BUSINESS ART May 2009 | Supplement to The South African Art Times | E-mail: subs@arttimes.co.
n Art Times | E-mail: subs@arttimes.co.za | Member of the Global Art Information Group
New Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg rises
Michael Coulson
For some months now, those who
travel along Jo’burg’s Jan Smuts
Avenue have noticed a strange
elliptical concrete structure slowly
rising on the corner of Jellicoe, just
down the road from the Everard
Read Gallery. The corner site was
actually bought by the gallery
20-odd years ago, when the then
owner, the old Johannesburg City
Council, decided it was surplus to
requirements, but for most of the
time since then it stood idle, used
mainly for surplus parking during
gallery openings.
How to develop it has thus had a
long gestation. For years the gal-
lery’s present director, Mark Read,
felt that the gallery’s handsome
and much-loved premises rather
petered out on the western bound-
ary, and at one time considered
building a small space – “nothing
ambitious” for contemporary art
there.
But gradually the concept expand-
ed, and a desire grew to put up a
multi-purpose building that would
be an adornment to the city. Also,
partly through the passage
of time and partly given greater
freedom after buying out other
members of the family from
the business, his own horizons
expanded. The final building
block fell into place when he met
architect Pierre Swanepoel, and
discovered in enthusiastic discus-
sions that they shared a vision of
what could be done.
When I first spoke to Read about
the building, last year, unof-
ficial cost estimates were put at
R10m-R12m, and he planned an
environmentally positive project.
Today he ruefully admits that those
were vain hoped. “The cost has
gone way north of that, as for an
elliptical building almost every
component has to be purpose-
made, and you can hardly have a
less environmentally sound build-
ing than one made of concrete with
an aluminium cladding.”
Nevertheless, the building will
reflect Read’s growing interests in
things other than selling art, espe-
cially palaeontology. The building
will basically have three levels
(“Unless some day I build a pent
house on the top”). The ground
floor he describes as a project and
office space, with a ramp curling
up to the middle level, a towering
exhibition space big enough to sus-
pend motor cars from the ceiling,
and then another ramp up to the
top to accommodate Darwin’s, an
oyster bar which will be a private
club for his friends.
He doesn’t see the exhibition space
as primarily for selling art, though
that won’t be precluded. Rather,
he envisages seasons displaying
new technologies. Like building
with bamboo, as is being done at
a resort he’s involved with in the
Seychelles.
He’s also increasingly involved
with people like Richard Leakey
and Richard (The God Delu-
sion) Dawkins and wants to show
Leakey’s “amazing” East African
fossils. He’d like to take works
out of museums and show them
in a different space, juxtaposed
with other objects, and is confident
museums will go along with this.
For example, the old Transvaal
Museum has a chunk of moon
rock: he’d like to show this next to
Deborah van Niekerk (2009), From the series ‘The hand that feeds’ Oil on canvas, Now showing at The KZNSA Gallery, Durban, Kwa Zulu - Natal. Until 10 May. see www.nsagallery.co.za for further details
a coelacanth and a DNA machine.
Other possibilities seem limit-
less. “All I can say is that it will
be a confused and non-directional
path.” He hopes outsiders will
also propose relevant projects and
events.
The building has been named
Circa – Latin for about. “This is
the perfect name, because it’s not
actually any one thing. In some
ways it’s like an opera house,
but it’s really a techno-space that
can take on many identities.” It’s
planned to link it across Keyes
Avenue with the existing building,
though Read is still vague on pre-
cisely how this will be achieved,
which will have to be determined
in conjunction with the Jo’burg
Metro.
The first show, towards the end of
the year, will be a collaborative ef-
fort by Willem Boshoff and Karel
Nel. “I couldn’t wish for a better
duo.”
Read stresses that his relatively
new minority shareholder, banker
Paul Harris, has not put up any of
the money, “though he loves the
project.” The existing business will
have to pay for it. “It’ll be tight,
but we’ll manage it.”
If passion is any determinant, this
shouldn’t be a problem.
With newspapers in terminal decline,
what future for arts journalism?
Coverage of the arts is migrating online but unless someone is prepared to pay for it, the outlook is uncertain
By András Szántó
From The Art Newspaper
www.theartnewspaper.com
From Issue 202 (May 2009)
Before we succumb to nostalgia,
let’s be clear: arts journalism has
never had it easy. Culture, espe-
cially in its rarefied incarnations,
has never been a high priority for
the mainstream press. Criticism
is a strange bird in an enterprise
devoted to “objectivity” and mass
readership. And news bosses rarely
care about “soft” arts stories. They
are into “hard” reporting on wars
and money and sport—boys’ stuff.
Instead of a reliable income, arts
journalism has paid dividends in
the form of access to art and a
voice in cultural debates—that,
and an occasional VIP pass, dinner
invite or goodie bag.
Recently, though, the situation
has taken a turn for the worse.
The imminent demise of printed
newspapers is no longer a panel
discussion topic, but a reality.
Many US cities including Denver
and Seattle are losing their second
papers; others (including, pos-
sibly, San Francisco, Miami and
Philadelphia) are contemplating
life without a printed daily. The
Detroit Free Press is only printing
a paper edition three days a week.
Even the New York Times, its
stock worth barely more than its
Sunday edition, has sold its Renzo
Piano tower, imposed steep cost
cuts, and is threatening to close its
subsidiary, the Boston Globe. The
massively overleveraged Tribune
Company, owner of dozens of
newspapers, is in bankruptcy, leav-
ing the fate of the Chicago Tribune
and the Los Angeles Times in the
balance. At the Los Angeles Times,
newsroom positions have been
cut by half over the past decade,
and arts coverage substantially
reduced. An aptly named blog,
Paper Cuts, counts 24,000 news-
paper jobs lost in the US since the
start of last year. The outlook for
newspapers on both sides of the
Atlantic is dim.
Arts journalism as we used to
know it is sinking with the ship.
The forces undermining the news
business are the same every-
where and have been extensively
catalogued by now. Studies show,
however, that arts journalism is not
being singled out for inequitable
rollbacks. The problem is that
the cuts are deepening an already
miserable shortage of resources,
set against a cultural universe that
continues to expand. We are past
the tipping point: it has become
acceptable to run a paper with just
a skeletal culture staff. Specialised
writers are giving way to general-
ists. Culture sections are being
tossed overboard (standalone book
review sections, in particular, are
a dying breed). Article lengths and
“news holes” (space for editorial
content) are shrinking. All this has
eviscerated newspapers’ ability
to deliver quality arts coverage,
which, as a result, must migrate
elsewhere.
Beyond the tipping point
But where? Many experts believe
that daily newspapers will never
find a way back to sustaining solid
arts journalism. Magazines are do-
ing marginally better, but they can-
not shoulder the burden of timely
local arts coverage, especially for
non-specialist readers—and some
are folding. The news industry,
on the whole, was too slow to
embrace the internet and deploy
its once abundant war chests to
find new ways of capturing readers
seeking information, services and
communities. Myopically obsessed
with their traditional product,
newspapers failed to acquire,
let alone invent, game-changing
technologies such as Craigslist,
Facebook or the Kindle.
Under relentless shareholder pres-
sure, publishers have tried every
game in the book to monetise
journalism on the web—from
charging for online subscriptions,
to fencing off “walled gardens” of
premium content, to surrounding
journalism with clever advertising.
Lately, some executives have been
pinning their hopes on an iTunes-
style micro-payment scheme. Last
month, the Associated Press threat-
ened to make sites that link to its
content pay up or face legal action,
while Rupert Murdoch warned:
“People reading news for free on
the web, that’s got to change.”
But so far nothing has worked. No
substitute for newspapers’ monop-
oly on local and classified advertis-
ing has emerged. For Douglas
McLennan, publisher of ArtsJour-
nal, a popular arts newsletter and
link aggregator (with 50,000 daily
users), it is simply too late for
papers to innovate their way out
of this quandary. “We just need to
regretfully bid them adieu and get
them out of the room, because they
are sucking up oxygen. It is going
to make it difficult for the new
models to take hold until some of
this dead wood is pushed out.”
Now the good news: it is only a
matter of time before someone
puts the pieces back together
again. The search for a hopeful
future begins with the insight that
although journalists and publica-
tions are suffering, readership is
up by wide margins. More people
than ever are reading and writing
about art, thanks to the web.
The problem is not the scarcity or
the quality of arts journalism (the
latter has always been mixed), but
that no one is paying for it—at
least not yet. Broadly speaking,
there are three ways forward from
here.
Recreating economies of scale
Clearly, arts journalists aren’t
disappearing. They are just moving
online. Technorati lists 185,000
“arts” blogs at present, including
5,396 on “art criticism” and 1,858
on “arts journalism” (disclosure:
I am a co-founder of one of them,
artworldsalon.com). From a busi-
ness standpoint, the question is
how to generate audiences around
these atomised writers to allow
them to collect paid advertising.
One strategy is for individual blogs
to scale up to a size where their
writers become popular “personal
brands”. This has happened in
political punditry and may happen
in entertainment writing. But it is
unlikely in visual arts journalism,
where audiences even for top writ-
ers are thin.
A more realistic, already extant
scenario links blogs to heavily
trafficked journalism, entertain-
ment, or aggregator sites, which
attract large numbers of readers by
providing access to a wide range
of news content.
 02 BUSINESS ART | MAY 09
A Unique Asset Class
By Johans Borman
‘Safe as houses’ and ‘you can
bank on it’ are just two phrases
that come to mind when most of
us think about investing in some
or other asset class. We have been
conditioned, from the time that we
were able to comprehend the con-
cept of investments, to believe that
the value of fixed property and the
trustworthiness of our banks are
beyond doubt. That was until the
‘toxic debt’-inspired credit crunch
of 2008 - which seems to have
deepened now, at the start of 2009.
With South African collectors pay-
ing millions of Rands for works
by our most desirable artists, there
is no doubt that our art has now
become a recognised asset class. In
my opinion, ‘investment art’ can be
a very misleading concept as it cer-
tainly does not apply to all works
of art but only to a select group.
The core issue, which offers the
key to understanding the character-
istics and nature of this asset class,
is the degree of uniqueness. Every
original work of art is a unique
creation, which will be interpreted
by uniquely different individuals,
who will all have uniquely differ-
ent views about its appeal, success
and value.
The investment value of any asset
is ultimately determined by its
desirability. How desirable a par-
ticular asset is depends on diverse
factors like the emotional impact
it has on the potential buyer, the
intellectual stimulation it provides,
its inherent quality and condition,
how fashionable it is and to what
degree the price matches the buy-
er’s perception of its current value
and its potential for appreciation.
Investment characteristics
In order to make sense of these
abstract concepts we need to iden-
tify and define the characteristics
Facebook is more than a fad -and museums need to learn from it
By Jim Richardson
From The Art Newspaper
www.theartnewspaper.com
(May 2009)
Social networks and blogs are the
fastest growing online activities,
according to a report published in
March by research firm Nielsen
Online. Almost 10% of all time
spent on the internet is spent on
these types of sites, which Nielsen
describes as “member communi-
ties”, and they are visited by more
than two-thirds of the world’s
online users.
This has not gone unnoticed by
museums and galleries, with many
With newspapers in terminal decline, what future for arts journalism? - Continued from Page 1
ArtsJournal, for example, currently
hosts 42 blogs on a variety of
arts topics, including the widely
read visual arts blogs Modern Art
Notes and CultureGrrl. Under
such arrangements, bloggers get
a cut of the advertising fees along
with greater visibility (which can
lead to other paid gigs), while the
umbrella site captures readers and
turns more “sticky”. Something
analogous is happening with some
established journalism brands.
Innovative newspapers like the
Guardian in the UK and VG in
Norway are putting together a
kind of layer-cake of content that
attracts a sizable number of online
readers. At the top are editorially
supervised staff journalists. Below
are blogs, written by staff and free-
lance writers with latitude to shape
their content. The third tier is the
vast, unsupervised “commento-
sphere” of opining readers. The
whole machinery works in unison
to congregate a wide, lucrative
ad base. In view of these devel-
opments, today’s do-it-yourself
blogs are destined to be a transient
phenomenon. Many talented arts
journalists will carve out a satellite
franchise in the orbit of larger
media entities.
How soon such bloggers can tackle
the full journalistic workload
left unattended by newspapers
is another question. In terms of
commentary and plain kibitzing,
especially about local arts scenes,
we may be there already. When it
comes to fair and balanced report-
ing, the record is mixed. On the
one hand, bloggers are breaking
stories, with arts organisations (or
their disgruntled employees) oblig-
ing them with excellent scoops.
The Getty Center’s leadership cri-
sis, in 2006, when internal memos
trickled to the press via blogs, was
an early example. Much “insider
baseball” that may not get ink
in a newspaper is now routinely
covered by blogs. Deaccessioning
stories alone have become a minor
cottage industry.
that determine that segment of the
art market that can be regarded to
be of investment quality – thereby
justifying its status as an asset
class:
Desirability
It is a sobering thought that the
value of any painting is determined
by its desirability only, as it has
no intrinsic value such as that of
a fixed property or shares in a
company with a net asset value.
Investments, like ‘blue chip’
shares, are rated by their historical
performance and the perception of
their expected future performance.
These two aspects are largely re-
sponsible for the premium paid for
such shares, thus reflecting their
desirability. It is for this reason
that most ‘investment art’ pieces
are works by deceased artists who
would normally fall under the ‘old
masters’ category. Works by these
artists have a proven track record
of the change in its value over
time, which offers a sound refer-
ence for predicting its future per-
formance. With fashionable trends
often evident in the art market, it
obviously helps to know that a par-
ticular artist’s work has maintained
its desirability over long periods
of time – unlike some avant-garde
contemporary works that can lose
their relevance or appeal relatively
quickly (Like the ‘Resistance art’
of the eighties).
Uniqueness
As mentioned above, we are deal-
ing with a unique asset class. Al-
though every work by a good artist
is an original and unique creation,
there needs to be consistency in
terms of the technical quality, style
and subject matter for the body of
work to generate long term inter-
est and thus value. Experimental
works which do not lead to a sty-
creating some kind of presence
on sites such as Facebook, Twitter
and Flickr. But because this has
primarily been done as a marketing
tool, institutions are missing a far
greater opportunity. By treading
gently into the second generation
of web development and design,
known as Web 2.0, museums risk
achieving little, and are effectively
paying mere lip service to online
social engagement. If they were to
make a proper commitment to the
enterprise, they could transform
their relationship with audiences,
change people’s perceptions of
them and vastly expand the reach
of their collections.
The Nielsen research shows that
However, journalism is not just
about scoops. It’s about due dili-
gence, evaluating accuracy, giving
subjects an opportunity to respond,
and providing non-judgmental
context. Such protocols are more
likely to be followed under the
gaze of professional editors. Major
investigative stories are clearly out
of reach for even the most intrepid
bloggers.
Going non-commercial
What if audience aggregation
won’t make arts journalism into
a viable business? Until recently,
it was anathema to suggest that
newspapers could become not-for-
profit organisations. Yet hospitals
and museums offer public benefits
this way, and so might the press.
In fact, a few smaller US papers
are already run as non-profits (with
mixed results). Specialised art peri-
odicals, such as Cabinet, have for
years survived on donations (with
excellent results). Going not-for-
profit involves some legal and ethi-
cal intricacies for the press. Purists
worry that journalism could end
up in the pockets of foundations
with random agendas and short
attention spans. Yet, if publishers
can keep a “firewall” between their
editorial and business operations,
they can also do it with donors.
There are applicable precedents.
The Kaiser Family Foundation
supports coverage of healthcare,
for example. “The NewsHour” on
PBS, one of the most respected
TV news shows in the US, has
22 foundation sponsors and two
corporate underwriters (Intel and
Chevron). Some pay for specific
types of journalism—and no out-
rage, so far, over conflicts of inter-
est. Public radio (NPR), with 33
million weekly listeners (as against
the New York Times’ 1 million
daily circulation), is a haven for
quality arts journalism that attracts
some of the best reporters in the
business. It has also perfected the
listic development or a new series
of works will never be as desir-
able as the works which define an
artist’s oeuvre. The long term value
of any artist’s body of work also
requires a great enough number of
works that will ensure continuous
trade in it – thereby confirming
and reinforcing the value over
time. The value of works by artists
who only produce a few hundred
works in their lifetime often suf-
fers because of the irregular trade
in such works. It becomes very
difficult to establish a fair current
market value of a particular work
when there are no records of recent
sales of comparable works. Artists
are often criticised for ‘repeating’
themselves when they produce
works based on the same subject
matter or idea – unfortunately
this is exactly what is required
to establish a large enough body
of work to ensure its long term
market value. If Hugo Naudé had
only painted Namaqualand’s spring
flowers once, these paintings
would never have become his most
sought after, and therefore valu-
able, works.
Collectability
The functionality of any work of
art can generally be best described
as a luxury item which provides
emotional and intellectual stimula-
tion. It is therefore obvious that, as
with other luxury goods, it is only
the relatively wealthy members of
society who can afford it. From an
investment perspective and purely
as a theoretic model, it would
therefore be prudent to invest in
works by those artists which the
biggest group of collectors are
buying. This would guarantee con-
tinuity in the competition for, and
trade in, these works and would
result in a stable market - under-
pinning a steady increase in values.
a major factor in the success of
social networks is that they al-
low people to select and share
content. This has become a hobby,
even considered by some to be a
serious creative outlet, with web
users spending time “curating”
their online space. Museums are
well placed to appeal to this new
generation of “curators” because
they offer rich and interesting
content that can be virtually
“cut-up” and stuck back together
online in numerous different ways
to reflect the individual tastes of
each user. If remixing, reinterpret-
ing and sharing interesting content
is, as Nielsen suggests, the kind
of engaging interaction that draws
people to social networks, then
art of raising money for its cover-
age—from foundations and legions
of listeners. Both PBS and NPR
receive government support. Only
the trained eye can distinguish the
“image spots” of foundation and
corporate underwriters on public
TV from the sort of advertising
that populates the commercial
airwaves.
Some fascinating new web-based
funding models appear less suited
to rescuing the mainstream media
