In a South African first, a local financier is sharing his private collection with the public.
In a speech to inaugurate his new contemporary art space, the New Church, South Africa’s first privately owned museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art, financier and collector Piet Viljoen conjectured how he and President Jacob Zuma were “connected through art and, specifically, Brett Murray’s work”.
“I was moved to start collecting by his sculpture Africa, while our president was moved to ban his work,” said Viljoen. In the first case, he was referring to Murray’s public sculpture on St George’s Mall in Cape Town, a bronze West African fetish figure sprouting garish yellow Bart Simpson heads, which was funded by the JK Gross Trust.
Making light of the recent imbroglio over Murray’s Spear painting of Zuma, he added: “At least we were both moved.”
For a while now there has been whispered talk about a big-name collector opening a private art museum in Cape Town. Jo’burg collector Gordon Schachat, Puma chairperson Jochen Zeitz and English collector Charles Saatchi have all been mooted as candidates. In the end, Viljoen, who dismisses talk of art as an investment, quietly got on with the business of finding a space, signing the title deed, contracting an architect and placating angry neighbours.
The show, which is titled Subject as Matter, includes work by Walter Battiss. Wim Botha’s recently completed white neon and wood sculptural installation, Time Machine, is the standout piece. A dynamic integration of competing black and white forms, the impossibly asymmetrical work is displayed in a retrofitted double-volume space at the rear of the museum space.
“The work reminds me of a challenging project I once set students where they had to draw a human being using only the lines that could be made with a ruler,” writes Siopis in the accompanying catalogue.
The New Church, which will host the exhibition curated by Penny Siopis for the duration of summer, is open to the public by appointment only. Contact Colleen Pastor on 021 657 3472
