FNB Vita Art Prize Exhibition 2001.

NSA Gallery Glenwood, Durban, South Africa August 7, 2001-September 8, 2001

South Africa's long history of social inequality is reflected in art competitions and exhibitions. Choosing the "best" artists among people who have not had the same access to education and resources has been problematic. The major art competitions of the 1980s were the Cape Triennials, traveling exhibitions of works selected by a panel drawn largely from museum directors, lecturers, and other established art administrators. Even in the late '80s, when the political climate was beginning to change, the content of these shows mainly consisted of works by trained (and white) artists working in the established media of painting and sculpture. Subsequently the art scene became dominated by the two Johannesburg Biennales held in 1995 and 1997, but they were largely unsupported by the people of South Africa and, for a variety of reasons, have been discontinued.

In 1997 the annual FNB Vita awards, sponsored by the First National Bank, was re-launched to keep abreast of the changes sweeping though South African art. The award for visual arts relies on nominations by members of the public and a panel of selectors. From this pool of artists who must have exhibited their work the previous year, the selectors choose just four to six finalists who are given the same amount of money to create a piece specifically for the competition. This ensures a level playing field at least in the allocation of resources, an important consideration in the South African context.

The presentation of the finalists' entries has become the primary contemporary art exhibition in the country. Because of the nature of the competition process, however, there is no overall curatorial theme, which can lead to an uneven, uncoordinated show. Surprisingly, however, the 2001 exhibition hung together, though on second thought perhaps its cohesiveness was not surprising considering the current sociopolitical climate: many of the past struggles involving race, diverse education, and living conditions are now behind us, and artists are demonstrating similar concerns which go beyond the artificial barriers created by apartheid.

A strong theme which emerged in the exhibition was the exploration of masculine identity. Previously South Africa's patriarchal society privileged the white male and marginalized the black male. However, because changes brought about by democracy now favor formerly disadvantaged groups such as women and black men, the white South African male has had to reexamine his position in society. Similarly the black South African male has had to assume roles of leadership and often negotiate the transitions from a peri-urban or rural background to a global scene. The works by Jan Van der Merwe and Moshekwa Langa aptly demonstrated the conflicts and uncertainties of these changing concepts of identity.

Van der Merwe's Baggage Arrival 2001 is a sculptural installation of a rusted metal airport carousel with long-abandoned cases moving around and around, observed by a surveillance camera. Alongside is a deserted luggage trolley with a case and a coat slung over it as though the owner were to return. The suggestion is of time stood still. Van der Merwe is an Afrikaans whose personal history is tied up with issues such as compulsory conscription, which forced many young men to defend a regime with which they disagreed. Exile was an option, and psychological confusion was part of the baggage. The installation evokes feelings of displacement and loss--the end of an era of white male dominance.

Exile was also an option for the black South African, who in recent years has been offered more opportunities by the European art world keen to embrace this "new" phenomenon. Moshekwa Langa's Home Movies: Where do I begin?, which won the overall prize, addresses his displacement. Two videos are placed next to each other. One shows feet--some shod, some bare--stepping on to a bus in an endless monotonous stream. Alongside is a projection of the sea, the constant motion of the waves like life itself. The third video, set apart from the others, shows a day in the life of a typical African city. Someone awakens, a cock crows, a person plucks a fruit from a tree while a young girl poses seductively. A man sits on his bed with a look of resignation and exhaustion, night falls, and all the while one hears Shirley Bassey singing "Where Do I Begin?" Langa lives in Amsterdam, and this installation carries associations of relocation, with the sea used as a metaphor for the voyage away from home. His work has a poetic quality in its rhythmic repetition and its references to the dichotomy between nature and culture. It remains enigmatic, however, residing in the utopian space of "somewhere else."

The concept of utopia is always present in Clive Van den Berg's work. Of all the finalists, he is the most established, having worked since the 1980s on the theme of the male body and its relationship with the land. South African history is layered with prejudices, homophobia being one of these, but the country's present constitution is one of the most progressive in the world. In the installation LOVE's Ballast, Van den Berg further explores this theme. The wooden bed placed high on the gallery wall and lit from below with rows of lights echoes his earlier fire drawings in which men's faces and domestic objects on the mine dumps suggested the unrecorded histories of the mineworkers. This installation draws the earlier threads together, giving dignity and expression to male love.

In his performance piece, Robin Rhode boldly used his body to examine the transitory nature of time and art. Rhode is a member of the displaced colored community in Cape Town, and his performance was done first, for the judges, in the street in a busy taxi rank and then in the gallery for opening night. Sauntering through the gallery crowd, he made a hasty drawing of the ubiquitous African taxi on a blank white wall, which was immediately washed off by his street-wise mates who came running forth armed with mops and buckets. The performance raised many questions relating to the co-option of labor, the value of funding, the transitory value of art, and a value-driven society. It left us with few answers.

Kim Liebermann's art installation, The Web of Tradition, continues her work in postal art. Here she embellished sheets of postage stamps with silk thread; the sewing records the situations in which they were sewn. Connected with a feminine consciousness of home, memory, and interconnectedness, The Web of Tradition challenges the modernist grid associated with masculine dominance. It also reveals a searching for identity and rootedness, as do other pieces in this show.

Finally, Kathryn Smith's The Way We Kiss in Public A.D.A.S.T.W. (a forensic abbreviation for Arrived Dead and Stayed That Way) reached across many levels of society. This installation comprised photographs, text, and video in a room with reflective walls, ceiling, and floor. An air-conditioning unit kept the temperature at 18 [degrees] C, and the environment, while throwing back the light emitted from the television monitors, also created the sense of a hermetically sealed unit. The artist has created a mortuary alerting us to the presence of death. It is a disturbing fact that, in South Africa, burial space is at a premium, as AIDS, violence, and road accidents have given rise to unprecedented numbers of fatalities. Living with this constant specter of death makes the unspeakable commonplace. Smith's work comments on how easily we have absorbed death into the media and everyday life.

Overall the works on display communicated a sense of questioning and restlessness. Issues of bodily presence / absence and the concept of "home" have been affected by the way a South African identity was forged on the body and how bodies were separated by spatial delineations. Home was often a nowhere place, and identities were confused and reliant on legislation and mediation. The exhibition as whole was indicative of the critical discourse around race, identity, space, and belonging which informs the attempt to create a unified society with a South African identity.

The exhibition catalogue FNB Vita Art Prize 2001 (16 pp., 24 color illustrations; $5 softcover) is available from NSA Gallery in Glenwood, South Africa.

CAROL BROWN is director of the Durban Art Gallery in KwaZulu-Natal. Her special interest is in contemporary South African art and HIV/AIDS and human rights art awareness.