A Cape Town landmark will soon become a major international museum that will focus primarily on work of African origin, reports Sean O’Toole.
The pigeons squatting in Cape Town harbour’s derelict grain silo have been served notice: a new R500-million private contemporary art museum will soon occupy this historic building at the V&A Waterfront’s southern industrial edge. Christened the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), the new museum will cover 9500m2 on nine floors of the silo, built in 1921. Nearly two-thirds of the renovated building will be devoted to exhibitions.
Zeitz Museum
“It puts us on par with other major museums in the world,” Mark Coetzee, Zeitz MOCAA’s executive director, said at a launch event on November 19. “It allows us not only to import culture but also to curate projects that we can export outwards.”
The new not-for-profit institution is more a tactical venture than a philanthropic one. Among other things, it will enable the Waterfront’s owners – Growthpoint Properties and the Government Employees’ Pension Fund – to establish an uninterrupted corridor between their existing retail and hospitality properties and the rapidly expanding conference and financial district in the lower central business district. Culture will be the new so-called Silo Precinct’s chief draw card.
“We researched different museums around the world and how they are pulled together: you need a building, a collection, curators and an endowment fund to finance all that,” the Waterfront’s chief executive, David Green, said.
Having reviewed “dozens” of proposals to redevelop the grain silo since it was decommissioned in 2001, the Waterfront’s management decided to bet on a strategic alliance with a German businessman and art collector, Jochen Zeitz. In ceding naming rights to Zeitz, the Waterfront will gain access to a youthful art collection pieced together by a globally connected businessman.
For full report by Sean O’Toole: Mail & Guardian. See also MapMyWay