than to helping smaller for-profit
or not-for-profit publications. A
Bay Area outfit called spot.us has
a method for “community funded
reporting”, which pools small do-
nations for specific stories. People
interested in a proposed story can
make a tax-deductible contribution
(typical budgets are below $1,000).
The money is held in escrow until
the entire sum for the story is col-
lected, at which point the writer
gets the green light. My current
favourite payment model is Kach-
ingle, which promises to “sprinkle
change on the blogs you love”. A
Kachingle member sets a monthly
budget for donations to favourite
media sources—say, $50. Benefi-
ciaries are identified by pressing
a Kachingle button already found
on many sites. Everything happens
automatically. The $50 is distrib-
uted in proportion to the amount of
time the donor spends on each of
the chosen sites. Genius.
There is a growing realisation that
without some form of non-com-
mercial support, certain realms
of quality journalism may not
survive, especially under cur-
rent market conditions. Carnegie
Corporation president Vartan
Gregorian has suggested buying
newspaper subscriptions for col-
lege students—a bailout that would
replenish future readers. The Andy
Warhol Foundation supports art
critics and reporters by means of
grants awarded through Creative
Capital. In Europe, where such
support falls to the state, Jürgen
Internationally, artists’ careers have
been made when the right museum
curators and collectors started
buying their work – collectors like
Charles Saatchi have managed to
capitalise on this characteristic of
the market and made millions of
Pounds because of it. The basic
requirement to ensure the long
term value of any body of work
is therefore a large enough group
of capable buyers and/or collec-
tors. For anybody considering an
investment in this alternative asset
class, it would be wise to follow
those in the know – the experi-
enced collectors. Private collectors
have much more at stake than any
individual dealer or auctioneer, as
they are spending their own money
and have to consider a far greater
investment risk.
Store of value
Given the current turmoil in fi-
nancial markets globally, it is now
even more important to consider
the stability of the value of any
asset one invests in. Historically,
the values of top quality works
of art have always withstood the
short term volatility of the financial
markets. With less cash around and
with many established banks and
corporations going bankrupt, all
potential investors have to be extra
careful about where they store their
wealth. Most experts agree that the
focus is now on the preservation of
wealth and that the value of invest-
ments should be beyond doubt.
The stability of the long term value
of quality works of art can in short
be ascribed to the following:
- Unlike other assets, there is
passion involved and ‘the heart
wills the mind’ when collect-
ing art - it is not an unemotional,
rational decision based purely on
financial principles. Sentiment and
the emotional involvement with a
museums should embrace the idea
that “everyone is a curator”, both
online and offline.
Most of the institutions that are
adapting their own websites with
those facets of the social networks
that so many people find attrac-
tive are in the US. The Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA) in New
York relaunched its website in
March. It now includes links to the
museum’s online users on various
social networking sites such as
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Users can also create personal
online accounts, which allow them
to bookmark upcoming events, cre-
ate online exhibitions and “collect”
works of art via their mobile phone
Habermas, the German sociolo-
gist, has urged direct government
support for the media. Not to be
outdone, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy
has pledged €600m to aid the press
with advertising, tax breaks and
student subscriptions.
Philanthropy can help to build a
new arts journalism infrastruc-
ture to offset the collapse of local
coverage. Proposals to harness
freelance writers in an organ-
ised fashion date back to the late
1990s, when David Resnicow and
Frederick Schroeder, of the promi-
nent Resnicow Schroeder arts
marketing and PR firm, launched
an independent company named
MuseNews, a national for-profit
art news syndicate that sold stories
to old and new media outlets for a
small fee. The service, which also
sought foundation underwriting,
was subsequently merged into
Bloomberg, where it evolved into
the site’s arts and culture section,
known to readers of this newspaper
as an excellent source of art busi-
ness reporting. Current proposals
for a new kind of art news service
are inspired by the success of
online news sites such as Pro-
Publica and GlobalPost, which
hired top-notch journalists (some
recently laid off) to fill blind spots
in public affairs and international
news coverage, with foundation
support. Politico, which was
launched by private investors and
will soon turn a profit, operates on
a similar model, and it has become
influential enough to sponsor presi-
dential debates and be called up for
a question at President Obama’s
first major press conference. Initia-
tives are currently underway to
develop specialised newsgathering
operations for science, healthcare
and even religion (the Religion
News Network). These organisa-
tions are recreating alternatives
to professional newsrooms with
editorial guidance and supervision.
According to some estimates, $2m
per year—one-fifth of 1% of US
foundation arts support—could
work of art usually provide endless
enjoyment for the owner, bringing
instant and continuous gratification
that does not exist with most other
financial investments.
- Art purchases are usually not
financed – works are bought for
cash by art lovers who can afford
them. This means that it is highly
unlikely that owners would come
under pressure to sell as there is no
debt to service and we are dealing
with people who know how to gen-
erate wealth (which enabled them
to purchase it in the first instance).
- The stability of the art market can
also be attributed to the fact that it
is a relatively small market where
a handful of able buyers/collectors
can ensure that it stays healthy
and stable at any given time – in
stark contrast to stock markets
where panic selling can result in an
investment’s value being eroded to
a fraction of its cost in a matter of
weeks.
Buying your profit
The most important difference
between art and other recognised
asset classes is that it does not pro-
vide any income. There is no inter-
est, dividends or rental income and
the performance of the investment
is measured purely in terms of its
capital appreciation. Investors will
therefore have to be extra careful
when deciding what a fair purchase
price is as the performance of their
investment will be based purely on
the entry cost. Unlike other assets
where investors can enjoy both
income and capital appreciation,
which offer greater investment
security when combined, the pur-
chase price is critical when buying
a work of art. This is why an inti-
mate knowledge and understanding
of an artist’s oeuvre is so important
- the desirability (read value) of a
work from a particular period, of
as they walk around the gallery
and view them later on the website.
Victor Samra, digital media mar-
keting manager at MoMA, says:
“It’s not enough just to broadcast
information now. Sharing and
participating in discussions are
becoming normal activities on the
web, so I think people are coming
to expect it. People want to engage
with content they are really pas-
sionate about, and museums have
a great opportunity to provide this
for them. This helps to change the
perception of the museum as a
building with four closed walls to
an organisation with personality
and a human face.”
ramp up a new arts journalism
service. Writers at imperiled publi-
cations like the Los Angeles Times
are following these developments
closely.
The real hurdle for non-profit arts
journalism, it should be clear, is
not technology, or ethics, or a
lack of ideas. It is fundraising. To
get behind arts writing, founda-
tions and arts patrons would need
to steer funds away from their
traditional recipients (artists and
organisations) towards journal-
ists (who are often considered as
adversaries). In other words, a not-
for-profit rethink of arts journalism
hinges on a rethink of cultural
philanthropy.
Arts groups step up
This brings us to the third, and
arguably most controversial, cure
for the ills of arts journalism—cul-
tural organisations. Until recently,
there was an unambiguous division
of labour between arts institutions
and the press. One side delivered
programming, the other provided
exposure, evaluation and public
scrutiny. Any suggestion that
these roles could blend together
would elicit howls of condemna-
tion. But if the marketplace or
cultural patrons cannot sustain
arts journalism, those with a stake
in its survival must come up with
alternatives. And it’s already hap-
pening.
Arts groups are getting better
at telling their own stories and
directly engaging their constitu-
ents. It may not always look like
journalism, but it is filling in some
gaps. In the US, regional online art
hubs are springing up from Chi-
cago to Kansas City, Miami and
Los Angeles, supported by coali-
tions of local arts organisations
and philanthropists, to provide
information and discussion about
the arts. Museums, in particular,
have taken the lead in creating an
alternative media infrastructure.
a particular subject matter or in a
particular style can be multiples
of that of other works by the same
artist. This aspect of the art market
is of course used by unscrupulous
dealers to motivate inflated prices
based on the record prices paid for
the truly exceptional pieces. To
avoid being caught in this trap, it
is important to have an in depth
knowledge and understanding of
an artist’s oeuvre and to have repu-
table and trustworthy advisors.
Finding a reputable, independ-
ent art advisor is very difficult
– given the subjective nature of art
appreciation and the fact that most
advisors/dealers/auctioneers are
commission driven. The only prac-
tical alternative in the South Afri-
can market is reputable galleries
who are prepared to guarantee the
authenticity, condition and value of
the works they offer. Dealers who
sell works of art as ‘investments’
should be asked to provide the
same set of figures and guarantees
one would typically expect from an
investment advisor. Would they be
prepared to guarantee the purchase
price in a trade-in or buy-back situ-
ation? And, would they guarantee
an annual increase in value at a
particular rate?
One should not expect independent
advice from agents or auctioneers
who are selling works on consign-
ment for a commission – they
usually ring-fence themselves with
‘conditions of sale’ to limit their
responsibility. ‘Buyer beware’
should flash in everybody’s mind
when attending an auction where
the auctioneer claims the right (in
the small print of their ‘Conditions
of Sale’) to bid ‘on behalf of the
seller’ (bidding against the chande-
lier!), and passes the responsibility
of establishing the authenticity of
any work to the buyer! Most good
sales people are very good at tell-
One potential obstacle to museums
sharing content online is the issue
of copyright and how to protect
images if they are put on the
internet. Legal implications aside,
from a practical point of view this
approach is becoming outdated.
For example, the Art Museum of
Estonia has gone against conven-
tion by actively encouraging visi-
tors to photograph its collection;
the MoMA website helps users to
co-create content and share these
creations with friends.
All museums want to create a
dialogue with their audiences, and
most museum staff are well aware
that the internet can be a useful
tool for doing this. But museums
MoMA’s recently relaunched
website features online groups
that allow visitors to explore,
create and share information via
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr
and iTunes. London’s Tate (which
publishes its own glossy, Tate
Etc, billed as “Europe’s largest art
magazine”) and the Walker Art
Center in Minneapolis are among
the trailblazers pouring resources
into deep, polished, personalised
online content and public forums.
Some museum sites are, in effect,
starting to resemble interactive
online art magazines.
Their latest features are strikingly
similar to the innovations news
organisations are deploying to
turn their customers into active,
participating, loyal partners in the
enterprise of journalism.
The next step is pooling resources.
“What’s the point of having 1,000
museum websites with separate
databases of information?” asks
Maxwell Anderson, director and
chief executive of the Indianapolis
Museum of Art (IMA), where he
recently launched two innovations
that bridge the gulf between the
press and the visual arts. One is
ArtBabble.org, a kind of YouTube
for art, with high definition videos
gathered from a consortium of
art institutions (IMA, MoMA,
SFMOMA, Lacma, the New
York Public Library, Art 21 and
the Smithsonian, at present). In
contrast to YouTube, the videos are
carefully selected and screened for
quality. The transcripts of many
of them are searchable, locally
or via Google, so that a casual
viewer or a researcher can find
the exact spot, for example, where
Ed Ruscha reminisces about the
Cirrus gallery in a documentary
produced by Lacma. Visitors to the
site can add their own comments
and engage in online discussions,
just like at any savvy news site.
ArtBabble, and others like it, may
well develop into future platforms
for art criticism and commentary.
ing us what we want to hear…
When analyzing art as an asset
class, another important aspect of
the art market that needs to be tak-
en into account is the transaction
charges. As the purpose of most
investments is to ultimately turn it
into cash, the cost of liquidating an
asset can have a significant influ-
ence on the final return on the capi-
tal invested. Unfortunately these
charges are higher than in most
other asset classes. Listed shares
can be sold for a commission of
as low as 1%, and an agent’s com-
mission on fixed property usually
ranges from 4 to 10% (with buyers
also having to pay transfer duty of
about 8 to 10%), but auctioneers
and dealers in works of art operate
on much higher commissions.
South African auction houses
charge 10 to 12% (Plus VAT)
of the hammer price to both the
buyer and the seller (a total of 20
to 24% plus VAT), while London
auctioneers charge a buyer’s com-
mission of 20 to 25% and a seller’s
commission of about 10% on the
hammer price (a total of 30 to
35%). When buying overseas, an
additional import VAT at 15,4% of
the invoice value (calculated on the
rate of exchange when it arrives
in SA) is payable to SA Customs.
Most galleries charge a 20 to 30%
commission to re-sell works, with
the commission percentage on
higher priced works usually more
negotiable. It is therefore obvious,
given the commission structures in
the art industry, that any ‘invest-
ment’ would have to perform very
well for a period of at least 5 to
7 years before the real net return
would be worthwhile.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the unique char-
acteristics of works of art that
fall into the investment category
such as MoMA that have whole-
heartedly embraced the new digital
environment are becoming part of
the conversation, rather then just
pushing content or questions at
visitors and then sitting back.
Online activity such as MoMA’s
requires investment, both in terms
of web development costs and staff
time, but if this is where people
are and how they are communicat-
ing, then, one can argue, museums
should be there too.
Curators pride themselves on using
their collections to analyse issues,
provoke reactions and ask difficult
questions. But these questions
are no longer just being debated
over a coffee or in the galleries
Mr Anderson’s other innovation
at IMA is a digital “Dashboard”,
located on the museum’s website,
providing up-to-date statistics on
the museum’s administration and
performance. An array of digital
“widgets” tally up everything from
the number of museum members to
the total kilowatt-hours of energy
consumed daily. Some of the sta-
tistics are not for the faint-hearted
museum director. One of the IMA
widgets tracks the museum’s
endowment in monthly snapshots
(down $120m since last October).
Another chronicles admissions
with data generated every five min-
utes. A catalogue of objects slated
for deaccessioning is next, along
with their sale price and where the
proceeds end up. For Mr Anderson,
the Dashboard, with its objective
measurements of administrative
goings-on, is an antidote to the
“risk of institutional control” that
pervades most in-house publica-
tions. It is no substitute for hard-
nosed reporters, but for transpar-
ency, it’s a start.
The hybrid future
Amid the doom and gloom about
arts journalism, such innovations
offer a glimmer of hope. There
is no going back to the cultural
and advertising dominance that
newspapers once enjoyed. We
should be mindful that the emerg-
ing landscape offers asymmetrical
odds for art criticism (which can
survive by the labour of individual
writers) and arts reporting (which
requires institutional firepower and
protections). Writers will struggle
to reclaim the access and influence
they achieved with the backing
of prestigious journalism brands.
Even so, the faint outlines of a new
system are starting to emerge.
It’s worth noting that journal-
ism schools are seeing a record
surge in applications. Many top
institutions, including Columbia,
Syracuse, the Annenberg School
warrant a strategy where it could
comfortably make up 10% of any
investment portfolio. The motivat-
ing factors are in short:
- Instant and continuous pleasure
and enjoyment with almost no
holding costs (Most serious art
buyers are art lovers and not just
investors).
- An excellent and stable store
of value and wealth in uncertain
times where other asset classes can
experience severe volatility and
erosion of value.
- The potential for exceptional
growth in value if buying the right
pieces at the right time – like now,
where financial pressures will cer-
tainly force sales at prices which
will offer very good value.
- No Capital Gains Tax (or any
other taxes) on profits if works
were bought privately as col-
lectables and not for speculative
purposes.
- An opportunity to leave a legacy
that says much more about an
individual than any bank balance
can reflect - but with a built-in
financial advantage. We have often
sold inherited works where the
proceeds literally changed people’s
lives for the better – paying the de-
posit on their first home, or paying
for their university education.
With South African art now an
established alternative asset class,
it is important to evaluate the ef-
fects of the current financial crises,
and formulate a strategy to take
advantage of the situation. I firmly
believe that one should now look
for opportunities to acquire quality
works of art while the pessimists
are too pre-occupied with the
doom and gloom to even notice
them.
© Johans Borman Fine Art Gallery
themselves; they are also being
discussed online, whether it is on
social network sites such as Face-
book, online discussion forums or
the many blogs, and the content
prompting these responses is no
longer restricted to the four walls it
actually inhabits. This means mu-
seums and galleries need to expand
the sites where they introduce, nar-
rate and edit their programmes.
The writer is the managing direc-
tor of Newcastle-based Sumo, a
design consultancy specialising in
arts and culture. He is a speaker at
the conference, “Communicating
the Museum”, in Malaga (24-27
June). www.communicatingthemu-
seum.com
at USC, and the City University of
New York, have recently launched
graduate programmes in cultural
journalism. Despite the current
meltdown, these are among the
most heavily sought after spe-
cialisations. Certification may be
even more important for freelance
writers than for those in accredited
newsrooms. Do-it-yourself journal-
ism is expanding so rapidly that it
may be sparking its own demand
for journalism training.
Students may be attracted precisely
by the lure of the new and un-
known. The most exhilarating as-
pect of tomorrow’s arts journalism
will be its unpredictable hybridity,
how it feeds on multiple sources
of innovation and energy. It will
be an undertaking where nimble
entrepreneurs sustain criticism and
reporting through a mix of adver-
tising, licensing, social networks,
donations, digital space rental,
and barter arrangements—what-
ever works. Boundaries between
writers and audiences, channels of
communication, and professional
constituencies will blur in ways
that are at once alarming and hope-
ful. Our notion of what a “news
organisation” or an “art magazine”
is supposed to do will be upended
as new relationships crystallise
between the arts, the media and the
public.
“Society doesn’t need newspapers.
What we need is journalism,” me-
dia analyst Clay Shirky observed
in his blog recently. “No one ex-
periment is going to replace what
we are now losing with the demise
of news on paper,” he added, “but
over time, the collection of new
experiments that do work might
give us the journalism we need.”
 PEOPLE MAY 09 | BUSINESS ART 03

