by Linda Stupart

Simon Njami is wearing his sunglasses inside a corner of one of the rooms of his black walled makeshift gallery. Scowling, and clad in minimal-vamp Modernist uniform, he camouflages well. It’s Friday midday and Njami is supervising the hanging of some paintings that are still not up on the walls. Next-door is an unopened box, a nice installation in the corner. A few hours later some more work has arrived and The Curator is doing a walkabout. I attend; eagerly awaiting some insight, though receive rather a sexy quiet drawl naming each artist and some vague facts about them.
Hard as it is to look past the curator’s rock star persona, As You Like It is a vital part of the Joburg Art Fair. Both a part of the bright lights, rank commerciality and slick consumability of the Art Fair and also enclosed in is own high-walled darkness, the mere fact of a curated show of African art intersecting a South African art fair is worth considerable thought. How does the notion of space function in this makeshift gallery within an exhibition hall in a conference centre? Perhaps the answer is mirrored in the place that South African artmaking situates itself within an African discourse, or maybe looks at the notions of how contemporary African production has been viewed by the ‘centre’ powers for centuries. Dark, and easy to bypass.
My favourite piece on the show was Bili Bidjocka’s video and print piece of the same series, The Jetlag Experiment – 24 Hours Watching the Mount Sainte Victore. The video shows, real time, 24 hours (presumably) of footage of this monolith that is such a popular icon of Provence and famous subject of the post-Impressionist, Cezanne. The projected image has a magical, hazy quality to it; appearing as if on a surface of glitter. On closer inspection, however, the screen is covered in white beads, lending the picture plane physical and cultural dimensionality. The printed images too use beads, here as a framing device, though in the harsh gallery light the beads seem clumsy and unnecessary, losing the subtlety that lends itself to that moment of discovery in the video piece and also taking away from the power of the images themselves.
Zen Marie’s video piece, Pakistanis Do Not Understand Simple Instructions was, in Marie’s usual style, simultaneously funny and disquieting. The piece shows footage from outside of Lords Cricket Grounds, the grounds’ colonial frieze forming the backdrop for everyday human interactions. Meanwhile, a voice seems to be discussing a close England Pakistan cricket match, including the sentence from which the work takes its title.
Another piece I enjoyed was Michéle Magema’s Overseas Stories – Mary and Bruck a Successful Integration Series. This installation shows a series of over-exposed almost identical posed wedding photographs. Bruck’s pale face is almost erased leaving a Cheshire Cat grin floating in the more demure and circumspect faces of his new black family.
These pieces were all successful for me because they manage to explore notions of identity, race and place with a wry humour that keeps their statements fresh and interesting. There was also a lot of other strong work on the show: particularly the beautiful, weighty photographs of Emeka Okereke and David Damoison. I found these pieces very hard to digest though, as the prints were stuck, unframed, on the badly painted black walls of a makeshift gallery within the context an art fair, where no one expects to really have to think hard about anything. Although this removal into ‘serious’ art would be welcomed in this context, I feel the illusion was just not convincing enough – the show lacking in a slickness and curatorial punch that one would expect from the organisers, Njami and the artists on board.
By the end of Friday, the ‘A’ of the show’s title had been removed from the outside wall, an installation has a piece of paper on the floor telling us installation will be complete by 9pm and He is still wearing his sunglasses.

Labels: As You Like It, Joburg art fair, Linda Stupart, Simon Njami

It seems seldom these days to see art curation being taken seriously. Either these days it's corporate collections or corporate competitions, with the odd gallery here and there having a professional curator. I can't say I am surprised much... it's a thankless task. If you want to curate independently there's no money. No commission. A labour of love, until galleries see the need to hire people, even on a freelance basis. This explains why it's been a frigging age since I saw a decent contemporary group show, with some simmer of intellect above 'Summer 07' or 'Recent Aquisitions'. If we look to Europe, the contemporary curator is treated like a small god, we recognise their names, on par with contemporary artists. Curators are a vital aspect of art, the people that help the viewer see, the people who pick out intellectual trends and remix it for our consumption.

This brings me to mention Linda Stupart, a friend of mine who has begun this year to hold free workshops for young curators, at the Centre for African Studies at UCT. I believe it has been going well, and I hope it has lit a spark in some people.

Which brings me to Linda's latest venture, a curation of UCT's permanent collection of art. It was interesting, as this show seemed to be exclusively about curating, and the joy of it. Instead of a lot of curating which I have seen recently, for example Africa Remix, where the work is placed in a way that accentuates the individual, this show more looked at the narratives, relationships and links between the works. Obviously this wasn't the point in a show like Africa Remix which had different intentions entirely, but I still find seeing a strong curatorial hand to be a delight. The work itself wasn't extraordinary, but it gave you an insight into the trends of UCT's collection policies, something which was surprisingly interesting.

Labels: curating, Linda Stupart, Uct