|
About us: A history of the Standard Bank Gallery What was once the Commercial Exchange Building opened as the Standard Bank Gallery in June 1990. The architects of the recycled building received acclaim from their peers by winning a merit award from the Institute of South African Architects. The Gallery is the cultural focus of Standard Bank Centre in Simmonds Street, bringing art to downtown Johannesburg and to almost 8 000 head office employees. It reinforces the commitment of the Standard Bank as one of South Africa's major arts patrons. The other major arts sponsorships include the annual Standard Bank National Arts Festival, the Standard Bank African Art Collection and the Standard Bank Corporate Collection. Standard Bank Gallery is a non-profit venture. The corporation's management does not dictate the nature and extent of the exhibitions, but rather leaves aesthetic decisions to a panel of experts. The motivation and brief for the Gallery is to have a dynamic and varied programme of exhibitions. Three spaces are dedicated to the promotion of the visual arts and crafts of South Africa. Downstairs an exhibition area is dedicated to displays from the Standard Bank's African Art Collection. The collection, permanently housed at the University of the Witwatersrand Art Galleries, began more than 20 years ago, long before it was fashionable to collect African art, to preserve for posterity the material culture of the various peoples in southern, western and central Africa. Theme exhibitions selected from the collection have been curated by African art experts. Over the years, representing our own collection has resulted in an exhibition of textiles (Textiles from Africa), pots (Emhlabeni: From the Earth), objects made from fibres such as baskets and cloth (Transformed Fibres), Commemorative Cloths and Barber Signs. The Banquet (1994) featured utilitarian and ritual objects associated with food, and included contemporary artists who were invited to interpret the subject of food in different media, ranging from cake-icing to paintings and sculptures. Putting our own collections on show has also resulted in two exhibitions of the Standard Bank Corporate Collection. More recently the Gallery has shown 100 Contemporary Works from the Standard Bank African Art Collection, Currents of Value (an exhibition linked to banking traditions and functions, exploring the themes of value, wealth, status, investment, currency and exchange) and Gone to their Heads: Art of the Head in Africa. Exhibitions in the main Gallery upstairs change regularly, showing what is regarded as the best in contemporary South African art, as well as shows curated for the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, and from local and international collections. No art form is neglected. There have been drawing exhibitions (the 1990 Standard Bank National Drawing Competition), there have been architecture exhibitions (Three Architects - Fassler, Uytenborgaart, Fagan). There have been exhibitions from waste material (Ecolink). Photographic exhibitions are regularly mounted. In 1995 photographs by the late press photographer Ken Oosterbroek were shown; 1997 saw the Black Photo Album (curated by Santu Mofokeng, it chronicled black working- and middle-class family life through photographs commissioned in the period 1890 to 1950, examining the politics of representation), PhotoSynthesis and Portraits by The Star Newspaper photographers. 1998 saw On the Day, a selection of wedding pictures by a group of Gauteng photographers, whose humour and originality proved that the obligatory records of the wedding day need not be the stereotypes we are familiar with. The annual international World Press Photo is one of the high points of every year; press photography is an accessible medium attracting a wide audience eager to see the winning press photography images. Standard Bank Gallery has hosted World Press Photo annually since 1991. Exhibitions of print-making have also featured prominently with numerous shows from The Caversham Press, the leading publisher of quality original graphics, such as the Caversham Press Print Collection (1991), a Decade of Young Artists (1992), Flowers as Images (1992) and The Spirit of our Stories: Images of African Narratives (1996). An exhibition of posthumously editioned graphics by Vuminkosi Zulu (1948-1996) went on display in 1998 together with Images from Note and Song. A smaller area downstairs, known as The Space, was opened when the Gallery expanded in 1996. The Space also features regular changing exhibitions, and gives invited artists the opportunity and space to create installations and mount exhibitions of their latest works. A popular annual event is the exhibition by the incumbent winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award. Past exhibitions have included ceramic artists Bonnie Ntshalintshali and Fee Halsted Berning (1990); sculptor Andries Botha (1991); Tommy Motswai (1992); print-maker Pippa Skotnes (1993); Sam Nhlengethwa (1994); sculptor Jane Alexander (1995); painter Trevor Makhoba (1996); photographer Lien Botha (1997) and painter and print-maker Nhlanhla Xaba (1998). Standard Bank Gallery has hosted retrospective exhibitions by key South African artists such as Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993), Cyprian Shilakoe (1946-1972), Fred Page (1908-1984), Maggie Laubser 1886-1973 (from the Sanlam Collection), Phutuma Seoka (1922-1997), Lionel Abrams (1931-1997) and Edward Wolfe (1897-1982). Well-known and highly respected artists such as Edoardo Villa, Karel Nel, Penny Siopis, Noel Hodnett, Azaria Mbatha, Allina Ndebele, Alan Crump, Clifford M'pai, Neels Coetzee, Antoinette Murdoch, Tito Zungu, Clifford M'Pai, Andrew Verster, Peter Schutz, Walter Oltmann and Keith Dietrich have lent their creative energies to the Gallery in solo exhibitions. Hilary Graham's Sinking of the Mendi, loaned from the King George VI Art Gallery collection, was a visual tribute to 805 black South African men who lost their lives when the SS Mendi sank in the English Channel in January 1917. The troops were on their way to dig trenches in France. The Sinking of the Mendi is a spectacular display of over 300 drawings and paintings of one of World War One's greatest sea disasters. The Gallery does not necessarily steer away from controversy: Bringing up Baby (November 1998) invited selected artists to respond to the subject of the reproductive body dealing with issues as varied as conception, birth, abortion and child-abuse in multimedia, from sound, video, film, paintings, drawing, and sculpture to photography. Critically acclaimed regional group exhibitions from Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique and Namibia, and community shows from the Western Cape (Picturing our World: Images from the Western Cape, 1993), the Eastern Cape (People, Place, Perspectives: The Eastern Cape, 1994), and from KwaZulu-Natal (Jabulisa), have been displayed here. Exhibitions from international collections, such as Indian Contemporary Art from the National Museum in New Delhi; Three-Ways: An exhibition of contemporary British Painting sponsored by The British Council, Meubles d'en France, chairs from the French Furniture Industry (1996) and Café Café, an installation recreating famous Parisian coffee houses (1998) both from the French Institute of South Africa; Swiss Posters from the Museum fur Gestaltung, Zurich (1991), Folk Art from the National Cultural History Museum, The Box: A Rejected Object, and Labyrinth (1999), which consisted of graphics by top Czech Republic artists, have been hosted in association with embassies and cultural organizations. The ground-breaking Africus Biennale in February/March 1995 used the Gallery for a thought-provoking exhibition that featured three women artists. The artists in residence, Philippa Hobbs and Reshada Crouse, set up their studios in the Gallery so that the public could watch them work for the duration of the Biennale. The third artist was Israeli abstract painter Lea Nikel. To interest Standard Bank staff in the culture on offer on their doorstep, the Gallery regularly hosts lunch-hour concerts and recitals highlighting the range and diversity of music in South Africa. To further involve staff, the Gallery experimented with a unique concept of inviting them to produce art works in any medium, style and on any theme for display in the Gallery. Christened Bring and Hang, because whatever was submitted found a place in the display, this unique concept was repeated annually from 1993 to 1996. We view students as an under-served audience, and in an attempt to create an awareness and love for the arts, a supporting educational programme accompanies each exhibition. Groups of school children are invited to the Gallery, sponsored by the Standard Bank Foundation, and given guided tours of the art exhibitions. For many of the students, this is often their first introduction to an art gallery. The education outreach programme has been extremely successful, from modest beginnings in 1993 to a fully-fledged programme in which at least two schools a week from Soweto, Alexandra, Katlehong, Lenasia and other areas, are invited. Other Gallery projects include workshops and walkabouts, such as the Tommy Motswai workshops in December 1997 with the artist and groups of deaf children. Motswai is himself deaf. In 1999 Richman Buthelezi as artist-in-residence in the Gallery, demonstrated the recycling of found materials, especially discarded plastic, into paintings. Visitors saw two ceramic shows, South African Studio Ceramics from the 1950s and The Prince Imperial from the Ardmore Ceramic Studio in KwaZulu-Natal - an exploration in clay of Louis Napoleon, the French Prince Imperial, who died on South African soil during the Anglo-Zulu wars. Other exhibitions during 1999 were recent watercolours and pastels by Marion Arnold in an exhibition entitled Red Data and etc., watercolours by David Mogano who has consistently recorded township scenes, spanning 20 years, an exhibition of children's art from the Estelle McIlrath Art School in recognition of children's art accomplishments, a retrospective of Drum Magazine from the Jim Bailey Archives, Gerard Sekoto, drawings, sketches and paintings recently repatriated from France, the country of his exile. New works by internationally acclaimed local artist Karel Nel went on display upstairs, and downstairs, an exhibition from his private collection of African art, Bride, wealth, currency and other assets. Compiled by
Roslyn Sugarman |