the thinking eye photographs by Neville Dubow

Marilyn Martin & Paul Weinberg the thinking eye photographs by Neville Dubow

Marilyn Martin & Paul Weinberg with contributions by Saul and Jessica Dubow, Christopher Peter, Antonia Bamford and Daniël Geldenhuys Published in conjunction with the exhibition The Thinking Eye – photographs by Neville Dubow Irma Stern Museum 16 May to 27 June 2015

Publisher: Special Collections, University of Cape Town Libraries ISBN 978-0-7992-2520-4

Curators Marilyn Martin and Paul Weinberg

Irma Stern Museum Christopher Peter and Mary van Blommestein

CCA Honours in Curatorship interns Contents Antonia Bamford and Daniël Geldenhuys

Catalogue design Daniël Geldenhuys From the curators Marilyn Martin & Paul Weinberg 6 Proof reading Josephine Higgins ‘Prof’ Dubow, the Museum Director from 1971 to 1998 Printing Christopher Peter 8 Hansa Printers

Copyright © Images: Neville Dubow family Neville Dubow Copyright © Texts: the authors Saul and Jessica Dubow 11 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, Neville Dubow – for the sake of art, education and freedom of expression mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners. Marilyn Martin 16

First published 2015 Neville Dubow – Unframed Photograph on cover Paul Weinberg 27 Harpist 1-4 Paris 1989 Photograph on title page Teach on Landscape intervention Daniël Geldenhuys 30 New York 1975 Photographs on inside back page R. at Paul Forêt contemplating the Future, with all my love on her 60th Birthday. N. The Neville Dubow adventure May 1992 Antonia Bamford 31 Self portrait with sculpture by Duane Hanson New York 1976 Photograph on back cover Self portrait Kolmanskop, Namibia, 1986 .veryone who knew him was deeply shocked The title of the exhibition, ‘The Thinking .and saddened when Neville Dubow passed Eye – photographs by Neville Dubow’, is E.away suddenly in August 2008, only three inspired by an essay – ‘Constructs: Reflections months after opening the exhibition of friend on a Thinking Eye’ – that he wrote for David and colleague, the Portuguese architect Pancho Goldblatt’s book South Africa The Structure of Guedes, at the Iziko South African National Things Then (1988). As Weinberg’s essay in this Gallery (Iziko Sang). catalogue reveals, it is an entirely appropriate In the months and years that followed, Joe title for Dubow’s own approach to photography. Dolby, Hayden Proud, Lesley Hart and Paul Martin and Weinberg worked with Christopher Weinberg assisted Rhona Dubow in organising Peter and Mary van Blommestein on many the extensive archive of Dubow images, papers, aspects of the exhibition. We were joined by reviews, lectures, mobiles and other aspects of enthusiastic Honours in Curatorship interns his academic and creative output. This archive Antonia Bamford and Daniël Geldenhuys, who now resides at the University of Cape Town, assisted in so many ways, including the design of Manuscripts & Archives where Weinberg is the invitation and catalogue. senior curator, visual archives, UCT Libraries. In order to encourage Michaelis student Many of the thousands of slides taken by participation and engagement with Dubow’s Dubow, as photographic works or as tools for work, Josh Ginsburg – assisted by Jared teaching, public lectures and publications, have Ginsburg, Matthew King and Kyle Moreland been scanned. – ran a series of workshops with fourth-year Dubow was the 1992 Standard Bank Guest photography students. This resulted in a Artist and an exhibition of more than 100 publication, and the participating students’ From the curators works, entitled ‘Sequences, Series, Sites 1978- work is shown in a separate space at the ISM. 1992’, was held at the Grahamstown Festival Martin and Weinberg started the curatorial and travelled to art museums throughout South process by making preliminary selections from Marilyn Martin & Paul Weinberg Africa, including the South African National the UCT archive, the Iziko Sang collection Gallery. More than twenty years later, it was and Rhona Dubow’s collection. Generally time to again honour Dubow the photographer, speaking, the exhibition comprises an overview but also to produce a publication that would of Dubow’s photographic oeuvre from 1971- elaborate on his extraordinary contribution as 2001 and includes new images, never before a public intellectual, as well as to institutions exhibited. There is a vast body of colour slides such as the Michaelis School of Fine Art, the that reflects Dubow the traveller with an appetite South African National Gallery (Sang) and the to record and document the places he visited, Irma Stern Museum (ISM). and to absorb what the international art world It has taken many years to see the project to had to offer. Weinberg developed a rolling slide fruition. An appropriate venue and funding show of some of these images for the exhibition. proved to be major challenges. Christopher Display cases contain drawings that reveal other Peter, director of the ISM, embraced the idea. aspects of Dubow’s many talents and activities, In the end, this is the best museum, both for the e.g. architectural drawings from the archive of beauty and intimacy of the exhibition spaces and Revel Fox & Partners, drawings for projects and the fact that Dubow was the founding director mobiles, as well as memorabilia and publications. of the museum. Fritha Langerman, Director Jessica and Saul Dubow, Christopher Peter, of the Michaelis School of Fine Art, included Martin, Weinberg, interns Antonia Bamford and the exhibition in the Honours in Curatorship Daniël Geldenhuys have all made contributions to the catalogue, thereby adding depth and texture to programme, which secured some funding. For the extraordinary legacy of Neville Dubow. this we are enormously grateful.

6 7 Dubow’s singular voice on Stern developed Ah! I recall happy memories of Tuesday into two important publications over and above night openings, finding Prof. in the crowded his involvement with the Museum catalogue lounge, busy with last minute checks on names ‘Prof’ Dubow, the Museum Director published in 1971. and facts for his speech, and Rhona Dubow These included a monograph on Irma Stern, always serene, elegant and, as only she can be, published by Struik in 1974, now a collector’s totally at ease. In the early years especially, this from 1971 to 1998 item, and Paradise, The Journal and Letters (1917- social warmth was a great sense of comfort for 1933) of Irma Stern, edited with a commentary a young curator. Christopher Peter by Neville Dubow in 1991. Fortunately we A few of the early highlights were the celebratory have a healthy stock of this publication at the retrospective-type exhibitions, such as Irma in director, irma stern museum Museum, the sales of which provide a positive Zanzibar, Irma in the Congo and Irma as a flower boost to our revenue. painter (all forming part of the seminal exhibition The latter publication required a greater strategy of the early 80s), and the exhibitions and engagement with the emotional and personal symposium around the authentication of the side of the complex nature of Irma Stern. This Buli stool and the great excitement regarding its .emote Control” defines the style of pulse of her work beats to many exotic publication formed the subject for a video, value. This show caused me great anxiety at the .Directorship which I happily discovered rhythms. But it was to this house that she Irma Stern. The Pursuit of the Other, which can last minute as South African customs would not R.to be the modus operandi when I assumed came back time and time again from her be seen at this exhibition. I remember that it release it, returning as it did, at the last minute my role as Resident Supervisor at the Irma wanderings; and it was to this house that was done in a surprisingly short space of time, from Sotheby’s in London. A kind acquaintance, Stern Museum in 1979. she brought back examples of work from a less than a day! Neville starring faultlessly. I burrowing away in a dusty office, down a long This term is not to be loosely interpreted as great spread of cultures – all of which are think no re-takes were required. There is one corridor in which I was frustratingly pacing up and uncaring, quite the opposite, as, his hand, in a linked to her own work by one overriding amusing reference to Stern “colonading” as down at the Customs office, subsequently released fatherly way, was always on the house and what factor. In all of them is to be seen the opposed to “colonising” that was left in for a one of South Africa’s greatest art treasures by the was happening there. One was quick to discover principle of uncompromising creative bit of a laugh! stroke of a ballpoint pen on an official form. this aspect over our tête-à-tête meetings around vitality. The same principle which was the Another amusing event, and a very happy And then there were some of senior greats, the low round table in his Michaelis office, in hallmark of her own output. This is the one for me, was that my title was changed in Cecil Skotnes, Hym Rabinowitz, Olivia Scholnik another world – in town. The Museum was, in stuff out of which we have endeavoured the early 80’s by historian, Edna Bradlow. In and Alice Goldin. Some of whom have exhibited a poetic sense another place, a leafy one. Town to fashion a Museum. A Museum that will her unofficial capacity as gracious hostess, at several times at the Museum. A groundbreaking was cutting edge. be a home for the creative spirit and not a a dinner celebrating a Charles Bell exhibition show by Sue Williamson on District Six was From the start of my duties it was clear that the mausoleum. at the Museum, commanded her husband Dr another high point. One could go on, and on. Museum should be alive and not a mausoleum, Frank Badlow, then Chair of the Irma Stern It’s quite possible that a publication in and one of the very first things he suggested I He was in every way the perfect candidate Museum committee, to change my title at celebration of these years of abundant harvest do, was flowers! And so a tradition was born. for the position of Founding Director as, once, to Curator (from Supervisor)! would not be a boring one. This would serve Another was to paint the rooms vibrant colours most importantly, he had had a real and This upbeat title, I am grateful to say, was to honour the great artists whom we have been which were chosen aesthetically, and only later, vital engagement with Stern herself during uncontested, and so I remained until Prof ’s privileged to show and who are no longer with happy coincidence proving them to be, in some his many years as a revered, and feared art retirement at the end of 1998. A memorable us. But their spirit and the beauty of their work cases, based on the earlier house! critic. Fortunately, for both of them, they exhibition of the work of Vivienne Koorland are infused into the walls of the Museum. Thematic exhibitions were enthusiastically admired, respected and liked each other. and dinner in Stern’s dining room concluded On the international front, there was the planned, with a perfect division of labour. My The chemistry was right! In the instance of his official duties at the Museum. It was a Irma Stern show at the Kunsthalle in Bielefeld duties were the practical implementation and the Museum which is based on an artist’s life special night. in 1996. Fond memories of this include a long, his, the words, written and spoken. And they work and collection, a home, this aesthetic From 1999, there was a Director-less period long train ride from Düsseldorf to Bielefeld were always of the finest, and a clear central marriage was vital. However he never stinted and then the committee bestowed upon me in the late evening after a day of ‘sneak’ point to the ideas flying around in my head. on his incisive pronouncements on her the honour of this role in the early 2000’s. photography by Dubow, in strictly controlled To lucidly put this into context, his opening strengths and failings, both as an artist and a The decades from the early 80’s to the present galleries and museums where no photographs speech at the handing over ceremony of the personality, in his later writings. day have yielded a crop of hundreds and were allowed. I had to be the “Jack Russell” Irma Stern Museum in 1972, his first official From 1970 Dubow formed part of what hundreds of exhibitions and cultural events and yap at the approach of chilling footsteps, in speech in his official capacity as Director, was described as a ‘user committee’, set up to of a diverse nature. There have been many marble halls, signalling the approach of guards contains the following words: sort out the house from a home to a Museum. highlights, and many hectic and sometimes who were not amused. But, he got the pictures. Sculptor, Bruce Arnott, then Assistant Director anxious hours of preparation. Each exhibition For light relief we went shopping and I Irma Stern found the creative stimulus for of the South African National Gallery, was also with a living artist is like a wedding with all persuaded him to buy an Yves St Laurent silk tie her work in many parts of the world. The closely involved at this point. attendant nerves, and highs and lows. with pears against a custard coloured background.

