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De Arte's interview with Bongani Mkhonza Curator: Unisa Art Gallery
Karen von Veh talks to Bongani Mkhonza, the new curator at the Unisa Art Gallery.
Thursday 18 February 2010. At UNISA art Gallery
KvV: You have only been working at the UNISA Art Gallery since August 2009 so where were you working before this?
BM: I was at the Durban Art Gallery for 3 years but while I was there I was doing other projects on the side. I was employed as an education officer so I designed education programmes for schools and members of the public and university students around the exhibitions. I wrote handouts and developed activities such as talks around exhibitions and when teachers came I would relate the exhibition to the needs of the school curriculum. To facilitate these activities I had to meet with the curators and ask for their ideas about how we could activate the exhibition. Curators would come to the gallery and spend four or five days hanging the work during which time I was able to watch what they did and could talk to them about their vision for each exhibition. It was this interaction that first interested me in curating as a profession. I was excited about the opportunity to work directly with the artists to co-ordinate the exhibition and produce it and put it up there. So I started looking for curating courses or training programmes that could further my interest. Unfortunately there were no courses available in Durban, I hear that in SA there are very few curating courses in general, so I was unable to formally go and study to be a curator.
Then an opportunity presented itself about two years ago. A training programme for young curators in Cape Town was advertised on the net. Staff at Durban Art Gallery brought this to my attention and I decided to apply. Applicants had to write an essay to motivate for their interest and suitability. A degree in fine arts was required and also some experience in a gallery. I met all the requirements, I was short listed and called for interviews and was one of the five curators that were chosen from all over the country. That was the beginning of my curatorial journey.
We started the training programme, which was administered by the Cape Africa platform responsible for the Cape biennale exhibitions. Our training was supposed to last for 18 months and culminate in exhibitions that would be part of the Cape ’09 biennale
There were five of us from different provinces, from Cape Town, Johannesburg, I was from Durban, there was a girl from Lesotho. We had to come up with different exhibitions that we were going to curate for the biennale. The other four curators moved to Cape Town and stayed there for the duration of the programme but I had to go back to Durban quite regularly because I was working for the Durban municipality art gallery so they couldn’t allow me 18 months away from work. So I divided my time by spending two months in Durban and three months in Cape Town. Eventually the training co-ordinator decided that as I am on and off, I should be the project co-ordinator for all the other projects rather than coming up with my own specific project, which would be difficult to manage in my absence.
I had to manage four projects by very dynamic individuals who were not always easy to work with and who each had edgy ideas they wanted to promote. The exhibitions were held all over Cape Town. We used the railway station, the taxi rank in Langa, the taxis themselves, parks, the church square. We also had a formal exhibition in Khayelitsha, in a sports centre, but mostly we tried to avoid gallery spaces and to bring the art to the people of Cape Town. It was called “Convergence” making art beyond borders, referring to geographical, political, gender and cultural borders. As part of our training we were also given money to travel for two months all over Africa. I stayed with artists in Angola for 3 weeks and invited some of them to be part of the biennale, as producers of art in Cape Town, rather than just bringing work along which would then return to their country of origin.
KvV: That was real hands-on training for curatorship.
BM: Yes and it was very hectic because I was juggling two jobs and finishing my Masters degree at UKZN. Immediately after that I was offered the opportunity to come to UNISA. I was one of the few able to get a placement as a curator straight after the training, probably because I was the only one fully employed at the time and the only one doing a masters degree. So the combination of training and work experience helped to boost my profile in the job market.
KvV: What do you feel are the strengths of the UNISA collection?
