This month, the Rand Club turns 125 years old. Tomorrow, October 6, it hosts an open day from 12 noon until 5pm. If you live in Joburg, and you’ve always wondered what goes on behind that grand facade, this is the perfect opportunity to step through those doors into a different world.
Until July this year, I had never visited the Rand Club. To tell the truth, I had no idea what it actually looked like, or where it was. All I knew was that it was the byword for capitalist power of a rather traditional kind; the moneyed elite who’d shaped Johannesburg’s history as a financial centre and who assiduously enforced a certain status quo. I imagined a door in a wall through which only a selected few were allowed, but beyond that, I could picture nothing.
How familiar it seems to me now. The entrance doors, the grand central staircase, the dining room with its delicate blues; the library and the billiards room filled with trophies of long dead kudu bulls, even the ladies’ loos with their Audubon prints.
And if you’d said to me at the beginning of this year that I’d be exhibiting my art in the Rand Club of all places, in an exhibition inspired by Rudyard Kipling of all figures, I would have been somewhat surprised. The Rand Club is closed, elitist, stuffy, I would have said. No ways they’d take a risk with my work, which though it is about Johannesburg, is also in an unusual and decidedly unconventional medium, not the sort of thing that conservative old men would approve of.
But that was before I met the new general manager, Charles Drewe, and asked — in a move that was uncharacteristically cheeky for me — whether he’d consider exhibiting art. He told me about the 125th anniversary and the Kipling dinners, and that’s what inspired the exhibition in the club along with images from The Star’s Barnett Collection.
My work on display outside the dining room
To exhibit one’s work in such a beautiful and historic space is a rare privilege. The Rand Club is saturated with our fraught, messy and always intriguing history. I made a point of positioning my painting of If next to a small statue of Cecil John Rhodes in the entrance hall. It features the text of the poem that has probably inspired more schoolboys than any other — one of the reasons I hated it growing up, though that’s a story for another time — juxtaposed with the most iconic structure in Johannesburg, one which is surrounded by thousands of descendants of the very people that Rhodes dismissed as “cheap slave labour”. I quite like the irony in that. History always comes back to haunt you.
That the club agreed to let me exhibit paintings of this hard, concrete city in a soft, feminine and completely unconventional medium, is evidence of just how much it has changed. Contrary to an assumption I have frequently encountered, women are members now (and have been since the mid-1990s), and the club has changed in tune with the wider society in which it finds itself. Now @TheRandClub is tweeting even as it holds on to its history and opens its doors to the public.
As part of the exhibition, Charles asked me to donate a specially commissioned painting to be raffled. Something of an experiment, I combined a photograph with lipstick and text. In the paint, I wrote: “This place stands firm in the swirling currents of history”. The club has survived war, riots, unrest and a fire. It has witnessed the passage of 125 turbulent years, during which society has changed beyond all recognition.
Now’s your chance to catch a glimpse of the world behind those doors.
I visited/stayed at the Rand Club in the mid-90s. What a delightful building it was, but I remember it striking me at the time that it was a shame that it was stuck in such a decaying city landscape. It’s good to read that things may be on the mend.
If anyone would have insight into the formulation of racist capitalism which has left us with a legacy of not only economic inequality but poverty, unemployment and a divided society, it would be the walls of the Rand Club. This is where the principal architects, advisors and confidants of racial capitalism hung out to let their unbriddled notions of racial supremacy regin free.
I think the place stands as a relevant monument to where the South Africa Dream went wrong because it was in the hands of patriarchal supremacist capitalists who had not vision for social cohesion and society based on ecnomic justice and social equality.
What I can say is that as long as the Rand Club stands as it is, there will be no justice and equality in this land. After all, without the economic transformation of this society, we must just forget about peace and harmony. The fact that the Club now accepts some BEE moguls and other types who have have coopted does not signal anything significant.
If the Rand Club were to be turned into an open and free platform for artists to speak truth to power, to interrogate its shameful legacy, we could be going in the right direction. It is a good thing that they have allowed you to mount an exhibition. But they must do that often – say once every week – for artists to purge those whole of evil spirits that lurk in the nooks and crannies especially during the 100th anniversary of the Land Act of 1913 next year.
Let art liberate this space!
With narrow minded ignorant racists around, who find history so offensive, South Africa, indeed, Africa, will never leave the Dark Ages. I would rather be a Capitalist than a cowardly murdering war lord who deprives his people of basic amenities and food.
I agree with Sandile, we should find a way to exorcise the demons that still lurk in the halls of this unholy ground.
The Rand Club represents the worst of human nature – greed! Just another of thousands of “members only” clubs that propagates exclusivity, white supremacy, unbridled capitalism, oppression and and other dark prejudices that brings out the darkness of human nature.
The club belongs, like most relics of colonialism, in the dustbin of history. Allowing the club to continue business as usual is a gross insult to the memory freedom fighters and oppressed across the world that have fought against colonialism. I’d vote for converting it to a center for abused women or a homeless shelter as a symbolic gesture to counter the destruction the members of this club have unleashed on our society over the centuries and continue to do so!