8 9 I am happy to know that this tie was inherited by Saul. Jokingly I mentioned on this slow and exhausting milk train back to Bielefeld late at night that this was a great achievement, the buying of a St Laurent tie, to which, a sense of humour failure, “Christopher you can’t be serious!” In 1997, this tie came into its own sartorial Neville Dubow splendour when it was worn with a cream linen suit on a very, very, hot February day for the Saul and Jessica Dubow visit of Their Majesties, The King and Queen of Sweden, to the Irma Stern Museum. They were in South Africa on a State visit. Much to my dismay (bloody hell!), Dubow got the Queen, which I thought was my duty, and I got the King (in a grey suit and very put out that they had not entered through the Zanzibar doors!). .n 1971, while on the extended family’s both to the production of art and the teaching Needless to say, for me, in spite of my polka dot .annual holiday at Onrus River, a telegram of art theory and history. He sought to break jacket, it was a very serious experience. We have I.was personally brought round after closing with Michaelis’s history as a tepid provincial a photo in the Museum of this event. Neville hours by the postmistress informing Neville offshoot of British and continental art school remarked that he, in his cream suit, looked like of his elevation to the Chair of Fine Art at traditions, and to transform it into an institution a South American drug dealer! Michaelis, University of Cape Town. Aged where critical thought informed the making of In discussing the visit afterwards, we all only 37 at the time, he was later told by the art. He also sought to expand beyond the fine resolved that a grand plan for the Museum principal, Sir Richard Luyt – whether or not arts to include other forms of visual expression – in the future would be to direct visitors in jest remains unclear – that the post would photography in particular. One consequence of through the Zanzibar doors. Certainly, not have been offered to him had the university the shift away from old style academy traditions it will be the entrance for our celebratory administration been aware how young he was. was the decision to get rid of the plaster copies Neville Dubow exhibition. To the best of our family’s knowledge, Neville of classical sculptures customarily used in The reason for the royal visit to the was not formally interviewed for the job. And his drawing classes. Several of these heads and Museum was largely based on the fact that original appointment as a lecturer was against torsos migrated to family homes in Sea Point we were to host an exhibition of Swedish the wishes of the conservative incumbent chair, and Zeekoevlei where they decayed outdoors in sculpture by Carl Milles, which had been Maurice van Essche. silent, ironic witness, to changing times. orchestrated by the then Director of the Neville’s appointment as Director marked a Following the post-Sharpeville hiatus of the Millesgorten Museum in Stockholm, break with the tradition of appointing practicing 1960s and the evisceration of anti-apartheid Staffan Carlen. The opening of this show in artists to this position. Trained as an architect, activity, the early-1970s saw the ebbing of September 1997 was a memorable evening Neville gravitated into the fine arts as a newspaper Verwoerdian apartheid ideology. There was with Revel Fox giving the opening address. critic with no formal academic background in a guarded renewal of oppositional politics, Finally, but by no means least, was Neville’s the visual arts or in art history. He developed his often led by intellectuals who were disposed to involvement with the UCT Works of Art knowledge of the visual arts while lecturing on test the boundaries of dissent. South Africa’s Committee where he played a major role as design at Michaelis over the intervening decade, delayed ‘1968’ giving rise to a revival of protest an ex officio member, both for the Michaelis benefitting in particular from the guidance of culture and political activism in the form of School of Fine Art and as the Director of Dean Anderson, who played – and looked – the black consciousness ideology, the `Sestiger’ the Irma Stern Museum. part of the éminence grise. A frequent contributor of movement, and student radicalism influenced The celebratory occasion of his 70th articles in the Cape Times and Cape Argus, Neville by new-left activism in Paris and Berkeley. For birthday, 16 September 2003, at the Museum was at his best as an essayist and commentator, the most part, these oppositional traditions on a cold night was a gala night. The hosting as well as a critic in the Michaelis studios. He remained racially and ethnically separate but of this exhibition is the continuance of that was widely admired as a lecturer and had the they were beginning to talk to – and often past happy night and a profound celebration of ability to present conceptual thought in a crisp – one another in civic institutions, the churches, a life lived, in his own words on Stern, on and supple manner. and the academy. At Michaelis, Neville helped the principle of uncompromising creative vitality. Neville’s eclectic intellectual interests and to nurture this quiet renaissance of ‘dangerous’ We thank the Curators for a labour of acuity proved well suited to rebuilding Michaelis thinking. In his newspaper columns on art and great, creative love! as a dynamic and creative institution committed architecture, he challenged aesthetic mediocrity

10 11 and staid conservatism. He felt a particular defence of activists whose satirical drawings in Hayden Proud and served on the Acquisitions art. Neville was undoubtedly attuned to the affinity with his counterpart, Victor Holloway, the student-run newspaper incurred the wrath Committee. He played a major role in creating possibilities of South African art but always art critic at Die Burger. of the university establishment (privately he the Irma Stern Museum in 1971 and took a with the reserve of the critic: he was rarely an It was surely helpful that well-endowed made clear that he thought the cartoons were close interest in its activities through to his enthusiast or booster. As children, we recall universities in the 1970s – liberal and puerile). On several occasions in the 1980s he retirement, as well as producing two books visiting Irma Stern at her house (we remained Afrikaner nationalist – possessed rather more gave firm support to radical staff members devoted to Stern’s art and letters. He was a in the car); his excitement after returning autonomy and resources than was realised who fell foul of the police or who incurred the constant fixture at the UCT annual Summer with archaeologist John Parkington from an at the time. Michaelis’s physical location displeasure of senior deans. School. These activities and initiatives gave expedition to see rock San paintings; or his amongst the oldest university buildings in the Neville’s conceptual and broad historical him great pleasure and were more fulfilling return from trips to Lesotho and Zululand centre of bohemian Cape Town, yet removed awareness led him to draw comparisons than routine university administration. It was where he was much taken by Azaria Mbatha’s from the main campus in Rondebosch, between apartheid and totalitarianism in the opportunity to make a serious intervention lino-cuts and the textiles produced at the Arts meant that it operated somewhat on the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. His in the artistic life of Cape Town that attracted and Craft Centre established by Peder and Ulla margins of university decision-making and inaugural lecture (1971) was entitled ‘Art Neville, never the cocktail party circuit and Gowenius at Rorkes Drift. oversight. Another advantage was its capacity and Freedom’. Drawing largely on European the social hobnobbing. His familiarity with the Yet, Europe and America (much less so to attract some of the most talented and examples, he defended the right of artists to art market and his role in advising public and exhausted, post-imperial Britain) were always original students in the country. Many were work autonomously. But he also insisted that private institutions about their collections did central to Neville’s intellectual and aesthetic instinctively anti-establishment, though not art was a product of society and that freedom not translate into an interest in purchasing art sensibilities. Meeting Philip Johnson was a always in overtly political ways. Michaelis’s carried with it certain obligations, in particular on his own account. This became a running highlight of an extended visit to America in faculty was now enhanced by adventurous to “query the validity of those notions which joke in the family. the mid-1960s; New York, followed by Berlin, new appointments in print-making, sculpture are held unquestionable” and to do so if The quest for authenticity was always Paris and Jerusalem were, above all, his and photography. Neville provided strong necessary in an “abrasive” and “searching’ important to Neville. In a recent tribute – preferred destinations. Meetings with Joseph intellectual leadership but he was also a manner” (Dubow, 1971). one of many by former students – the artist Beuys and Ilya Kabakov were inspiring. relaxed administrator who believed in letting Neville’s championship of the art of political John Kramer (2014) recalls the advice given Neville saw Michaelis as an institution that people get on with what they did best. resistance coexisted with his awareness of the to him by Neville at Michaelis in the mid- was capable of producing work equal to the Neville’s training as an architect – Revel Fox dangers of its institutionalisation. One of our 1960s: “You must look to your own back yard standards of the best international art schools and Jack Barnett and, more distantly Pancho favourite of his mixed-media works from the for inspiration… Stop thinking about what’s and he was justifiably proud of the output Guedes, were friends and mentors – disposed 1980s, The March of the Generals, drew on a happening in London and New York because, of its students. The annual show of student him towards conceptual art, graphic design, performance of the great experimental Polish from this point at the bottom of Africa, you art was one of the few moments when his and photography. David Goldblatt was a much theatre director, Tadeusz Kantor, and a textual don’t understand the forces at play in those public and private lives met; as children were admired associate whose work he championed. fragment from the work of the great poet parts.” Perhaps Kramer’s memory has been enjoined (somewhat reluctantly) to make an Neville was particularly impressed by Goldblatt’s Czeslaw Milosz. Skepticism, for him, was an filtered by his own experience and by more appearance at the opening. Patricia Pierce- photographs of the built environment and act of faith: necessary to the artist’s struggle recent sensibilities that cast indigeneity as the Atkinson, always attentive, made us more he contributed an introductory essay to against the apparatchiks and official taste- ultimate mark of authenticity. Most likely, comfortable at such events. Goldblatt’s South Africa.The Structure of Things makers of any regime. Neville meant that students should build on When Kenneth Clarke’s Civilisation series Then (1998) where he focussed on the treatment As a public intellectual, Neville railed against their own experience without renouncing became available at the public library, Neville of ideological and physical ‘structuring’ in the apartheid censorship and attacks on civil rights. their European intellectual heritage. He and Rhona used to screen episodes for friends photographer’s work. He saw links between the wanton destruction of deplored loose criticism of ‘euro-centricity’, on Sunday evenings; Rhona produced the Modernism and the international avant- District Six and the evisceration of Cape Town’s not least because of this entailed historical cheese-cake and a collection was made – garde were always at the forefront of Neville’s close connection to the harbour as a result of misunderstanding. And he was sceptical, too, seemingly without irony – for two charitable concerns. Complementing this outlook was ‘Solly’ Morris’s raised highway developments of the uncritical celebration of ‘indigenous’ beneficiaries: the post-1966 ‘Save Venice’ flood an ideological and intellectual sensibility along the Cape Town Foreshore. He was an art, some of which he used to dismiss as fund, and Peninsula School Feeding. Europe that abhorred the brutalities, indignities and early advocate of reunifying the city with the ersatz ‘airport’ stuff. and Africa were, for Neville, conjoined more absurdities of apartheid. Neville was neither sea and was for many years closely involved in Other than specialist units, few if any South closely in Cape Town than in any other South a member of the Liberal nor the Progressive an advisory capacity with efforts to reclaim the African academic departments were committed African city. parties, and he was never attracted to waterfront as civic space, though he became advocates of African art and literature until For all that Neville loved historical paradoxes, communism and its fellow travellers, though dismayed by its over-commercialisation. the late-1970s. In 1977 there was only one the idea that South Africa’s cultural elite had his private social milieu included many who Neville’s civic and institutional involvement post dedicated to the study and teaching of some sort of responsibility for the preservation were or had been involved in such networks. also led him to play a significant role as an African Art (Anitra Nettleton at the University of European art treasures was not incongruous. On university committees, he could be a advisor to the South African National Gallery of the Witwatersrand (Wits)) alongside Walter He believed that the best of African and staunch and effective proponent of the liberal over many years where he interacted closely Battiss (another friend) and a handful of others European traditions could be promoted in South right to dissent and protest. He appeared in with director Marilyn Martin and curator showing academic interest in Bushman rock Africa. Interest in such interpenetration led him

