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The toughest challenge yet
The Joburg Art Fair is back, but will it be as successful, asks Mary Corrigall

Unlike most big art extravaganzas, art fairs are primarily about generating sales, not about engaging with art discourses in challenging ways. So their ultimate success is measured in numbers.

From this perspective, last year’s inaugural Joburg Art Fair was a resounding success, with sales amounting to R27 million. Though a few Cape Town galleries bemoaned the hefty fee for a stand – around R200 000 – and the costs incurred in transporting their wares to Joburg, many of the Joburg-based galleries seemed fairly delighted with the business they racked up and the new patrons they could add to their books.

Despite these varied experiences, for the first time the art fair brought gallerists and dealers from around the country under one roof, engendering a sense of community that had thus far escaped the local art world.

Artlogic, the company that initiated and managed the fair, lost R1m in the process but it was content to do so given it was the fair’s first year.

Of course, the company didn’t escape criticism in the art press. Many disapproved of the manner in which it framed the fair as a platform for “contemporary African art” when it was by no means representative of art from the continent. The rubric it advanced was also criticised for perpetuating notions that contemporary art from the continent was a genus unto itself.

Traditionally, art fairs aren’t designed to promote a particular brand of art, so many in the art world were puzzled and bemused by the slogan that Artlogic was promoting.

At the time Ross Douglas, the director of Artlogic, was adamant that it was the only way to sell the fair to an international audience. “There was no chance of creating an art fair here that was anything other than a contemporary ‘African’ art fair,” he told The Sunday Independent before the 2008 event.

“We are putting African contemporary art into the world media.”

Despite appealing to what many in the art world deemed the lowest common denominator, the Joburg Art Fair did not succeed in attracting too much international attention. Most of the 6 500 visitors who ploughed their way through the expansive fair were Joburgers, who perhaps did respond positively to the “African” label.

Without a doubt, Douglas has more business savvy than art savoir-faire. But he’s a quick learner. This year the fair hasn’t been shamelessly plugged as a “contemporary African” art affair.

Well, not completely: an introduction in the catalogue does assert that organisers have “assembled the most comprehensive collection of contemporary creativity on the African continent”.
Given that most of the 25 galleries taking part in this year’s fair are South African with predominantly local artists in their stable, it’s unlikely that the fair will live up to that promise.

Undoubtedly, Artlogic has proved that a Joburg Art Fair, or for that matter an art fair on the African continent, is a viable venture. With most large-scale art initiatives such as the Johannesburg Biennale and Cape 07 (formerly Transcape) having struggled to remain sustainable, it seems Douglas has hit on a model that works.

But with a financial recession putting pressure on businesses across the country, the art fair might face its toughest challenge yet. However, at the launch of the fair catalogue, Douglas seemed optimistic and inferred that the fair wasn’t just about sales but about educating South Africans about contemporary art production in the country.

Artlogic has reined in its spending considerably. This year there won’t be any off-site events as there were last year, such as the launch party at the old Johannesburg Stock Exchange and discussion sessions at the Alexandra Theatre in Braamfontein. There will, however, still be “art talks”, but they will all take place at the fair itself.

For the talks, the Goethe-Institut will be pairing up with Wiser (the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research). Speakers include Alfons Hug, the German-based curator of The Tropics exhibition which will be showing at Iziko National Gallery, and Hayden Proud, historical curator at Iziko, who will present a talk on Formalism in South Africa. Gallery owners João Ferreira and Warren Siebrits will be giving advice on art collecting.

Jane Alexander will be the featured artist at the fair and will show her Security installation which was originally commissioned for the 27th São Paulo Biennale. A number of other so-called “special” projects will be on show, such as an exhibition curated by artists Kathryn Smith, Christian Nerf and Francis Burger titled Bad Form: Things and Stuff, which promises to be a highlight. Certainly, this year’s art fair promises to be a visual spectacle. Whether it stimulates more than the senses remains to be seen.

this article first appeared in the sunday independent of 5 april 2009