Contemporary African art rises to the occasion

Contemporary African art, long undervalued on the global market, broke through a psychological glass ceiling last week as patrons spent over 1.9 million euros at a South African fair.

The Joburg art fair, touted as the first of its kind on the continent, had over 6,000 visitors in three days and was declared a critical and commercial success by organiser Ross Douglas.

“We were expecting sales in the region of ten to 15 million rand, but we did a lot better then that,” he told AFP on Monday, saying collectors had forked out more than 25 million rand (just over three million dollars).

The cream of new and established artists from all over the continent were on display in South Africa’s economic capital Johannesburg over the weekend, in a 5,000 square metre exhibition hall where buyers could choose among pieces ranging in price from 1,000 to five million rand.

The works on display were crafted in a diverse array of media as artists showed they were keen to break away from the stereotypical wooden masks and papier mache associated with African art.

A piece exhibited by the German-based Galerie Peter Herrmann, which showcasts predominantly African art, appeared at first glance to be nothing but a jumbled mass of rubbish.
On closer inspection the paper, bamboo and metal odds and ends shape themselves into an amputee victim — one of several pieces inspired by social issues like African poverty, crime and war.

Others took a more global view, as one artist plastered syringes and empty medicine boxes around a portrait of United States President George W. Bush.

Douglas said he was pleasantly surprised by the number of foreign buyers, mostly from Europe, who attended the fair.

They spent much more than South African collectors, who forked out between 50,000 and 100,000 rand on average.

“There is a lot of opportunity for growth … We need a bigger collecting base,” said Douglas.

On the continent, he said, only South Africa has managed to establish a viable community of art collectors, and even this was in its infancy.

Gallery owner Peter Herrmann believed this was “because of an absence of a healthy middle class in many African countries.”

South Africa also led the way in art education, with most of its universities boasting fine arts departments.

“South Africa (when) compared to Africa is the exception. In Cameroon, all the artists are self-educated, there are no schools for art,” said Herrmann.

Seelan Sundoo, an associate at the Modern and Contemporary art gallery in Stellenbosch, Cape Town, said African artists were in dire need of exposure, hence the need for more art fairs like this one.

“We are way behind in our art scene compared to international galleries. We are behind in that our art has not been priced correctly, we’re behind in terms of exposure. Our artists are undervalued.”

South Africa’s growing appreciation for the fine arts was due to the population’s growing sophistication and a rising awareness of the investment potential, said Steven Bales, art consultant for the First Rand financial group, a sponsor of the fair.

“It is essential to educate people (elsewhere on the continent) on the financial, as well the social value of art,” said Bales.

18 March 2007

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Cash machine crime explodes in South Africa

Eight cash machines have been bombed in South Africa in less than a week, an escalating trend that has become a nearly daily offence in the crime-ridden country, police said on Monday.

Three policemen and two civilians appeared in court on Monday in connection with the bombing of a cash machine last week, said police spokesman Louis Jacobs.

Jacobs said the men, whose case was postponed for a week, were charged with malicious damage to property, two counts of attempted murder, theft of cash and intentional detonation of explosives.

Police suspect the growing trend in blasting cash machines open with what is believed to be commercial explosives from mines, is the work of criminal gangs in the country.

Most of the blasts happen around Johannesburg in the Gauteng province, while one also struck in the North-West province.

“It is almost a daily occurence,” said provincial spokesman Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini.

One person has died in the blasts and thousands of rands have been stolen as cash machine blasts increased from 54 in 2006, to 186 by the end of March 2008, according to official figures from the South African Banking Risk Information Centre.

“It costs about 200,000 rands (16, 500 Euros, 25, 800 dollars) to replace a machine,” said Steve Higgins, spokesman for South Africa’s First National Bank who lost two cash machines in the recent spate of attacks.

April 1 2008

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SAfrican unions protest mounting food prices

Hundreds of trade unionists marched in South Africa’s largest city on Thursday in a protest over rising food prices and the country’s electricity crisis.

Around 1,500 demonstrators marched on a branch of retail chain Pick’n'Pay in Johannesburg city centre to demand a hold on food prices and an end to price-fixing.

“We call for a moratorium on food prices,” said Violet Seboni, second vice-president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, as she handed over the petition.

Senior general manager Kevin Korb said the company shared the concern among all South Africans. “This is not just a South African issue, it is a global issue,” he told the protesters.

Rising inflation, which increased from 9.3 percent to 9.8 percent in February, and petrol costs have caused prices for basic goods such as bread, oil and milk to increase in South Africa in recent months.

Violent riots have broken out in other countries in recent weeks over similar rising food costs, including Argentina, Haiti, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal and Egypt.

Demonstrators also visited the offices of national power supplier Eskom to protest at ongoing power cuts and the threat of major price hikes being considered to fund infrastructure improvement.

17 April 2008

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Fire and blood in South African townships

His legs soaked in blood and with scorch marks running down his back, the young man is lifted on to a makeshift stretcher after another bout of deadly violence in South Africa’s so-called City of Gold.

His eyes blink, filled with tears, he shudders slightly and tries to move before police calm him down and say he is now out of danger from the baying mob who had attacked in one of Johannesburg’s teeming townships.