BM: B: I have been working here for 4 months now and I haven’t gone through everything because there is so much in the collection, but from what I have seen it is very contemporary and very diverse. I can explain this statement by a comparison with the Durban Art Gallery, which also has a huge collection but is constrained by a colonial history. It has a strong colonial/traditional collection as well as a contemporary collection, but there are two separate acquisition books. One is for the Durban Art Gallery collection with all the ‘old masters’ and traditional works, and the other is a ‘study’ book that lists less traditional art works such as unknown Zulu artists, or unknown crafters etc. For me those 2 books raised questions about diversity, and the way the gallery is structured, who is given prominence and why. Even the levels of research differed because those unknown Zulus will be difficult if not impossible to find now, and often there is no record of when and how an object was collected. This may sound like a criticism of the Durban Art Gallery but I am aware that in colonial times they were not allowed to collect art of that nature. If the gallery staff didn’t break the rules and come up with the ‘study’ collection, therefore, there would not be any record at all of the material culture of the local people, so there is a positive side to it.
The UNISA collection, on the other hand, was diverse from the beginning. It is unusual to find a collection where you have all different diversity groups and all different art mediums from the inception of the collection up to today. All pieces have been properly collected with names of artists or crafters, provenance, materials and any other relevant information, so each piece is given the same amount of respect. We should give credit to the UNISA academics for this rigour and because they were beyond socio, economic and political issues. They saw beyond the status quo of the country at that time. So for me the diversity of this collection cannot be compared with any other collection in South Africa at the moment and that, I feel, is its biggest strength. Also, because my interest is mainly in contemporary art, I would say this is one of the most contemporary collections – we have the ‘usual suspects’ in terms of the arts but we also have the young artists who are developing now and who are pushing the boundaries that define collectible art.
KvV: Is this an area that you would like to develop in the UNISA collection?
BM: Yes indeed, curators often encourage artists to make art that is out of the box, innovative and unimaginable but when they buy and collect the criteria for buying art changes. These are issues that I am willing to challenge in our acquisition policies, which presently circumscribe artwork that is collectible and easily exhibitable. If we are defining ourselves as a contemporary collection we should try and look beyond those limitations. We should look at art that is not easily collectible, that is unimaginable, that is only for a moment, not just a permanent elitist object bought for investment purposes. For instance I had an opportunity to work for a few weeks with a collection on the Glen Carlou wine estate in Cape Town. One piece in the storeroom was just a few boxes of sand which might lead one to ask: “is this art?” The curator explained that whenever this piece is exhibited the artist is flown to the Cape from overseas, and using this sand he sculpts a snake like form around a conical pyramid. It remains for the duration of the exhibition. It does not matter if people touch it and disturb it – it has served its purpose for this exhibition. The sand is then collected and put back in the boxes for storage when the exhibition is over.
KvV: So the only constant each time is the sand.
BM: Yes. The concept is volatile and might change each time and this is what I feel is important in contemporary art. The concept of what constitutes art is no longer just a Pierneef hanging on the wall. I am not saying this is not acceptable but now we can go beyond those limitations, and as an academic institution I believe we should lead the way in challenging the art industry and the commercial galleries.
We are not commercial, we don’t have to make money out of art, so we should be the driving force of defining ‘contemporary art’ according to world standards.
KvV: You mention not having to make money from art, does this mean that you are just handed a budget each year and can spend it as you like?
BM: We are given a very generous budget for acquisitions but I as curator cannot go and spend it without consultation. There is a gallery committee, which includes members from Visual Arts and History of Art Departments. If I want to buy a work I bring it in and motivate as to why this work fits into the collection. The committee will look at it and write a recommendation to the board. The Gallery Board involves members from the university management, curators from the UNISA gallery and two members from Art History, Visual arts and Musicology, usually the head of department and another member. There are also influential outside members on the board who safeguard processes and decisions. I present my motivations again to the board and then they give the final recommendation regarding the purchase of the work. I like the whole process because it is democratic and it will also cover me as a curator if something goes wrong. I see my choice of future acquisitions as the opportunity to make my mark as a curator in the next five years. I would like to shape the collection so that my tenure is linked to a particular strategy in the UNISA Gallery.
KvV: How do you see that shape going or don’t you know yet?
