2018, see Appendix 5E), despite the limits on the selling price, which means that it is not always very lucrative for the artist, artists always supported the series as they acknowledge the potential impact it may have. Originally initiated as Fifteen Hundred in 2016 (Figure 5.35), NO END increases the value each year in an attempt to ensure the exhibition series keeps up with inflation. Therefore, in 2017 the exhibition was titled Sixteen Hundred (Figure 5.36), in 2018 the exhibition was titled 2K, and in 2019, it was 2K.2.
Recognising the lack of infrastructural opportunity, NO END’s curatorial programme inverts the established structures of gallery practices to provide more opportunities for enabling artists who would otherwise fall in the peripheries of the art community. The greater part of NO END Contemporary’s curatorial programme thus comprises group exhibitions that are organised thematically.327 This approach echoes the gallery’s aim — namely, to showcase work in a variety of media by various contemporary South Africa artists. NO END does not work with a stable of artists, which would compel the gallery to adapt its curatorial programme in order to feature solo exhibitions of a select few artists. By including mainly group shows, NO END is able to provide opportunity to more artists. Reilly (2018:15) points out the advantages of group curatorial projects, stating that “[g]roup exhibitions can play a big part in this endeavour and grant the opportunity for many curators, non-mainstream and mainstream alike, to showcase a wide assortment of works, representing a multiplicity of voices, under the aegis of a single curatorial thematic”. Furthermore, by privileging group exhibitions at NO END, we are able to experiment with the potentials of group curatorial practice. Bakker, Victor Meyer and I consider NO END and its curatorial programme a form of creative output. NO END often adopts a salon-style installation approach, and has worked towards establishing a style of curating that is compatible with our experimental intention. Bakker (2018, see Appendix 5E) describes this salon-style approach as “challeng[ing] the audience, and really forc[ing] them to look at the work […] we don’t just place things neatly at eye level”.
327 From the time of opening NO END in November 2015 to the end of 2018, it has hosted 45 exhibitions (excluding participation in the Turbine Art Fair). Of the 45 exhibitions, 11 were solo exhibitions and 76% of the exhibitions have been group-curated shows.
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Furthermore, NO END attempts to work with artists who have been marginalised in the South African art scene. Reilly (2018), focusing particularly on Euro-America, examines the counter-hegemonic strategies curatorial practice demonstrates by meticulously documenting the statistics of exhibitions “including and not including artists who are female, of color, and LGBTQ” (Lippard 2018:7). Unfortunately, in South Africa, despite being a country wherein white citizens form the minority, the successful ‘white, male artist’ canon prevails (as previously noted). However, Lippard (2018:11) emphasises Reilly’s warning that to focus only on being revisionist can work to strengthen the canon:
[…] revisionism ultimately accepts the centrality of the white male Western canon, and can even strengthen it by maintaining criteria that are prejudicial or inapplicable to disparate cultures. […] Ethical aesthetics cannot be regulated like pay equity.
In a similar way, NO END does not set out to tally a quota, wherein ‘x number of artists’ are invited because they are female, black or LGBTQ. However, when considering the NO END curatorial programme since its beginning, one can see a strong focus on providing opportunity for female artists and curators. This can possibly be ascribed to NO END’s position as an independent art space owned and run by women. Furthermore, considering the gallery programme, there is an explicit consciousness towards showcasing marginalised artists, particularly female artists and curators, and black artists.328
NO END also resolutely strives to advance exhibitions that blur the boundaries between what is considered ‘fine’ art and design/applied art. This is in keeping with postmodernism’s tendency towards dismantling binaries, and is exemplified in NO
328 Of the eleven solo exhibitions that were hosted, three were by female artists, one was by a black artist, and one was by an openly LGBTQI+ artist. This shows that of the solo shows already held, 45% of them focused on traditionally marginalised artists. Of the eight exhibitions that were curated by external curators, six were curated by women, one of whom is a novice black female curator. Two exhibitions were curated by curatorial collectives. Therefore, 75% of external curators have been women, 25% curatorial collectives, and 100% of all the externally curated shows included a majority of women artists, with 50% including black artists. Of the 26 group exhibitions shown, curated by NO END, 19 of them included mainly female artists and 16 included black artists. Therefore, over 73% of the group exhibitions include mainly women, and over 60% of the exhibitions include black artists. For further information on these exhibitions, please refer to Appendix 5F, which contains NO END Contemporary’s full curatorial programme from 2015 to 2018.
