I recently chatted to Riason Naidoo about himself and his vision for the national gallery.

Robert Sloon: The most significant things I could find in your career to date was the Indian in Drum project and the Timbuktu project. Maybe we could start off with you telling me a bit about the Indian in Drum.

Riason Naidoo: That was a huge project. It came out of growing up and hearing these stories from my parents about their lives, and not really seeing any evidence of this life. Growing up in Durban in the Indian community, their lives involved ballroom dancing and soccer clubs. My dad grew up in Victoria Street and had close encounters with gangs. And they had these Chevrolet Impalas, these huge American cars. It all sounded quite glamorous and quite exciting. All this stuff was happening beneath the surface, but nobody had ever looked into it, or written about it. So, one day I was reading an original copy of Drum magazine, and I was amazed to see that at least half of the magazine spoke of the Indian community. Then I started looking at all the magazine in the 50’s. Then I went into Bailey’s archives, the Drum archives. And I went through half a million negatives, totally uncatalogued and most of them unidentified. All the stories I had heard about, they were real. They had names, they were written about in black and white. There were photographs. It was just the most amazing discovery. I think this project was important for many reasons: It was personal for me, but it also spoke about this broader community and underworld community. Gangsters, brothels even, football clubs. The first four South African Indian football clubs formed a league in 1886. That’s huge! And boxing was huge, there was a whole line of Indian boxers in the 19th century. It speaks about issues of masculinity, which one doesn’t really associate with the Indian in this country. This was happening side by side with Ghandi’s presence in South Africa and this idea of the passive Indian.

So the project challenges that, and South African perceptions of the Indian. It challenges the dominant portrayal of Drum being centered on Sophiatown. But lastly, it acknowledges the writers and photographers of Durban that played a huge role of bringing these stories to an international readership. These photographers and writers have been often neglected. So I think it is important for all of those reasons.

RS: And then you moved onto the Mali project.

RN: No, at the same time. I did my Masters at the same time too. Basically I was working on the Timbuktu project from 2003 when it was launched, up till when it was inaugurated in January 2009, when the museum was inaugurated. It was a whole presidential thing. But during that time, I also curated this exhibition on Ranjith Kally. It was his first solo show and it was held at Goodman in Joburg in 2004. Then I put together a further 5 or 6 exhibitions on him. Durban Art Gallery, African Photo Biennale in Bamako, where he was given a lifetime achievement award. And it traveled to the big museums in Spain, Austria and France. So I did all of this while doing the Timbuktu project.

RS: You keep yourself busy!

RN: I was busy.

RS: It seems there is a theme, it seems you enjoy bringing up untold history.

RN: Nobody has made that link before, but absolutely. Ranjith Kally, The Indian in Drum, the Mali Project, it was about challenging preconceived idea about these communities, about these histories in Africa. Traveling in Mali is a totally different perception as how people perceive Africa. Even from South Africa. It probably is like the safest place to travel. In Mali, you can walk back from concerts, in Bamako, at 3 or 4 in the morning. Everybody does it. That tells you how Africa is portrayed and what the real story is. All of these projects have that in common. It digs deeper, it looks beneath the surface and brings to the fore these hidden histories.

RS: Do you think that is something you’d take forward working at the Iziko South African National Gallery?

RN: I hope so. I think there are a lot of voices that should have been heard, artists and photographers like Kally that still need to be acknowledged. And I’m thinking especially in photography and especially in Cape Town. People like George Hallet has produced amazing work that is traveling the world, but has never been shown at home. And there are many other people like that, and I think it is our responsibility to show these artists. Here. So that we recognize them first in our country. Rather than these exhibitions traveling internationally and only then do we take notice of them. What that says is we only recognize things if they are seen abroad first.

RS: Reflecting international trends.

RN: So where is our own leadership in acknowledging our own histories and our own talent before they are recognized abroad.

RS: What do you think you see the role of the Iziko South African National Gallery as a cultural institution, besides from recognizing these unheard talents and voices?

RN: We have to be the National Gallery. We can’t be a provincial gallery. We have to behave and act like our name suggests. We need to tap into the national intellect. So that it is not so Cape Town focused. Ideally, I would be looking at bringing on board people from other parts of the country, for example. Leading black artists, academics and curators need to have a voice in determining the direction in which proceed. At the moment, we are five white curators and myself. Is that representative of South Africa? Do we get the views that we want to get? Express this diversity that we have available in this country. I think that in that respect, we have a lot of work to do. Of course there are budgets involved. In the future we can budget for this. But this might take a few months before we can do that. But that is the direction that I’d like to go. And that will also influence the direction that we take. I’m not really of the opinion “This is my vision, and this is where we are going”. Of course, to a certain degree on a day-to-day basis that is part of my responsibility. But I would like to have people input into this National Gallery. So that it is a collective vision.