BM: I don’t know yet but I would like to begin by circumventing the agencies one normally buys from, like the allies of the commercial galleries who promote certain works. These agencies are mostly working with people already well established so we are leaving the whole creative industry to the agencies to determine what will go through our collection. But if we do it the other way we can influence the agencies and the art markets. They should be hearing from us who the next good investment might be. I would like us to start creating our own champions through our collection. I am looking at us not just as buyers or collectors but we are an educational institution so my strategy going forward will be to build the careers of young artists who are capable, who are already making international strides into the industry, like Lawrence Lemaoana for example. If we are collecting his work, researching him and writing articles about him, we can raise his profile in the art market and make our own William Kentridges, rather than following the trends that the corporate collections are creating. I have followed this principle with the new acquisitions that I have made since coming here – I bought two images by Mary Sibande from her exhibition at Gallery Momo (Fig.1). This is a young artist launching her career and dealing with topical issues like racial relationships, the colonial past, gender and identity in a sophisticated and international manner. The other work I bought is by Lyndi Sales (Fig.2) who looks at global interconnectedness, life and death. It is an image of aeroplane flight paths laser cut from in-flight information and safety brochures.
Apart from just buying works from exhibitions, as an educational institution we can go and spend time with an artist in the studio, watch them working, document the artist, and then buy a piece at the end. This will give us a total product for educational purposes as well as a new piece for the collection. So this extensive research about the artist as a whole, not just the work that he does but a background and context, is the way I want to go. This is the only way I think I can fulfil the vision for this collection as an educational art gallery and collection where knowledge is disseminated and we are part of the whole process of knowledge making and meaning. If I am encouraged to look at an exhibition and perhaps to buy something, I could develop the collection that way with a good investment, but it is not going to identify my touch on the collection. My touch will be identified when I have developed a few artists to an international status, and also when I have developed good ongoing relationships with the artists themselves, not the agencies - that is my vision.
KvV: So you see the collection not just as an investment but as a teaching resource and a way to push the gallery into the 21st century. How accessible is the collection as a teaching resource?
BM: I must say it is not accessible at the moment in the sense of you walking in and saying “I would like to see two Penny Siopis from the collection.” It would be a challenge for me to just walk in and find the works and take them out for viewing or even to leave them out for research. We just do not have the space where we are at present. On the other hand we are one of the few galleries that have a publicly accessible web where any member of the public can just go in and look at our collection in the UNISA online gallery. The images are there with empirical information about each artwork. It has not been updated since 2006 but this month we have hired a graphic designer who is also a student worker here at UNISA. His job is to update this site with our new acquisitions, upgrade the images and upload the information that I and other curators write about the artworks, so by the end of the year we will have an up to date database on the web. As a distance learning institution this resource is obviously of vital importance so I am excited about it, and other large galleries and collections are amazed that we have all of this information available on our website. When I was still at Durban Art Gallery they were making plans to start digitalising their collection but thus far they do not have any accessible digital database – so we are one of the few who are leading the way at present. At the moment, therefore, we are only virtually accessible, online, but we are shortly to move into new premises, which will make the physical collection available to all visitors.
KvV: Where will your new gallery be placed?
BM: An entirely new building is being constructed at the entrance to the UNISA campus with its own parking so it is easily seen and easily accessible to the public. It will be the face of UNISA – a state of the art building, with huge spaces and light wells in some areas of the gallery. It was originally supposed to be finished by
April this year but when we returned from the summer vacation the deadline had moved to August, so now we are looking at completion between August and November. Next week we are having a meeting with the architects to decide on the final touches of the wall and interior finishes and the lighting, which is very exciting.
What excites me most is that the collection will have a home where it will be professionally maintained in proper storerooms and with magnificent exhibition areas.
I am privileged to have joined UNISA at this stage to be part of the bigger goals of the new gallery and part of the expansion. I am new to an old collection but involved in the birth of the new premises so this is an opportunity to review our policies, identify who we are, how we present our collection, what we will collect in future. It will open up dialogues about the collection because it is a huge gallery space so our exhibitions will not just be student based exhibitions any more. One of the core functions I was employed for is to curate cutting edge contemporary exhibitions, which is a huge challenge. The space and the infrastructure are being provided, so now it is up to me. Fortunately I am not operating by myself, we operate as a team with the Visual Arts, Art History and Musicology Department so I have a lot of assistance and advice.
