Marilyn Martin

Odds on - creating and maintaining a national art collection in South Africa

The mainstay of any museum is its permanent collection. The story of the initiators and major benefactors of the South African National Gallery (SANG) is a significant one which cannot be told here, but which all the same has to be mentioned and acknowledged. The first efforts towards the  formation of an art gallery in Cape Town were made in 1871 by the South African Fine Arts Association, and were given further impetus by the Thomas Butterworth Bayley Bequest of forty-five paintings the following year. In 1895, when the South African Art Gallery Act was promulgated, there were well over a hundred works in the collection. After years of neglect and indecision on the part of the authorities, the present building was opened in November 1930. By 1932 the Gallery had been incorporated as 'The South African National Gallery', a state-funded institution governed by a Board of Trustees. The richness of the foreign collections is almost entirely due to the munificence of the early patrons of the Gallery. In the 20th century, Alfred Aaron de Pass, Lady Michaelis, Sir Edmund and Lady Davis,Sir Abe Bailey and Henry van den Bergh followed Bayley's example.

There was no regular purchase grant during the 1930s and 1940s and no full-time director, this task being carried out in an honorary capacity by the directors of the Michaelis School of Fine Art. In the late 1940s EdwardRoworth, with the consent of the Board, embarked upon a selling spree of works from the permanent collection. The Government appointed a commission of enquiry in 1948 and as a result of this regrettable experience, SANG has a policy that no works of art may be alienated or deaccessioned. The collection is part of the national treasure and we are temporary custodians of a cultural and educational resource of great value, which requires conserving and safeguarding in perpetuity.

The 1980 acquisitions policy stated that art from the European founder countries, Africa and South Africa be purchased, but it was becoming difficult to make significant additions to the modern Western or the older European collections. Since the mid-1980s the financial situation of the national art museum has steadily worsened. Inadequate Government subsidies, unsympathetic tax laws, the low value of the South African currency and the high prices of art works on the international market combined to put the SANG in an unenviable position.

At this time art characterised by extraordinary vitality and power began to emerge in the country and this, together with the financial realities, brought about a decided shift in the acquisitions policy in 1990 - from buying internationally and focusing on established South African artists to an open-ended and pluralistic approach. This meant, for example, that work originating in rural and other 'peripheral' contexts began to be acquired alongside art that is influenced by the Western 'mainstream'. Increasingly diversified cultural production stimulated the evolution of a policy of inclusion rather than exclusion. We have been challenged about what is suitable and appropriate for the collection of a national art museum.

Issues about 'art' and 'craft' and 'high' and low' are raised as we continue to erode traditional boundaries and eliminate categories that have invariably been imposed from outside our own borders and experience. These only serve to hinder the potential for interchange and the creation of our own theories and terminology.

Purchasing for a national collection, we are obliged to exercise the best judgement we can, for if we make mistakes, we have to live with them and so do the people of South Africa. So we are careful, responsible and cautious in the spending of public money, while at the same time being astute and adventurous enough to recognise and acknowledge new talent and trends. The national art museum has to lead and anticipate, rather than follow.

Another major task since 1990 has been to establish a collection that acknowledges and celebrates the visual culture of southern Africa, and addresses the repatriation of art works that were taken out of the country, principally during the 19th and 20th centuries. Acquisition and exhibition policies enable us to redress the imbalances created by our history and by Eurocentric attitudes and approaches, to participate in the writing and rewriting of South African history and art history, and to use the context of art to address the historical problem of cultural difference in South Africa. We at SANG are in a position to bring the past into the present, to challenge perceived culture, to stimulate creativity, and to counter the separation between heritage and contemporary cultural production, between history and current expression.

This vision and role are maintained under extremely difficult circumstances. I have touched on the inadequate funding of the national art museum. The papers delivered and the articles published by directors and staff over the decades bear witness of how SANG was never properly funded and how it steadily fell behind other institutions in South Africa, not to mention those abroad - in every respect. For years we have not been able to organise any major exhibitions, educational programmes or produce publications without support from the private sector, trusts and foreign sources. From 1984 to 1997 our budget for acquisitions remained at R200 000,00. Only to then drop to zero. A collection stagnates if it is not added to in a strategic and consistent manner, and we lose important historical and contemporary works. Acquiring objects is, however, not only about the institution and its collection; it is also about sustaining viable art practice through the purchase of art works. Fortunately we continue to receive bequests, donations and presentations from the public and from artists.

The selection 'Head North: Views from the South African National Gallery Permanent Collection' bears testimony to the situation. Nearly everything was acquired before 1998. The exceptions are works by Gavin Jantjes, Berni Searle, Andrew Tshabangu, Sue Williamson and Sandile Zulu, for which we raised money. The Goodman Gallery presented David Goldblatt's digital print and Willie Bester generously donated Head North. It is a sad day when the national art museum has to keep artists waiting while efforts are made to find money to purchase their work or be dependent on their magnanimity.

The scope and nature of this introduction do not permit an analysis of the bigger context that is responsible for this state of affairs and the general crisis that is affecting the arts. Suffice it to say that much is going wrong in post-apartheid South Africa. The initiatives taken by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) since 1994 speak of political will and commitment and most policies are strong. Yet there is a long shadow between vision and implementation, between rhetoric and reality. Everybody has twice had the opportunity of voting, human rights are enshrined in the Constitution and education is available to all.

But the cultural topography of segregation and division, privilege and deprivation has in many cases endured without change, and the shift in political power has not yet brought economic empowerment. Unemployment remains high and increasing, the education and health sectors are in crisis and the country is plagued by HIV/Aids, criminal violence, financial fraud, corruption, drug dealing, xenophobia and individual and collective racism. 

The government spends over R32 billion on arms, while the DACST budget is R930 million, 21% of which is allocated to arts, culture and heritage. Government is nervous and intolerant of criticism and attempts at censure and censorship are re-emerging. The macro-economic policy, outlined in the Growth, Employment and Development (GEAR) strategy, has proved ineffective in addressing the inherited inequities of the apartheid system, let alone transforming them. GEAR seeks to make South African capitalism competitive in the international arena, but few of the goals set out in the model have been met. On the contrary, GEAR is blamed by many for increasing unemployment and poverty.

The South African institutional framework for the arts, culture and heritage has changed significantly since 1994. As part of the process, government-funded museums in Cape Town and in Johannesburg/Pretoria have been amalgamated. SANG now forms part of Iziko Museums of Cape Town that comprises fifteen museums and sites and three major disciplines: natural history, art history and South African social history. A new management structure is emerging and the change provides excellent opportunities for more efficient practices and delivering a national museum service. It is threatened, however, by lack of funding and government trying to relegate responsibility to the private sector and foreign agencies.

South Africa is poised to contribute to the writing of new narratives and conclusions particular to the understanding of our times and our continent. Our visual artists have found technical, formal and expressive ways to engage political and societal questions, affirming that art and culture can interrogate centralised processes and developing ideas and metaphors that influence society. They have also challenged the north/south, centre/periphery binaries of Western domination.

The project with the BildMuseet in Umeå in general and the exhibition 'Head North: Views from the South African National Gallery Permanent Collection' in particular, are telling examples of what can be achieved in a spirit of genuine exchange and co-operation. And how our institutions and our lives are invigorated and altered by heading South and heading North.

Head North

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