Percy Zvomuya argues in ‘Talent that needs no kick-start ‘ that some Standard Bank Young Artist laureates like Subotzkyare too successful for their awards.
” …there is photographer Mikhael Subotzky, who, before winning the award last year, had shown his work at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2008. Some of his photographs documenting life in the landmark Ponte City had appeared in literary magazine Granta a few years previously. The award arrived when the rest of the world already knew about this talented photographer.
I am not saying these gongs are useless (artists are, anyway, endlessly greedy for love). For visual artists, it means your work gets into the collections of institutions and other private buyers for big sums.
My point, I guess, is that the committee’s selection process seems like another case of reading history backwards with the benefit of hindsight. To award a prize of this nature to Sibande now and not, say, three years ago when she was an unknown entity is easy and convenient — a territory one should cede to the British queen, who hands out awards every year to subjects who have done something notable. They wait for you to achieve something and then honour you.”