RS: Do you think there are vast gaps in the collection as well?

RN: I think definitely for contemporary art. Because of the prices.

RS: Do you think contemporary art is overpriced?

RN: The prices…(laughs)… are more in line with European and American art prices. So that is a huge challenge for us. How do we still acquire the best works? Before it goes into private, corporate or foreign collections. Now there is a huge demand from foreigners for South African art.

RS: Is there hope for the acquisitions budget to grow?

RN: I think we have to look at partnerships with corporate, with government. So that we try and secure some of the important works. So that they are in the country. In the Iziko collection.

RS: Do you think that is one of the main functions of the National Gallery, to build the collection or are the shows important too. Do you need to own the works?

RN: Both. For example there is the show 1930’s to 1950’s currently on at SANG. We’re seen by many people working in the field as having a huge resource on which to draw on. There is a wealth there. An artistic wealth from the past. Of course there have also been gaps. One of the ways to work with the contemporary stuff is to loan works. But I think it is important for the heritage of the country that there is place where these works are collected and stored for future reference. Art is often seen as a reflection of society. 20 years from now people will be looking back as to how artists were responding to the country at this time.

RS: Do you think the National Gallery is appealing to the right audience? Is the audience growing?

RN: I think we have an existing audience. But we have a lot of work to do. In terms of who we need to appeal to. Of course we want to keep our existing audience, but we want to build on that. I worked as an educational office in the Durban Art Gallery after graduating, one of my first jobs. I worked for three years there, so I have hands on experience in terms of education. And in my own background, in my family, art is… you know… I come out of the blue, studying art. The first time my parents went into an art gallery was when I was working there and when I had my first solo exhibition. I come from places where visiting an art gallery is not high on the list of priorities. So I understand what it takes to bring people in – I understand what the realities are on the other side. Of course our entrance fee of R15 hasn’t helped the situation.

RS: Is that necessary for income?

RN: We are debating it. I feel very strongly about it.
But also, in terms of the exhibitions we show, that is one way to make people aware of what we do. I’m just thinking of Peter Clarke. It would be a huge boost for us to bring in Malay and Coloured communities into the gallery. These are ways in which we can start to be more of a centre point in the city. The great thing is we have a wonderful building. We’re ideally located in the gardens. It ‘s a friendly kind of space. People can walk around with their kids. But we need to break down this idea that the National Gallery is an elite institution for the elite. That’s not our mandate. We don’t just serve a certain constituency. We are meant to serve the nation.

RS: Earlier you mentioned you had a solo exhibition. Are you a practicing artist as well?

RN: Well, yes when I get a chance, when I can find some time. Most of my energy in the last five years has gone into curating. The solo exhibition was a long time ago. It was paintings, and it was kind of related to where I grew up, and articulating issues around a South African Indian identity. There are works in the collection of The Durban Art Gallery, the Pretoria Art Museum, University of KZN, and a few other smaller collections.

RS: What lead you from that to being an almost exclusive curator?

RN: The work I have done as a curator; I have been quite driven. It doesn’t really, focus, nor the art that I did, directly on me. It was about reflecting on a community. About thinking about this community, and it its place in South Africa. The shift to curating came out of a passion. I mean Ranjith Kally has been around for 60 years as a photographer and nobody even took notice of him before I did that show. I saw this as a kind of injustice. My work has been kind of activist in giving this prominence, bringing it to a national level. It also challenges people’s perceptions of how we have been defined under apartheid. And many of those perceptions are still going strong.

RS: It seems that the National Gallery has taken a while to transform itself. It has taken 15 years since democracy and it is still an almost all white institution. Do these types of institutions change very slowly generally?

RN: I think they tend to. This has both a positive and negative effects. For instance on the one hand job security has given SANG stability and continuity. On the other hand it hasn’t allowed for new people and fresh ideas to come in.

RS: Do you think there has been a bit of a brain drain of young black curators, Gabi Ncgobo comes to mind. They get snapped up by other institutions who perhaps have stronger financial rewards.

RN: As I understand her situation, Gabi received a scholarship…

RS: A natural progression…

RN: Possibly, but we have to ask ourselves whether we are creating a space for people to be comfortable in the National Gallery. The turnover of black assistant curators has been quite high. That raises questions of whether the National Gallery is a space where black people can be comfortable. I don’t know, I’m raising some questions, I don’t know why people left, and there are different reasons in each case, I’m sure. Sometimes these were personal challenges I’m told. But I think one way in which we can get black voices in, as I suggested, is to identify people around the country and say, “Hey, listen, lets make it our National Gallery.” We’re a state institution; everyone should get a say.

I would like to see the Iziko South African National Gallery being a centre, not only of artistic expression on our walls, but also to be more broadly a cultural and intellectual space.