OBITUARIES

Cecil Skotnes 1926 – 2009

By Hayden Proud
Well before his recent death at
the age of 83, Cecil Skotnes had
attained something akin to saintly
status in the annals of South Afri-
can art. Prior to his 70th birthday
in 1996, he was already the holder
of numerous awards. On reach-
ing biblical age he was invested
with many further honours. These
included several honorary doctor-
ates in Fine Art and the Order of
Ikhamanga in Gold. The latter
was bestowed in recognition of
his work in the ‘deracialisaton’ of
the fine arts in South Africa. His
nimbus glowed even more brightly
in recent years as greater art his-
torical stock was taken of his role
as a catalyst in the emergence of a
significant urban black art move-
ment in this country.
Skotnes’ role at the Polly Street Art
Centre coincided with apartheid’s
high water-mark in the 1950s
Cecil Skotnes in his studio 1967. Photo courtesy Pippa Skotnes
and 60s. Although he had fought
against fascism with the South
African Army in Italy in his late
teens in 1944-45, Skotnes was by
nature more of a pacifist than a
strident activist. His quiet, persist-
ent example and gentle encourage-
ment gradually opened conduits
for dialogue between the separated
and vastly unequal worlds of the
white and the black South African
artist. Serving the needs of the
poor and the disadvantaged was a
socio-religious imperative that he
had been born to; his Norwegian
father and his Canadian mother
were both active social workers
with the Salvation Army in East
London. With their example before
him, and with time, he realized the
parable of the sower. The artistic
harvest garnered from the seeds
that he planted was great. In the
roll-call of black South African
artists of the Polly Street era, many
also now dead, his tutelage and
influence figures prominently.
Skotnes’ artistic imagination was
always fired by his contact with
original works of art. The work
of Italian Renaissance masters
such as Giotto, Masaccio and
Michelangelo had deeply moved
him when he was a young soldier
in Florence. Back in Johannes-
burg at the fledgling Wits Fine
Art department in 1947, he was
inspired by the teaching of Dr
Maria Stein-Lessing, a somewhat
eccentric but highly professional
art historian whose lively interests
straddled Medieval, Modern and
African art. It was through her that
Skotnes was first introduced to the
principles of the German Expres-
sionist woodcut. At that time,
printmaking was not yet a feature
of the Wits Fine Arts curriculum,
but the incised wooden block with
the discipline of its planar limita-
tions and its expressive potential
was to become the abiding concern
of his life’s work as an artist. In a
leap of inspiration he decided to
make the incised wooden block
an independent work of art in
itself, selectively colouring it with
pigments. Such wooden panels
became major ensemble art works,
particularly when integrated within
architectural settings, such as at
the 1820s Settlers’ Monument in
Grahamstown.
After his marriage to Thelma
Carter in 1951, the couple toured
Europe for nine months during
which he gained greater apprecia-
tion of the implications of Cubism
and Egyptian, pre-classical Greek
and Assyrian art. A sojourn in
England brought him into contact
with the work of Henry Moore and
Graham Sutherland. The influ-
ence of the latter was profound,
informing his interpretation of the
South African landscape, which
he was to revisit continually in his
prints and paintings over the years
that followed. It could perhaps
be argued that in all of Skotnes’
oeuvre there is also something sub-
liminally present that is redolent
of his own Scandinavian ancestral
heritage, which somehow always
underpinned and inserted itself
into his own efforts at producing
an art that embodied the spirit and
style of Africa. Herbert Read once
referred to the extreme northern
parts of Europe as “the preserve of
an indigenous prehistoric style”. It
was a style that was carried across
vast oceans through small precious
objects of impeccable craftsman-
ship, as well as through shal-
low, painted relief carving in the
wooden sections which comprised
the longboats of the Vikings. A
limited range of motifs and forms
was employed, creating patterns of
amazing confusion and invention
that always respected the forms
that held them. In the life and work
of Cecil Skotnes, something of that
Scandinavian aesthetic persisted;
its pioneering spirit enriching and
fertilizing the artistic soil of South
Africa.