12 13 to champion the work of Irma Stern and to he refused to accept the principle, so widely not go out of his way to cultivate artists’ appreciate the contribution of distinctive artists enunciated in the 1980s, that art should be a careers. Uninterested in entrepreneurship or like Cecil Skotnes, Walter Battiss and Pancho ‘weapon of the struggle’. networking, he missed untold opportunities to Guedes. He was also much taken with students During the state of emergency, Neville deal in art or to profit from his extraordinary like Richard Baholo who wittily and tellingly was fully supportive of a student exhibition and cultivated knowledge of the local art scene. transposed European renaissance tropes into a of anti-apartheid work, About Time: Images He much preferred to spend his leisure hours local vernacular. But he was scornful of ‘African of South Africa, which was banned under the at home making mobiles, wooden birds, and art’ that was merely derivative or imitative. He government’s security legislation. He turned a mucking about in boats. despised sentimentality or tokenism. blind eye to the use of the print-making studio Neville approved of art that made political for the production of anti-apartheid posters, statements so long as the medium was not notwithstanding close surveillance from the REFERENCES subordinated to the message. In 1979 he security police. When 19 human dummies Dubow, N. 1971. Art and Freedom [Inaugural presided over a landmark conference held at were dumped in Greenmarket square, Lecture]. University of Cape Town. October 5. Michaelis entitled ‘The State of Art in South following a workshop in the sculpture studio in Africa’. The conference was determinedly protest against the 1985 Uitenhage massacre, Dubow, N. 1979. ‘Art and the Politics of Power’. The anti-apartheid in spirit. Nevertheless, it Neville was pleased to see the matter taken State of Art in South Africa. (University of Cape Town). was overwhelmingly dominated by white up in the papers. Pieter Dirk-Uys sent him a Kramer, J. 2014. The Art of the small town back-yard. participants and took little cognisance of congratulatory letter. Sunday Argus. September 14. the Black Consciousness movement and the At home, Neville was seldom didactic growing imperative to ‘Africanise’ South and did not seek actively to inculcate an African culture. Reading the proceedings today, appreciation of art in his children, though one is struck by a dominant tone of anguished his eclectic aesthetic tastes and sense of visual liberalism, with incipient social radicalism and fun pervaded the house. Even his bodged shadows of black consciousness present in the domestic repair jobs could incorporate found margins. Neville’s own contribution to the objets d’art. Intensely protective of his private conference was titled ‘Art and the politics of space, he never answered the telephone and power’. He dwelt on the paradox that artists only in rare circumstances did he allow office working in totalitarian societies – fascist and politics to intrude. Only very occasionally were communist – were taken seriously and often there gatherings at home that included work regarded as a threat by those in power, whereas colleagues. One exception was the visiting Wits in liberal societies artists were typically treated external art examiner who was offered the same with benign indifference. bottle of sherry or Cinzano year after year. There was a tense moment when, at the Neville’s reluctance to mix work and leisure 1979 conference, he was attacked for the lack may have contributed to a perception that he of African involvement by one of the few black was aloof. He was also shy and, as an only-child, intellectuals present, the poet Sipho Sepamla, he was accustomed to depending on his own who persuaded a section of the audience to emotional resources. During family holidays walk out. The tension was present again at in Onrus, Neville did not seek out local artists the conference party at the Dubow home. and writers like Jan Rabie, Marjorie Wallace, Unprepared for the criticism, and surprised Cecil Higgs or Uys Krige, unless he happened by its force, Neville’s response was that the to meet them on the beach or in the houses conference was merely intended to reflect of mutual friends. Zeekoevlei, the family the state of South African art and that it was weekend retreat, was richly sociable but there the apartheid state, not the convenors, that were few artists or members of the artistic was responsible for the state of South African community present on such occasions. Visitors society. For many participants at the 1979 to Zeekoevlei, like Cecil and Thelma Skotnes event, the attack on white, elite institutions or Hayden Proud and Christopher Peter, were proved deeply troubling and Neville reacted, welcomed more as friends than as colleagues. like many liberals of the time, by retreating He was greatly supportive of his best students to a higher moral position. He saw art as – many of whom have written over the years having a role in anti-apartheid protest, but to attest to his unique influence – yet he did