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END’s illustration- and design-based shows hosted annually: Once in a Lifetime329 (Figure 5.37) dates from 2016, Everything in Between330 (Figure 5.38) from 2017, and Disinformation331 from 2018.332 It is important to note that Bakker, Victor Meyer and I work at The Open Window:333 Bakker lectures Illustration, Victor Meyer lectures Illustration and Drawing, and I co-ordinate the Honours programme and supervise photography, illustration and design students. It is evident that the composition of the gallery directors influences the curatorial programme, and although we dedicate at least one exhibition per year to illustration as a practice, these distinctions are generally unclear in the majority of NO END’s exhibitions. We thus approach curating by including more traditional mediums by artists from a visual arts background alongside illustration or design works, or works by artists not necessarily trained in the visual arts.334
In addition to the aims noted above, NO END also strives to be experimental, and to not only exhibit the commercially ‘mainstream’. The exhibition 72 Hours (2016) articulates this clearly. Artists were invited to participate in the exhibition, knowing that the theme for the exhibition would be announced only 72 hours prior to the opening. Therefore, the artists had only 72 hours to create a single piece in response to the theme, and they were obliged to post about their processes on social media
329 Once in a Lifetime exhibition featured visual explorations by different artists responding to an extract from the Talking Heads song 'Once in a lifetime'. 330 The exhibition calls artists to explore this title visually in their own manner. ‘Everything in between’ may refer to a liminal space or a ‘no man’s land’. It investigates that which is unknown to us and might only be discovered when looking at what exists between two familiar points. Imile Wepener | Sonia Dearling & Lize-Marie Dreyer | Wilmari Botha | L'Mri Erasmus | Adrie le Roux | Jean de Wet | Paper Snap | Megan Bird | Nina Torr | Bruce Mackay | Kobie Niewoudt were the participants. 331 The exhibition Disinformation asked artists to respond to the curatorial statement: “Disinformation can be understood as a deliberate deceit; it is conscious and calculated (and therefore, is not to be confused with ‘misinformation’). Rather, ‘disinformation’ works to engage with issues around falsities, manipulation, and masquerading information”. 332 Other examples that fall outside the scope of this study were Batt Butt Supermarket (2017) (Figure 5.39), which included a print show alongside a zine activation, as well as Limbo (2018) (Figure 5.40), which comprised the works of Maggie de Vos (Illustrator and designer) and Imile Wepener (freelance illustrator). 333 The Open Window is an accredited higher education provider offering three bachelor’s degrees (BA Visual Communication Design, B Film Arts and B Interaction Design), a postgraduate degree (B Hons Visual Communication Design) and accredited certificates (Design Techniques, Photography Basics and Animation Arts). 334 An abbreviated list of exhibitions that characterise this approach includes It is What it is (2016; Figure 5.41), Interlude (2016) and What’s in it for you? (2017; Figure 5.42), as well as all the Fifteen Hundred series. Furthermore, solo exhibitions such as Louis Minnaar’s Hail Mary (2016; Figure 5.43), Peter Claasen’s Die land van katte met horings (2016; Figure 5.44), Hannah Shone’s Fantasma (2017; Figure 5.45) and Jean de Wet’s Secret Messages (2017; Figure 5.46) also blur the distinctions between the two approaches.
196 platforms using the hashtags: #noendcontemporary and #72hoursexhibition during the 72 hours leading up to the opening (see Figure 5.47 for process post examples). The works were hung unframed (see Figure 5.48). Despite this being a practical decision for this particular exhibition, considering the time-limit for artists to create the works, hanging unframed works at NO END is not unusual, as previously suggested. The gallery attempts to break down the categories of the ‘white cube’ exhibition space and the expectations often associated therewith, particularly if artists’ choosing not to frame their works contributes to their conceptual intentions. This approach furthermore works to break down the physical barriers between the audience and works, and often results in the audience feeling that the works are less elitist.