Alan Crump 1949 – 2009

By J. Brooks Spector
Artist, educator, Alan Crump
passed away on May 1, 2009, al-
most sixty years to the day he was
born in Durban. He had attended
the Michaelis School of Art for
BA and MA Fine Arts degrees and
he received a Fulbright Scholar-
ship for an MFA at the University
of California at Los Angeles.
Before studying for America, he
taught at Michaelis for a year.
Returning from Los Angeles,
he became a lecturer and then
senior lecturer in art history at
UNISA. Joining the University
of the Witwatersrand in 1980, he
became Professor and Head of the
Department of Fine Arts -- at the
age of 31. Alan Crump had a well-
earned reputation for intensity and
exuberance as an educator. One
Alan Crump Photo courtesy Lynette Marais
student fondly recalled Crump
entering her class on the first day
of lectures, surveying his new
students, and then striding away
from the lecture hall, wearing red
leather, bell-bottomed trousers.
He was equally enthusiastic in his
commitment to emerging young
artists, championing artists like
Willliam Kentridge and Penny
Siopis, early on in their careers.
He was a passionate advocate for
arts awards that came with real
benefits, saying ‘Artists should
get an incentive for their work’.
Beyond his role as a university
instructor, Alan Crump was active
in the larger public dimensions
of arts and culture education.
He was an arts advisor to the
Standard Bank, serving as cura-
tor or consultant for numerous
exhibitions at the bank’s gallery,
as well as in his role developing
the bank’s own corporate collec-
tion. Alan Crump was the guiding
force behind the widely heralded
Chagall and Miro exhibitions. His
public lectures on art and society
were eagerly anticipated because
of their power to educate, uplift
and entertain.
In 1984, Alan Crump joined
the Grahamstown National Arts
Festival’s Governing Committee,
recognizing the responsibility of
educators to engage with society
beyond the academy. He became
Festival Committee chair during
a particularly contentious decade,
helping steer the festival to ad-
dress the revolutionary changes
taking place in South Africa.
Among many important mo-
ments, the festival provided ANC
Arts and Culture Spokesperson,
Barbara Masekela with her first
major public opportunity after
returning from exile to address a
new artistic and cultural vision for
South Africa.
Beyond his role as an educa-
tor, Crump was a sculptor and a
consummate watercolour artist
and his works are in private and
corporate collections around the
country – and beyond. He found
unlikely beauty in a mine dump
or cast off industrial artifacts and
Linda Givon once called him
South Africa’s first real concep-
tual artist.
Crump was a legendary convivial
host and guest who loved a great
story, a sharp, well-argued discus-
sion about art, sports (he had been
an avid rugby player and runner
as a student) or politics – just as
he loved to share a good glass of
South African wine with friends.
A capstone of his career would
have been the opening of an
exhibition at the 2009 Graham-
stown Festival, marking a quarter
century of Standard Bank Young
Artist Award winners. Sadly,
while he will not be present at the
opening, his influence assuredly
will be.
As he, himself, had said a half
decade earlier at the opening of
the Bonnie Ntshalinshali
Museum,
‘When someone dies, it is what
they leave behind that counts, the
objects and the residue of their
thoughts.

MAY’S ART PERSONALITY IN THE LIMELIGHT

Artist Andrew Verster receives honourary Doctorate

Chris Crake of the Crake Gallery Johannesburg
chats with Michael Coulson
Think of long-established Jo’burg
galleries, and you think of the
Goodman and Everard Read. But
there’s a third that’s survived
well into its fourth decade, and
unlike the other two is still run by
its founder: the Crake Gallery in
Norwood, run by the eponymous
Chris Crake.
Crake has in fact been involved
in the art world for more than 40
years. Late in 1968, he was sitting
in the legendary Chesa coffee bar
in the Rand Central building when
he noticed an old lady putting up
a Sit Vac sign in a shop window
opposite. On inquiry, he was sent
up to the old lady’s premises on
the first floor.
The premises were Gallery 101;
the old lady, the legendary Mad-
ame Haenggi. Despite his waist-
length hair and generally hippyish
appearance, she took him on. And
he’s stayed in the business ever
since.
Not that it was an entirely random
choice of career. Art was the only
subject he enjoyed at school, and
had economics permitted he might
even have become an artist. But
the need to put bread on the table
(he became a father in 1970) pre-
cluded that.
Crake says he learnt more from
Madame Haenggi than from
anyone, and it was a wrench to
leave when he was approached to
take over the Madden Gallery in
Sandton, whose backers included
businessman Wilfred Robin and
London-based expat Solly Rissen,
whose sister Jean Madden ran the
Madden Gallery in London.
Crake extended Madden’s range
from international to SA art, and
tried to promote local artists like
Keith Alexander, Vic Guhrs,
Claude Jammet and others abroad.
Looking back, he says this was a
good idea, but ahead of its time.
After some years it was time to
take the next step. In 1979 he took
the plunge (“Everybody said I was
mad to open an art gallery, with
the townships going up in flames”)
and, with just R60 in the bank,
opened up on his own in Grant Av-
enue, directly opposite his present
site, which he moved to 10 years
later. He takes pride in the fact that
the gallery has always been self-
financing: he’s never borrowed
money or had a backer.
For years he staged solo exhibi-
tions every two or three weeks
year-round, showcasing names
like Jean Doyle, Michael Cos-
tello, Robin Kearney, Ulrich
Schwanecke, John Brett Cohen,
Fred Schimmel, Norman Eagle-
stone, Fleur Ferri, Donna White,
Simon Parkin, Robert Haber and
Leon Sorianos. Some couldn’t
stand the pace, some moved on to
(possibly) greater things, but oth-
ers have remained loyal.
These days, he’s slackened his
own pace, cutting back the hectic
schedule to a group anniversary
show in the first half of the year
and half a dozen or so solo shows
in the second half, by regular
members of his stable: Peter
Bonney, Russian-born Dimitri
Nikashin, Daan Vermeulen, Roelof
Rossouw, Geoff Horne and others.
Basically, while they have widely
differing styles, all are realistic
landscape painters, though he also
carries sculptures by the likes of
Laurence Chait. This is no acci-
dent, either; even in his schooldays
he admired Norman Rockwell and
Andrew Wyeth, pictures that tell
stories. “Any picture you can go
travelling in is a good work.”
Though this has become his unique
selling proposition, it was not al-
ways thus. He remembers bringing
the first David Hockney graphics
to SA, and selling them for a few
hundred rand.
And in 1980 he was arrested
for selling pornography, for an
exhibition of erotica inspired by
the Kama Sutra, by Tatu Penrith.
Today he admits that this was a
publicity stunt, when a friend put
on the guise of an old lady and
complained to the police. Fortu-
nately, he wasn’t charged, and now
says “It was the best publicity we
ever had.”
But, he says, the developing focus
on realism reflects both his own
preference, and that of his clien-
tele, corporate and individual, who
are “basically conservative” in
their tastes. He also says he’s not
into “investment art”.
“People buy from me for love and
life. In 33 years, I don’t think I’ve
had 20 pictures come back for re-
sale. You have a different respon-
sibility to people who spend R400
000 on a painting than when they
pay R40 000. I want my artists to
be accessible and good value.”
So his artists must have staying
power, and though he tries to intro-
duce a couple of new names in his
annual group shows, he concedes
that he’s reached a stage of life
where he won’t be around for ever,
so he hasn’t much time to build up
new names – not easy in current
conditions, in any event.
“You have to do a lot of work
behind the scenes to make a suc-
cessful solo show. You have to call
round all your regular clients and
promote the work. And that’s hard,
if they’ve never heard of the artist.
So those who’ve been with me for
25 years are naturally in the front
seats.”
Persistence and hard work are the
keys to the success and longevity
of the Crake Gallery. It’s a lesson
the hopefuls who think all you
have to do is put work on the wall
and smile as the buyers pour in,
so many of whom have flickered
– perhaps even flourished, briefly
-- across the gallery scene since
Crake set out on his career would
do well to ponder.
William Kentridge on
the Times Magazine 100 cover
Dale Yudelman poster for Month
of Photography
Suzelle Kriel
Peter Hayes, does good with “Fast
Girls” outside Joburg Art Fair
Subscribe to BUSINESS ART together with the SA ART TIMES for R 180 for 1 year
Call Bastienne at 021 424 7733 or e-mail: subs@arttimes.co.za
Andrew Verster is receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the Durban University of Technology (DUT).
Concurrent with the award, the DUT Art Gallery will be showcasing Verster’s artworks, from 21 April to 18 May, which are part of the university’s
art collection. Last year Verster, who is turning 72 this year, launched his recent publication/book, edited by Carol Brown in celebration of his 70th
birthday. Verster has been a practising artist for over 50 years, leaving teaching in 1976 to become a full time painter.
Born in 1937 Johannesburg, he was trained at the Camberwell School of Art and Reading University. He has lectured at the University of Durban
Westville (then University College, Durban) and Technikon Natal (now DUT) until 1976 when he gave up teaching to become a full-time painter.
Andrew has been a member of the Film and Publication Review Board, Trustee of the Durban Art Gallery, the Arts Work Trust, Very Special Arts, Art-
ists for Human Rights Trust and the African Art Centre. He also served on the Committee of the Grahamstown Festival.
He has had over fifty solo exhibitions, is represented in many major public and private collections, and has been awarded two retrospective exhibitions
organised by the Durban Art Gallery. To learn more about the artist visit his website www.andrewverster.co.za
Lynette Marais, recieves honorary Doctorate
Rhodes University will be conferring honorary doctorate degrees on Lynette Marais, who was the National Arts Festival director for 20 years, will be
receiving a Doctor of Laws (LLD) honoris causa. Marais has been recognised as one of South Africa’s most accomplished arts administrators. Her
advice is constantly sought out by festival producers, arts funders and the government. Since taking over the leadership in 1989, she has grown the
National Arts Festival to become the largest arts festival on the African continent.
John Meyer – Schloss Gottorf Museum Award, Germany
The South African painter John Meyer has won a prestigious comtemporary art award from the Museum Schloss Gottorf in Germany. The prize is one
of the most important international art awards in Germany, and the museum will host Meyer at their International Museum’s Day on May 17th this
year, when up to 20,000 visitors are expected. Gottorf Palace is the largest museum complex in northern Germany and is the headquarters of Schleswig
Holstein’s state museums. They regularly enjoy 650 000 visitors visiting a single exhibition. The award was established by the German entrepreneur
Gunter Fielmann in 2000, after his donation of 200 lime trees for an avenue in the Gottorf Baroque Gardens at the museum. The prize is regarded in
Germany as a prize of honour. He has been commissioned by the director of the Gottorf, Professor Guratzsch, to produce two works this year for the
museum. http://www.everard-read-capetown.co.za
Dale Yudelman gets Profoto Prize
Dale Yudelman was among the top professional photographers who were honored at the Sony Profoto Awards held recently in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Yudelman, who lives and works in Cape Town, won six awards - including Gold’s in the Advertising and Fine Art categories. His series of images , “ i
am…” was awarded ‘Professional Portfolio of the Year’
Kentridge hits the top of the Times Magazine “100 World’s Most Influential People” pops
Our William has hit the top top of the media pops with being selected as one of The Worlds Most Influential People (under artists).
see www.time.com for more details.(Thanks to Artheat fot the tip-off)
Moving on - Suzelle Kriel- Director of The US Museum and Art Gallery Moves on
After nearly six very happy years at the US Museum and Art Gallery is leaving for Robertson to pick up on exciting projects.
Colijn Strydom will be acting Gallery Manager until an appointment has been made.
Peter Hayes is the new Director at Vansa Western Cape.
Peter has emerged from a cutting edge theatre background, and as a writer, actor and director with Hearts & Eyes Theatre Collective has earned his
reputation. Amongst his many talent he has worked in film, owned Gorgeous Restaurant for a number of years and was the creative director for MCQP
for 2 years. As he says in his own words “ I feel fantastically out of the loop! I don’t know who’s in and who’s out, who’s hot and why and why sleep-
ing with so-and-so is the fastest way to the top. But I do know who I think is hot and I’m a passionate, if under resourced, collector of contemporary
South African art. I want to help facilitate more networking opportunities, workshops and training, market platforms. Making your lives easier and
your careers more sustainable is our mission here at VANSA and I am mightily excited to be here”.
E-mail us your stories, images and show openings , as well as “In the Limelight” contribution to us at
editor@arttimes.co.za
special ends 1 June 09

