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 a snug black dress remained on its hanger. Art historian Federico Freschi had spent the day making little pink triangular badges that said “nation-building lesbian”, and while everyone else was getting plastered for the speeches, he sedulously scoured the atrium of the museum and pinned one on every silk tie. All of this for our Lulu. And then, with not so much as an apology from some underling, not even an SMS to the curators to say, “sorry, my cat has a hairball”, she failed to show up.
This comes on the back of her recent presence in the local media after word got out in March this year that she had abandoned the Women’s Day exhibition Innovative Women in August 2009 — which she was also meant to open — because its content was “immoral” and “contrary to nation-building”. For a reminder about this fracas, here is the post I wrote at the time.
Our minister’s absence from the opening of SPACE was especially odd, because there is nothing on this exhibition that could be construed as even a little morally suspect. It is entirely down the line, precisely the sort of harmless bonanza one would imagine Fifa, Telkom and the City of Johannesburg — the three major funders — would be happy to support. Had she heard about Freschi’s intervention ahead of the event? Had she had trouble parking? The VIP parking was terribly full and perhaps she had been asked to park with the LIPs (less important people) and the taxis on the kerb around the corner. Perhaps she thought she had been invited to an opening in space, and was on her way to the nearest rocket launchpad with the best intentions. I think we can safely rule out the first possibility, as Lulu is obviously too disconnected from the art world to have the sort of contacts who would have known about the intervention. The second option is likely, although I’m sure the parking ushers would have bounced a smaller vehicle out of the way for her if she had turned up to find the parking full. My money is on number three. In fact, she is probably circling the planet right now, looking for all the art. I wonder if we could arrange for her to stay there?
Whatever reason she had for skipping, she missed quite a do. There were three-storey banners everywhere that said “SPACE”; the food was served in little poitjies; there was a jazz band; there were red and white flowers in glass capsules for decoration and there was even a red carpet! You know that too much money has gone into an exhibition when the curators can afford to put a red carpet at the entrance of a museum that is subsiding and, besides this, generally unsuitable for housing archives due to poor maintenance.
And the art? Well, yes, there was some. But the banners and the poitjies! And the red carpet! My favourite part of the evening was when Reuben September, taking the gap opened by Lulu, extended his sponsor’s address from the prescribed five-to-ten minutes to 25-to-30 minutes and concluded it with an account of the 2009 “Telkom knock-up challenge”. In fact, the audience heard nothing at all about the art on SPACE, or about art in general, for the 45 minutes of speeches preceding curator Thembinkosi Goniwe’s address. The content of the exhibition is worthy of its own blog post, and Mail & Guardian reporter Percy Zvomuya has written a review of the show that I’m sure will be available online soon. If you want a peek in the meantime, check out the SPACE webiste.
*To be honest the proper title of this exhibition is unclear to me. Each of the three major sponsors has a different name for it, and these are used just about interchangeably by the mob of publicists who have been harassing me about this exhibition. To Fifa, it is Fifa 2010 Visual Arts (what, no trademark?). To Telkom it is The Artists of Africa. To curators Thembinkosi Goniwe and Melissa Mboweni and the City of Johannesburg it seems to be either SPace: Currencies in Contemporary African Art or SPACE: Currencies in Contemporary African Art. Both versions appear (though not at the same time) on official documentation. I wonder if the first is a typo made much of by a graphic designer.
The woman has simply no class.
SPACE for improvement
Here is Percy Zvomuya’s review of SPace: Currencies in Contemporary African Art in this week’s Mail & Guardian: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-05-14-sense-of-time-and-space
Enjoy!
I should have mentioned in my post that the ‘SPace’ version of the title used by the curators is meant to suggest that spatiality and temporality (the ‘Pace’ part)are central to how we conceive of contemporary Africa and contemporary African art. There it is, mentioned.
This is not the first RSA minister that has absolutely disgraced the goverment and organisers of less-important events like International Scientific Conferences. For the MIP (Most Importants Persons) it is no biggy to skip out of an event which the organisers have been negotiating with Mr Bigwig’s assistant deputy secretaries for as long as a year in advance. So, South Africa, FIFA, the rest of the world, GET USED TO IT. It will happen again (and again)… untill mr/ms MIP has learned the finer graces of life.
I wonder what kind of satisfaction one derives from the belittling of another human being with different views?
Is the absence of our minister of arts and culture not enough? Would you like her to grovel on her knees and apologize for the previous incident? Do you understand what saving face-saving means in other cultures?
Perhaps she understood that FIFA was a football crowd and went to the stadium thinking that the beautiful game was all about as much art as a sensible person could want… whatever your show was, you don’t seem to think it was art either.
So, Dave Harris, what does “face-saving” mean in other cultures? Pray, enlighten us? While you are about it, tell us what “rudeness” means in other cultures as well. The minister’s absence is nto an apology, Dave. It is an insult to the very constituency of artists that she is supposed to represent.
Wena Dave Harris. Stop eating from the dish of gall. Really, you should try to write something worthwhile if you want to earn your remittance from the ANC this week …
Ah Dave, Dave… always making excuses for the inexcusable. You would have a wonderful career in politics!
@Dave Harris,
The Minister could have sent a staff member to check out the exhibits the day before the opening, just to ensure nothing offensive to her was going to be on display.
However, if any Minister of Arts and Culture (of any country) has a phobia about attending Art exhibitions, then he/she should definitely resign!
@Piet Opperman
I can’t understand why you have such a problem with anonymity. Do you even understand why ALL democracies protect anonymity?
Anyway, the statement that “blacks (Africans, Coloureds and Indians) being marginalized in their own country” means precisely that – the concept of a Rainbow Nation is alien to the DA mindset as they continue their policy of gentrifying Cape Town – a city that ironically was more cosmopolitan even during the apartheid era! WHY?
If stuggle credentials, relatives or friends in the top ANC, and ANC membership are all that is required, it is no wonder that most of the ANC appointed ‘ministers’ have no idea as to what they should do or how to do it even if they are told what to do, which they are not because those who appointed them don’t know either. Give them machine guns and they know what is needed but give them a pen and they are lost at sea! Name one ministry that has not messed up? Only the Gravy Train, Plunderbus and Tender Fraud ministries run properly. Finance is the exception for the moment – long may this one last but don’t hold your breath because, here comes that great economist Julias Malema.
phuza SUUUUUNDaaayyyyyyy!!!!!!!
@Piet Opperman
I’m surprised that you can’t grasp the notion of “face-saving” which is a prominent in most non-Western cultures. I have just three words for you “Provincial Piet” – CULTURAL SENSITIVITY TRAINING.
I just love comment barneys.
I wonder why is our minister of arts and culture, been so difficult all the time, by the way maybe we need to ask this questions, what does the job of been a minster of Arts and Culture involves because I am confused, any ideas?
Does every country have a Dave Harris, I wonder? A defender of the useless, the spongers and the bone idle? Anthea, this was great. Lulu, you should be an embarrassment but there are so many others like you, your behaviour is pretty normal.
Read my lips Dave… THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH APARTHEID. So why do you mention it? Because you have absolutely no argument. The facts are that Lulama Xingwana is a public servant, whose salary is paid for by us South Africans. She failed to meet a work appointment. For Pete’s sakes she was meant to deliver a speech and she just didn’t arrive. Its a disgrace. If the same scenario happened in the private sector, that employee would be in some serious trouble, if not fired.But no, not in our precious democracy. You’ve still failed to define “Face Saving in your Culture”. Please spell it out for us, I’m super curious how not pitching to deliver a speech is face saving.. its the exact opposite.