Sappi Park in Braamfontein, though one of Johannesburg’s most pristine green spaces, is usually empty. No one lunches on the close-cropped lawns, or lounges on the undulating slopes just a flight of stairs down from the popular Joburg Theatre. Its scattered benches are seldom warmed by human flesh, and a raised, centrally placed circle —…
If I could ask Harald Szeemann — one of the most influential curators in recent times — just one question, it might not be this (though that’s not to say I’m not curious). I’m sure Szeemann, as a person of great discerning, didn’t imagine he curated his breakfast. But if he did, would anyone be…
Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho are fed up with the commercial gallery system, even though both of them would do exceptionally well at it if they had to (it must be stated at the outset that Mokgotho sort of already is — he had his first solo exhibition, “Someday Today” at Michael Stevenson’s Side Gallery…
On Monday May 10, Lulama (Lulu) Xingwana, South Africa’s minister of arts and culture, was meant to deliver a keynote address at a major Fifa-sponsored exhibition at Museum Africa called SPACE: Currencies in Contemporary African Art.* Everyone invited to the VIP launch on Monday night had been practising walking in their high-heels all afternoon. Not…
Aren’t we lucky, here in the art world, to have as qualified a moral barometer as Lulama “Lulu” Xingwana, (minister of arts and culture, formerly of agriculture and land affairs) to let us know when we have become bad people. Even more valuably, and perhaps more in keeping with her portfolio, the minister is helpful…
I’m just back from a month’s curating course in South Korea, courtesy of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. I spent my spare hours in my dingy downtown motel keeping a little diary while I was there and here is entry number two. For the rest, see “Diary” in the October edition of ArtThrob, which should be…
Until about March, I knew little to nothing about making plants grow. I have killed cacti from too much love and orchids from too little. I accidentally drank fertiliser and had to have my stomach pumped, and since then I have not touched it (fertiliser), no matter how starved the grass in my garden has…
After a night of merciless schmoozing and boozing at Thursday’s exclusive launch event, The Joburg Art Fair sleepily opened its doors to the public early on Friday morning. The crowds trickled in slowly and consisted predominantly of school-goers, pensioners and a few bleary-eyed journalists who came to claim their free cup of coffee from the…
It’s time for the 2009 Joburg Art Fair — it started today at 10am — and this means, among other things, that I have to resurrect this blog from its long hibernation. For daily coverage of the fair from the Mail & Guardian watch this site. Last night’s launch was peopled by pretty young things…
When I was growing up my family, or one half of the family at least, were the sort of people who would make me endure dinners at Scrooges — a “family” steakhouse that offered a “one-hour, 1kg steak, one litre of beer” special on week nights. I had an uncle who was a sucker for…
