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In her 21st year as curator at the University of Johannesburg, Annali Cabano-Dempsey mounts a bold exhibition that pays homage to the legacy of institutional art, reflects on where we are as a nation and talks about how artists might be the ones to save us in the end.
All the arguments about how elite and exclusionary fine art can be somehow ring louder in South Africa given many of the issues we are still grappling with.
Cabano-Dempsey has been unflinchingly honest about the problematic legacy of the institution formerly known as Rand Afrikaans University (RAU).
During her tenure as curator she has been deliberate about opening up the space itself in an attempt to make it more inclusive. She is aware of what a challenge this can be.
“You can’t even break the cube because when you’re working with precious stuff it has to be closed, has to be locked up at night and it needs an alarm but I want to foster an atmosphere that says to the audience you are welcome and you are part of this,” she says.
As an example she cites trying to make opening nights an informal occasion. “When we had photographer Peter Magubane here a few years ago, after he was introduced he came in from the back of the audience with praise singing and that changed the whole dynamic of an opening event which can be very stiff upper lip.”
Trying to distil 21 years of exhibitions is not an easy task which is why she asked Johan Myburg to come on board as a guest curator.
Searching through the past collections he found a golden thread running through the exhibitions over the years and that was semiotics relating to texts and symbols. They then picked the 36 exhibits with this link in common. This led to an exhibition that is mixed with styles ranging from sculptures to paintings and photographs.
Cabano-Dempsey knows that representation is important and admits that while the artist roster is diverse, it is not exactly a match to the demographics of the country.
The timing of the exhibition in the same year that South Africa celebrated a jubilee and went to vote with the governing party promising a new dawn felt like another reason to push for more inclusivity.
“Because we are an institutional and not an commercial gallery, the work we exhibit has to speak to what is going on in the world. We are part of a global village now. These artists really address the issues of their time,” Cabano-Dempsey says.
Looking to the future, the plan is to keep developing visual arts in this country because it is one of the largest revenue generators and brings a new generation of youth into the fold.
“I believe artists are somehow like prophets in the way they subliminally understand things that are happening almost before they occur. They have a grassroots level understanding of what is happening in a social construct and I have seen that coming through all the time since I’ve been here. An intuition that allows them to pick up trends almost before they happen.”
The exhibition runs until June 26 at UJ Art Gallery with walkabouts between June 15 and 22 from 10am to 1pm.