Eastern Cape www.galleryonthesquare.co.za
Alliance Francaise,
East London Johannesburg
For May, Sharing / Shared, ex-
hibition including artists: Wayne
Ann Bryant Art Gallery Barker, Bongi Bengu, Zanele
Until 9 May, Anything but paint- Mashinini, Mmkgabo Mapula
ing, East London Fine Art Society (Helen) Sebidi, Stompie Selibe,
exhibition. Pene Meniere, Ilana Seati, Isa
Until 16 May, Four Contemporary Schwartz Gesseau.
Chinese Artists. 17 Lower Park Drive (corner of
9 St Marks Road, Southernwood, Kerry Road, Parkview,
East London T. 043 722 4044, Johannesburg. T. 011 646 1169
Annbryant@intekom.co.za www.alliance.org.za
Goodman Gallery May, Eduardo Villa Miniatures.
Port Elizabeth Until 23 May, Peter Friedl; 28
May-Jun, Nation State.
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood,
Art Museum Johannesburg, T. 011 788 1113
7 May-12 Jul, Scenes in the Street, www.goodman-gallery.com
through the eyes of artists and
photographers; Until 26 May, Re- Nirox Foundation and Goodman
Gallery
cent acquisitions of top SA Artists’
Until 5 Jun, Contemporary Sculp-
work; Until 2 May, Art Talk, ex-
ture in the Landscape, various art-
ploring narrative, iconography and
ists, at the Cradle of Humankind.
expression, featuring Kentridge,
Contact the Goodman Gallery for
Siopis & Verster.
viewing and walkabouts, by ap-
1 Park Drive, Port Elizabeth,
T. 041 506 2000 pointment only. T. 011 788 1113
www.artmuseum.co.za www.goodman-gallery.com
GordArt Gallery The Art Place, Gallery & Art
Until 9 May, WTF?, 12 paintings
Free State by Debbie Cloete.
GordArt Project Room
(Upstairs)Until 9 May, Life is Jazz,
Bloemfontein
drawings and collages by Stompie
Selebi.
Oliewenhuis Art Museum of works in various media by sev-
16 May–6 Jun, paintings by Severa
Until 15 May, Transitions, Travel-
Rech Casserino.
ling Exhibition and film, by
Shop 1 Parkwood Mansions,
Paul Emmanuel. Until 24 May,
144 Jan Smuts Ave, Parkwood,
Decade, Highlights from 10 years
T/F 011 880 5928
of collecting from the Sanlam Art
gordon@gordartgallery.com
Collection.
16 Harry Smith Street,
Graham Fine Art Gallery
Bloemfontein T. 051 447 9609
South African Investment Art,
From the permanent collection;
Auction of the Brett Kebble art
Clarens
collection: viewing: 4-6 May.
Auction at Summerplace, 7 May.
Johan Smith Art Gallery
Shop 31, Broadacres Lifestyle
Glass, Bronze, Ceramics, Old Mas-
Centre, Cnr. Valley & Cedar Roads
ters, Contemporary works.
Fourways, Johannesburg.
Windmill Centre Main Street Cla-
T.011 465 9192 www.grahamsgal-
rens T. 058 256 1620
lery.co.za
www.johansmith.co.za
Johannesburg Art Gallery
Blou Donki Art Gallery
10 May-03 Jul, Journey on a Tight-
Contemporary Art, Steel Sculp-
rope an Albert Adams Retrospec-
tures, Functional Art, Photography,
tive. Until 7 Jun, For Tshepo, Ten
Ceramics. Windmill Centre Main
Years Later, Mphapho “Ra” Hlas-
Street Clarens T. 058 256 1757
ane, Artist at the Nando’s Project
www.bloudonki.co.za
Room #4. Until 3 Jul, Portraiture
through Photography, curated by
Khwezi Gule, in the Basement
Gauteng Gallery. On 19 May 2009, Inter-
national Museums Day, including
work by the late Cecil Skotnes.
Johannesburg King George Street, Joubert Park,
Johannesburg T. 011 725 3180
Artspace - JHB www.joburg.org.za
6-30 May, Walking the line, group
exhibition featuring printmaking Market Photo Workshop
and drawing by Toni Ballenden, Until 13 May 2009, Reunion Chro-
Elizabeth Gunter, Ernest Korkie, niques, explores the landscape,
Ian Marley, Jody Olen, Craig culture, and identity of Réunion
Smith, Colijn Strydom, Jaco van Island. Photographers include
der Heever and Judy Woodborne François-Louis Athenas, Raymond
Chester Court, 142 Jan Smuts Barthes, Thierry Fontaine, Yo-Yo
Avenue, Parkwood, Johannesburg. Gonthier, Line Leclerc, Edgar
T. 011 880 8802 Marsy, René-Paul Savignan, and
www.artspace-jhb.co.za Laurent Zitte.
Until 10 May, CéTàVOIR – Image
Brodie/Stevenson Singuliéres, a body of work by
Until 30 May, The frontier is never eight students at a photo festival
somewhere else, a solo exhibition in Sète, France alongside work by
of paintings by Mary Wafer. Until David Goldblatt. From 20 May,
30 May, Project 004: Sibusiso Tierney Fellowship Exhibition, A
Duma. solo show by Tracy Edser.
373 Jan Smuts Avenue, T. 011 834 1444
Johannesburg T. 011 326 0034, www.marketphotoworkshop.co.za
www.artextra.co.za
Museum Africa
Art on Paper 25 May-24 Dec 2010, l’Afrique:
Until 16 May, Drawings by Walter A Tribute to Maria Stein-Lessing
Battis. and Leopold Spiegel; Co-curated
44 Stanley Ave, Braamfontein by Nessa Leibhammer and Natalie
Werf (Milpark), T. 011 726 2234 Knight.
www.artonpaper.co.za 121 Bree Street, Newtown,
Johannesburg, T. 011 833 5624
David Krut Projects www.knightgalleries.net
7 May-13 Jun, Into the Spine,
paintings and prints by Maja National School of the Arts
Maljevic. 11-16 May, 8th Annual Festival
142 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, of Fame,
Johannesburg T. 011 447 0627 17 Hoofd Street, Braamfontein,
www.davidkrutpublishing.com T. 011 339 6539
www.festivaloffame.co.za
Everard Read Gallery Jhb
Until 17 May, Paintings by Peter
Kuhfeld.
Obert Contemporary at
Melrosearch
6 Jellicoe Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg T. 011 788 4805
Current show, Untitled, by Mark
Erasmus
www.everard.co.za 14 The High Street, Melrose Arch,
T. 011 684 1214
Gallery MOMO
Until 11 May, group show. 14
www.obertcontemporary.com
May-8 Jun, Solace of a Migrant, Origins Centre
Paintings by Zambian artist Stary 28 May-24 Jul, Exposition, Solo
Mwaba.
exhibition by Fiona Couldridge.
52 7th Avenue, Parktown North, Cnr Yale and Enoch Santonga Str.
Johannesburg T.011 327 3247 University of the Witwatersrand
www.gallerymomo.com T. 011 717 4700
www.origins.org.za
Gallery on the Square
6–20 May, Nelson Makamo, A Resolution Gallery
Place I Call Home. Until 17 June, Disasters, Angel
32 Maude Street, Nelson Mandela Haro, Michael Wille, Vulindlela
Square at Sandton City, Sandton, Nyoni.
Johanesburg. T. 011 784 2847 142 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood,
SOUTH AFRICAN ART GALLERY SHOW LISTINGS MAY 2009
Johannesburg T. 011 880 4054
www.resolutiongallery.com
Rooke Gallery
Until 01 May, The Travels of
Bad, Major Solo Exhibition and
publication by Zander Blom. By
Appointment, The Newtown, 37
Quinn Street Newtown Johannes-
burg. T. 072 658 0762
www.rookegallery.co.za
Standard Bank Gallery
Until 23 May, Past/Present,
Andrew Verster.
Art & Artifact Gallery, Until 23
Cnr. Simmonds & Frederick
Streets, Johannesburg, 2001
Tel: 011 631 1889
www.standardbankgallery.co.za
Seippel Gallery
Until 27 Jun, Project Gallery,
Street Scenes, recent paintings by
Linda Shongwe; Main Gallery,
Sculptures and installations by
Kevin Brand, Vincent Baloyi and
Danelle Janse van Rensberg.
August House, 76-82 End Street,
Doornfontein. T. 011 401 1421
www.seippel-gallery.com
Centre
16 May-6 Jun, The World of
Pamela Prendini, Classical oils,
drawings and sculptures in the
footsteps of the Italian Masters
144 Milner Ave,Roosevelt Park,
T 011 888-9120
University of Johannesburg Arts
Centre Gallery
6–20 May, Coração,(heart), 25
art works by South African and
international artists, will be exhib-
ited with 10 works by Canadians;
Hendrikus Bervoets, renowned
collage artist and award winning
photographer, Dave Chidley also
on show.
University of Johannesburg, Auck-
land Park Kingsway campus cnr.
Kingsway and Universiteits Rd,
Auckland Park
T. 011 559 2099/2556
www.uj.ac.za/artsacademy
Warren Siebrits Modern &
Contemporary Art Anna Alcock.
Until 8 May, Main Gallery, Joburg
Art Fair exhibition.
140 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood,
Johannesburg, T. 011 327 0000
www.warrensiebrits.co.za Bank Gallery
Pretoria Bank Gallery, Morningside, Dur-
Alette Wessels Kunskamer
Exhibition of Old Masters and
selected leading contemporary
artists.
Maroelana Centre, Maroelana.
GPS : S25º 46.748 EO28º 15.615
T. 012 346 0728
C. 084 589 0711
www.artwessels.co.za
Fried Contemporary Art Gallery
Until 16 May, Four women and
a man, Ruhan Janse van Vuuren,
Anna Gous, Jackie Schoombie,
Marina Aucamp, Esme Kruger.
430 Charles Str, Brooklyn, Pretoria
T. 012 346 0158
www.friedcontemporary.com
Glass Forming Academy
30 May, 2009, Featuring interna-
tional glass artists: PETER BREM-
ERS (Holland) + TIM SHAW
(Australia. Glass Forming Events
and Exhibits from 15h00 till 20h00
Shop 11, Greenlyn Centre Cnr.
Thomas Edison & 13th Ave,
Menlopark Pretoria 083 530 2800
gfacademy@iburst.co.za
Magpie Gallery Fiske, Donovan Ward, Minnette
02-14 May; Justified Jotting:
Drawn out; An exhibition of drawn
out jottings by more than 25 artists.
Shop 21B, Southdowns Shopping
Centre, Centurion T. 012 665 1832
www.magpie.co.za
Naude Modern
Until 27 May, Chimera, exhibition
by Paul Boulitreau,
254a St Patrick’s Road,
Muckleneuk Ridge, Pretoria,
T. 012 440 2201
www.art.co.za/andrenaude
Pretoria Art Museum T. 031 2023686,
PAM - North Gallery, Until Jul, an
interesting selection of artworks
from the Museum’s permanent
collection.
PAM – South Gallery, Until 1 Dec,
A selection of artworks tells a brief
story of South African art from
the time of the first San artists, in-
cludes early 20th century painters,
Resistance artists and artists of the
21st century.
PAM - Albert Werth Hall, 14 May-
16 Aug, Mbongeni Buthelezi’s
first touring national exhibition of
“plastic painting”.
PAM - East Gallery, until 22 Jun,
from the Museum’s Permanent
Collection, Artists from Polly
Street and Rorke’s Drift
Glass Gallery, Corobirk Collection,
ceramics selection representing
studio ceramics and rural tradi-
tional potters of SA
T.012 344 1807/8
www.art.museum@tshwane.gov.za
Pretoria Association of Arts
10-28 May, Paintings by Johan
Marais, Art creations in wood by
At Smit.
Main Gallery, Until 7 May, Jaco
Benade & M J Lourens.
Until 13 May, Galerie Chaton /
Black Box, Mimi van der Merwe.
15 May-3 Jun, Sybrand Wiechers.
North Gallery, Until 21 May,
Penny Baillie
173 Mackie Street, New Muckle-
neuk, Pretoria, Gauteng, 0181, Tel.
(012) 346 3100
www.artsassociationpta.co.za
UNISA Art Gallery
Until 08 May, Then and now,
Images by 8 SA Photographers:
Graeme Williams, Gisele Wulf-
sohn, Paul Weinberg, Eric Miller,
George Hallett, David Goldblatt,
Guy Tillim and Cedric Nunn.
Theo van Wijk Building, Gold-
fields entrance, 5th floor. Unisa
Campus, Pretoria. T.012 429 6823
www.unisa.ac.za/gallery
KwaZulu-Natal Until 13 May, Kerri Evans
Durban Until 4 Jun, Solo exhibition by
Art Space - DBN
Until 9 May, Obsessive Urge to
Categorize: an exhibition of paint-
ing, mixed media and video by
Nic Crooks; Masterful Conversa-
tions by Lee Scott Hempson; In
the Front Room: Hole in the Wall
an exhibition of mixed media
works by Jacki Bruniquel, 11-30
May, Responses, paper-works and
oil paintings by Roz Cryer. 1–20
Jun, Signature Works on Paper
(SWOP,Travelling Exhibition from
Inky Cuttlefish Studios; Inkanyezi,
3 Millar Road, Durban.
T.031 312 0793
www.artspacedurban.co.za
Until 28 May, Situation, works by
Vaughn Sadie at the Bank Gallery.
ban T. 031 312 6911,
www.bankgallery.co.za
Durban Art Gallery
13 May-28 Jun, Sacred Legacy,
Reproductions of historical photo-
graphs of Native North Americans
by legendary photographer/eth-
nographer Edward Curtis. 3
Jun-19 Jul, Roger Ballen: Boarding
House. Until 17 May, Not Alone,
an international project of Make
Art-Stop Aids, curated by Carol
Brown and David Gere. Until Dec
2009, Pic(k) Of The DAG, South
African works from the gallery’s
Permanent Collection.
Second Floor, City Hall, Anton
Lembede Street, Durban
T. 031 311 2268
www.durban.gov.za/durban/dis-
cover/museums/dag
Durban University of Technology
(DUT) Gallery
Until 18 May, Andrew Verster
Steve Biko Campus, Cecil Renaud
Theatre 2nd floor,Durban
artgallery@dut.ac.za or
031 373 2207
KZNSA Gallery
Until 10 May, Big Night Out,
Group Exhibition. Until 10 May, In
the Cinema, Mlu Zondi, Despotica:
performance art video. Until 10
May, KZNSA Members profes-
sional practice course exhibition,