NO END attempts to include a number of project slots per year. This means that artists are invited to experiment within the space, in a type of residency-style set up. Although some artists have elected to adopt a more conventional approach to these invitations, some of them have embraced the freedom to experiment using the space itself. The intention of these experimental slots is to provide artists with the opportunity to test the boundaries of their mediums. Particularly noteworthy was Io Makandal’s installation, To Meet the Threshold (2017) (Figure 5.49), which comprised site-specific tactile drawing.335 Artists are also encouraged to curate these installations themselves, in order to disrupt the boundaries between the artist’s and curator’s roles. NO END’s aim to have an experimental approach towards curating and including experimental art is clearly demonstrated in its curatorial programme, ensuring that there is a balance between the commercial and the experimental.
NO END is a self-funded, independent art space, and thus it is imperative that we curate a programme that allows us to explore our practice while maintaining the sustainability of the space. Therefore, by acting as curator-gallerists we blur the boundaries between emphasising intellectual/cultural capital, as well as emphasising saleability to ensure financial capital to keep the space operating. We also tend to adopt an educational role, which Victor Meyer (2018, see Appendix 5E) regards as
335 Makandal’s artist statement read as follows: “Io Makandal designates, for a moment in time, a space, to playfully texture the surfaces with material as actant. Elements are arranged to jostle up against one another determining a certain interconnected system of matter. The body meets a series of thresholds and made aware of its limit in its physicality. Both body and material amble along metaphysical narratives of one's own making”.
197 an opportunity to inform inexperienced artists about working with a gallery. This entails coaching the artists in terms of professional practice, advising them on reasonable expectations when working with a gallery, and what the gallery may expect when working with artists. The independence of the space, and the autonomy that this independence provides us, allows us to curate the programme in a way that differentiates us from commercial galleries. NO END’s focus is on collaborating with the artists and liberating the arts from the exclusivity that often alienates an audience.
Chapter conclusion
The | Premises, Kalashnikovv, and NO END indicate the increasing tendency for practising curators to enlist infrastructural activism as part of their practice by establishing independent gallery platforms. These independent galleries, I believe, have arisen as a result of a lack of spaces available to under-represented curators and artists. Curators therefore take on the role of ‘curator-gallerist’, implying that they focus on managing both the day-to-day requirements of running a gallery, while also curating the gallery programming. In doing so, curators are liable to reorganise institutional associations and roles. For all three platforms discussed, the curator- gallerist/s undertook responsibility to confront the exclusionary, elitist, and outmoded canons that inhibit artists and curators from experimenting. Lossgott (2017:229) has also acknowledged that “[o]penings at artist-run galleries such as Room, Kalashnikovv, Sosesame, and NO END Contemporary are filled with hopeful 20- something intellectuals and aesthetes, providing opportunities for a generation rising in independence”. The curator-gallerist, therefore, establishes a platform and devises a curatorial programme that tends to critique western, Modern or mainstream tastes as being outmoded, because they reinforce old canons that are alienating for a generation of independent artists working beyond traditional processes.
Cook (2016:11) has previously questioned the feasibility of alternative spaces, arguing that artist-run spaces, most often the experimental ones aligned with exploring critical discourse, are short-lived, their longevity considered “tenuous” as a result of a lack of sufficient resources/funding opportunities and their attempts to sidestep the art market. I suggest in this chapter, however, that a non-commercial approach does not automatically translate to a space being independent and/or
198 alternative. In terms of critically questioning the inclusivity/accessibility of non- commercial galleries, these may still be considered ‘exclusive’, as artists who rely on art sales in order to make a living would not necessarily benefit — particularly in South Africa where funding options are scarce. As a result, independent platforms, such as The | Premises, Kalashnikovv, and NO END, indicate the ability to employ a hybrid approach between the commercial and non-commercial models. This approach does not exclusively emphasise artists who have a ‘saleable’ quality or particular ‘commercial relevance’, but rather, the programme makes a concerted effort to merge commercially relevant exhibitions with those that are more experimental. My argument, furthermore, is that the value of being ‘independent’ or ‘autonomous’ lies not in its geographic location, commercial orientation, or management structure, but rather in its experimental curatorial programme: in its selections, inclusions, exclusions, and intentions. Independent galleries tend to include artists who, through their aesthetic, critically question traditional fine art categories / western art canons. They have arguably set a tone for how curators could work with the South African, and more specifically, Johannesburg, art world in a way that accommodates the developing art community, particularly artists marginalised by white cube discourse.
