THE SOUTH AFRICAN

May’s Black and White Supplement

ART

TIMES

Page 2South African Art Times. May

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The Good, the Bad, theUgly - Why Portraits Matter

Most modern magazines havecotton on to the ancient truth thatfascinated - and occupied - theclassical masters of Greece andRome as much as it does a con-temporary like Lucian Freud: peo-ple adore pictures of themselvesand their mates, but pop-shots of celebrities bring out the crowds.Check the abundance of publishedsocial and party photos in theglossies.Call those pictures portraits- especially if executed by another celebrity and under enough hypedcircumstances to lure the televi-sion cameras - and you have thebasics in place for one of arthistory’s enduring themes. It justdoesn’t let go. Portraits are man’sbest friend.The art of portraiture slips in andout of the news - never withoutdrawing the curious crowds- when, ever-so-often, another gallery or institution tackles thetheme. More recently, I-Art Galleryheld such an exhibition; someyears back AVA threw out an invi-tation. In both cases, the resultswere pretty mixed.The problem, it seems, is thatthe good-intentioned organis-ers don’t always consider their actions thoroughly. The result is ahalf-satisfying mixed-bag. With alldue respect and appreciation of such efforts, it’s an open question

whether the ne, challenging art of

portraiture - particularly in our eraof multi-media, instant visual com-munication and overhyped fame- have been well served in suchrecent shows.A picture of a person, done inwhatever medium, is not necessar-ily a portrait; and a ‘portrait’ is notnecessarily a punchy or relevantpiece of visual communication.In-between plenty of nonsensepops up.Maybe the main problem is thatartists, their sponsors and cura-tors under-estimate the power of portraiture. And they forget or ignore that fact that power hasto be negotiated, even struggledwith.(That social glossy photo toois a visual statement that worksitself through not a minor editorialprocess.)The power of the permanent im-age - for such is the subtext of por-traiture - lies in many things. Vanityis, of course, a prime motivator.But there are other issues at stakein that power game. Money, fame,

status, cultural signicance - and

it can work both ways, for bothsitter and portraitist. (The famousNational Portrait Gallery in Londonis the temple accommodatingboth praised and praise-painter.Being British, they’ve tuned the

power game to the nest degree,

of course.)One of the most famous incidentsdemonstrating the enormouspower of portraiture, was thedestruction of a formally-com-missioned portrait by the thenesteemed British painter GrahamSutherland of the grand old Sir Winston Churchill in 1954. Thesitter hated the oil painting com-missioned by the British parlia-ment for his 80th birthday and it isalleged that his wife actually burntthe painting. (An oil study in prepa-ration only came to light yearslater, testifying to Sutherland’smasterful honesty in his portrayalof the frail old bull - who, even atthat age, considered himself to bethe hearty warrior.)How rare will it be today for anartwork to evoke such passion?If only!(The postcard-size painting of Queen Elizabeth II by the mostfamous British painter alive, LucianFreud, in the NPG is certainly no

attering portrait. But a remark

-able statement about both theaging queen in her awkward tiaraand the old master of the oil paintstroke.)Of course, the great andglamorous still believe that theonly permanent picture of their countenance worthy to be hungin boardrooms or such, should beexecuted in oil on canvas (andframed in gild, of course). Somehow oil paint and canvas (anda gilded frame) are consideredrequirements for proper commen-dation.

Sam Taylor-Wood’s lmed portrait

of David Beckham at the NPG andit will be crystal-clear that a mod-ern medium like video can bebrilliantly used in a good artist’shand.Incidentally, the photographer Yousef Karsh of Ottowa’s black-and-white photograph of WinstonChurchill, taken in1941, is oneof the iconic images of the lastcentury.Photography, somehow theobvious medium for portraiture,seldom gets the nod, but masterslike David Goldblatt and young-sters like Pieter Hugo have madetop-notch, engaging, lingeringportraits.In South Africa the ancient art of portraiture is an endeavour thatneeds a serious rethink.rt is good for so many things,ike acclimatising to the freneticrban milieu after a long weekendin a timeless world of green grass,

crackling res and roast chicken

dinners. Not unlike returning tomad Moscow after a retreat at your cousin’s dascha on the Volga (I’dimagine), a measure of readjust-ment is necessary.Jozi can seem scary from a criticaldistance. As you plummet backinto the heart of the beast alongher mainline concrete arteries cut-ting through warehouses, factories,outsize billboards and moulderingminedumps the temptation is todo a quick U-turn and bolt for thehills. But that would be the sissy’s

option and committed Jozi ends

know that this city’s magic lies waydeeper than her hardened graf-

tied surfaces.

