Labels: andrew lamprecht, Blank, Cape Town Biennale, jonathan garnham

Labels: Cape Town Biennale, Lizza

The Biennale is being taken forward step by step with unfailing precision. Really, we are so lucky to have a Biennale and nothing is going wrong. It only gets better. Well done South Africa, I didn't believe we could ever pull off something like this.

The second part of the Biennale, which opened on Wednesday, was curated by Cathy Coates and featured the international artists on the show. Really, in terms of controversy, we have buried Venice. This is because, instead of trying to police the perimeter of art, and exlude African artists who don't have the money for a posh art education, we opened the floodgates wide and let them in. As a result we got what the Venetians are too afraid to face: a show that looks like the artists haven't had an art education.

Which raises some thorny and fascinating questions. Does having an art education make you a better artist? Who can afford one and why? What do you call someone who is trying to make art but who doesn't have an art education? What is art? All these questions become especially fascinating given the opening of the Biennale, which featured a philosopher who is considered an affront to white middle class values, and white middle class people tend to be the ones who can afford an art education. So all in all this show, which was organised by white people with an art education, is a brilliant statement about what is going on with art in South Africa.

I don't think it makes the art which was on the show brilliant though. A lot of it was really really bad. It made me think about the organisation, “Voyage Ensemble”, that many of these artists come from, and whether that organisation is serving their artists. I don't know whether they have any funding, but I think if they did it would be an extremely good idea to spend some of it on helping these artists develop their ideas beyond first base. A lot of the stuff seems to have found its inspiration somewhere between cliched 1970's modernism and touristy/hippyish levels of ideas. I think this is a waste, as it is likely that these artists are very intelligent people and it is a waste for them to be working from an impoverished base of ideas and discussion.

I tend to fantasise, though very ineffectually, about making a difference to this kind of thing, but guess what, where would one get the funding. In order to try to address the problem without funding, like this Biennale has done, I've even written an essay outlining the entire history of Western art since the Greeks in only seven pages so it's cheap to photocopy! I'm so proud of it. But it will not go very far all alone. A lot of talk happened around the time of Cape '07 about free art education. My view is, if people can't access databases of knowledge, then you can workshop till you're blue in the face and it will only do so much. We need an art Wikipedia and libraries. The Minister of Culture likes libraries, I'm just not to sure if he wants art books in them or when he will put them there.

But I had this great idea. Don't you think we should ask Ronald Suresh Roberts to explain all about art to Thabo, and then maybe he will spend some of the government's unspent reserves of cash on this thing? C'mon Ronald! Give it a go! Tell him art could be a great source of national pride, and if there was some money around it wouldn't be being made by an overwhelming majority of white people!

But then I got depressed, realising that this is a very long shot and not exactly the kind of idea you can bank on. But then I perked up again. I thought, Hey! Charles Saatchi might be reading this!

Labels: Cape Town Biennale, Lizza, Voyage Ensemble

Thanks to Lizza, for this fine review:

It's Biennale time again, and on this occasion the opening speech was a performance by Ronald Suresh Roberts of the speech he delivered at the launch of his book. His performance addressed the media war between the Press and the Party, in which Roberts sides with the Party. However, this performance was dwarfed by the scale of the current war in the actual media, which has reached new levels of ferocity over recent developments in the long story of the Minister of Health. All of which lent a perfect level of ineffectuality to the Biennale project. A highlight was Roberts's talent for repartee, which was put to the test by a veritable orchestra of cell phone rings going off in the vast arsenale of Blank Projects.

As we know from reading about fifty reviews on Venice in the last month, Biennale's are bound to have their celebrity moments, and this one was no exception. Besides Roberts himself, and the illustrious Mr Lamprecht who kindly stood in for Thabo Mbeki, I was amazed to see globetrotting critic Bianca Baldi looking quite well. Then celebrity chauffeur Sue Williamson cruised up to the gallery door to whisk away the artist previously known as Hairy. Almost everyone else who was there was famous in their own way. Even Max Wolpe was there.

Thanks to the organisers' sensitivity to the observance of Ramaddan in the Bo Kaap, nothing stronger than apple juice flowed, and consequently the crowd disappeared as soon as they could, leaving lots of apple juice for next time.


Check back later today, for a review of SMAC's latest offering, and the vicious bus ride of hell.

Labels: Blank, Cape Town Biennale

The 2nd Cape Town Biennale will be officially opened by Native intellectual and writer Ronald Suresh-Roberts at 6 p.m. at blank projects tonight.

After the enormously successful 1st Cape Town Biennale in 2006, curated by Kathy Coates, Executive Director Andrew Lamprecht decided to make the biennale an annual event in recognition of Cape Town's reputation as a city that moves twice as fast as the rest of the world. This year's biennale will consist of three consecutive "one night" exhibitions, curated by Lamprecht and Coates.

The opening exhibition, on Friday 14 September, will consist of a tribute to Suresh-Roberts's groundbreaking study of Thabo Mbeki, Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki, published earlier this year. This will be followed by an exhibition of invited international artists on Wednesday , 19 September, curated by Kathy Coates. On 26 September Andrew Lamprecht will curate an exhibition of local artists. All these events will open at 6 p.m.

In response to queries about the choice of the opening speaker and event, Lamprecht commented, "Thabo Mbeki embodies an ideal of intellectual leadership that should stand as a model for the world. Suresh Roberts has highlighted his unique approach to the problems of our times which as a Native curator I find attractive and thought-provoking. I have no interest in 'illiberal' approaches to art-making and the control of the South African art market. This biennale highlights a truly locally-grounded approach to art within an international context."

The biennale runs until 28 September.

Labels: andrew lamprecht, Cape Town Biennale, listings, Ronald Suresh-Roberts