14 15 society through the trauma of change would be “banal and devoid of real content”, (Dubow, 1973:28-35). even “wrong and potentially harmful” (Dubow, 1990:6). Sachs also spoke of themes such as joy Neville Dubow – for the sake of art, Dubow’s calls to action were not based or love as desirable for art. Dubow concluded: on empty words and rhetoric – he led by education and freedom of expression example. In 1961 he organised an art auction We must all, in our own way continue to for the benefit of the accused in the Treason encourage artists in the new South Africa Trial; he was a member of the ‘Save District to realise that they have the right (if this Marilyn Martin Six’ committee and arranged a series of is what they feel moved to do) to speak of symposia at the Irma Stern Museum on the trees, and love, and joy. Such an art need be curator destruction of District Six; he supported Gavin neither uncritical nor escapist. Jantjes’ attempts to save the Zonnebloem Art Centre from closure when the area was Any art that makes us realise our creative declared ‘whites only’ in 1966. Dubow was potential, reinforces our human dignity, a longstanding executive member of the strengthens our capacity to resist tyranny, .ow does one honour a person, a 1959). He immediately recognised “a talent South African Association of Arts (SAAA), is, in its profoundest sense, political. But it is .visionary and public intellectual who well above the ordinary and a training Western Cape, and he participated, among for our artists to find the appropriate forms H.touched, inspired and influenced so to match” (Dubow, 1959). In his careful many other discussions, in a public meeting to express this; and it is for all of us to resist many people and institutions, and who had analysis of the paintings, drawings and held in June 1983 to oppose the South African the attempts of politicians to dictate to us such a profound impact on the cultural, prints, Dubow identified and articulated all Constitution with its tri-cameral parliament what these should be (Dubow, 1990:6). intellectual and artistic life of Cape Town – and the characteristics that would unfold and and the concomitant division of the arts and far beyond – over a period of five decades? The manifest in Adams’ career. museums into Own and General Affairs. This message is carried through passionately challenge is compounded by the many tributes Many of Dubow’s lectures were published, Entitled ‘Unity in Art/Eenheid in Kuns’, the and consistently in his writing. In a review of the that were published after his passing, as well including his inaugural lecture at the panel included Jan Rabie, Cecil Skotnes and group exhibition Scurvy held at The Castle of Good as the messages from all over the world in the University of Cape Town (UCT), ‘Art and Madeleine van Biljon. Hope in 1995, Dubow took readers back to the memorial booklet that accompanied Neville Freedom’ (1971), in which some of his It follows that he would transform the Michaelis School of Fine Art in the 1980s. The self- Dubow’s service at the Temple Israel in Green abiding interests were clearly stated. For Michaelis School of Fine Art in the 1970s and styled Secret Seven (Wayne Barker, Kevin Brand, Point on 26 August 2008.i the rest of his life he would delve into the convene the milestone event of the decade, Lisa Brice, Barend de Wet, Kate Gottgens, Brett So I shall draw on these tributes, while notion of the avant-garde, the relationship the State of Art in South Africa congress at UCT Murray and Andrew Putter) had all been students focusing on his writing and the areas in between art and the politics of power, art as in July 1979, delivering a paper ‘Art and at Michaelis in the 1980s; it was a time of protest, which I experienced his interests, dedication, propaganda, art of protest, state art, political the Politics of Power’.iv It was the first multi- accomplishments and erudition. art and art as an effective social instrument. disciplinary conference that demanded of when an art school was the one place that Dubow’s contribution to critical writing in He called upon visual artists to engage in a creative individuals that they take cognisance provided a supportive environment to allow newspapers and journals is immense; already manner comparable to that of authors Athol of the problems of the artist and state control. you to line the enemy up in your sights and in the late 1950s he set a standard for art and Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, Ingrid Jonker He was an intensely political being, but not let rip. It is one thing to do that within the architectural reviews in English that has never and the Sestigers.iii Through it all runs an subject to ideology and that which is politically protectiveness of an art school womb. It been surpassed, seldom equalled.ii Anyone unwavering commitment to the complexities, correct and expedient for the moment. For is something else to get out into the world who has done research on South African contradictions and subtleties of which art is Dubow, it was what was right for the moment and continue rocking the boat. Which is art and delved into the superb collection of capable, and to freedom of expression. and for the future. more or less what all of them went on to newspaper clippings held at the Iziko South In a lecture entitled ‘Why Art?’ delivered at Eleven years later he responded to Albie do. Though they share no common style, African National Gallery Art Library will attest the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Sachs’ African National Congress (ANC) a gutsy irreverence linked them then, and to Dubow’s independence and perspicacity. published in de arte, he answered the question in-house paper ‘Preparing Ourselves for continues to do so now (Dubow, 1995). One example will have to suffice. as follows: Freedom’ in an open letter (Dubow, 1990:6).v Writing about Albert Adams’ (1929- The Cultural Desk of the ANC was powerful Entitled ‘Sacred cows and sitting ducks’, Dubow 2006) first one-person exhibition, Dubow Because the artist must continue to ask and worrying proscriptions were emanating pursued the metaphor of enemy and target in his picked out two features that he regarded ‘WHY?’ And beyond asking he must try from the ‘cultural commissars’ as they looked analysis of the works in the context of South Africa as remarkable and rare in first exhibitions: to show HOW. Not necessarily by coming to the future of a country on the brink of before and after 1994, characteristically tempering “the pronounced technical ability to express up with solutions, but by raising levels of democracy. Dubow expressed his admiration the optimism of that time with a caveat: himself fluently in several media, and more consciousness, by expanding dimensions of for Sachs, who was questioning the cultural particularly the tremendous emotional visual, tactile and conceptual experience, imagination of ANC members and suggesting Here we have a group of gifted artists who intensity behind that expression” (Dubow, he must play his unique rôle in leading that art that is only an instrument of struggle were schooled in the 1980s when the enemy

16 17 was clearly identifiable. It hardly needs to of the artist in social protest on the one hand Dubow’s words contain a lesson that young and national, while avoiding being parochial. be spelled out that the situation in the mid- and the interaction between photography, art artists may well heed: They ranged from Jean-Hubert Martin’s 1990s, when even the president, especially the and architecture on the other. Magiciens de la terre (Centre Pompidou, 1989) to president, wears a Springbok rugby cap, has Together with colleagues such as Bruce I think that we should arm and equip ‘Lowered Fists; art in the ‘New’ South Africa’; somewhat changed. Symbols acquire different Arnott, Kevin Atkinson, Dimitri Fanourakis, ourselves with the very best of what is from a review of the success and failure of meanings. What remain of the sacred cows Richard Wake and others, photography, being thought of and what is being made Cape Town’s Foreshore development to French of apartheid South Africa have become performance art and ‘interdisciplinary studies’, in the part of the world that we know. President François Mitterand’s grands projects. instead the Aunt Sallies, or Oom Sarels, now so fashionable, were introduced, making I’ve always believed in a universalism, but We are reminded that Dubow read nicely lined up in the post-colonial shooting the school the most advanced in the country. I don’t think that universalist works of architecture at UCT and was awarded the gallery. Sitting ducks, to mix the metaphor. It goes without saying that students were free art are made if one consciously strives to B.Arch degree with distinction in 1956. He In these terms, then, the Scurvy show may to choose whether to engage in ‘struggle art’ or make a universal statement. I think that went on to work in the office of Maxwell be seen as a kind of celebratory shoot. Fine with their personal experiences and desires. As if you make a statement which arises out Fry and Jane Drew in London (1956-57) and and good. This is a unique moment when Dubow observed in his 1998 speech: of a particular appreciation of the specific subsequently with Revel Fox in Cape Town we can join in the deflation of the cows, sort of situation that one’s own society has (1958-61). The time with Fox is captured in the celebration of the toppling of the icons Students, in these days of relative shades lived through then you do make a universal Dubow’s own words: of past authority. But that does not mean of grey, tend to look into themselves and statement. I believe that those specificities there are not other targets that will demand produce work of a self-reflexive, even have a universal implication and they I can recall with some clarity the interview the attention of socially critical artists in the introverted kind. The themes of exploring will be understood universally (Dubow in for the job. Revel made it clear that there politically correct new South Africa, or that identity and the questioning of identity are Bedford, 1995:35).vii was to be one primary criterion in the the targets are going to remain, as they are central to much of their work. practice: quality. This was to be pursued as now, conveniently static. I have the feeling the Dubow engaged at many levels with shifts a norm, overriding all other considerations. Secret Seven know this, and will keep their But I believe that there are things that remain and changes in South African art, but also The way to achieving this quality was critical vision sharp, their weapons primed, constant within change, and throughout with artists; his interview with Cecil Skotnes, through rigorous design concepts, backed and their powder dry (Dubow, 1995). change. They are perhaps made even more conducted and published at the time of by as many detailed drawings as it took to difficult because of change. And that constant Skotnes’s retrospective exhibition at the South realise them. After my experience of the Scurvy was a creative and curatorial tour de is the need for artists to retain their right African National Gallery (Sang) in 1995, sprawling (though not uncongenial) Fry/ force and the artists, as Dubow predicted, have to be analytical and critical. Their right to in which Dubow reflects on 25 years of the Drew office, this was the kind of compact not disappointed, with Brett Murray in particular question what they feel is wrong. Their right artist’s creative output, bears testimony to this idealism that appealed to me. I accepted taking on the post-apartheid government.vi to examine our conflicted past and their right (Dubow, 1995). Without the required formal the job offer with a sense that this would In his moving opening address on the to express what they feel is central to their training (he studied art and art history privately turn out to be an important formative occasion of the 1998 graduate exhibition concern about the present and the future. under Florence Zerffi and was mentored by experience based on a value system of at Michaelis, which was also his farewell, The challenges are all around. How can the Dean Anderson at Michaelis), he developed uncompromising integrity. I have never Dubow returned to his inaugural address voice of the artist be heard in command of into an art historian and theorist of note: he had cause to believe otherwise (Dubow, and the words: “The artist, faithful to his/her and not as a servant of the electronic media? wrote books on Wolf Kibel and Irma Stern 1998:44). vision of reality becomes the last champion How can the voice of the individual be and monographs on Kevin Atkinson, Katrine of the individual mind and sensibility against sustained against the clatter of conformity of Harries, Helmut Starcke and Herman van In her tribute to Dubow, on behalf of Revel an intrusive society and an officious state.” the consumer society? How can the voice of Nazareth; he contributed to books, catalogues, Fox & Partners, Lorna Hansen wrote: These are timeless sentiments that are as the individual be heard above the insistent encyclopaedias and dictionaries. true and powerful today as they were in 1971 demands of the ideologues, who in changed The depth and breadth of Dubow’s Neville was Revel’s first assistant in this and 1998. For the better part of 40 years form, will always be with us? (Dubow, 1998). interests, knowledge of and engagement with practice, and Revel often said that he of Dubow’s involvement, the School looked art, as well as the interactions between art was a very, very good architect, whose inside and outside of itself – challenging How many recent graduates and students and architecture, are astounding. He wrote contribution to such important works deep-rooted academic principles, the socio- of South African art departments are for the South African Architectural Record in the as the restoration of Meerlust and political context of apartheid and the early engaging with these questions – and many 1960s, taking on subjects such as ‘Sculpture on Rust en Vreugd, new houses such as years of post-apartheid South Africa. He others that stalk the progress of our country Buildings’, ‘Engineers as Architects’ and ‘The Vlaggenmanshuis and the Deanery, and of won numerous bursaries and grants and – today? The shades are no longer so grey, Integration of Art and Architecture’. Decades course the School of Dance at UCT was held professorships in England, Israel and but the broader context of identity, which later, his regular contributions to Leadership considerable…Over the years, the partners America; these, as well as his worldwide was important in the 1990s, has in too many magazine reached different audiences. in this practice have always known that travels, offered new, incisive perspectives cases been narrowed down to narcissistic These articles, often illustrated with his own in any situation, from a detailed design and challenging topics. He was also able to obsessions with own family and history and photographs, revealed a critical eye and mind, issue to the decision to withdraw from the pursue his dual research interests in the role daily life. Navel gazing couched in jargon. and an approach that was both international commission to design the Technikon in

