South African National Gallery's newsletter bonani: 2nd quarter 1999

Director's Message Current Exhibitions & Special Events Natale Labia Museum Friends of the National Gallery

Friends of the National Gallery

Report from the Vice-Chairperson

The most interesting part of the proceedings took place in the morning session when ten-minute papers were given by the Director, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside; the County Museums Officer, Lancashire County Council; the BAFM Volunteer Training Officer and the Head of Education, British Museum. Every one of these speakers emphasised the importance of the relationship between Museum Staff and Friends and Volunteers. Without the Director's support and encouragement Friends get nowhere and feel frustrated and unappreciated. However, there were more museums where relations were good and co-operation fruitful, than those where the opposite was true. FriendsÕ groups may have different approaches but each group has three factors in common: these are the interest in fund-raising and social activities and the desire of sections of each group to offer hands-on-help to the work of the museum. John Reeve, Head of Education at the British Museum gave a paper on 'Opening Eyes, Doors, and Minds at the British Museum,' which I found particularly interesting. The Eye-Opener volunteer guide programme at the British Museum has gone from one tour a day (in the recently opened Hotung Gallery for Asian art and archaeology) to a minimum of eight daily tours, ranging widely across the collections. A team of one hundred specially trained volunteers Ð housewives, research students, solicitors, retired engineers - give up their time to provide informal accessible introductions particularly to new galleries; some have trained for several. While working behind the scenes in the Western Asia department, one volunteer, who had been learning cuneiform at an evening class, made a major discovery of one of the world's first maps.

At the end of the presentations time was allowed for questions and comments from the audience. The Conference was then adjourned for a buffet lunch. I met the Conference Chairperson, Rosemary Marsh, who introduced me to several delegates. Quite a few people were intrigued by my label and wanted to know about FONG and its activities.

Two delegates told me that they had visited Sang a couple of years ago and commented on what a beautiful and interesting gallery it was.

After lunch the AGM took place. It was mercifully brief and was followed by an Open Forum in which issues were brought for discussion. Many of these were very similar to ones we have Ð shortage of funds and tactics for fund-raising, the co-operation of curators and gallery staff with Friends, the importance of proper education and quality control for volunteers and guides and ways of attracting young people to become Friends. I noticed that most of the people attending the Conference were middle-aged and elderly; there were relatively few younger delegates. I was told that in Britain young people have to work so hard to earn a living, which often involves travelling for long distances, so that while some may visit museums in their leisure time, many do not have the necessary energy to devote to Friends' activities.

After the conference there was a guided tour of some of the galleries of the Museum. As 1998 was the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War, the current exhibition displayed the works of artists Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash, CRW Nevinson and William Orpen, amongst others. Their paintings reflected the horror of trench warfare and the death and desolation of the Sommes and Delville Wood battlefields. In the evening a reception and tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre had been arranged. For those whose energy had not flagged, there was a guided walking tour of the City of London the following morning. Quite a programme!

My attendance at the BAFM meeting has reinforced my conviction that a South African Association of Friends of Museums would be very much more effective in preserving and promoting our cultural institutions than is presently the case.

Caryll Shear

Volunteer Guides

As the millennium approaches we relive our past and look to the future. At Sang, for the past twenty years, Volunteer Guides have given tours to the public on the nation's art treasures. In 1979 the director, Dr Raymund van Niekerk, invited interested persons, through newspaper articles, to become voluntary guides; 30 men and women responded and began to attend weekly lectures on art principles, styles and techniques given by the professional staff. They focused on the Sir Abe Bailey Collection of British Sporting Paintings and, at the beginning of 1980, began to give tours twice a week. The tours, which were advertised in Sang newsletters and in Cape Town newspapers, quickly became popular and people living as far away as Stellenbosch attended.

In 1981 a new recruitment drive was made as the number of guides had dwindled to four. This time 24 people volunteered. Another weekly training programme was started, based on the first course of lectures but including analyses of portraits, landscapes and still-lifes; SA painting, photography, colour theory, and teaching art in schools.

Some wonderful exhibitions were sent to Sang in the 80s and guides were in constant demand. People flocked to see 'Oro del Peru', which had daily tours during March 1981; and an exhibition of Picasso drawings and paintings in 1984. Another wildly popular exhibition was 'The Golden Age of Illustrated Children's Books', also in 1984. Sometimes as many as 100 children came for the tours and many guides were needed.

From 1989 to 1991 Sang was closed for renovations and the installation of a modern climate-control system. The Natale Labia Museum in Muizenberg opened in October 1988 and during this time a volunteer guide gave tours on the history of the satellite museum and the exhibitions on display there. Guides continued to meet every month during these years and concentrated on personal research on art and art history.