It’s only when you’re immersedin the hum of the inner organism,bound up in her networks and peo-ple that you start to feel at home

again. So I start my rst morning

back with a speedy espresso atthe brashly named Two Tarts caféin Milpark and make my alongthe reddening autumn leaves of Jan Smuts to the art strip, wheretemperatures are rising again withphotographer Pieter Hugo andpainter Alfred Thoba at WarrenSiebrits, Colbert Mashile at Krutand Ricardo Fornoni, the youngestblood on the block, preparing for his latest show, Anima, at Resolu-tion.But being an unabashed Goldblatt

freak my rst destination is the

Goodman Gallery. For who can re-sist a show entitled Joburg by thiscity’s most duly lauded lensman?Perhaps the most crucial aspectabout this exhibition is the exten-siveness of its chronogical sweep,offering the viewer an excruciat-ingly considered insider’s take onthe evolution of this metropolis andits people through the latter half of the 20th century right up to thismoment.I’m drawn in from the get go by twomoody colour images, both takenon 17th Street Fietas in the lateSeventies before the destructionof its houses and shops under the

Group Areas Act. In the rst image

one is struck by the humility andunassuming scale of the earlycolonial architecture; the tin roofs,peeling pillars and faded stoeppaint highlighting the makeshiftqualities of the era in relation to thebald capitalist machismo that hasinformed the construction of somethe concrete behemoths photo-graphed by Goldblatt in Sandton inrecent years.The second image captures whatwas once the landmark AvalonCinema with its broken neonsign and faded, peeling postersadvertising double features… I amstruck by the poignant particularityof the colours of this lost and fad-ing world and the fact the imageswe know from Goldblatt’s earlyoeuvre are usually in black andwhite…

Soon enough though I nd myself

in the thick of an eager throng

of amboyant seniors brought

together by art historian MonaBerman and being guided throughthe works on show by the brilliantlyerudite Neil Dundas, the solidrock at the heart of the Goodman.

Dundas points out ve early colour

works, explaining that Goldblattnever exhibited his colour worksin the past because of limitationsin printing techniques. However with the advent of digital printing,he has been able to work withcolour negatives from his archiveto achieve the subtlety of hue onwhich he has steadfastly refusedto compromise.

Two of the other ve colour prints

from the archive were composedin 1977 and feature the makeshiftkitchen and dark bedroom of ahumble home in Soweto. Thereis something painfully touchingabout the plastic covers laid downto protect and preserve the cheapstainless steel and plastic furniture.It’s a small gesture that captures aspirit of pride and optimism againstthe odds – a human impulsethat stands out against other systematic imperatives implicit inthe forms of so much of this city’sarchitecture.Captured by Goldblatt’s lens thestark shadows of these hulks beliethe crass capitalism and national-ism that have prevailed throughthe reigns of two power-hungry re-gimes. But the city’s magic shinesthrough in small and poignanthuman gestures immortalised byGoldblatt, who has never failed totake the time to notice them. Andthat’s the paradoxical glory of thistown really, the everyday humanstriving pitted against more com-plex overriding forces hell bent on

relentlessly fashioning fresh prots

from this rugged Highveld grit.* David Goldblatt’s Joburg is onshow at the Goodman Gallery until24 May.

ART PIGAlex DobbTHE ARTFULVIEWER

MelvynMinnnaar

Alex Emsley

Winston Churchill, (1941). By Yousef Karsh.

WeareeagertondacolumnistwhowouldwriteabouttheDurbanandPietermaritzburgArtScene

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AC Press release.(Mike will be interviewed in the ATon his return from overseas) The Africa Centre is proud toannounce the appointment of Mikevan Graan - arts administrator and playwright - to the position of Executive Director.“The Africa Centre is a truly excit-ing project and I am honouredto be part of it”, says Van Graanwho has been recognized as one

of the most inuential people in

the South African arts and culturesector.The Africa Centre is a non-

prot organisation that seeks to

document, promote and celebratethe arts, culture and heritage of the African continent. Its major projects since its inception in 2007have been the launch of the bien-nale Spier Contemporary visualarts exhibition, the Spier PoetryExchange and the Spier Perform-ing Arts Festival.For the last year, besides work-ing as an independent theatreproducer, Van Graan has servedas the Secretariat for the ArterialNetwork, an informal, dynamicnetwork of individuals, institutionsand funding partners working tosupport the effectiveness andgrowth of Africa’s arts and culturecivil society and to enhance thesustainability of creative industriesin Africa. The Arterial Networkwas launched on Goiree Island,Senegal in March last year.“There is potentially great synergybetween the vision of the AfricaCentre and the work of the ArterialNetwork, and I’m looking forwardto the Centre pursuing its objec-tives beyond the Limpopo, and to

