JAG's century of struggle for art amid the grime

08 November 2015 - 02:04 By Tymon Smith
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The Johannesburg Art Gallery, the continent's largest, is fighting to stay relevant, writes Tymon Smith

When I tell Antoinette Murdoch, the chief curator of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, that although I've been at several large openings at the gallery over the years, many suburbanites' reaction to it is generally negative - citing fears of safety and the taxis on King George Street, and arguing that the collection should be moved - she is incredulous.

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"Which people? White people? I'm just being honest.

"It's the white people who want a satellite in Sandton because obviously they don't want to come here any more. This area is transforming like Braamfontein, like Newtown, like Maboneng. I think this area should be seen as a lively hub of Africa. If you go to any other African country, this is what it looks like. This is Africa, deal with it," she tells me.

Betraying my own middle-class concerns and having decided that I didn't feel like negotiating the taxi traffic on King George Street, I had taken the Gautrain from Rosebank to Park Station and walked the remaining blocks to Joubert Park. Nothing happened to me as I strolled past the hawkers outside the park, and turned into the entrance to the gallery, where a surprising number of metro police officers seemed to have congregated. A quick glance to the left revealed enough police vehicles parked outside the gallery to make anyone with an outstanding traffic fine start sweating and reverse back into town.

Murdoch acknowledges that their presence has not encouraged visitors who think "that it's a police station, but it's one of those battles that I've fought and lost over the years".

The usual front entrance to the gallery is undergoing renovations, so visitors now have to enter through the original entrance at the south of the building overlooking the railway tracks.

block_quotes_start Why should the mountain come to Mohammed? My car doesn't even know where Sandton is! block_quotes_end

The original building was completed a century ago by British architect Edwin Lutyens, the man commissioned to realise in sandstone and concrete the ambitions of Lady Florence Phillips, wife of Randlord Lionel Phillips, who, after a trip to Europe at the turn of the 20th century, returned determined to bring the civilising power of art and culture to the philistines of early Johannesburg.

Legend has it that she purchased the first works of the gallery's collection using a blue diamond her husband had bought her as surety to acquire three paintings by Philip Wilson Steer.

During the course of the century since the Lutyens building was opened, the gallery has been the object of fierce contestation around what is contained in its collection of more than 9000 works, who its audience should be and if it still has any relevance beyond what artist Natasha Christopher recently referred to as a "white elephant ... an institution that signifies the folly of the early 20th century Johannesburg gentry".

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Lady Phillips was not pleased when the doors to the gallery opened in 1915 - mainly because the entirety of Lutyens's plans for the building had not been completed.

The wings on either side of the original structure were added only in 1940 (the year of her death) and it wasn't until 1986, in the centenary year of Johannesburg, that Lutyens's full plans were implemented with a modern addition by Meyer Pienaar Architects.

Those extensions, remembered by former gallery curator Rochelle Keen in Constructure, a book that will accompany the centenary, were "a nightmare almost from the start ... the building leaked and then flooded throughout the summer season ... the final straw for me was one really wet December day when once again we were flooded. I remember standing in the exhibition hall and crying: from sadness and frustration."

block_quotes_start It exists in spite of itself, in spite of lacking support from the  city over the years, in spite of its location block_quotes_end

Thanks to a recent decision by the city council to make R15-million available for repairs, Murdoch can at last make "a good start" on repairing the leaks. It has been part of her vision as curator of the gallery for the past six years, which she says, "has always been focused on fixing the building. That's my theory and there are people who disagree and say that audience development should come first, but in reality both should happen at the same time."

In an essay in the book, Jillian Carman notes that the building was put up for sale in 1960 and various proposals for its re-use included a railway museum, a bus terminus, a crèche, a music school and an eye research institute. An article in The Star in 1965 described the gallery as "static, it lacks vitality, it is nothing but a richly embellished mausoleum".

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Yet, as the book's editor, Tracy Murinik, writes, the gallery's "sustained existence has never, in fact, been a given ... and nor is it now ... [but it is] a space that although contested has not been allowed to die for a hundred years".

Although its funds have been cut year on year by the city council, an endowment from Anglo American ensures that the museum still has money for acquisitions.

It remains the largest gallery on the continent, with an impressive collection that spans old masters to Pop Art, as well as contemporary local and international pieces.

Murdoch admits there have been incidents of theft over the years, but assures me that "the last time something was stolen out of the gallery was in 2011 and ... international museums have as much as or even more theft than us. In our case, three sculptures were stolen at the same time and were all made out of bronze. It's not an underground mafia boss wanting to display it in his office, it's bronze and it gets melted down. Subsequent to that we've renewed our security."

In fact, with 27 frozen positions, the staff of the gallery consist of only around 30 people, most of whom are cleaners and security guards.

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The majority of visitors to the gallery are school children, but most of these are from schools in the suburbs and not those in the immediate vicinity.

The focus on repositioning the gallery to deal with the communities around it is one embraced by fashion designer Marianne Fassler, who has taken over the running of the Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, a nonprofit group that helps to raise funding and awareness of the gallery, which she joined when she was 22.

While running her fashion business from her Saxonwold office, Fassler tells me over the phone: "Friends are necessary to any institution; they're the icing on the cake and they're there to hold your hand when you need them. The gallery is the mothership. It has an unbelievable, beautiful collection representing South African art and culture, a world-class library and a beautiful building."

At the Turbine Art Fair earlier this year, Fassler and the friends unveiled a special edition of silver coins made by the South African Mint to commemorate the history and heritage of the gallery. She's also revamping the gallery's shop and investigating the possibility of activating Wi-Fi in the building.

She says she's not interested in those who complain. "There's a different generation that is comfortable to go downtown and go to the gallery and I can't waste my energy on converting those who see it as a problem."

To suggestions that the collection be moved to the northern suburbs , she responds: "Why should the mountain come to Mohammed? My car doesn't even know where Sandton is!"

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Echoing the single-mindedness of Florence Phillips, Fassler believes that this work "is going to be my legacy. I'm going to make sure that the gallery has friends and gets advice and money from international places. I want it to be a place for people to come and find a bit of sanctuary."

As artist Stephen Hobbs points out, the struggle of the gallery is indicative of broader struggles for identity and space in the inner city since the end of apartheid. For him, "the bottom line is that we hold on to our Western cultural traditions in an African city, [which] is at the heart of the problem.

Society has to come to terms with the changes and the changes are real. People need to stop being precious and work out the balance between surrendering and managing."

Lady Phillips tried to see to it that the gallery could not be relocated by ensuring that the deed of gift of the collection requires the city council to keep the gallery and the park in a proper state of repair, but its future is far from guaranteed.

A recent proposal by the city to move the Noord Street taxis to the park during the rank's refurbishment was opposed by the community, but that's yet another close call for a gallery that, as Murinik pointed out at a recent discussion about the way forward, "exists in spite of itself, in spite of lacking support from the city over the years, in spite of its location".

With the beginnings of a facelift, the exhibitions accompanying the centenary, and the book that outlines its impressive history, past exhibitions and the efforts of the friends, the next time Murdoch receives a phone call from a visitor she hopes it won't be to complain about the lack of security or a cockroach in the courtyard, but rather someone saying: "Listen, we see you have problems, how can we help? Can we join the friends, give you some money, pay for someone to come and spray the cockroaches for you?"

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The centenary celebrations of the Lutyens building begin at the Johannesburg Art Gallery on Tuesday at 6pm. Shuttles are available from Park Station. To join the Friends of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, go to friendsofjag.org

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