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CONCLUSION
In early 2019, when I was concluding this study, two well-regarded curators, Bisi Silva and Okwui Enwezor, passed away. Tamar Garb (2019) reminds us of Silva’s impact through her establishment of Àsìkò, an experimental art school/residency programme. She notes how Silva set out to address the “inadequacies of outmoded curricula, often moribund art institutions and the crass, market-orientated gallery environments of many African cities” (Garb 2019). Àsìkò, led by Silva, did this by bringing artists and curators together, to “explore the possibilities of what it means to make/curate art now” (Garb 2019). O’Toole (2019), in his tribute to Enwezor, acknowledges his Johannesburg biennale as a “compass-setting biennale”, and Katherine Hickley (2019) credits Enwezor with inspiring a “global, inclusive view of art history”. Gilane Tawadros (2019), vice-chair at The Stuart Hall Foundation (2019) notes: “Very few people can claim to have significantly changed how people see and understand the world. Okwui Enwezor — curator, art critic, poet and educator — did just that.” Paying tribute through the compilation of multiple dedications made to Enwezor by curators from around the globe, Victoria Valentine (2019) attempts to emphasise the impact Enwezor had on the art and curatorial industry. Reading the countless tributes from art writers, critics, curators and artists, I became even more acutely aware of the potential impact curatorial practice has had, and can have, on the local and global art community — an impact I have attempted to trace and articulate in this study, focusing specifically on Johannesburg.
In this conclusion, I briefly retrace the aim and objectives of this study, and formalise my specific findings. This research involved tracing the shift in curatorial discourse and practice in South Africa from the mid-1980s up to 2007. This period was particularly linked to a number of mega-exhibitions and the associated roles of their curators: Tributaries (1985), curated by Burnett; the two Johannesburg biennales: Africus (1995), curated by Ferguson and Till and Trade Routes (1997), directed by Enwezor; Miscast (1996), curated by Skotnes; and Africa Remix (2007), curated by Njami. I identified these exhibitions as catalysts for growing interest in curatorial practice in South Africa, as they indicated the potential for curatorship to be regarded as a critical tool for engagement in the public domain. Common to all of these curators was that they worked autonomously. I showed how this independence
200 provided a platform for unique conceptions and methodologies for putting the curatorial into practice.
As I am aware that the above curators were not working in a vacuum, and many were deeply influenced by the literature on curatorial discourse and praxis emanating from Euro-America since the 1960s, I considered these discourses and histories to frame my reading of how they unfolded in South Africa. I considered the Euro- American ‘curator-as-creator’ or ‘independent curator’ emerging in the 1990s in particular detail. I did this because Ferguson had mentioned that she had been to Europe to investigate curatorial praxis, and because Enwezor came from the West to curate his first show in (South) Africa, as did Njami. I also pointed out in my study that despite the cultural boycott being in place, western influence was still evident in many practices. However, I did find that South African curatorial practice did not simply ‘import’ western conceptions of curating, employing them locally in unchanged form. I also showed that the reasons for approaching curatorial practice in an independent manner differ from those in Europe and America; I linked this to the need to contend with socio-cultural and political challenges specific to South Africa/Johannesburg. Each of the exhibitions outlined above indicated that, although curatorial strategies were derived from the West, the curatorial methodology and praxis used were adapted in order to respond to, and contribute towards, South African socio-cultural and political circumstances. When these strategies were not modified enough (as with Enwezor’s Trade Routes), or when South African socio- cultural politics resulted in interpretations at odds with what a curator had intended (as with Skotnes’ Miscast), the curatorial practices received widespread criticism. The mega-exhibitions thus serve as examples of how western praxis may need to be adapted for a local audience.
Furthermore, in outlining the brief history of South African curatorial practice, it became evident that major shifts in South African curatorial approach and discourse can be linked to changing political dispensations. This is particularly apparent when tracing the shifts in curatorial approach between Tributaries (1985) and Africa Remix (2007). During this time, South Africa experienced a change in government (from the 1985 state of emergency and boycotts of the NP government during Tributaries, to the transition to the ANC government during Africus, as well as the establishment of
201 the ANC’s post-apartheid government and the various changes in presidency and policy). Thus, I believe local political and socio-cultural events, in conjunction with influences from international and national practices and discourses, unquestionably influenced ways of curating in South Africa. By working in independent roles, curators were able to address, and at times contest, these prevalent socio-cultural or political issues: the most notable being social injustice, concerns around inclusion and exclusion, problematic socio-political legacies, lack of infrastructure, and scarcity of funding and resources for the arts.