KvV: Do you have a budget for mounting cutting-edge exhibitions of work. that is separate from your acquisitions budget?
BM: Yes but not a large budget as previous allocations prioritised acquisitions. We have, I think, one of the biggest budgets when it comes to acquisitions, which are an investment for the university, but we can also invest in knowledge. Creating an exhibition is an investment on its own because it is part of knowledge creation through catalogues, awareness and international recognition, but that investment is not as concrete and identifiable as a fixed art piece. Therefore the budget for such endeavours is much smaller. The Cape Africa platform has also trained me to look at art as something that is not necessarily just exhibited internally in a gallery but perhaps as something that is exhibited live in a theatre, or art that can be ballooned into the air and exhibited there. So it is challenging what you exhibit, and where you exhibit. I want to explore such ideas and if I can do this I will.
KvV: What exhibitions are you planning in the near future?
BM: This year we have some small exhibitions planned in our present art gallery. The next one opening here in March 2010 is a collaboration between the UNISA collection and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, looking at consciousness. This is a development, or continuation from the exhibition that was held at JAG last year and I am working closely with Kwezi Gule, the contemporary curator at JAG. Other exhibitions for this year have not yet been finalised but the move from this space to the new gallery will be a huge assignment and will take up the latter part of this year. Our largest planned exhibition therefore will be for the new gallery opening early next year. It will be a collaborative project involving people from the Art History, Visual arts and Musicology Department and we are bringing in another influential independent curator, but as the UNISA Art Gallery curator I will have to ‘own’ this exhibition. I want to create a huge hype around it because it is an opportunity to show Gauteng that there is a splendid new state of the art gallery presenting exhibitions of an international standard. It must open with a huge splash with the intention of placing UNISA at the forefront of the contemporary art world. I hope the gallery will be a showcase for my future strategy for the collection. I plan to use this resource to create our own champions by being innovative, carefully selecting, empowering, and developing young artists and setting our own trends. The public can go to the UNISA art collection and see what the gallery is collecting and what people are researching and thereby perhaps identify the future of the art industry. For me that would be contributing towards something more than just collecting for investment.
Thursday 18 February 2010. At UNISA art Gallery
KvV: You have only been working at the UNISA Art Gallery since August 2009 so where were you working before this?
BM: I was at the Durban Art Gallery for 3 years but while I was there I was doing other projects on the side. I was employed as an education officer so I designed education programmes for schools and members of the public and university students around the exhibitions. I wrote handouts and developed activities such as talks around exhibitions and when teachers came I would relate the exhibition to the needs of the school curriculum. To facilitate these activities I had to meet with the curators and ask for their ideas about how we could activate the exhibition. Curators would come to the gallery and spend four or five days hanging the work during which time I was able to watch what they did and could talk to them about their vision for each exhibition. It was this interaction that first interested me in curating as a profession. I was excited about the opportunity to work directly with the artists to co-ordinate the exhibition and produce it and put it up there. So I started looking for curating courses or training programmes that could further my interest. Unfortunately there were no courses available in Durban, I hear that in SA there are very few curating courses in general, so I was unable to formally go and study to be a curator.
Then an opportunity presented itself about two years ago. A training programme for young curators in Cape Town was advertised on the net. Staff at Durban Art Gallery brought this to my attention and I decided to apply. Applicants had to write an essay to motivate for their interest and suitability. A degree in fine arts was required and also some experience in a gallery. I met all the requirements, I was short listed and called for interviews and was one of the five curators that were chosen from all over the country. That was the beginning of my curatorial journey.
We started the training programme, which was administered by the Cape Africa platform responsible for the Cape biennale exhibitions. Our training was supposed to last for 18 months and culminate in exhibitions that would be part of the Cape ’09 biennale
There were five of us from different provinces, from Cape Town, Johannesburg, I was from Durban, there was a girl from Lesotho. We had to come up with different exhibitions that we were going to curate for the biennale. The other four curators moved to Cape Town and stayed there for the duration of the programme but I had to go back to Durban quite regularly because I was working for the Durban municipality art gallery so they couldn’t allow me 18 months away from work. So I divided my time by spending two months in Durban and three months in Cape Town. Eventually the training co-ordinator decided that as I am on and off, I should be the project co-ordinator for all the other projects rather than coming up with my own specific project, which would be difficult to manage in my absence.