it being shaped and inuenced by

increasing contact with colleaguesin other parts of the continent,”said Van Graan. One of the major projects of the Africa Centre will bethe creation of an on-line directoryon African arts, culture and herit-age to facilitate greater networkingand collaboration within the con-tinent and between practitionersfrom Africa and elsewhere.Van Graan takes over the reinsof the Africa Centre from Tanner Methvin who has nurtured theorganization since its inceptionas a board member assigned thisresponsibility while the organiza-tion searched for a suitable direc-tor. Methvin will continue to playan active role in the governanceof the Africa Centre as a boardmember.For more information, see www.africacentre.net

Review of Muse 08Portraits exhibition atiArt Gallery, Cape Town

A solemn, heavy-handedportentousness, unleavened bynuance, irony, ambiguity or wit, still

ypies much South African art.

his glum legacy of the struggle,when issues were cut and dried,still informs the work of ReshadaCrouse, whose melodramaticportrait of Rian Malan looks like abulletin from the front-line. Her urgid Passive Resistance tooreveals her trapped in a time warp.Although the painting alludes toDelacroix’s Liberty Leading thePeople, its lurid bombast relates ito Cecil B. de Mille rather than therand tradition of history painting.Christiaan Diedericks heroicises,

nay, sancties, Elna Boesak as

a dauntless La Passionaria in adrawing indistinguishable froman election poster. This is artreduced to its lowest commondenominator, art as propaganda,sloganeering, hagiography andsham heroics.Alex Emsley’s Melvyn Minnaar resonates a similar bogus gran-diosity. The Vasari of the Cape

Times is gloried as a lofty sage,

his disillusioned eyes gazing fear-lessly into distance as his intellectworks overtime beneath his nobledomed pate.What is it with these Emsleys?Do hero-worship and heel-clickingrun in their genes? Paul Emsleytoo adopts a slavishly adulatoryapproach in his William Kentridge,lovingly cataloguing every detailof bushy eyebrow, crows feet and

distended pores in an ofcial-look

-ing image based on the tried andtrusted academic formulae of cen-tral focus, frontality, and symmetry,derived from previous artistsrepresentations of ‘great men’.Emsley certainly possessesdraughtsmanly skill, and he investsKentridge with undeniable dignity,but, sadly, it is the embalmeddignity a skilled mortician mightconfer on a corpse. Emsleyelevates Kentridge into a repres-sive public monument a la MountRushmore, and this extremeformality of approach precludespsychological insight.Stagy attitudinising, rather than

rst-hand observation, is the basis

of Hardy Botha’s irreverent deline-ation of Breyten Breytenbach as astarry-eyed idealist and rabble-rouser in the clichéd tradition of 60’s T-shirts emblazoned withFidel Castro or Che Guevara.The great poet is juxtaposed witha blank speech bubble, but it isnot he who has nothing to say, itis Botha.“Muse”, iArt’s show of portraiturefrom the Klein Karoo NasionaleKunstefees is dismayingly hick,provincial and arriere-garde.Its most depressing feature ishowever a fatal reluctance to trulyengage with the sitter, venturebeyond appearances, and delveinto personality. The artistsrespond to the unique challengesof portraiture in a heart-breakingly

supercial, simplistic and gimmicky

fashion. Bradley Pritchard, EvelynRust, Richard Smith and Elizabeth

Gunter inter alia capture supercial

likenesses, but their style remainspurely illustrational in its adher-ence to appearances, rather thantransformative imagination.Louis Jansen van Vuuren is theworst offender. His Marilyn Martinis all pretty-pretty mannerism,pom-poms, tassels and embroi-dery, and the redoubtable lady is

transmogried into naught but a

simpering Geisha welcoming us tothe Teahouse of the August Moon.Hanneke Benade’s heavily stage-managed Lien Botha – one of the

better works - exemplies this lack

of genuine involvement with thesitter. The painting is obviouslypainted from a Polaroid

Lloyd Pollock

David Goldblatt’s

Flat-cleaner going for a walk on his afternoon off

. Hillbrow, 1972 (Photograph)Part of his

Joburg

Exhibition, Goodman Gallery (Jhb) Until 24 May

TheSouthAfrican

Art