“I saw him riding on his bicycle and then he was attacked by the mob,” said a woman in the Reiger Park township, too frightened to gave her name.

“He’s been here, just lying on the ground, for ages.”

The victim, who was too traumatised by his beating to give his name, was just one of dozens of victims of an orgy of violence on a scale not seen since the dog days of the whites-only apartheid regime, when followers of the Zulu Inkhata Freedom Party clashed with supporters of the now ruling ANC.

According to the police, at least 22 people have now been killed in township violence in and around Johannesburg since last week. Several hundred more have either been attacked or lost their possessions in attacks on their homes.

While the violence has been confined to the townships and the largely no-go areas of downtown Johannesburg, deeply disturbing newspaper front-pages showing images of a human fireball have illustrated the levels of hatred that are fueling the attacks.

Few residents of Reiger Park were prepared to speak to reporters but one laid the blame firmly at the feet of Zimbabwean refugees, up to three million of whom are now believed to be in South Africa to escape the economic meltdown in their homeland.

“All these things are the fault of the Zimbabweans. They should just go,” said the woman who only gave her first name, Noxolo.

The Zimbabweans have been widely blamed in the impoverished townships for taking jobs in a country where nearly four out of 10 of the workforce are unemployed and for the sky-high levels of crime.

The financial capital of the economic powerhouse of Africa, Johannesburg has long been a magnet for people across the continent.

As well as the Zimbabwean exiles, large numbers of immigrants from countries such as Mozambique, Nigeria, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo have swelled the city’s overall population at a time when the government is struggling to meet its commitments to move people out of metal shacks.

While the immediate target of the attacks appeared to be foreigners, many South Africans have been caught up in the violence which politicians fear is now well out of control.

Even some township inhabitants feel the attacks are no longer solely directed at immigrants.

“It’s not just foreigners. The owner of that container is a (South African) coloured guy and they opened it and stole everything,” said another Reiger Park resident, Bongani, pointing out an empty container lying on its side in the street.

A quick assessment of the damage in Reiger Park on Monday morning saw large swathes of housing flattened and fires still littering streets covered in makeshift barricades.

Police attempting to bring calm to the violence-ridden township were mostly greeted with jeers and stones but some residents hoped they would be successful in restoring order.

Bongani has mixed feelings towards the police who are trying to restore order.

“I’m glad the police are here, but they shot me in the leg. I was standing in my own yard and they shot me for no reason,” he said.

19 May 2008

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Hopes of home dashed for Zimbabwe refugees

After nearly four years sleeping on a floor in a church in central Johannesburg, Susan Matzima had been aching at the prospect of returning home to see her six children again in Zimbabwe.

After first-round elections in March — when the opposition came within a whisker of ending Robert Mugabe’s 28-year rule — Matzima had planned to pack up her meagre belongings and return to the homeland she fled in 2004.

“After the first elections our hopes were raised. It’s high time for a change in Zimbabwe… it was time to go meet our families,” says Matzima, lying under a tangle of blankets in a chilly alcove in the Central Methodist Church.

But the hope engendered by March’s election was soon dashed by a wave of violent attacks against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which prompted its leader Morgan Tsvangirai to pull out of Friday’s run-off.

Matzima, a self-declared MDC supporter, says Tsvangirai had little option even if it enabled Mugabe to romp to victory in a one-man race.

“I salute Tsvangirai and the decisions he’s made. If he went to the elections maybe he would have won (but) there would have been bloodshed.”

The church is teeming with Zimbabweans who fled an economic meltdown. Unemployment there is running at over 80 percent and food shortages are legion.

Many South Africans have accused Zimbabweans for depriving them of jobs and of being partly to blame for South Africa’s sky-high crime rate.

Despite the miserable conditions for the church’s 1,200 residents, it was a safe haven from xenophobic attacks that erupted in Johannesburg in May and left more than 60 dead.

Even though they feel unwelcome in South Africa, many Zimbabweans are more fearful of what might await them back home.

Tendai Mundoza says she would rather live with the threat of xenophobia then face state-sponsored violence.

“I came here on May 14 during the xenophobic violence,” she said as she huddled with her two young children.

“I left Zimbabwe because of victimisation. My husband was captured and tortured and I was also almost a victim,” says the 29-year-old from Harare.

She had also looked forward to going home to a Tsvangirai-led government but is now resigned to a long stay in South Africa.

“Our hopes are doomed. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

“I am urging the international community to help us. Here is a man who doesn’t have any feeling towards his people. He just abuses and tortures, his reign of terror won’t stop.”

While many are resigned to their fate, others say they should not take things lying down.

“If he is not going to listen to the majority we must take action,” says Max Gatakata, the MDC’s representative in the church.

But for all his fighting talk, Gatakata himself finds it hard to keep his spirits up after Mugabe’s re-inauguration on Sunday.

“We were looking at a situation where we thought we were going to be liberated,” he says. “It’s a very sad situation.”

For Gatakata there are only two options.

“If Mugabe listens to the African leaders then there might be a change. If he doesn’t, we are ready to sacrifice our blood. We are already dying — it might as well be for something.”

01 July 2008

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