By tracing the early shifts in curatorial strategies, I furthermore made explicit the influence that contemporary curators derived from these earlier curatorial instances. The most notable for me was that limitations can be overcome by adopting an independent role free from bureaucratic constraint. I therefore indicated the influential intertexts that curators used (knowingly or unknowingly) that illustrate the dialogue between these early exhibitions and more recent exhibitions offered in Johannesburg, in the remainder of my study.
I firstly discussed the nomadic curator by considering Ntombela’s Modern Fabrics (2008), Ngcobo’s PASS-AGES (2010), Buys’ Time’s Arrow (2010) and Butcher’s If a Tree … (2012). Using these projects as examples, I showed how independent Johannesburg curators have become resourceful in gaining access to space. A lack of consistent access to space often results in stagnating curatorial practice. By working in a nomadic capacity, Johannesburg curators have responded to the former as well as the scarcity of permanent curatorial positions, and the limiting parameters of the institutional/white cube space that are available. The nomadic approach, I have demonstrated, invites the curator to use space to enhance the conceptual framework of the show, and stimulates a dynamic curatorial response in developing new creative solutions that work within these spaces. Autonomous curators also tend to exercise a nomadic approach in order to critique traditional or institutional curatorial paradigms, accelerating the critical quality of curatorial practice in a way that may have been minimised by a curator working in an institutional space. Thus, I demonstrated how the Johannesburg nomadic curator moves between spaces and produces critical arguments beyond the limitations of the western rhetoric of curatorial practice.
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However, I acknowledge here that this nomadism may eventually present its own limitations — such as exhausted opportunities from having to request to curate in galleries/institutions, resulting in the inability to produce regular exhibitions. This may therefore compound the issue that led curators to accept nomadic roles in the first place. Furthermore, in the examples I discussed, I have also argued that nomadic curators tend to use curatorial composition in innovative, site-specific ways — and the implication is that institutionally curated exhibitions might not attempt to do this as well, which is not the case. White cube / institutional exhibitions are not necessarily bound by tradition/institutional ideology, but the extent to which the institutional curator may experiment or challenge these canons would possibly be more limited than with autonomous curators.
By next considering the role of the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator, wherein I discussed Kurgan’s Hotel Yeoville (2008 - 2011) and Floating Reverie, curated by Whitaker (2014 -), I proposed that this strategy indicates a move away from binary constructions of either curator or artist (which always favours a dominant position), and encourages, rather, a constant back-and-forth negotiation between both parties. Therefore, this translates into a tendency for the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator to participate in non-binary, non-oppositional practices, where one is never privileged over the other (and which the strikethrough makes visually clear). I argued that this role tends to neutralise dominance, and indicates sensitivity towards a history of problematic power/authorial positions, of speaking on behalf of another, and of reducing the privilege of an individual voice/history/authority where another’s may be undermined. This, in particular, can be considered a strategy to overcome tensions between western and local conditions (Ose 2013:383), and is important for South Africa, which is still grappling with issues of domination, or speaking on behalf of another. The local articulation of the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator’ role, however, calls to the fore the question of whether artists need curators. It is apparent that curators certainly need artists. Furthermore, in light of this, it is prudent to note that the curator, negotiating with the position of the artist, despite a back-and-forth compromise, may still be considered to be encroaching on the artist’s prerogative, which could still result in concerns regarding authorship. This potentially liberating or fraught role perhaps requires further consideration in a dedicated study.