@Sandile Memela
“If anyone would have insight into the formulation of racist capitalism which has left us with a legacy of not only economic inequality but poverty, unemployment and a divided society, it would be the walls of the Rand Club”
That is a rather juvenile view, and by the same argument, the government should be eradicated. As this was the center that enforced all the racist issues you are referring to. Are you not saying that the fact that it is run by a complete different set of people is completely irrelevant? Or would you prefer this to be run completely by the current corrupt ANC elite only?
I get the feeling that your out lash is blinded by complete racial hatred. Turning an art exhibition, and a rather informative article into a racist platform for your bile is rather sad.
The Rand Club like all private clubs is exclusionary. They let you in because they felt comfortable with your appearance. You looked like them. Had you been black, Asian, had frayed clothing or did not look like you belonged you would not have been invited. The Rand club like other such clubs does nothing except reinforce stereotypes and if you get in you become like them. They co-opted you to spread propaganda. You were used, simple. The Nazis killed 6 million Jews because of the same type of inclusionary culture that created the Rand Club. It should not be celebrated by most of us; just the few of us that looked like them. Its a relic of a much more malignant time when the color of your skin dictated your station in life.I can’t see the romance
DH and Memela are birds of a feather, no wonder they stick together on political issues.
@ sandile memela. Your first sentence reads:
If anyone would have insight into the formulation of racist capitalism which has left us with a legacy of not only economic inequality but poverty, unemployment and a divided society, it would be the walls of the Rand Club.
Walls may be able to ‘see’ but I don’t think walls have ‘insight’.
The Rand Club never made laws, only Parliament did.
If a ‘legacy’ was left it is now about twenty years old is it not? Is your mind stuck in the past? Please advise of the progress ‘you’ and ‘others like you’ have made in the past twenty years. (Still no movement, still moribund I think.)
Please advise how ‘economic inequality’ excludes poverty (etc).
Please advise whether you are saying that ‘racist capitalism’ is the only cause of a divided society.
I await your reply.
Sandile, “walls” cannot be “anyone” (“if anyone … economic inequality but poverty, unemployment and a divided society …) Factually that was then and this is now.
The walls of Luthuli House, Chancellor House and other dens of thieves see far more of that today than Rand Club did then. At least Rand Club was never cynical.
Time was you had to be voted in by members, any one of whom could blackball you.
One black ball and you were out.
Today, two black balls and you are in!
Sandy and Dave,
“Economic inequality but poverty, unemployment and a divided society, ‘
‘This is where the principal architects, advisors and confidants of racial capitalism hung out to let their unbridled notions of racial supremacy reign free.’
‘Represents the worst of human nature – greed! ‘
Never been a great fan of men’s clubs.
Problem is that “Club ANC’ hierarchy is showing remarkably similar tendencies in the manner in which they indulge themselves while purporting to be on the side of the masses..
Memele conveniently forgets Shell House where the memories must include the cold blooded killing of IFP supporters Marikana style. Welcome to S Africa’s bigotry.
I was once tossed out of the Rand Club after interviewing Sean Pollock while wearing a pair of jeans… That day I for the first time understood why my great granddad died during the great strike of ’22 (he was a mineworker).
Sandile is best described as a Racial-Luddite, intent on destroying everything touched with a pale hue, but only with words. This does not transmogrify into ACTUAL products of convenience of course. These peccadilloes are best left unmentioned by the man, for obvious reasons.
But Sandile’s grasp of facts and SA history is as shaky as his logic. Those dreaded Rand Club members of yore and Captains of Racist Capitalism of the early 20th century actually did their best to attempt to include black workers in the mining fraternity. The sub-class white union members had other ideas and caused tremendous strife during the Fordsburg uprising.
But I have a question for Sandile and his supporters: Was there ANYTHING positive that came out of Apartheid for you and your folk? I ask this for balance, as we are continually asked for this when assessing your beloved ANC. Was it all bad? Why did mortality age averages increase under Apartheid, as well as income (as compared to the rest of the continent), health, literacy and of course a hair raising population explosion?
The Nats were hopeless oppressors when you consider how black society thrived under this rule, and appears to have regressed under the ANC rule. But carry on blaming an Old Boys Club of single malt drinkers if it makes you happy and defines you.
You’ve managed to drag a well written piece on anachronistic interior-decorating into the racial gutter thanks to your chipped-shoulder and smoldering hatred for…
…white people.
Guinessholic and Sandile Memela, you are both radical extremes of colour coded bigotry that has no place in the new South Africa. You are the same, just different extremes.
So there is no place in the new South Africa for change? Is that what we are all saying? That the Rand Club, a former men only club that existed in an apartheid state cannot change? That even when it changes to become inclusive, it is not enough? Are we saying that we must demolish the building to prove that it has changed? How many black people who were prosperous during apartheid have demolished their wealth after 1994?
We need to understand this about the new South Africa. That it is not premised on black or white or whatever colour. It is a state that accepts ethnic pluralism completely, without prejudice, and this is enshrined in the constitution. It is a state that is rainbow in colour, people of all creed are at home in South Africa.
A question for Sandile-Memela-like blacks. What do you want white citizens to do? Do you want them to give you all their wealth? Is that the progressive means this country must employ to ensure your happiness?
And for the Guinessholic-like white, a question too. Has there been enough redress in terms of inclusion for all other races in the new South Africa? Have you been involved in it? What have you done to ensure distributive justice?
Otherwise the truth is, democracy was never a black movement, twas a movement to end apartheid. To accord colour is to…