I had to manage four projects by very dynamic individuals who were not always easy to work with and who each had edgy ideas they wanted to promote. The exhibitions were held all over Cape Town. We used the railway station, the taxi rank in Langa, the taxis themselves, parks, the church square. We also had a formal exhibition in Khayelitsha, in a sports centre, but mostly we tried to avoid gallery spaces and to bring the art to the people of Cape Town. It was called “Convergence” making art beyond borders, referring to geographical, political, gender and cultural borders. As part of our training we were also given money to travel for two months all over Africa. I stayed with artists in Angola for 3 weeks and invited some of them to be part of the biennale, as producers of art in Cape Town, rather than just bringing work along which would then return to their country of origin.
KvV: That was real hands-on training for curatorship.
BM: Yes and it was very hectic because I was juggling two jobs and finishing my Masters degree at UKZN. Immediately after that I was offered the opportunity to come to UNISA. I was one of the few able to get a placement as a curator straight after the training, probably because I was the only one fully employed at the time and the only one doing a masters degree. So the combination of training and work experience helped to boost my profile in the job market.
KvV: What do you feel are the strengths of the UNISA collection?
BM: B: I have been working here for 4 months now and I haven’t gone through everything because there is so much in the collection, but from what I have seen it is very contemporary and very diverse. I can explain this statement by a comparison with the Durban Art Gallery, which also has a huge collection but is constrained by a colonial history. It has a strong colonial/traditional collection as well as a contemporary collection, but there are two separate acquisition books. One is for the Durban Art Gallery collection with all the ‘old masters’ and traditional works, and the other is a ‘study’ book that lists less traditional art works such as unknown Zulu artists, or unknown crafters etc. For me those 2 books raised questions about diversity, and the way the gallery is structured, who is given prominence and why. Even the levels of research differed because those unknown Zulus will be difficult if not impossible to find now, and often there is no record of when and how an object was collected. This may sound like a criticism of the Durban Art Gallery but I am aware that in colonial times they were not allowed to collect art of that nature. If the gallery staff didn’t break the rules and come up with the ‘study’ collection, therefore, there would not be any record at all of the material culture of the local people, so there is a positive side to it.
The UNISA collection, on the other hand, was diverse from the beginning. It is unusual to find a collection where you have all different diversity groups and all different art mediums from the inception of the collection up to today. All pieces have been properly collected with names of artists or crafters, provenance, materials and any other relevant information, so each piece is given the same amount of respect. We should give credit to the UNISA academics for this rigour and because they were beyond socio, economic and political issues. They saw beyond the status quo of the country at that time. So for me the diversity of this collection cannot be compared with any other collection in South Africa at the moment and that, I feel, is its biggest strength. Also, because my interest is mainly in contemporary art, I would say this is one of the most contemporary collections – we have the ‘usual suspects’ in terms of the arts but we also have the young artists who are developing now and who are pushing the boundaries that define collectible art.
KvV: Is this an area that you would like to develop in the UNISA collection?
BM: Yes indeed, curators often encourage artists to make art that is out of the box, innovative and unimaginable but when they buy and collect the criteria for buying art changes. These are issues that I am willing to challenge in our acquisition policies, which presently circumscribe artwork that is collectible and easily exhibitable. If we are defining ourselves as a contemporary collection we should try and look beyond those limitations. We should look at art that is not easily collectible, that is unimaginable, that is only for a moment, not just a permanent elitist object bought for investment purposes. For instance I had an opportunity to work for a few weeks with a collection on the Glen Carlou wine estate in Cape Town. One piece in the storeroom was just a few boxes of sand which might lead one to ask: “is this art?” The curator explained that whenever this piece is exhibited the artist is flown to the Cape from overseas, and using this sand he sculpts a snake like form around a conical pyramid. It remains for the duration of the exhibition. It does not matter if people touch it and disturb it – it has served its purpose for this exhibition. The sand is then collected and put back in the boxes for storage when the exhibition is over.