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Thirdly, I deliberated on group curatorial praxis and the role of the collective/collaborative curator, by discussing
Lastly, I examined the recently emerging role of the curator-gallerist, wherein independent Johannesburg curators are acting as infrastructural activists, and are contesting institutional associations and roles by establishing their own gallery spaces. The curator-gallerist operates simultaneously as both the gallery owner (gallerist) and the curator. The occurrences of this I considered were The Trinity Session’s role in curating the programme for The | Premises (2004 - 2008); Turpin and Dowdle’s role in facilitating Kalashnikovv; and Bakker, Victor Meyer and my role in curating the programme for NO END. I showed that the curatorial planning for these spaces tends to dismantle the hermetic conditions and excluding mechanisms of white cube praxis, a practice which is imported from the West and is not always appropriate for the Johannesburg context. Curators establishing their own experimental platforms provide more regular opportunities for novice artists/curators to practise. I have thus suggested that curator-gallerists curate the programme in a way that is generally more accommodating of the developing art community, particularly artists traditionally marginalised by white cube discourse. However, this
204 finding does not exclude the white cube/institutional space from being able to approach its practice in a similar way, which has indeed become more evident in recent years. The question that remains, however, is whether these independent curator-gallerist formations can be sustained; as I have indicated, they are often short-lived. Malatse (2018:14) discusses what happens when an alternative institution “becomes institutionalised to a point where it is counter productive, and where it starts monopolising the industry or sector, being more concerned with its survival and less on its initial intentions”. In other words, independent spaces may become ‘institutionalised’, less experimental, and more ‘market-related’ in order to sustain themselves, meaning that they eventually take on a form contrary to their original purpose. This is perhaps evident in the three transformations Kalashnikovv underwent; however, as with Kalashnikovv, perhaps this is where the possibility of periphery programming becomes vital. I suggested that it is the responsibility of the ‘new’ institution to run parallel programmes to negotiate the tensions between the alternative and mainstream.
I have suggested in this study that these roles and approaches are characteristic of the autonomous Johannesburg curator. I have argued that autonomous curators have adapted customary curatorial practice, demonstrating that western practices cannot simply be imported, but must be revised for local conditions. By transforming conventional praxis, Johannesburg curators have produced provocative work that challenges socio-cultural and economic circumstances.
Furthermore, I acknowledged that independent curators may take more than one approach at a time: Ngcobo’s practice was both nomadic and collaborative (through the CHR);336 Kurgan’s practice was also collaborative, and both Kurgan and Whitaker use nomadic approaches in their praxis; SPACE SPACE gallery could also be said to take on the methodologies of the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator; The Trinity Session approaches its curatorial practice collectively, as does NO END Contemporary Art Space. Therefore, although I outlined these interventionist roles
336 It is interesting to note that Ngcobo was later involved in establishing Nothing Gets Organised (NGO), along with Sinethemba Twalo and Dineo Sheshee Bopape, an independent platform wherein she would have adopted the role of curator-gallerist. Buys similarly established the independent platform Cloak and Dagger, along with artist Raiford Johnson (both these instances are briefly mentioned in Chapter Five).
205 separately for the sake of contextualising them, independent curators are not limited to adopting only one approach.
At the outset of this study, my main assumption was that there has been a shift in curatorial practice in Johannesburg, and I set out to test this supposition and to outline how this shift has manifested. Made explicit by the early shifts in the mega- exhibitions, I proposed that a further influential change has been evident, particularly in the use of four approaches by Johannesburg contemporary curators, which I referred to as sub-categories of the role of the autonomous curator. To reiterate, these were the nomadic curator, the curator-as-artist/artist-as-curator, the collective/collaborative curator, and the curator-gallerist. Johannesburg curators, I conclude, focus less on traditional categories for exhibiting local works, and more on conceptualising strategies to show the art in a manner that comments on South Africa as a whole. Furthermore, all of the independent examples I discussed directly respond to Johannesburg; whether by acting in reaction to the city itself, or to the city’s specific limitations/circumstances that have bearing on their practice. I have consequently come to the conclusion that independent practitioners in Johannesburg seem to have two-fold intentions: firstly, they work to expand and explore their individual practices (or that of the group involved), and secondly, they work to support other artist/curator’s practices (particularly novice/marginalised artists/curators) by focusing on developing the art community (whether through critical thought or active practice).