Liam Lynch. Until 20 May, ‘Not
Alone - An international project
of Make Art/Stop Aids’ includes
works by artists from Brazil, the
USA, India and South Africa in a
variety of media including paint-
ing, sculpture, photography and
embroidery.
166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood,
www.kznsagallery.co.za
Tatham Art Gallery
Schreiner Gallery: Until 3 May,
Zotha Shange, Rolling Ball Sculp-
ture exhibition; Ceramics Room:
Curriculum Curricula exhibition
- Ceramics and Applied arts, exhi-
bition extended. Until 7 May, Main
Exhibition Room, KZN Matric Art
Exhibition. From 7 May, Schreiner
Gallery: Settling In, a solo exhibi-
tion by Vulindlela Nyoni.
Cnr. Of Chief Albert Luthuli
(Commercial) Rd. and Church
Street (Opposite City Hall) Pieter-
maritzburg. T. 033 342 1804
www.tatham.org.za
Northern Cape 18-29 May, Andrew McIleron.
Kimberley
William Humphreys Art Gallery 1st Floor, Olympia Buildings, 136
Permanent Collection Exhibition
- Includes works of a variety of
contemporary SA artists
Civic Centre, Cullinan Crescent,
Kimberley, T. 053 831 1724,
www.museumsnc.co.za Lewis, Anne Terblanche, Odette
Mpumalanga
White River
The Loop Art Foundry & Sculp-
ture Gallery
Casterbridge Complex Corner R40
and Numbi Roads White River T.
013 751 2435
www.tlafoundry.co.za
Western Cape painting exhibition by Bronwen
Cape Town
34 Long
Until 16 May, MIXIT, compilation
enteen artists, including MOTEL7,
Faith47, Black Koki, Kentridge,
Dumas, Bester, Murakami,
D*Face, Blek le Rat, Matthew
Hindley and Asha Zero. Until 16
May, Prehistoric idols, works by
Paul du Toit.
34 Long Street, Cape Town
T. 021 426 4594, www.34long.com
Alex Hamiltion Art Studio
Until 8 May, Afrotize, is a new se-
ries of pop art, stenciled works by
Cape Town artist, Alex Hamilton.
Unit B203, 2nd floor, Woodstock
Industrial Centre, 66-68 Albert
Road, Woodstock, T. 021 447 2396
www.alexhamilton.co.za
Art B Gallery
From 20 May, b.lettered exhibition
a traditional application of the
Calligraphic art form, includ-
ing handmade books, citations,
special awards and metal mobiles,
jewellery and examples of beach
calligraphy. Work of international
calligraphers will also be exhibited
On display will be the tools of the
trade and materials.
Library Centre, Carel van Aswegen
Street, Bellville T. 021 918 2301,
www.artb.co.za
Association for Visual Arts
(AVA)
Until 08-21 May, Out of Sight,
drawings, watercolours and pho-
tography, solo exhibition by Justin
Brett.
35 Church Street, Cape Town,
T. 021 424 7436, www.ava.co.za
Atlantic Art Gallery
A permanent display showcas-
ing leading contemporary South
African artists.
25 Wale Street Cape Town,
T. 021 423 5775
Bell-Roberts Contemporary
Art Gallery Cecil Road, Rosebank, Cape Town
Until 16 May, In Black and White,
group exhibition features works by
Pierre Fouché, Carol Ann Gainer,
Nigel Mullins, Cameron Platter,
Kevin Brand, Wayne Barker, Mx-
olisi Sithole, Stuart Bird, Dianne
Victor, Cara vd Westhuizen, Justin
Vari, Jane Eppel, David Brown and
Lynette Bester.
Until 16 May, Tales from the
Mantelpiece, an exhibition of
small-scale sculpture by three con-
temporary artist jewelers, Philippe
Bousquet, Geraldine Fenn and
Marchand van Tonder
176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock,
T. 021 465 9108
www.bell-roberts.com
Blank Projects
Trifecta, a project in three parts by
Deadheat (Dorothee Kreutzfeldt
& Bettina Malcomess: Image,
opening 6 May; Voice, opening
13 May, Screen, opening 21 May.
198 Buitengracht Street, Bo-Kaap,
Cape Town, T.072 1989 221,
www.blankprojects.blogspot.com
Cape Gallery Johans Borman Fine Art Gallery
Until 09 May, recent paintings,
watercolours and etchings by
Marilyn Southey and paintings
by Jenny Northard; Until 30 May,
New paintings in oil and etchings
by Diane Johnson-Ackerman.
60 Church Street, Cape Town,
T. 021 423 5309
www.capegallery.co.za
Cape Town School of
Photography
Until 15 May, Jurgen Schadeberg;
4th Floor, 62 Roeland Street,
Cape Town, 021 4652152
www.ctsp.co.za
Christopher MǾller Art
14-30 May, Blue, group show:
Margot Hattingh, Brigitte Berg,
Diane Mc Naughton, Ros Molteno,
Adele Gordon, Judy Mckune, Jen
Marais, Christine Cherry-Jones,
Jeoff Burr, David Porter, Susan
Hall and Margaret Curry
82 Church Street, Cape Town,
T. 021 439 3517
www.christophermollerart.co.za
David Porter Antiques
Buyers and sellers of South Afri-
can art
T. 021 6830580/083 452 5862
david@davidporterantiques.com
Erdmann Contemporary /
Photographers Gallery Mntambo; Lunga Kama, Here I
6-30 May, Left of November, a
Vaughan-Evans & Deanne Don-
aldson.
63 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town
T. 021 422 2762
www.erdmanncontemporary.co.za
Everard Read Gallery - CT
Portswood Rd, V&A Waterfront
www.everard-read-capetown.co.za
T. 021 418 4527
Focus Contemporary, Fine
Young Art
For May, O Sumo San, Photogra-
phy by Philippe Marinig.
2 Long Street Cape Town,
T. 021 419 8888,
www.focuscontemporary.co.za
Gallery F
8 May-end Jun, The spirit of Dis-
trict 6 collection, photography by
Cloete Breytenbach.
221 Long Street, Cape Town,
T. 021 422 5246
www.galleryf.co.za
Gallery Odes
For May, The Unbearable likeness
of seeing; by Gordon Clark
The Old Biscuit Mill, 357 Albert
Road, Woodstock, Cape Town
T. 021 423 4687
www.gordonclark.co.za
Goodman Gallery, Cape Galley
For May, Thomas Mulcaire, The
exhibition establishes relationships
between objects, images, curatorial
projects and institutional works.
3rd Floor, Fairweather House, 176
Sir Lowry Road Woodstock,
Cape Town T. 021 462 7573/4,
www.goodmangallerycape.com
Infin Art Gallery
Wolfe Street Chelsea Wynberg T.
021 761 2816 and Buitengracht St
Cape Town T. 021 423 2090
www.infinart.co.za
Irma Stern Museum other artists.
Until 9 May, Exodus, works by
Roxandra Dardagan Britz.
12 -30 May, Themes and Vari-
ations; earth, water, ice, mixed
media works on canvas by Ursula
Niblett Zeller.
T. 021 685 5686
www.irmastern.co.za
Iziko South African National
Gallery www.abalonegallery.co.za
Until 14 Jun, The Tropics, Views
from the middle of the globe;
Until Jul 09, Scratches on the
Face. Until 10 May, Wonderland:
Nontsikelelo Veleko, Standard
Bank Young Artist 2008;
Until end May, What We See.
Voice, Image and Versioning, at
the Iziko Slave Lodge; Until 28
Jun, ‘Dis-ease’, a collection of
recent video art drawn from the
Rijksakademie archives, curated
by Greg Streak.
Government Avenue, Company’s
Garden T. The 021 467 4660,
www.iziko.org.za
João Ferreira Gallery
6-29 May, Two men and their dogs
and other works, sculptures by
David Brown.
70 Loop Street,Cape Town,
T. 021 423 5403
www.joaoferreiragallery.com
SA Master Paintings; By Irma
Stern, Maggie Laubser, JH Piern-
eef, Hugo Naudé, Ruth Prowse,
Gerard Sekoto, George Pemba
and Gregoire Boonzaier, as well
as contemporary works by Walter
Meyer, Jacobus Kloppers, Hussein
Salim, Ben Coutouvidis, Hen-
nie Niemann Jnr, Philip Barlow,
Marlene von Dürckheim and
others. In-Fin-Art Building, Upper
Buitengracht Street, Cape Town,
T. 021 423 6075/082 5664631
www.johansborman.co.za
Kalk Bay Modern
Until 15 May,Paintings and Prints
by Nicolaas Maritz.
Main Road Kalk Bay.
T.021 788 6571
kbmodern@iafrica.com
Lindy van Niekerk Art Gallery Lipschitz Gallery
Exhibition of SA’s leading artists.
31 Kommandeur Road,
Welgemoed, Belville T. 021 913
7204/5
www.artpro.co.za
Kunst House Sam Nhlengethwa, Pieter Van Der
62 Kloof Street, Gardens,
T. 021 422 1255
www.kunsthouse.co.za
Michael Stevenson
Contemporary
Until 30 May, Paintings by Penny
Siopis; The encounter by Nandipha
Am.
Ground Floor, Buchanan Building,
160 Sir Lowry Road, Cape Town,
T. 021 462 1500
www.michaelstevenson.com
Raw Vision Gallery
For May, Messages from the
Future, digital prints by Mike
Fisher 89 Sir Lowry Road, Wood-
stock. fishermike@mac.com
Muti Gallery
Gabrielle Raaff.
3 Vredehoek Avenue, Oranjezicht,
T. 021 465 3551
mutigalery@mutifilms.co.za
Rust-en-Vrede
5-28 May, On the surface, by
Mervyn Gers.
10 Wellington Road, Durbanville.
T. 021 976 4691
www.rust-en-vrede.com
Salon 91 Contemporary
Until 10 May, Through the looking
glass, Mixed Media paintings by
Dagmar Sissolak. Until 20 May,
Lorenzo Nassimbeni’s latest wall-
paper/fabric designs, illustrations
and original drawings.
91 Kloof Street, Gardens,
Cape Town 021 424 6930
www.salon91art.co.za
These Four Walls Fine Art
Until 9 May,Lifeboat, works by
Maya Marshak
169 Lower Main Road, Observa-
tory, T. 021 447 7393.
www.thesefourwalls.co.za
Urban Contemporary Art
06 May-27 Jun, Nuance, work by
four painters and a sculptor, Cath-
erine Ochulla, Maricel Albertyn,
Lionel Smit, Varenka Paschke and
Jonathan Munnik.
46 Lower Main Road, Observatory,
Cape Town T. 021 447 4132,
www.urbancontemporaryart.co.za
The South African Print Gallery
Until 23 May, Tributes: Sam Nh-
lengethwa and Friends, showcases
Nhlengethwa’s Tribute Series
in dialogue with works by Peter
Clarke, Marlene Dumas, William
Kentridge, David Koloane and
Judith Mason.
107 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock,
Cape Town, T. 021 462 6851
www.printgallery.co.za
What if the World…
05-24 May, Sing into my mouth,
Works by Bridget Baker, Emma
Coleman, Sue Clark, Tom
Cullberg, Anja de Klerk, Barend
de Wet, Peter Eastman, Teboho
Edkins, Gus Ferguson, Gimberg &
Nerf, Douglas Gimberg, Matthew
Hindley, Pieter Hugo, Mandy
Lee Jandrell, John Nankin, Sarah
Nankin, Cameron Platter, Andrew
Putter, Gregg Smith, Doreen
Southwood, James Webb, Ed
Young.
Curated by Julia Rosa Clark.
First floor, 208 Albert Road
Woodstock T. 021 448 1438 www.
whatiftheworld.com
Franschoek listings at
Gallery Grande Provence show@arttimes.co.za
Until 27 May, Relate: A duo
exhibition featuring the works of
a father and son, a sculptor and
painter, Anton Smit + Lionel Smit.
Main Road Franschoek,
T. 021 876 8600
www.grandeprovence.co.za
Knysna
Knysna Fine Art
From 8 May, Considering Therian-
thropes Animal Human, new works
by Guy Thesen. 1-08 May, The
Tattoo Show.
8 Grey Street Knysna,
T.044 382 5107
www.finearts.co.za
Plettenberg Bay
18 May, Book/DVD launch by
artist Stanley Grootboom, From
4 May: a selection of South
African artists, including Stanley
Grootboom, Amos Langdown,
Dumisani Mbaso, Thomas Kgope,
Westhuizen and others.
Hill House, Number One Main
Street, Plettenberg Bay, T. 044 533
4581 www.southafricanart.co.za
George
Strydom Gallery
A Selection of South African art
Marklaan Centre, 79 Market Street,
George, T. 044 874 4027.
www.artaffair.co.za
Stellenbosch
Dorp Straat Gallery
12-31 May, Anya Adendorff,
Madelein Marincowitz and An-
thony Sherratt
144 Dorp Street, Stellenbosch
T. 021 887 2256
www.dorpstraatgalery.co.za
Red Black and White
14-30 May, South-African Ceram-
ics: Linnware, Kalahari, Rorke’s
Drift & Anglo-Oriental Ceramics.
Until 09 May, Brotherhood 2009
curated by Johann du Plessis.
5a Distillery Road, Bosman’s
Crossing, Stellenbosch.
T. 021 886 6281
www.redblackandwhite.co.za
Sasol Art Museum
Until 13 Jun, Johann Louw, a mid-
career retrospective.
52 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch.
T. 021 808 3695
www.sun.ac.za/museum
University of Stellenbosch Art
Gallery
7-30 May, SRC Photo & Art
Competition.
Stellenbosch University, cnr of
Bird and Dorp Streets,
Stellenbosch T. 021 808 3489
www.sun.ac.za/artgallery
SMAC Art Gallery
Until 10 May, Locations, works
by Jonathan Guaitamacchi; Until
10 May, Echoes, paintings by Jake
Aikman.
De Wet Centre, Church Street,
Stellenbosch T. 021 887 3607
www.smacgallery.com
Stellenbosch Art Gallery
Permanent exhibition of Conrad
Theys, John Kramer, Gregoire
Boonzaier, Adriaan Boshoff and
34 Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch
T. 021-8878343
www.stellenboschartgallery.co.za
Hermanus
Abalone Gallery
Until 8 May, Anthology, Lien
Botha.
2 Harbour Rd, The Courtyard,
Hermanus. T. 028 313 2935
Philip Harper Galleries
Specialising in South African old
masters and select contemporary
artists.
Oudehof Mall, 167 Main Rod,
Hermanus T. 028 312 4836 www.
philipharpergalleries.co.za
Please
E-mail us
your art gallery
 GALLERY BUZZ MAY 09 | BUSINESS ART 05