KvV: So the only constant each time is the sand.
BM: Yes. The concept is volatile and might change each time and this is what I feel is important in contemporary art. The concept of what constitutes art is no longer just a Pierneef hanging on the wall. I am not saying this is not acceptable but now we can go beyond those limitations, and as an academic institution I believe we should lead the way in challenging the art industry and the commercial galleries.
We are not commercial, we don’t have to make money out of art, so we should be the driving force of defining ‘contemporary art’ according to world standards.
KvV: You mention not having to make money from art, does this mean that you are just handed a budget each year and can spend it as you like?
BM: We are given a very generous budget for acquisitions but I as curator cannot go and spend it without consultation. There is a gallery committee, which includes members from Visual Arts and History of Art Departments. If I want to buy a work I bring it in and motivate as to why this work fits into the collection. The committee will look at it and write a recommendation to the board. The Gallery Board involves members from the university management, curators from the UNISA gallery and two members from Art History, Visual arts and Musicology, usually the head of department and another member. There are also influential outside members on the board who safeguard processes and decisions. I present my motivations again to the board and then they give the final recommendation regarding the purchase of the work. I like the whole process because it is democratic and it will also cover me as a curator if something goes wrong. I see my choice of future acquisitions as the opportunity to make my mark as a curator in the next five years. I would like to shape the collection so that my tenure is linked to a particular strategy in the UNISA Gallery.
KvV: How do you see that shape going or don’t you know yet?
BM: I don’t know yet but I would like to begin by circumventing the agencies one normally buys from, like the allies of the commercial galleries who promote certain works. These agencies are mostly working with people already well established so we are leaving the whole creative industry to the agencies to determine what will go through our collection. But if we do it the other way we can influence the agencies and the art markets. They should be hearing from us who the next good investment might be. I would like us to start creating our own champions through our collection. I am looking at us not just as buyers or collectors but we are an educational institution so my strategy going forward will be to build the careers of young artists who are capable, who are already making international strides into the industry, like Lawrence Lemaoana for example. If we are collecting his work, researching him and writing articles about him, we can raise his profile in the art market and make our own William Kentridges, rather than following the trends that the corporate collections are creating. I have followed this principle with the new acquisitions that I have made since coming here – I bought two images by Mary Sibande from her exhibition at Gallery Momo (Fig.1). This is a young artist launching her career and dealing with topical issues like racial relationships, the colonial past, gender and identity in a sophisticated and international manner. The other work I bought is by Lyndi Sales (Fig.2) who looks at global interconnectedness, life and death. It is an image of aeroplane flight paths laser cut from in-flight information and safety brochures.
Apart from just buying works from exhibitions, as an educational institution we can go and spend time with an artist in the studio, watch them working, document the artist, and then buy a piece at the end. This will give us a total product for educational purposes as well as a new piece for the collection. So this extensive research about the artist as a whole, not just the work that he does but a background and context, is the way I want to go. This is the only way I think I can fulfil the vision for this collection as an educational art gallery and collection where knowledge is disseminated and we are part of the whole process of knowledge making and meaning. If I am encouraged to look at an exhibition and perhaps to buy something, I could develop the collection that way with a good investment, but it is not going to identify my touch on the collection. My touch will be identified when I have developed a few artists to an international status, and also when I have developed good ongoing relationships with the artists themselves, not the agencies - that is my vision.
KvV: So you see the collection not just as an investment but as a teaching resource and a way to push the gallery into the 21st century. How accessible is the collection as a teaching resource?
