I’ve been given the honour by the Africa Centre of opening the Spier Contemporary 2010, the largest biennale art exhibition in South Africa, this coming Saturday (13 March) at the Cape Town City Hall. Hmmm, what to say to a daunting array of artists, art critics, journalists, politicians and business leaders?
Today, in order to prepare myself, I was given a preview of the exhibition by Farzanah Badsha, project manager and member of the curatorial team. It gave me a chance to see most of the 132 works by 101 South African artists, chosen from 2 700 submissions countrywide. It also gave me a chance to see the ways in which the City Hall is being transformed into a new cultural space, albeit for only two months.
It won’t be fair for me to give the game away - you have to see the exhibition for yourself. However, what I can say is that the Cape Town public is incredibly lucky to have an opportunity to see some of the best art in South Africa today, art which amongst others things reflects on the sombre mood of the national political psyche.
Farzanah Badsha of the Africa Centre outlines the finer points of contemporary South African art to my colleagues Bulelwa Ngewana, Petro Mostert and Terri Carter of the Cape Town Partnership
The Press Gallery in the old Council Chambers restored to some of its former glory after a lick of paint
Performance art in beautiful rooms like this one will be a centrepiece of the exhibition
Its not just the interior spaces of the City Hall that are being transformed through the Spier Contemporary; the views of the surrounding city, in this case, the Old Drill Hall against the backdrop of Devil's Peak, are significantly enhanced
Under construction. The one piece of work I can reveal, because it is outside the City Hall in Darling Street, consists of a large tower made from fences taken from Robben Island
The exhibition will be open to the public from Sunday 14 March. For more information, go to http://spiercontemporary2010.co.za/2010/