Johannesburg viewing at Stephan Welz and Company, in association with Sotheby’s

Henry White and Michael Goodman, avid art collectors, Mr & Mrs Jansenns, Bevan Rees, of Saronsberg Wine
with the William Kentridge “The Highveld Style Masked Estate, Thandi Puren & Karen-Leigh Devaux de Marigny
Ball” in the background. of Stephan Welz and Company

Work from the “Nothing new” exhibition, George, Western Cape

Drip Series 2, 120 x 120cm, Oil on Canvas, 2009, Lionel Smit. Nuance,
opening at UCA Gallery on 6 May, contains work by four painters and
a sculptor – Catherine Ochulla, Maricel Albertyn, Lionel Smit, Varenka
Paschke and Jonathan Munnik – who speak to the body as a site of social
and emotional politics. Cooperatively, the work suggests that beauty lies
rather in a body’s subtle deviations from the physical ideal than in the
ideal itself. www.ucagallery.co.za

Work from the show “Nothing new” held at The Strydom Galery, George in April. This jewel of an art gal-
lery in the platterland has just celebrated its 40th birthday and is growing from strenth to strength. for more
infrmation se www.artaffair.co.za

Fiona Ewan Rowett

Having used natural form as a starting point
Fiona Ewan Rowett is presently drawn to the
fundamental, more challenging abstract com-
position. Working intuitively, she searches for
that elusive combination of subconscious mark
National School Of The Arts: ITNERACTIVE making and the pulling and pushing of elements
‘Chess’ Learners taking their positions on the board to find a sense of closure.
The School with have its opening day on the 6 May Her passion is not to describe the world as she
sees it but to delve into the invisible world of
sensation, dreams - that space between.

See more of Fiona Rowett’s work at :

Kunst House, 62 Kloof Street, Gardens,

T. 021 422 1255, www.kunsthouse.co.za

Niel Jonker celebrates the

Baardskerersbos Art Route with good spirits

Dr Elfriede Dreyer, the artist Paul Boulitrean and

Andre Naude at the new Naude Art Gallery

David Brown: Two men and their dog and other works
João Ferreira Gallery. 6 - 29 May 2009
I made my first dog as a ‘dog of war’ in 1979 it was carved in wood and parts, like muzzles and collars, were clad in steel. Subsequently I had my second exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 1980. The theme of the dog had then evolved into a series called One man and his dog. These
were monumental two-piece sculptures showing maimed figures on wheeled structures drawn by dogs. My first studio was situated on the edge of District 6 in a derelict building in Canterbury Street. Life in this area was raw and hard. District Six was crumbling and meths drinking street people lived out-
side my studio window. The stories they told were of desperate lives, but with fondly conjured memories of homes that once existed and the pleasure of family once experienced. The sculptures I made at that time reflected this a microcosm of bizarre paradoxes made more stark by the ruthless oppression of
the apartheid state. Humour, too, however dark, has always been part of my iconography. After that time I never made another dog until a collector asked me in 2004 to make a large sculpture for him with two men and a dog. The 6 small dogs were maquettes for him to choose from. Enjoying revisiting an
old theme I made a few more resulting in this small exhibition. Dogs are our closest companion species, but they can also go feral and become dangerous in ways not unlike their human masters.- David Brown.
www.joaoferreiragallery.com Gallery Hours: Tues - Fri: 10am - 5pm Sat: 10am - 2pm. 70 Loop Street Cape Town 8001 South Africa

Subscribe to The SA Art Times and Business Art Special

The South African

Art Times How to purchase your

& SA Art Times & SA Business Art 1 years subscription

Business Art
SA Art Times with SA Business Art 1 years subscription R 180,-

Pay by Cheque: simply write out the Cheque to SA Art Times, and send it with this form with the enclosed addressed and postage paid envelope to us.
Purchase the SA Art Times & SA Business Art By Internet or Bank transfer please pay: Account: South African Art Times. First National Bank, Acc. number: 62171029856 Branch code: 201511 and
1 years subscription for just R 180,- email, or fax proof of payment to accounts@arttimes.co.za Tel: 021 424 7733 Fax: 021 4247732. see more details at www.arttimes.co.za

Name ..……………………………………………………………………………………............................................................................................................
Address ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Receive a years subscription to South Africa’s leading published art .............................................................................................................................................................................................. (code) …………...
newspaper together with the SA Business Art Newspaper to your door
for just R 180,- Tel (code) ……....…(number) ……...............……………...……….. E-mail ………………………………………………………………...........................