BM: I must say it is not accessible at the moment in the sense of you walking in and saying “I would like to see two Penny Siopis from the collection.” It would be a challenge for me to just walk in and find the works and take them out for viewing or even to leave them out for research. We just do not have the space where we are at present. On the other hand we are one of the few galleries that have a publicly accessible web where any member of the public can just go in and look at our collection in the UNISA online gallery. The images are there with empirical information about each artwork. It has not been updated since 2006 but this month we have hired a graphic designer who is also a student worker here at UNISA. His job is to update this site with our new acquisitions, upgrade the images and upload the information that I and other curators write about the artworks, so by the end of the year we will have an up to date database on the web. As a distance learning institution this resource is obviously of vital importance so I am excited about it, and other large galleries and collections are amazed that we have all of this information available on our website. When I was still at Durban Art Gallery they were making plans to start digitalising their collection but thus far they do not have any accessible digital database – so we are one of the few who are leading the way at present. At the moment, therefore, we are only virtually accessible, online, but we are shortly to move into new premises, which will make the physical collection available to all visitors.
KvV: Where will your new gallery be placed?
BM: An entirely new building is being constructed at the entrance to the UNISA campus with its own parking so it is easily seen and easily accessible to the public. It will be the face of UNISA – a state of the art building, with huge spaces and light wells in some areas of the gallery. It was originally supposed to be finished by
April this year but when we returned from the summer vacation the deadline had moved to August, so now we are looking at completion between August and November. Next week we are having a meeting with the architects to decide on the final touches of the wall and interior finishes and the lighting, which is very exciting.
What excites me most is that the collection will have a home where it will be professionally maintained in proper storerooms and with magnificent exhibition areas.
I am privileged to have joined UNISA at this stage to be part of the bigger goals of the new gallery and part of the expansion. I am new to an old collection but involved in the birth of the new premises so this is an opportunity to review our policies, identify who we are, how we present our collection, what we will collect in future. It will open up dialogues about the collection because it is a huge gallery space so our exhibitions will not just be student based exhibitions any more. One of the core functions I was employed for is to curate cutting edge contemporary exhibitions, which is a huge challenge. The space and the infrastructure are being provided, so now it is up to me. Fortunately I am not operating by myself, we operate as a team with the Visual Arts, Art History and Musicology Department so I have a lot of assistance and advice.
KvV: Do you have a budget for mounting cutting-edge exhibitions of work. that is separate from your acquisitions budget?
BM: Yes but not a large budget as previous allocations prioritised acquisitions. We have, I think, one of the biggest budgets when it comes to acquisitions, which are an investment for the university, but we can also invest in knowledge. Creating an exhibition is an investment on its own because it is part of knowledge creation through catalogues, awareness and international recognition, but that investment is not as concrete and identifiable as a fixed art piece. Therefore the budget for such endeavours is much smaller. The Cape Africa platform has also trained me to look at art as something that is not necessarily just exhibited internally in a gallery but perhaps as something that is exhibited live in a theatre, or art that can be ballooned into the air and exhibited there. So it is challenging what you exhibit, and where you exhibit. I want to explore such ideas and if I can do this I will.
KvV: What exhibitions are you planning in the near future?
BM: This year we have some small exhibitions planned in our present art gallery. The next one opening here in March 2010 is a collaboration between the UNISA collection and the Johannesburg Art Gallery, looking at consciousness. This is a development, or continuation from the exhibition that was held at JAG last year and I am working closely with Kwezi Gule, the contemporary curator at JAG. Other exhibitions for this year have not yet been finalised but the move from this space to the new gallery will be a huge assignment and will take up the latter part of this year. Our largest planned exhibition therefore will be for the new gallery opening early next year. It will be a collaborative project involving people from the Art History, Visual arts and Musicology Department and we are bringing in another influential independent curator, but as the UNISA Art Gallery curator I will have to ‘own’ this exhibition. I want to create a huge hype around it because it is an opportunity to show Gauteng that there is a splendid new state of the art gallery presenting exhibitions of an international standard. It must open with a huge splash with the intention of placing UNISA at the forefront of the contemporary art world. I hope the gallery will be a showcase for my future strategy for the collection. I plan to use this resource to create our own champions by being innovative, carefully selecting, empowering, and developing young artists and setting our own trends. The public can go to the UNISA art collection and see what the gallery is collecting and what people are researching and thereby perhaps identify the future of the art industry. For me that would be contributing towards something more than just collecting for investment.
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