It's been a quiet week here at the ArtHeat offices, and I'll be the first to admit I have been preoccupied with other things like earning a living and feeling sorry for myself. As a good friend of mine said to me this week, "What's up Robert? Your site looks like an advertising brochure." My shame overwhelms me, and I struggle to look myself in the eye. Thanks, then to Lizza, who has saved this week from being a complete write off, by sending me this great review of the SABC show:

This exhibition didn't feel like propaganda at all, but the word rhymes so nicely with Luanda and in the murky world of sleaze journalism (which I of course inhabit) such arbitrary connections are made all the time with utter disregard for the consequences. According to my rhyming dictionary, I could just as well have used candour, pander, Rwanda, backhander, philander or the juicy gerrymander.

But then a good thing about 'propaganda' is that this exhibition showcases a selection of works from the SABC art collection'. Which enables me to engage with yet another honoured tradition: that of bandying about vague threats and accusations in the name of art. This is one of my personal favourites, as it is bound to give even the most forgettable work the air of activist urgency.

Much more fascinating to me than any concerns that the SABC may disseminate propaganda is the fact that they have an art collection at all. And a good one, too. Such a well kept secret, for a public broadcaster. Why have they never told the producers of Carte Blanche?
Even the title of their show, “Making Waves”, openly alludes to the fact that they make the air-waves around here. Yet if you look at TV you wouldn't imagine that they'd recognise any art if they fell over it. It should be renamed “Making Waves: except, mysteriously, in the arena of visual art culture.”

Having said that, though, they did once have a good insert, on the art of Matt Hindley, which fortunately for them was carefully curated by Matt himself. It was such a clear and apt (and successful) study on the rigours of making art palatable to a South African audience that I think it should be required viewing in art schools across the country.

Besides the work on this show, another good bit is that you get lots of free stuff, once you've paid to get into the Castle in the first place. You get a catalogue and a box of postcards and, my personal favourite, an alphabetical checklist, pictured above. I vote this show goes to the next Venice Biennale where, seeing as corporate African fiefdoms seem to be so in vogue, they may as well have an SABC pavilion.

Labels: Lizza, Making waves, SABC