18 19 Major topics of interest and focus for Dubow, and photographic commissions. Dubow brought particularly after his retirement, were Germany, his knowledge, as well as his progressive convictions so-called ‘degenerate art’, and monuments, and political astuteness, to bear on the deliberations memory and memorials. His book, Imaging the of what was, until 1994, essentially a conservative, Unimaginable Holocaust Memory in Art & Architecture, Nationalist Government-appointed board. derived from three series of lectures given under I got to know Dubow when I became the auspices of the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre director of the Sang in 1990. It was time for for Jewish Studies and Research and the Centre change, for assessing the meaning and role for Extra-Mural Studies at UCT, between 1998 of the national art museum in society and for and 2001. In his exploration of the capacity of creating new policies. No board member was the visual languages of art and architecture to better equipped to participate in this process. contain emotionally charged subject matter and, Together with staff members, we wrote an ultimately, to do justice to the calculated genocide acquisition policy that could be applied – of the Holocaust, Dubow travelled to Washington with minor structural changes – when Iziko Design for the UCT School Of Ballet, 1960. Archive Revel Fox & Partners D.C. and Berlin. Museums came into being in 2001. One of the He captured the power and essence of the main most telling testimonies to this role is captured structures, such as Daniel Libeskind’s Berlin Jewish in an interview that board member Jane Taylor District Six, we could rely on Neville to give artists, and was much respected by his peers Museum, in a magnificent series of photographs, and curator Emma Bedford conducted with sound, reasoned and appropriate advice in both disciplines (Arnott, 2008). but less imposing and significant memorials and him in 1995 (Bedford, 1995:27-37). and support (Email communication to monuments did not escape his eye and lens – from Having served the institution at the highest Dubow family, 2008, August 25). Dubow’s membership of national selection the icons of the East German regime (Karl Marx level for 24 years, the interview allowed Dubow panels, advisory boards and juries enabled and Friedrich Engels) to Moses Mendelssohn’s to provide an historical overview of the shifts While Dubow’s departure was a loss to the him to share his convictions and knowledge, tombstone; from the Rosenstrasse sculpture group to the and changes that occurred over a critical architectural profession, his friendship with and to make a difference to civic life and to overturned chair of the Memorial to the Contributions period of his tenure. Dubow articulated a Fox remained close; they would interact in our environment, for example the Victoria of the Jewish Citizens of Berlin in Koppenplatz philosophy for the national art museum that is many different ways and collaborate on major and Alfred Waterfront. David Jack praised him Park; from paving stones in the Bebelplatz that as appropriate today as it was then, embedded projects. I was privileged to serve, together with for the role he played in the Design Review commemorate the infamous book burning on 10 in a socio-political context, with the role of the Dubow, as art consultant to the Cape Town Committee, which steered and reviewed all May 1933 to subtle interventions by artists that artist paramount: International Convention Centre, of which planning and architectural proposals: “He drew speak of absence and presence. Fox was the principal architect. Throughout his on his enthusiasm and broad skills to prepare a Dubow had an enduring interest in museums The artist has to continue to question career Dubow acted as aesthetics consultant to paper outlining the principles that has guided and became an important role player in the control and to challenge perceived a number of architectural firms. the Waterfront’s development from the start and museum world. He applied, albeit unsuccessfully, conventional wisdoms. In fact, I think that His architectural training and practice had significantly contributed to the success, the for the position of director of the South African after the revolution has been won the role would be felt in the Michaelis School of Fine many awards and the international acclaim the National Gallery (Sang) in 1962; he designed the of the artist becomes even more crucially Art, which he joined in 1962, in UCT and far Waterfront enjoys today” (Email communication display units for the William Fehr collection that important than in the pre-revolutionary beyond. Bruce Arnott remembers: to Dubow family, 2008, August 26). was to be housed at Rust and Vreugd, as well as phase. He’s still got to formulate those Countless individuals and groups of all the fittings and lay-out of exhibits for the South very tough and very difficult questions As dean of the Faculty of Fine Art and ages have benefited from the lectures Dubow African Cultural History Museum.viii In his text that are going to somehow stop the ‘fat Architecture, Neville made a notable delivered – with matchless eloquence – far and in this catalogue, Christopher Peter reminds us cats’ in their stride. The period that we impact on intra-faculty dynamics. When wide, but perhaps none more so than attendees of Dubow’s crucial role in the establishment and are going through at the moment is a kind the architects feigned tactical ignorance at the UCT Summer School from 1960 until management of the Irma Stern Museum, of of interregnum. For me the role of the of the existence of the fine arts, Neville the year of his death; in fact he was planning which he was the founding director. Through his artist in this is very crucial and the role of th could be depended upon to bring them to a special course for the 60 anniversary of lectures and publications Dubow brought the work the National Gallery and the role of the their senses. Summer School in 2010. In her tribute at the of this great South African artist to the attention of Acquisitions Committee in allowing artists 2009 event, Ingrid Fiske mourned Dubow’s international academics, museums and collectors. who wish to ask difficult and awkward and Trained as an architect, he had a profound passing and referred to him as “a unique In 1971 he was appointed as the UCT challenging questions and the degree to knowledge of architectural history, theory adult educator. He never patronized or spoke representative on the board of trustees of the Sang. which an Acquisitions Committee offers and practice, which he could also apply down to Summer School students. His courses He was a member of the Acquisitions Committee such artists a venue to confront and to to matters of problem solving in the fine were intellectually rigorous, meticulously from that date, and served as its chairperson and challenge – I see that as being a very key arts. At the best of times he provided an researched and prepared, and delivered with member of the executive from 1980-1995, as well role indeed. In other words, I would like to important link between architects and intensity” (Fiske, 2009). as on selection panels for the institution’s sculpture think that the National Gallery should buy

20 21 work of a kind that might cause a future In his 1998 Curriculum Vitae, Dubow Director to wonder whether that work describes himself as a “creative Artist in the Inter- could still hang when the future Minister of Disciplinary fields of Sculpture, Photography Culture comes to visit the Gallery. I would and Architecture” under the heading Extra-Mural like to think that the answer would be yes Activities; it comes fourth, after “Critic”, “Public (Bedford, 1995: 34). Lecturer” and “Member of National Selection Boards and Juries”. That this was among his most Dubow recounted how he and the significant and enduring activities is confirmed by director Raymund van Niekerk conspired to this exhibition at the Irma Stern Museum, Paul acquire Paul Stopforth’s Interrogators (1979) Weinberg’s reflections on Dubow’s photography in 1988. The work depicts the three security in this catalogue and the many articles and policemen who interrogated Steve Biko and reviews that feature his work. the chair to which Biko was bound. Van His exploration of the relationship of Niekerk gave the work the title, ‘Triptych’, sequential photography to architectural space for the purposes of the board meeting. As and the references to European and American Dubow tells it: photography, painting and sculpture has assured Portrait of an egg-head, 1979 a unique place in South African history of I think that only the Director, Raymund photography for Dubow. His artistic output as van Niekerk and myself really knew photographer was acknowledged when he was what the work was about and what its chosen as the Standard Bank Guest Artist for real provenance was. There was a lot of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in uneasy humming and hawing amongst 1992; the exhibition, entitled ‘Neville Dubow the members of the Board and I got the – Sequences, series, sites. 1971-1992’, toured sense that those members of the Board all the major art museums in South Africa and who were there as State representatives was accompanied by a substantial catalogue. had a kind of an uneasy feeling that they He participated in numerous exhibitions in the had seen these people before and they The Interrogators, 1979, graphite powder on wax on canvas course of his long and fruitful career and he is more or less knew who they might be but Collection Iziko South African National Gallery represented in public and private collections. they were not prepared to say so, and Dubow was awarded many commissions for art there was a general feeling of unease. in public spaces. A memorable urban sculpture project happened in Cape Town as part of the 1968 Nobody was prepared to say an outright The appointment of a new board in 1995 Cape Arts Festival. Organised by Kevin Atkinson, ‘no’; nobody quite knew what the work meant the end of Dubow’s direct participation in was about; nobody was prepared to Dubow and colleagues, Bruce Arnott, Bill Davis, the Sang’s decision-making process, but it did not Lippy Lipshitz, Helmut Starcke and Richard say ‘yes’. In the end that particular mean the end of his involvement and support. Wake populated Greenmarket Square with huge, decision was referred to me and I was In the difficult times encountered pre and post brightly coloured abstract sculptures constructed asked to give a view and I said that yes, 1994, Dubow was there for us individually and by Consani’s Engineering. Students at UCT can I definitely thought the work should be collectively. He was loved, admired and respected enjoy the red steel sculpture, Sunburst, in the Main acquired by the Board because for many by all of us and I am enormously grateful that he Library (1984) and the mural in the Education reasons I found that the technique of could be so much of a part of our work during the Building, but the roof deck sculpture on the former its presentation was rather interesting. last few months of his life. In March 2008 he gave Heerengracht Hotel (c. 1969) was destroyed. I phrased this in a way to allow those a lecture to the Friends of the Gallery entitled Elizabeth Rankin describes it as “a large mobile in steel and aluminium…with pivoting vanes that members of the Board who actually had ‘In the Field of memory: The Berlin Holocaust swung through an arc of 180 degrees” (Rankin their doubts to think that I was simply Memorial’; he and Rhona Dubow kindly loaned referring to the techniques whereby the 1994:21). The gorgeous nine wind vane sculptures a superb watercolour for the exhibition ‘Albert Dubow created for the Two Oceans Aquarium on work was realised. This was partly true, Adams: Journey on a Tightrope’. His collage of the V & A Waterfront in 1995 have disappeared but I was also thinking of the technique 1979, Portrait of an egg-head contemplating the Future, without a trace; we can only remember and enjoy whereby the real title of the work was was used on the invitation for the Pancho Guedes them from photographs. withheld and was submitted under a exhibition, ‘Pancho Guedes – an Alternative I miss Dubow on many fronts. Few are equipped rather more bland title. In the event, the Modernist’ and ‘Works after 25th April 1974’, Sunburst (1989), Photograph: Paul Weinberg to achieve the synthesis of the arts that he did in work was acquired; it went on display which Dubow opened on 22 May with his teaching, writing and practice, and to explore (Bedford, 1995:30). characteristic flair, brilliance and wit. the permeable boundaries and bridges between art