Limitations
By focusing on autonomous curatorial practice in Johannesburg from 2007 until 2016, I expounded on the distinctions that seem to make independent curatorial practice, and the role of the curator in Johannesburg, unique. I showed how Johannesburg witnessed an increase in independent practices since 2007, whereby curators have reconceptualised their strategies and roles by working in independent capacities to ensure that their curatorial practice responds to, or navigates, continuing tensions in post-apartheid Johannesburg. Curators have chosen to work autonomously in response to the prevailing limiting conditions of the Johannesburg art scene. I showed how, by working autonomously, curators are able to remain
206 active, and are able to devise solutions either in an attempt to circumvent these circumstances, or to critique and address them. I acknowledge, however, that this study looks only at Johannesburg, and further consideration regarding other locations is required.
It should also be noted that I have substantiated my initial assumptions by looking at these four roles as examples of this curatorial shift, but I acknowledge there may be more roles and further changes in other parts of the country. I thus do not generalise or believe that this study covers all variations of autonomous curating, but rather indicated some of the possibilities that have been taken on by independent curators working in Johannesburg specifically.
I have also considered specific examples that exemplify my assumptions that there has been a major shift in curatorial practice. However, this does not mean that all the exhibitions in Johannesburg display these tendencies. My argument is thus based on specific iterations, and this by no means exemplifies all Johannesburg curatorial practice and curatorial roles; nor does it invalidate the possibility of provocative projects at more mainstream art venues.
Finally, I acknowledge that my study attempted to identify ways in which curators/curatorial praxis challenged socio-cultural and economic circumstances. While some curators may have actively set out to do so, this is not the case for all curators and their projects, but rather constitutes my reading and interpretation of these projects.
Contribution
As this is the first study of its kind, focusing on providing a comprehensive and critical outline of autonomous curatorial roles and strategies in Johannesburg, this research helps to fill the current gaps in literature on independent curatorial practice in South Africa (and abroad). I have thus included a large number of appendices to this study in an attempt to ensure that the information I have collated for the critical development of this study is accessible for further research opportunities.
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Suggestions for further research
As independent curatorial practice in South Africa forms part of a larger national phenomenon, additional research needs to take place beyond the confines of the Johannesburg geographic region. Furthermore, I question what research might yield by doing a similar study focusing on Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontein, Pretoria and/or smaller centres: how would articulations of independent curatorial practice be enacted in these centres? Would independent curators assume similar roles, and if so, how would they differ from that of the Johannesburg curator? Would other roles or sub-categories of independent curatorial practice emerge, due to sensitivity towards the history and location of those geographic spaces, in an attempt to present critical curatorial arguments? I suggest, therefore, that conducting further research, and expanding the focus of this research to include these centres, would build upon the contribution made by this study.
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Time’s Arrow. 2010f. Regimented changes. Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection Blogspot. March 18. [O]. Available: http://timesarrowatjag.blogspot.co.za/2010/03/regimented-changes.html Accessed 8 January 2018.
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Time’s Arrow. 2010g. Curatorial Appraisal: March 24 at 9pm. Time’s Arrow: Live readings of the JAG Collection Blogspot. March 24. [O]. Available: http://timesarrowatjag.blogspot.co.za/2010/03/curatorial-appraisal-march-24-at- 9pm.html Accessed 9 January 2018.
Time’s Arrow. 2010h. Week 5’s changes: Some views. Time’s Arrow: Live Readings of the JAG Collection Blogspot. April 1. [O]. Available: http://timesarrowatjag.blogspot.co.za/2010/04/week-5s-changes-some-views.html Accessed 9 January 2018.
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Vusi Beauchamp — Paradyse of the Damned III. 2018. Facebook. [O]. Available: https://www.facebook.com/events/2150613265194185/ Accessed 16 December 2018.
Walkabout — Ayanda Mabulu & Richardt Strydom. 2018. Facebook. [O]. Available: https://www.facebook.com/events/2107690236175535/ Accessed 16 December 2018.
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We Ouchea: A solo exhibition by Louis de Villiers. 2018. Facebook. [O]. Available: https://www.facebook.com/events/1125210944320638/ Accessed 16 December 2018.
Wellsexuality — Exhibition and performance event. 2018. Facebook. [O]. Available: https://www.facebook.com/events/559998801043154/ Accessed 16 December 2018.
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Workshops
Young Collectors x Kalashnikovv Gallery. 2015. Facebook. [O]. Available: https://www.facebook.com/events/817474958329534/ Accessed 16 December 2018.
Zarobell, J. 2017. Art and the global economy. California: University of California Press.
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