Gandhi's Home Now a Public Museum
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Page 11 17/11/11 01 01bd1711 pcc1 06:06:35 PM 16/11/11 BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN 11 Page 17-Nov-2011 DAY, BUSINESS THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2011 B u s i n ess Day 11 /Arts & Entertainment Style: Dress to protest — aka ‘Dress like the enemy!’ The Business Life ➘ w w w.businessday.co.za/life Gandhi’s home now a public museum Art imitating only Gandhi once said we should be the change we want to see. A French tour operator has taken that to heart, writes Christina Kennedy what is in his head PENNY HAW AST week saw the launch of Satyagraha HEN someone told L House at 15 Pine Road, l aw y e r - t u r n e d - Orchards, Johannesburg. W marketing-man- In keeping with Mohandas turned-artist D av i d Gandhi’s principles, it was a low- Myers that newcomers to the art key, alcohol-free affair where scene “do not get solo vegetarian snacks were served. exhibitions”, the 68-year-old was Not deterred by the lack of determined to prove otherwise. funding from South African Less than two years later, an heritage or government exhibition dedicated to his work agencies, Voyageurs du Monde is scheduled to run at Gallery 88 (VDM), a tour operator and in Paarl until November 27. curator of cultural and heritage Never shy to shake things up, sites around the world, has Myers first wielded a paintbrush invested nearly R20m in at the age of 65 after a purchasing and renovating the prospective marketing client house, once known as The Kraal interrupted a pitch to ask due to its two adjoining thatched whether he painted. He didn’t rondawel-like structures. and, he insisted somewhat The house was built by irritably, “I can’t even draw”. couldn’t be first because the Jewish architect Hermann Myers’s creative input at Freshly category already exists, then Kallenbach in 1908 and he and Squeezed, the marketing agency invent a new category in which Gandhi lived there until the end he ran for two decades, focused you can be first. I realised the of 1909. Back then, it was the primarily on concepts and only category of art I could be only house in the verdant words. But while there were no first in is the one in which I suburb, and in this tranquil obvious grounds for the client’s paint only the ideas in my head environment the two friends H I STO R I C : question, it drew his attention to — there’s no one else in my lived a simple, Spartan Fa b r i c e painting and he headed off to an head that I’m aware of. So I existence, growing their own Dabouineau, left, art shop to buy supplies. determined there and then not fruit and vegetables and Africa manager Initially Myers painted in the to copy anything or anyone.” practising personal, spiritual and of Voyageurs du evenings after work and on Four years after having financial self-discipline. Monde, with weekends. But what began as a bought his first painting Gandhi came to SA in 1893, Didier Bayeye, hobby soon became an supplies, Myers has created a and it was here where his the manager of all-consuming passion. Within a significant collection of philosophy of satyagraha — the Sa tya g ra h a few years, he handed the reins intriguing contemporary and successor to the notion of House. P i c t u re : of the agency over to his son abstract paintings. He calls them passive resistance, and EUGENE GODDARD and began painting full time. “experimental” and, over the translated by Gandhi as “the “I love it,” he says. “I was years, his use of colour and force which is born of truth and guesthouse section to cross- “restore the memory of Gandhi, Indian items — some old, some main argument to come to SA is most of his life, until he was 30 determined, especially initially, technique has become more love or nonviolence” — was born subsidise the museum. It is in and to create a heritage new, some specially made.” to meet the people, as the World or 40, Gandhi was nearly not be influenced by other vibrant and, it seems, braver. as a response to the racial these sparsely decorated but museum that people can visit At most, 40 people at a time Cup proved. But it is difficult to nothing. He was small, not a artists so I deliberately stayed About 35 pieces of his work will discrimination he encountered. comfortable rooms (sans T Vand free; one that is designed to be will be allowed into the museum change perceptions.” good speaker, not very clever or away from galleries and be on show. Having lived here on and off mini-bar) that visitors can maintained by its own economic area: “Even if it’s free, we still Dabouineau says developing a particularly good lawyer — he exhibitions. I didn’t want any Unaffected by the snobbery for years, he left the country in engage in quiet reflection and activity — as in the guest house. want people to live the Satyagraha House has been an could have been regarded as training or official education in that frequently prevails in 1914. Thanks to his human strive for the purity of spirit that The staff and maintenance costs e x p e r i e n c e .” Similarly, it will be illuminating undertaking in invisible. But he became great art because I wanted to paint fine-art circles with regard to rights activism in SA, he was at embodied Gandhi’s teachings. are high and we hope it will impressed on guests who stay in many ways. Once, when staying by his thinking. only what is in my own head decorative work, Myers is keen that time one of the best-known At the launch, Segal said she become profitable enough to one of the seven rooms — after over there, he found himself “Today, Gandhi’s impact, and without external influence.” to blur the boundaries between Indians outside India and hoped Satyagraha House would finance itself.” The enterprise museum hours — that “they are awake and alert at 4am, the light that comes out of his Myers also recalled an old art and decor. Some of his became a key driver of Indian become “a model for a itself is strictly nonprofit. not in a church, and not in their drinking in the tranquillity and legacy, gives us hope that we marketing textbook in which paintings are also lights and he’s independence and a global sustainable heritage project in own home, but right in the feeling “inspired”. can all be better.” the author made the point that even turned a painted storage symbol of peace and tolerance. this city”. Certainly, Every detail in middle. Even though there are “What I’ve learnt on this it is important to be the first in unit into a canvas: “It’s the kind Gandhi spent many years in undertakings such as this and no strict rules, we ask them to project is that there is hope for ■ To view a video of the new your category. of work that Herman Kruger of Johannesburg and his Liliesleaf Farm could be a this project was respect the space and not shout all of us. Nobody’s perfect but if Satyagraha House, go to “The writer argued no one Gallery 88 likes, which is how experiences are documented in template for similar projects in a chosen on purpose, or behave like they’re in a night you think you will never be a w w w . b u s i n e s s d a y. c o . z a / l i f e remembers the second person to the exhibition, called A New historian Eric Itzkin’s excellent city that needs a tourism boost club. There’s no meat, no great person, consider this: for ■ w w w . s a t ya g ra h a h o u s e . c o m climb Everest. He wrote if you Signature, came about.” book, Gandhi’s Johannesburg: and has no shortage of historical from the colour of the alcohol, no cigarettes, except in Birthplace of Satyagraha. riches to plunder. frames to the fabric on a specified area, but the best Gandhi once wrote: “It was Fabrice Dabouineau, who service possible. We want people in Johannesburg that I found my heads the Africa division of the lampshades to feel welcome and at home.” E A DE R most precious friends … that the VDM, relates that two years ago, Although there is no star R L SH O I foundation for the great struggle one of their staff happened to Intriguingly, the company grading due to the absence of F P of passive resistance was laid in see a newspaper article about does not seem particularly mod cons, VDM has invested T E the September of 1906.” The Kraal being for sale. interested in securing outside heavily in training the S X Y C L Itzkin’s meticulous research The tour company, which has funding, be it from the establishment’s staff, headed by E A informs the exhibits in the been operating in SA since 1994, government or private sector, on-site manager Didier Bayeye. L T L house-turned-museum, which bringing out mainly French, fearing the diluting or They have all been on French A E C was revamped with the help of Belgian and Swiss tourists, commercialising of the values courses and are well versed in N E Lauren Segal of Trace Heritage, decided to investigate.