22 23 Mobile, c. 1969, aluminium and steel, height 3000 mm, vanes 9000-15000 mm Wind vane sculptures at the Two Oceans Aquarium and architecture, making real and celebrating the to vandalise and remove public sculptures from Kuper about this work, current events Notes interconnections. Sadly, the disciplines of Fine Art our past. With Madiba gone, we seem to have inevitably surfaced and Goldblatt’s interest in and Architecture at UCT have long since separated, regressed as a society – from the reconciliation of human values and the clarity of his voice and i Proud, H. 2008. Neville’s Notions. Art South their histories and inter-relationships neglected in the early 1990s to confrontation and polarisation, vision shone through: Africa 7(2):80-83. curricula in all our universities. from transformation to destruction. The past is Williamson, S. 2008. Obituary: Neville Dubow. I miss his voice in this time of silence in the blamed for the socio-economic and political ills of Available: http://www.artthrob.co.za/08sept/ I applaud the sudden awareness that lies face of government policies and actions in the the present. Posturing takes the place of entering obituary.html arts and museum sectors, and the serious threats into a dialogue with the past and imaginatively behind this, that statues actually have Arnott, B. 2009. A message from Professor Bruce Arnott. Available: http://www.news.uct.ac.za/ to freedom of expression emanating from official approaching the offending sculptures. The call to significance. They are not simply blocks of stone, granite or whatever…But I am totally print/dailynews/?id=6825 and other sources. When the organizers of the put them in museums reveals a philistine disregard Martin, M. 2008. A wonderful egg-head for art 2013 Joburg Art Fair banned Ayanda Mabulu’s for what our museums stand for and what they opposed to the kind of direct action that and freedom. Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg). 29 painting Yakhal’inkomo – Black Man’s Cry, a powerful have achieved. was taken in Cape Town and now in other August-4 September:15. statement about the Marikana massacre that was In his essay in David Goldblatt’s book, South places. It precludes discussion and I think a regarded as politically sensitive and potentially Africa The Structure of Things Then, Dubow drew democracy is based on the idea that when ii Dubow wrote more than 1,000 reviews in the controversial, the only protest came from David attention to the dual significance of Goldblatt’s you have differences you can talk about it… Cape Times and Cape Argus between 1951- Goldblatt, the featured artist of the Fair. He project, at the same time speaking to our present 1979. His status as an art critic was confirmed by it’s fundamental… That students threw shit his membership of the International Association of removed his photographs in protest, and Mabulu’s and future: over Cecil John Rhodes is a very important work was reinstated. Dubow would be proud of Art Critics. and significant event. The significance lies his good friend and this brave young artist. To make evident the less obvious iii in asking what ­values were they expressing The Sestigers earned their name from the He would be proud of Mike van Graan, evidence of the structure of things that in those actions. Get to grips with those experimental journal started by André Brink and Jonathan Shapiro, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Brett belong to our pre-democratic history is Bartho Smit; it was short-lived (1963 – 1965) but and I think you’re beginning to understand Murray and Stuart Bird, who continue to raise to allow us some understanding of the initiated profound changes in Afrikaans literature some of the forces at work in this country controversial issues through their work, ask challenges that have to be faced in the and in attitudes towards racial tolerance, sexual difficult questions of those in power and twist (Kuper, 2015). freedom and secularisation. The group that became present and future historical moments. knives into wounds. He would admire Matthew known as the Sestigers (the generation of the For the structure of things then is an Blackman who single-handedly took on the Neville Dubow’s voice may be silent, but his sixties) in the 1960s, included Hennie Aucamp, irreducible part of the structure of Chris Barnard, Breyten Breytenbach, Abraham H. Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) in order words of wisdom remain with us, to encourage to cut through the murkiness that surrounded things in a post-apartheid era. These de Vries, Reza de Wet, Ingrid Jonker, Elsa Joubert, and inspire us to keep on interrogating and Etienne Leroux, Jan Rabie, Adam Small and Dolf South Africa’s participation in the 2011 Venice structures are part of our inheritance exposing wrongdoing and ignorance, and to do van Niekerk. Biennale, which included the expenditure of R10 – millstone and cross. They cannot be so fearlessly. With this exhibition we pay tribute million of tax payers’ money. wished away, nor can they be ignored. iv to him – with profound esteem and gratitude These years and the congress are discussed by Sometimes I hear Dubow’s voice when effigy There is much we can learn from them Jessica and Saul Dubow elsewhere in the catalogue. for his contribution to the advancement of art, after effigy of our late president Nelson Mandela, (Dubow, in Goldblatt, 1998:23). one more hideous and inappropriate than the architecture and critical engagement in our v See Sachs’ paper and Dubow’s response in De country and abroad, for his love and friendship Kok, I. & Press, K. 1990. Spring is Rebellious. last, is commissioned and unveiled. And I hear Goldblatt has updated this book with and for an extraordinary life that enriched our Arguments about cultural freedom by Albie Sachs it now, when the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) recent work entitled Structures of Dominion have taken their cue from some UCT students world and our lives in so many ways. and respondents. Cape Town: Buchu Press. and Democracy. In an interview with Jeremy

24 25 vi Murray’s 2012 exhibition, “Hail to the Thief II” would probably have gone unnoticed by the powers Dubow, N. 1995. Landscapes of the Mind. that be had it not been for the posting of The Spear Available: http://cecilskotnes.com/publications/ (2010, acrylic on canvas) on the City Press website. landscapes-of-the-mind/) [4 February 2015]. The artist depicted President Jacob Zuma in a pose reminiscent of Vladimir Lenin, but with his penis Dubow, N. 1998. Constructs: Reflections on a exposed. The African National Congress demanded Thinking Eye, in Goldblatt, D. 1998. South Africa the removal of the painting from the gallery (by The Structure of Things Then. Cape Town: Oxford Neville Dubow – Unframed then, vandalised) and the website, and through University Press. threats, intimidation and public demonstrations, they succeeded. The South Gauteng High Court Dubow, N. 1998. The Early Cape Town Years. In Paul Weinberg ruled against Zuma’s contention that the offices Fox, J. Ed. 1998. Revel Fox Reflections on the making of the president of the ANC and the country had of space. Cape Town: Revel Fox and Partners. curator constitutional rights to dignity and privacy and that the work should be banned. Dubow, N. 1998. Opening/Farewell Address. Cape Town [Lecture]. December 3. vii Artists whom Dubow mentioned in this 1995 interview, which focused on the South African National Dubow, N. 2001. Imaging the Unimaginable Gallery collection, were Kevin Brand, Marlene Dumas, Holocaust Memory in Art & Architecture. Cape Town: “The subversive potential of the pensive to structure and sequence is a constant in his William Kentridge and Vivienne Koorland. Jewish Publications – South Africa, University of Cape photograph – is a concept I value. In the work” (Martin in Dubow, 1992:19). Town. new South Africa there may yet be a rôle Dubow’s collected works are mainly his viii In his Masters dissertation, Marc Barben to play for the thinking photographer” black and white prints. They are drawn from (2015:54) cites Sang board minutes (1962:n.p.) Fiske, I. 2009. Tribute to Professor Neville Dubow. as the source for information regarding Dubow’s In ‘Neville Dubow Husband Father Grandfather Artist (Dubow, 1992:55). different periods in his life, while Director of application for the position. Teacher Friend 1933-2008’. Memorial booklet that the Michaelis School of Fine Art, and centre accompanied Neville Dubow’s service at the Temple .aving trawled through thousands of mostly on his series, sequences and sites (the Israel in Green Point on 26 August 2008: 32-33. .images of the Neville Dubow collection title of a catalogue that celebrated twenty one References .– negatives and slides, in preparation years of his photography in 1992). As they ‘Neville Dubow Husband Father Grandfather Artist H Teacher Friend 1933-2008’. Memorial booklet that for his archive and this exhibition, I can’t are represented in the archive – he was a man Bedford, E. 1995 (Ed). Contemporary South African with any certainty proclaim I have cracked on a mission. Contact sheets with matching Art 1985-1995 from the South African National accompanied Neville Dubow’s service at the Temple Gallery Permanent Collection. Cape Town: South Israel in Green Point on 26 August 2008. the ‘Dubow code’. Still somewhat dizzy from negatives reveal that he had previsualised the African National Gallery. the experience, I can tentatively suggest that I concepts, got his exposure right and was very Kuper, J. 2015. The structures that David Goldblatt have gained some insights into the layers and focused. There is no bracketing of images, or De Kok, I. & Press, K. 1990. Spring is Rebellious. values. Available: http://mg.co.za/article/2015- 04-23-david-goldblatt-structures [2015, April 25]. the complexity of what constitutes his ‘thinking exploration of different angles. He knew what Arguments about cultural freedom by Albie Sachs and eye’ and with hindsight, an evolvement of his he wanted and how to get there. respondents. Cape Town: Buchu Press. Rankin, E. 1994. Images of Metal Post-War work over time. The work is of its time. As an anonymous Dubow, N. 1959. Talent of brilliant potential is Sculptures and Assemblages in South Africa. Photographs in a primal way are in a sense student who experienced Michaelis during shown in first exhibition. The Cape Argus (Cape Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. a diary, a record of one’s experiences, and the 1970’s stated in an interview, “as a school Town). 30 October. a metaphor for how one understands the under Dubow’s leadership, it worked very hard world, albeit consciously or not. In this way to imbibe the contemporary currencies of the Dubow, N. 1971. Art and Freedom [Inaugural Lecture]. University of Cape Town, October 5. Dubow’s archive mirrors what many who art world at the time”. Dubow’s work was were associated with him, already know. A clearly influenced by trends of the period. His Dubow, N. 1973. Why Art? de arte. 14 complex and multi-layered human being with acknowledged influences were “Kertez, Cartier- (September):28-35. an array of skills and talents – an architect Bresson, Brassai, Man Ray; in the field of the by training, an energetic public intellectual sequential image Duane Michaels; and beyond Dubow, N. 1990. Open letter to Albie Sachs. Cape Times (Cape Town). 19 February. who both loved and used photography as all, the enigmatic presence of Duchamp” his primary vehicle for expression. In his (Dubow, 1992:24). The traditional frame of the Dubow, N. 1992. Neville Dubow Sequences Series own words, Dubow was more interested in photograph as it represented time and space, Sites Photographs 1971-1992. Catalogue of the ‘making’ than ‘taking’ photographs. Karin much like the other artistic conventions, was being exhibition that featured Dubow at the Standard Bank Skawran has suggested that “his interest questioned. Conceptual art and installations had National Arts Festival and that toured to the major art museums in South Africa. With contributions by lay primarily in the conceptual possibilities disrupted these formal renditions further. The Dubow, Marilyn Martin and Karin Skawran. of the medium – particularly in the field of social sculpture movement of Joseph Beuys, and sequential imagery” (Skawran in Dubow, the work of Vito Aconcci and others, challenged Dubow, N. 1995. Sacred Cows and Sitting Ducks. 1992:55); Marilyn Martin alluded further: the formal traditions. Process was seemingly as Available: http://www.mg.co.za/article/1995-07- “The progression of time and its relationship important as product. 07-sacred-cows-and-sitting-ducks [2015, February 3].