In October 1991, Sang reopened with a new Director, Marilyn Martin, Dr van Niekerk having retired, and the Third Cape Town Triennial. Guides were again in demand to give tours.

The contribution by the Volunteer Guides to SANG has been constant and varied. They are challenged by the frequent changes of exhibition and, after briefings by curators and independent research work, give tours. The Gallery announces three or four tours per month, always advertised in bonani, and guides offer their skills where and when they can. Each guide brings her own special talent or knowledge.

One guide, with specialist knowledge of costume through the ages, concentrated on this aspect of art. Another has worked professionally with the blind and has brought her special knowledge and understanding to tours. Exhibitions of African art in Sang have found a ready response among the guides who give assistance to the curators with repair, conservation, cataloguing and display, and guides have given time and effort to Sang curators of exhibitions of contemporary art.

In the 90s guides set out actively to promote SANG with the distribution of bonani, information leaflets and posters to hotels and organisations throughout the Peninsula. With public comfort in mind, they have supported the establishment of a café and supplied benches for seating in the Gallery. They have approached and given tours to special groups such as the International Women's Club, Jewish Women's Association, and organisations for the aged and the handicapped. Guides have a close relationship with the Friends and have had formal representation on the Friends Council since 1987. They have been active in raising funds for the Gallery and the Friends.

They ran a programme to encourage schools to attend general tours as well as tours based on their art syllabus. In 1997 the Education Department took over this project completely and guides are now called upon when needed. Holiday workshops for children have also been offered.

Gathering information for the library and the database is another area where guides have contributed through private research, interviews with artists, and storing and filing slides.

Guides' involvement with promoting Sang and South African art has extended outside the Gallery: guides have given TV and radio interviews on contemporary SA art; they have assisted parliamentary staff in tours of ÔArt Against ApartheidÕ in parliament; and conducted tours of private and corporate art collections and contemporary exhibitions in city galleries. When travelling abroad, they have given illustrated lectures on South African art in America and Britain.

Change is always with us. Our culture is changing and the art in Sang changes with it. Volunteer Guides help in this change. Today there are 12 active guides, some of them remaining from 1979, and hopefully more people will join us in the future. Minds, hands and hearts are needed to take us into the new millennium. Visual art is communication, though mute: the Volunteer Guide can give it a voice.

Mollie Townsend
Volunteer Guide

Cape to Cairo

Not only was South Africa represented at the 7th International Cairo Biennale in December 1998 but Berni Searle brought home an Unesco award. Judged by members of AICA (International Association of Art Critics), these were awarded specifically to young artists.

Searle's installation, Red, Yellow, Brown consists of three life-size photographs of her supine body covered in spices. This work from the Colour Me series explores the racial classification 'coloured' by which she was defined under apartheid legislation. According to Searle, she covers her body in various colours in an attempt to resist any definition of identity which is static. The use of spices in her work refers to the trade in commodities via the Cape Dutch colony in the seventeenth century which was inextricably linked to the history of slavery. As a woman exploring issues around being black in a post-apartheid context, Searle was the ideal choice for Cairo. Her heritage, by which she can claim ancestry from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Mauritius, Germany and England, made it patently clear to many that there is no way that we can claim any regional, cultural or religious exclusivity. For Berni, visiting Cairo was like a pilgrimage that allowed her to explore the rich diversity of her heritage in Arab and Muslim traditions.

Mona Hatoum, the British artist of Palestinian origin, produced a powerful installation. On a huge billboard in the grounds of the Akhnaton Gallery is an image of her face in profile. She is staring at a diminutive soldier standing on the bridge of her nose with a gun pointed at her forehead. Beside this, in huge text, shrieks the message: OVER MY DEAD BODY. Beyond the billboard is a small room carpeted with prayer mats each with its own grinning skeleton while a troop of toy soldiers marches relentlessly across the back wall.

'Mining Memory and Re-writing History in Post-election South Africa: a curator's perspective' was the title of the paper I presented at the symposium in a session entitled 'On Historical Memory'. Berni presented a paper on her work and we were invited to join round-table discussions with artists Nancy Spero, Ebrahim El-Salahi and Joseph Kosuth.

The Egyptian authorities must be congratulated for the considerable support given to this event which succeeded in providing a platform for artists and symposium delegates from diverse cultures within Africa, Asia, Europe and America to meet and exchange ideas. My grateful thanks go to the organisers for sponsoring my trip to Cairo.