26 27 Dubow’s Voyeur Series that occur later in his absorb new artwork and trends throughout the image. Here I got the sense of waves of he was able to impart and share with others. career are conversations and intersections with the world. Here the architect, the public art theory, practice and discourse all collapsing He was able, as Marilyn Martin has suggested, international art museums and galleries. He intellectual and the curious observer become into one. Here I got the sense of Dubow, free to inspire us to breach the divide between said about this body of work: one. Many of these journeys (most often from the constraints of the academy, where photography and art. He made us consider accompanied by his wife, Rhona), were the thoughtful intellectual, the maker and the the limited notion that photography equates Art Galleries have been, both for private to evolve into the now famous lectures he taker, easily metamorphosised into a dance to reality. He made us think through, around and professional reasons, my stalking delivered at Michaelis, the University of with reality, caught in the mode of the decisive and past these concepts in his own work and grounds. In these consecrated arenas – Cape Town (UCT) Summer Schools and moment, temporally suspended from the teachings. In hindsight, Neville Dubow would where powerful forces are brought to define publicly. They provided the essential material weight of art history. have had much to contribute to the discourse as Art that which is enclosed within their for contextualizing and interrogating art But while these journeys transport and about ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ and related current walls, and to relegate to Life that which lies history, theory and contemporary practice. captivate one, one arrives at a point where issues on memory and memorialisation in without – is to be found the fictive stuff of Themes included public art, graffiti and later those inevitable, uncomfortable South African South Africa. Dubow was after all a South our times (Dubow, 1992:24). memorialisation and memory. The latter questions appear. Living in the midst of a African and a universalist, who readily became the major focus of his post-apartheid social revolution, Dubow’s lens was elsewhere embraced both notions. He was vehemently an But central to his life’s work before, during work. In Imaging the Unimaginable (2001), and seemingly pointing in places far removed independent thinker, an anti-demagogue who and after his ‘making’ photographs, has been his Dubow returned to his architectural and from the harsh South African realities. Dubow never laid his head down at the shrine of any ‘taking’ images of the ‘street’, or his engagement Jewish roots simultaneously, and explored himself was aware of this contradiction in -ism or ideology. He was ultimately – as I was with the ‘street as art’, as he once described it in depth themes that are particularly his work. “This is not something for which I to discover through excavating his work – an (Dubow, 1989:22). He articulated this approach, topical and relevant to South Africa and believe an apology is necessary. I have always artist and a photographer without borders! further, “as a stage set for visual theatre, as UCT at the time of writing this piece. His felt as much part of the world out there, as a backdrop for unconscious urban drama” journeys took him to sites of the Holocaust, part of Africa, south of the Limpopo” (Dubow, (Dubow, 1992:24). Themes in and around museums, memorials, places and spaces both 1992:24). As others have noted before and in Notes the streets of Paris, New York, Jerusalem and mainstream and off the beaten track, where this catalogue, Dubow’s long history of critical i An installation dedicated to this aspect of Dubow’s elsewhere, to which he was constantly drawn, tragedy and trauma were either remembered and political discourse was channelled through photography was developed into a rolling slide show constitute the core of his life’s work. They are or erased. He skilfully navigated the meeting his writing and not his art or his lens. He was for this exhibition. quizzical, satirical, provocative and somewhat point between architecture and the message. mindful of the role photography played in this anarchist. Dubow’s understanding of the street The thousands of images that Dubow created time. He wrote generously of the documentary photography genre differs from those who are over a period of 40 years are the ones that spoke photographers whose work appeared in a book References most associated with it, for example Henri to me most about the man, his mission and how and exhibition, Beyond the Barricades,(1990) but Dubow, N. 1989. Street as Art. Artworks in Cartier-Bresson, Gary Winogrand, Danny he became lost and found in the chaotic quest expressed no wish to do the same. progress. vol 1 p 22-25 Lyon and Weegee. For Dubow ‘the street’ was for creativity. Here I could see the photographer, And then – like a bolt of lightning – emerged, typically an intellectual, conceptual and ‘proto the public intellectual, the architect and the one can say almost uncharacteristically, the Dubow, N. 1992. Neville Dubow Sequences Series post-modern’ space informed and underpinned curious street photographer in sharp relief. collage, Save Us from the Generals (1991). The Sites Photographs 1971-1992. Catalogue of the by his architectural eye (Martin, 1992:20). As This is the part of him that few people really work is an amalgam of decades of thinking and exhibition that featured Dubow at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival and that toured to the major he once wrote, know or have had the privilege of seeing – this influences. It has David Goldblatt’s now famous art museums in South Africa. With contributions by i is Neville Dubow unplugged. Through these photograph of three men on horseback at a Dubow, Marilyn Martin and Karin Skawran. Shifting patterns of movement in a street thousands of vignettes, it becomes apparent National Party gathering, Dubow’s own image scene can attain unconscious groupings that his gaze was always beyond the frame. His from the play The Artist Must Die by Tadeusz that reach a degree of tautness, of tension, underlying energy exudes the perspicacity of a Kanto, and a quote from the Polish poet, that parallels and at times exceeds anything child and is palpably playful. The photography Czeslaw Milosz. Here Dubow, the conceptual consciously staged. These tensions are, in in an instant becomes a one-man jazz band. artist, became the political commentator. Like photographic terms, expressed in spatial The baseline is architecture but Dubow was the archer he was, he hit the target, and silenced relationships, and relationships between always open to new riffs and improvisations. his critics with a bull’s eye. animate and inanimate forms which He was continuously observing the world Piecing together Neville Dubow’s life work ‘furnish’ the street (Dubow, 1989:22). through a 360-degree prism. His lens was was like being his biographer. I was able to wide, incessantly exploring the sub text of the see parts of the man hidden from his public The lesser known but significantly larger greater environment. His eye was directed to persona – his secrets, vulnerabilities and body of his photographic archive, however, the scenes of the street, performers, musicians, passions. They have only confirmed for me that consists predominantly of his colour slides. graffiti, and the quirky advert that speaks back, Dubow was deeply dedicated to photography It reflects that he was an extensive traveller, the contradictions caught in the sea of stimulus and its craft. Through his extensive travelling, with an insatiable appetite to consume and in and around the obvious central frame of he enriched himself with knowledge, which

28 29 Teach on The Neville Dubow adventure Daniël Geldenhuys Antonia Bamford intern intern

..he late Neville Dubow has introduced As far as educational experiences go, I .mmediately on touchdown, back in the and compelling effect on the exhibition and ..me to a computer programme called find there’s nothing quite as rewarding as an .mother city after spending the Easter break catalogue today? T..Sketch Up, expanded my Photoshop skills, internship. The skills you pick up are ones I.in England, I was whisked away to the Irma In conjunction with this acceleration towards taught me how to navigate a photographic you keep for life, you learn things even when Stern Museum in the rather chic but sleek new curatorial skills, the Dubow adventure has archive both physical and digital, and guided you don’t think you are, and it’s exponentially Volkswagen beetle, driven by one of the most taken me to new places across Cape Town. me through the inner workings of a museum more interesting than writing an academic efficient curators I have got to know, Marilyn A particular highlight was our visit to Rhona space. He’s taught me about the logistics of essay. Every person I have had the pleasure Martin. Although the process behind the Dubow. I came away with such a lift after framing prints and how to assess their quality. to work with on this project has embodied Dubow exhibition started long ago, this was seeing her private collection of works hung in He’s taken me to a ninth-floor apartment, efficiency and grace. Together we’ve moved the beginning of the Neville Dubow adventure the most delightful flat in Sea Point. second-floor architect’s office, and the bowels mountains with relatively little fuss, and it’s for me. This is why I feel so privileged to have One final comment, if I have learnt anything, of UCT Special Collections which is probably all thanks to the expert guidance of curators worked on such an imperative exhibition as apart from the occasional Afrikaans phrases, about three floors beneath the earth. Marilyn Martin and Paul Weinberg. an intern, together with Daniël Geldenhuys. it has to be the advice Weinberg gave us, I never knew Neville Dubow, and until The curators, my fellow intern Antonia During that initial, energetic meeting with “Be rigorous and always come back to base.” recently I didn’t know of him either. I’m not Bamford, and everyone else on the Christopher Peter, Mary Van Blommestein Consequently, in this same manner, we are going to write some sentimental soliloquy acknowledgment page deserve a special and fellow curator Paul Weinberg, we discussed bringing Dubow back to his base at the Irma about how I now know the man behind the salute. It is they who taught me everything the exciting prospects of the exhibition. It was Stern Museum, where he belonged and was camera, but I will say it has been a pleasure I’ve learned working on this exhibition. They from this day, from the intent considerations loved as the Founding Director of the museum. being a part of the team presenting his artistic gave me this experience on Dubow’s behalf - and agreements made over ‘tea’ (not the type legacy. Whoever Dubow was, he had an impact they’re the ones who carried Dubow’s legacy of tea I’m used to) that I knew the following on a great many people at Michaelis and in to this point. Now here it is: on show and two months were going to be such a wonderful the Cape Town art and architecture worlds – ready to start new conversations and spark experience. Take note: compromises were The Thinking Eye is proof. According to Svea fresh ideas. Over to you. made too; the Gin served at the opening event Josephy, a Senior Lecturer in Photography reflects my involvement. at Michaelis, his teaching methods still have Over the last few weeks leading up to an effect on the way Michaelis photography the exhibition, it became apparent what a students are taught today, even though they wonderful photographer, artist, husband and don’t know it. Dubow’s silent legacy is what I friend Neville was to many and to those I have find most admirable. worked with. This fast paced internship has It is important to note how easily the advanced my curatorial skills both technically photographs in this book relate to the work and visually. In the spirit of Dubow, I have of the Michaelis photography class of 2015. attempted to acquire the ‘thinking eye’ when The ideas that run through that group of selecting works. What I found most fascinating budding photographers’ work speaks so well during this process was the question, ‘why out to Dubow’s, you’d think he was one of their of the 500 plus negatives, were some missing?’ peers. Work that transcends time in this way is How do these unintentional actions by Dubow, wonderful to see. made years ago, have such an engaging

30 31 Sequences Series Sites Draped Figures Crossing Draped Figures Rising (Cape Town, 1972), made 1991 (Cape Town, 1972), made 1991 silver print, composite set of 6 images, each 115 x 175 silver print, composite set of 4 images, 110 x 62

34 35 Nude Descending Spiral Staircase (Cape Town, c. 1982), made 1992 silver print, composite set of 8 images, each 155 x 100

36 37 Nude and Bath Déjeuner Variations 2. Reductive Luncheon (Cape Town, 1972), made 1991 (Cape Town, 1978), made 1992 silver print, composite set of 6 images, each 145 x 105 silver print, composite set of 8 images, each 145 x 200

38 39 Eyes of Jerusalem – Oculist Witnesses Men at work (Jerusalem, 1980), made 1991 (Israel, Germany, USA), c.1980, made in c.1992, silver print, composite set of 3 images, 450 x 300 silver print, composite set of 3 images, 450 x 300

40 41 Dome and Tree Variations (Jerusalem, 1980), made in 1981 silver print, 77 x 102 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

Dome and Tree Variations Dome and Tree Variations (Jerusalem, 1980), made in 1981 (Jerusalem, 1980), made in 1981 silver print, 77 x 110 silver print, 75 x 78 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

42 43 Cypress Variations 1 Mosque Cypress Variations 3 Mountain (Jerusalem 1980), made 1991 (Jerusalem 1980), made 1991 silver print, 127 x 64 silver print, 127 x 64 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

44 45 Phone Booths Trusses (New York, 1975), made 1991 (New York, 1975), made 1991 Silver print, 225 x 350 Silver print, 225 x 330

46 47 Seconds, Minutes, Hours Ginsburg & Levy 2 (New York, 1975), made 1992 (New York, 1975), made 1992 silver print, 230 x 320 silver print, 230 x 330

48 49 From the Urban Icons Series Boy (New York, 1975), made 1991 (New York, 1975), made 1991 silver print, composite set of 4 images, 640 x 300 silver print, 315 x 320

50 51 Doorway Children (New York, 1975), made 1991 (New York, 1975), made 1991 silver print, 225 x 310 silver print, 225 x 285

52 53 Playground 1 Woman at Window (New York, 1975), made 1991 (Paris, 1989), made 1990 silver print, 230 x 350 silver print, 450 x 450

54 55 Street, Left Bank 1 Street, Left Bank 2 (Paris, 1989), made 1990 (Paris, 1989), made 1990 silver print, 460 x 460 silver print, 460 x 460 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

56 57 Boy with Kite Lock (Paris, 1989), made 1990 (Paris, 1989), made 1990 silver print, 460 x 460 silver print, 460 x 460 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

58 59 Arch, la Défense Parterre (Paris, 1989), made 1992 (Paris, 1989), made 1992 silver print, 320 x 320 silver print, 270 x 220

60 61 Street of Chains Foyer AT &T Building (Jerusalem, 1976), made 1992 (New York, 1986), made 1992 silver print, 254 x 171 silver print, 254 x 171

62 63 Pyramide, Louvre (Paris, 1989), made 1992 silver print, 254 x 171

64 Portraits Looking at Art Joseph Beuys, artist David Goldblatt, photographer (Kassel, 1977), made 1990 (Johannesburg, 1991), made 1992 silver print, 315 x 225 silver print, 340 x 230

68 69 Rudolph Baranik, painter Max Kozlov, critic (New York, 1977), made 1990 (New York, 1976), made 1992 silver print, 200 x 290 silver print, 200 x 295

70 71 Francine [Scialom]-Greenblatt and Louis [Jansen] van Vuuren, painters Walter Battiss, artist (Cape Town, 1987), made 1992 (Cape Town, 1974), made 1992 silver print, 240 x 350 silver print, composite set of 3 images, 590 x 490 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

72 73 Explaining Art Nine Artists with Helmet (Paris, 1977), made 1992 (Cape Town, 1981) silver print, composite set of 3 images, each 115 x 180 silver print, composite set of multiple images, 450 x 300 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

74 75 Looking at Hanson 1 Looking at Segal (New York, 1975), made 1991 (New York, 1975), made 1991 silver print, 225 x 345 silver print, 215 x 315

76 77 Girl with Pram Boy with Goat (Picasso Museum, Paris 1989), made 1992 (Picasso Museum, Paris 1989), made 1990 silver print, 460 x 460 silver print, 460 x 460 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

78 79 Bourgeois Couple (Picasso Museum, Paris 1989), made 1992 silver print, 460 x 460 Collection Iziko South African National Gallery

80 Memorials and Monuments New York City with Twin Towers View of watch tower with Washington Monument in background (New York, prior to September 2001), made 2015 (Washington, D.C, no date, c. 1998-2001), made 2015 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279

84 85 Daniel Libeskind’s Berlin Jewish Museum Berlin Jewish Museum (Detail of façade cladding, 2001), made 2015 (Detail of emblematic cross structure with wall perforations, 2001), made 2015 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279

86 87 Berlin Jewish Museum Berlin Jewish Museum (Interior view, 2001), made 2015 (Holocaust tower shaft, 2001), made 2015 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 279 x 406 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279

88 89 Berlin Jewish Museum Overturned Chair (Detail of paving and shadow, 2001), made 2015 Memorial to the Contributions of the Jewish Citizens in Berlin digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279 (Koppenplatz Park, 2001), made 2015 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279

90 91 Old Jewish cemetery Detail of Sculpture group (Prague, 1993), made 2015 (Rosenstrasse, Berlin, c. 1998-2001), made 2015 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 279 x 406 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 279 x 406

92 93 Detail of railway track monument with tulips Berlin Jewish Museum (Berlin, 2001), made 2015 (Detail of Void of Memory: Menashe Kadishman’s Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves), digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 279 x 406 10,000 iron faces, 2001), made 2015 Digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 279 x 406

94 95 Statue, female worker Fallen Icon of the East (Judengasse, Berlin, 1993), made 2015 (Berlin, 1993), made 2015 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 406 x 279 digital print on archival cotton rag paper, 279 x 406

96 97 March of the Generals 3 – ‘Save us from the Generals’, 1991, With acknowledgement to David Goldblatt silver print, mixed media, 780 x 400

98 Acknowledgements

The curators gratefully acknowledge the interest, involvement and support of the following institutions and individuals:

The exhibition was supported by the Centre for Curating the Archive and formed part of projects of the Honours in Curatorship Programme offered at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town (UCT)

Special Collections, UCT Libraries

Rhona Dubow and the Dubow children Jessica, Saul and Gideon Fritha Langerman, director of the Michaelis School of Fine Art, UCT Christopher Peter, Mary van Blommestein and Lucinda Cullum, Irma Stern Museum Honours in Curatorship interns Antonia Bamford and Daniël Geldenhuys Lorna Hansen and Karen Brodie, Revel Fox & Partners Riason Naidoo, Iziko Museums of South Africa Andrea Lewis, Iziko Museums of South Africa Carol Kauffman and Nkosinathi Gumede, Iziko Museums of South Africa Svea Josephy and Jean Brundrit, Michaelis School of Fine Art Andrew Lamprecht, Michaelis School of Fine Art Josh and Jared Ginsburg, Matthew King, Kyle Moreland Josephine Higgins, Centre for Curating the Archive, UCT Milton Shain, Kaplan Centre, UCT Elshadi Picture Framers Solvej Vorster and colleagues, Hiddingh Hall Library, UCT Shaheeda Dante, Art Collections Library, Iziko Museums of South Africa

Image, p. 24: Mobile, c. 1969, aluminium and steel, height 3000 mm, vanes 9000-15000 mm Rankin, 1994:20

Sizes in millimeters, height before width Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs are from the Neville Dubow archive held at Special Collections, UCT Libraries

100