Additional details: ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Contents of titles include in depth coverage of the SA artworld, art news,
Special ends 1 June 2009
interviews with both artists and art market professionals, listings, art auction
and a whole lot more.
 06 BUSINESS ART | MAY 09
But is it an investment?
By Michael Thorne, Alfred Bester
and Andrew Bradley
This article was first published in
Personal Finance magazine, 2nd
Quarter 2008.
Investing in art is – or should be
– like investing in the stock mar-
ket. If your time and willingness to
learn are limited, you should find
an expert to buy on your behalf. If
you want to do it yourself, you’ll
have to build up your knowledge
about artists and the art market in
order to separate the hype from the
truly talented. We provide these
pointers.
Once upon a time, as a pacing
bachelor, I bought an erotic paint-
ing. It was well executed by an ac-
complished artist, an excellent in-
vestment in my fantasy world and
it led to a life-changing meeting
in a crowded gallery. Financially,
however, it was a damp squib. The
paint peeled off and the artist hung
up his brushes.
Needless to say, there are a number
of points that can be teased from
my experience.
The blue lady (for want of a better
title) was retail therapy and sexual
fantasy, but definitely not part of a
broader financial plan or an invest-
ment strategy. I wanted to hang it
on my wall, not put it away in a
safe. I paid no thought to selling it
on – although I could have made
a quick buck when it turned out
someone else at the exhibition
desperately wanted it!
I knew a bit about the artist but
didn’t know how many exhibitions
he had had and where, nor how
serious and/or prolific he was. And
the peeling paint? Well, that is akin
to buying a flat and having the
walls cave in.
No doubt there are far better ways
of making money than investing
in fine art, but they might not be
nearly as interesting. Antoinette
du Plessis, of 34 Long Fine Art,
a gallery in Cape Town, puts it
well: “The committed collector is
rewarded with a lifetime of won-
der, of living with loved objects
and, sometimes, with a handsome
financial return.”
Just how much time do you have
and how interested are you in
investing in art? Your answer to
these questions will dictate your
investment strategy.
One way of doing things is to hand
over your cash and decision-mak-
ing to a gallerist or an art dealer, or
to invest offshore in a hedge fund
that includes fine art. If, however,
you want to get your hands dirty,
you will have to put in the time,
because, as in all investing – as
opposed to gambling – knowledge
and research are fundamental.
Assuming you would like to be a
hands-on investor, the first thing
would be to decide how much you
are prepared to invest and over
what term. Du Plessis says: “Like
all investing, [investing in art] has
an edge of unpredictability and
always some risk ... outcome is de-
termined by information, risk-tak-
ing, patience and passion. Timing
can be crucial.”
But everyone knows how difficult
it is to time the market, be it the
stock market or the art market.
Sometimes you will get it right but
more often than not, you will lose
money on costs and be out of the
market at the wrong time.
If you have to put some time frame
to an art investment, it seems
like three to five years is a good
horizon with which to work. What
is of more importance, however, is
to ascertain whether the particular
work or works in which you are
interested are overpriced and, more
specifically, whether there is a
bubble in the market ... too much
cash pushing up the prices and
then FFZZZZst as major collectors
offload their work and the bubble
deflates.
Alfred Bester, of international pro-
fessional services firm Maitland,
in Cape Town, advises clients on
the benefits of fine art investment
where appropriate in estate plan-
ning.
He points to the slump in the art
market between the late 1980s and
early 1990s. The Japanese, cash in
hand, climbed into the art market,
and when their equity and property
markets retracted, they were net art
sellers. Prices slumped internation-
ally, and it is only in the past two
to three years that art values glo-
bally have recovered to the levels
they were at 10 years ago.
Bester observes: “There is not a
direct correlation but a similarity
in movement between the art and
the share markets, with ups and
downs you need a crystal ball to
predict, but obviously driven by
sentiment.”
Having said this, Bester believes
that the quality of good South Afri-
can art is now starting to compare
favourably with top international
art, and he does not think there
is a bubble in the local market,
although recent international sales
would indicate that the bull run
in art prices may be coming to an
end.
Until about 10 years ago, the
South African art market, like the
financial markets, was pretty much
off the map. By the mid-1990s,
it seems no South African artist
had ever achieved more than R1
million on auction, whereas now
some good work is fetching prices
closer to R5 million. This increase
in value has been driven by two
factors. First, and most dramatic,
has been the extended bull run
in our share market, and addi-
tional markets have been created
as people turn to find other stores
of value. Second, South African art
has also become inter-nationally
recognised, especially many of the
dead artists: Irma Stern, JH Piern-
eef, Gregoire Boonzaier, Maggie
Laubser, and other “big hitters”
such as Gerard Sekoto, Gladys
Mgudlandlu, Francois Krige and
George Pemba.
The international recognition of
South African artists is not without
some dangers for art lovers. Bester
feels strongly about the possible
loss of good South African art
to overseas investors. He feels
it would be a sin for a beautiful
painting to be secreted in some
bank vault, lost to appreciative
eyes and hearts.
Positing the obvious, value for
money is crucial, as is trying to
spot a winner before everyone and
South African Art Information Directory
Promotional special R 169,- including postage and packaging
Now in its 6th edition The SAAID 09 provides the user with a wealth of
art information - both in terms of size and access into the South African
arts community- and is South Africa’s white and yellow pages
“ (The) South African Art Information Directory is packed with all sorts of
useful information. In many ways, it really starts to taper the long-standing
Contents include 152 pages of: SA Art Infrastructure : Corporate Collections,
Art Museums, Art Galleries, Art agents, Art Auctioneers, Art Material Shops,
Media, Schools etc. Art Opportunities : South African Art Competitions,
Events, Grants, Funders
their horse gets in on the deal. This
is not as technical as when you
analyse a company in which you
want to invest. Basically, you are
trying to anticipate what the future
sentiment around an artist and a
piece of work will be.
Andries Loots, of Vgallery (a
South African online gallery),
suggests that a would-be inves-
tor does some cross-checking and
consults at least three different
galleries. Some galleries might
well punt “their” own artists and
it is vital to get a broad view of
the market. Loots also suggests
going to exhibitions and auctions,
reading and doing online research.
This is a period of building “visual
literacy”, which continues until the
day you die.
Separating substance from spin
There was a fairly unanimous
agreement among the experts to
whom I spoke about what you
should look for in a potential win-
ner.
Estelle Jacobs, a former director of
the Association for Visual Arts, one
of Cape Town’s oldest non-profit
art galleries, notes the following
important traits you should look
for: commitment, professionalism
(artists who deliver when they say
they will), ambition (whether it is
for fame and/or fortune), the en-
ergy to create and have exhibitions
every couple of years, and a solid
track record of past exhibitions.
Loots suggests that a fine art
degree is viewed as a sign of seri-
ous intention and commitment,
certainly in some circles.
However, what might overshadow
all of the above and what can never
be underestimated is the power
of spin – which artists are getting
airtime and who is being punted
by the galleries? None of us wants
to be the next naked emperor, so it
is vital to ascertain what and how
much substance is behind the spin
or if it is, in fact, just hot air.
As far as the building of an artist’s
reputation goes, Loots refers to
the importance of the secondary
and tertiary markets for art – in
other words, an artwork coming
back onto the market for a second
or third time. Loots always knows
when a particular artist has sold
well on auction: his telephone
doesn’t stop ringing as buyers try
to find the availability of other
works by that artist.
How to buy
Once you have identified an artist,
there are a number of ways that
you can go about buying his or her
work. Artists often have exhibi-
tions or open days at their studios,
are part of an “art route” – for
example, the Midlands Meander
or False Bay art route – or will set
aside time to show you their work.
Auctions are also exciting places
to buy, but you need to know what
you are after and to know your
ceiling. There is often bidding up
(people getting carried away in the
moment) and the ensuing feed-
ing frenzy is great for the auction
house and seller, but after a few
seconds of glory you will be left
holding the baby. It is a sobering
thought that, according to Loots,
paintings go for more on auction
than they do in galleries, and it is
tempting for speculators to buy
from galleries and put the work
Now available:
of the South African art world.
rifts in the South African arts communication network “.
Suzie Copperthwaite, Artthrob
ART AND INVESTMENT
straight on auction.
If you buy from a gallery, about 30
percent to 40 percent of the cost of
the artwork will go to the gallery
as commission and on top of that
you will pay value-added tax. Most
serious buyers build up a relation-
ship with a gallery owner or two.
There are definite benefits in going
this route. With a bit of prodding,
the gallery ought to reduce its
commission on sales. The gallerist
will recommend up-and-com-
ing artists and, when it comes to
resale, the gallery will offer advice
and/or wall space. Galleries are
obviously very keen to build up a
long-term relationship and will not
be too impressed by a hit-and-run
speculator.
Many people also buy artwork
online. However, this can be very
difficult because art is so tactile,
and textures and to a lesser extent
colours can never be captured
properly at the low resolution
demanded by the internet.
According to Jacobs, opportunities
do arise when the work of a well-
known South African artist is sold
online in the United States, for one
reason or another, cheaper than it
can be acquired here.
The work is “repatriated”, held for
a couple of years and then sold at
a handsome profit. Well, that’s the
idea anyway.
It is worth noting that the offshore
art market is highly sophisticated
and there are a range of indices
that you can follow.
Two websites that track fine art as
an investment are www.artasanas-
set.com and www.artprice.com.
Big auction houses also track
individual artists just as you might
track a share.
When it comes to buying work
by one of the “big hitters”, the
authenticity of the piece must be
validated and the physical condi-
tion of the work determined. If you
buy a stolen painting, the original
owner is entitled to reclaim it
and you will be left with empty
pockets, so the provenance of a
piece, its unique history (where it
was exhibited and who has owned
it) will settle the authenticity of
ownership. There are experts who
can assist with this, as well as with
the valuing of a painting.
Taxes and commissions
Owning art is one thing, but how
do you look after it once you have
it? Will you put it into a trust vehi-
cle or keep it in your own name?
Do you want to ring-fence your
collection to protect it from busi-
ness risk or from unappreciative
family members?
Bester says: “If, in your will, you
leave your art collection to a fam-
ily trust and during your lifetime
you enter into a lease agreement
with, for example, the National
Gallery, the gallery will have the
right to exhibit it publicly (rather
than the collection being hidden
away in your home), and after 30
years it reverts to the family trust
without incurring either estate duty
or capital gains tax (CGT).”
Another important point raised by
Bester is that if you are a dealer
buying and selling art, you will
be subject to income tax, but if
you are a collector and doing it
SA Art Information Directory R 169,-
Additional details: ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................
as an investment and as a store of
wealth, there is no CGT because
art is a movable asset. Although
your collection needs to be
included as an asset in your estate
that is calculable for estate duty in
the event of your death, your estate
would not need to pay CGT on the
profit of a sale of the art.
One of the big pros of selling art-
work through a gallery is that the
gallery will have a buyer list and
if the artist is well known it should
be a fairly straightforward process,
although you stand to lose a chunk
in commission.
On the auction front, the South
African public seem to be laggards
but this appears to be changing.
Auctions are attractive to buy-
ers and sellers alike because of
the likelihood of getting a better
price and the reduced commission
payable.
A note of caution, however: costs
need to be checked out pretty
carefully. For example, in the event
that your work is not sold, you
need to determine whether you, as
the would-be seller, will be saddled
with “hidden” costs.
Bester has the final say on auc-
tions: “There are a lot of artists out
there who are overvalued, based on
the marketing practices of certain
galleries. They create the hype,
but if you analyse it and compare
the price at the gallery against
what you might realistically get
on auction, it’s like being the
manager of a boxer: you talk up
your guy until he gets into the ring
and gets smacked. The litmus test
for most of our artists is how well
they do on public auction, where
you haven’t got the intervention
of galleries. There are a range of
individuals and dealers, and that is
where you will find the true value.”
Fine art investments must surely
fall under the banner of ethical
investments. Dividends are paid in
every glance and in the satisfaction
of knowing you are supporting a
creative person, challenging you
to look at the world in new ways.
Shares you can feel excited about,
but a painting you can fall in love
with. No doubt, had I invested that
money I spent on The blue lady in
a good share, I would surely have
made some decent money, but then
... I might not have met my wife!
Michael Thorne is a dabbler in the
arts and the managing director of
Sparx Media Illustration Agency.
The art of reducing estate duty
Alfred Bester discusses how art
owners can organise their affairs to
minimise estate duty and donations
tax.
Art is usually acquired out of
a love for art rather than as an
investment. However, the market
value of art assets may well con-
tribute substantially to the dutiable
value of your estate when you die.
Should there be insufficient liquid-
ity in your estate, the executors
may be compelled to realise the
art assets to pay administration
expenses, creditors’ claims and
estate duty. The collection might
be divided among a multitude of
beneficiaries. Worse yet is the case
where none of the beneficiaries has
How to purchase your
SA Art Information Directory 09
Pay by Cheque: simply write out the Cheque to SA Art Times, and send it with this form with the enclosed addressed and postage paid envelope to us.
By Internet or Bank transfer please pay: Account: South African Art Times. First National Bank, Acc. number: 62171029856 Branch code: 201511 and
email, or fax proof of payment to accounts@arttimes.co.za Tel: 021 424 7733 Fax: 021 4247732. see more details at www.arttimes.co.za
Name ..……………………………………………………………………………………............................................................................................................
Address ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................................................. (code) …………...
Tel (code) ……....…(number) ……...............……………...………..
any interest in the collection and
may simply dispose of it.
It is important to appoint an execu-
tor who understands art, its value
and the ultimate benefit it could
serve, not only to the family but
also to the public.
It might seem odd that deceased
estate practitioners seldom encoun-
ter art collections or objects of art
in deceased estates in South Africa.
This might lead to the conclusion
that these collections are disposed
of prior to death, but often they are
simply not declared to executors.
The fact that there is no centralised
record of art in South Africa has
led in many cases to art collec-
tions becoming a “secret store of
wealth” that passes silently from
one generation to the next without
being disclosed. This could be an
oversight but it could equally be to
escape estate duty and donations
tax.
The South African Revenue
Service (SARS) is becoming more
sophisticated, and at some stage it
is likely that a centralised record of
art sales will be established.
With the introduction of the
Financial Intelligence Centre Act,
any suspicious transaction must be
reported by any suspecting party to
the Financial Intelligence Centre.
This could have a direct effect on
the auction industry, which could
be compelled to declare details of
buyers and sellers of art through
auction houses. This “big brother”
concept already directly affects
the banking, financial, fiduciary
and property sectors. It would not
be unreasonable to expect tighter
controls in other sectors of the
economy, forcing the ultimate dis-
closure on death of art, art objects,
book collections and the like for
the purposes of estate duty and
donations tax.
Art acquired by way of purchase,
inheritance or donation must be
disclosed on your income tax
return, even if you regard the items
merely as personal-use items and
part of your household furniture
and effects. In terms of current
legislation, art or art objects are not
subject to capital gains tax (CGT)
on disposal unless you are an art
dealer, because they are regarded
as personal-use assets. (Interest-
ingly, neither the Income Tax Act
nor the Estate Duty Act actually
defines an art object.)
Should you leave your art assets to
your spouse, they will be exempt
from estate duty in terms of sec-
tion 4(q) of the Estate Duty Act.
However, on the death of the last-
dying of you and your spouse and
assuming you have left the assets
to your children or their offspring,
the market value of the assets will
contribute to the dutiable value of
your estate. Estate duty is charged
at a flat rate of 20 percent on the
net dutiable estate. The net dutiable
estate is determined after deducting
the primary rebate of R3.5 million,
administration expenses and credi-
tors’ claims, as well as any further
deductions in terms of section four
of the Estate Duty Act.
There are perfectly legal ways of
minimising estate duty, notably
through the opportunity afforded
by art assets. The Estate Duty
Act creates the mechanism by
which you can create a structure
E-mail ………………………………………………………………...........................
to minimise the impact your art
collection will have on your estate
for estate duty purposes. This can
be achieved by subjecting the
collection to a notarial lease (a
lease drawn up and executed by a
notary) for a period of not less than
30 years, during which period the
owner’s death occurs (meaning the
owner has to die during the period
of the lease).
The lease could, for example, be
in favour of Iziko South African
National Gallery or an association,
such as The Friends of the South
African National Gallery, as long
as the lessee retains the status of a
public benefit organisation (PBO)
in terms of the Income Tax Act and
related legislation. The total value
of the collection would therefore
not only escape CGT, but would
also be exempt from estate duty. At
the end of the notarial lease period,
the collection would merely pass
to the lessor’s beneficiaries, which
could be a suitable family trust.
Should Iziko South African Na-
tional Gallery elect not to take con-
trol and possession of an art col-
lection after the death of the lessor,
another recognised state institution
or PBO, such as The Friends of the
South African National Gallery, as
a quasi “art ombudsman”, could be
appointed to have effective control,
while the benefactor’s estate would
still be able to enjoy estate duty
relief.
Other opportunities exist where the
collection could flow through to a
specialist trust, which looks after
the collection in perpetuity. The
founder of the trust could appoint
family members and the nominees
of, say, The Friends of the South
African National Gallery or a
similar institution as trustees under
conditions stipulated by the trust
deed. The founder of the trust may
also be a trustee of the trust.
Alfred Bester is the head of trust
and corporate services of Mait-
land, in Cape Town. This article
was originally printed in InTouch,
Maitland’s quarterly newsletter.
Art and collectibles in your port-
folio
Andrew Bradley
Over the past few years there has
been a great deal of publicity about
the phenomenal returns achieved
by art and other collectibles. These
reports are a reflection of reality.
However, it is inappropriate to
extrapolate these cases as a general
rule, because it is impossible to
determine how far down the value
chain these remarkable returns
have permeated.
As human beings, we have a nasty
habit of over-simplifying matters
and creating rules of thumb. We
also have a selective short-term
memory when we do not properly
understand what it is we are deal-
ing with.
To avoid being caught up in
hysteria, it is important to create a
proper framework for making any
investment decisions. Firstly, you
need to understand the different
kinds of assets you may own.
There can be business assets, life-
style assets, investment assets and
philanthropic or speculative assets.
Art and collectibles do not meet
any of the criteria to be classified
Special ends 1 June 2009
as an investment asset because
they do not generate any invest-
ment returns. Property and shares,
for example, do meet the criteria
in that they generate rental income
or dividends. Based on these they
could also generate capital growth.
Art is therefore not in the arena of
an investment. So, where does that
leave it?
Well, if you are a dealer who buys
and sells art, taking a commission
from these activities could make it
a business. If this is the case, there
are significant other implications
that do not apply to most art lov-
ers.
Art can be a lifestyle asset you
enjoy and from which you gain
fulfilment, just like a motor car
or boat. The fact that you may
ultimately make some money from
these assets is purely incidental to
the lifestyle and aesthetic benefits
you derive from them.
Art can also be a speculative or
philanthropic asset. If you are buy-
ing art to support a budding artist,
your art purchases could have a
very strong philanthropic slant to
them. You expect nothing in return
except the emotional fulfilment
from the gesture you are making.
If you are buying because you
believe the artist or the piece will
in time receive greater recognition
than is currently the case, you are
speculating – not investing. Your
gamble may well pay off, or it
might not. The artist may not fulfil
his or her potential, or the piece
may not receive any interest from
anyone other than you. In these
instances, the odds on the gamble
will be too high.
It is therefore crucial that you
understand where any purchase fits
into your overall portfolio. If it is
art, make sure that, from the start,
you derive full enjoyment from
it. It is therefore a lifestyle asset,
which may have some speculative
benefits. It is at no time an invest-
ment.
As you accumulate lifestyle assets
and speculative assets, remember
that your financial future will be
secured only by investments, with
help from business assets. Until
you have secured your financial
future through investment assets,
you should keep your speculation
and lifestyle assets to a minimum,
otherwise you are gambling with
your future well-being.
As a sobriety-check, also ask your-
self where the money comes from
to bid up the prices of art and col-
lectibles. The only conclusion can
be from business and investment
assets. So when these two areas of
the economy are buoyant, you will
find that they fuel the prices of life-
style and speculative assets. Even
then you should have your money
tied up in the engine room of eco-
nomic growth and prosperity. Only
surplus assets should be allocated
to art and collectibles that can give
you a speculative gain.
Andrew Bradley is the chief execu-
tive of acsis, a financial planning
company.

Profile: Dumile Feni:
1968 Drawings
Johans Borman Fine Art Gallery
‘I am amazed by one thing that
I’m glad never left me - that is the
beauty of the lines, the fine lines’
(Feni, 1987).
In an interview with Eva Cockcroft
for Art and Artists in 1983, titled
I Come From a Long Tradition,
Dumile claimed that the most
important influence in his artistic
development was his childhood vis-
its to the Bushman caves with his
mother, where he saw the paintings
of his ancestors.
The statement by Dumile quoted
above comes from an article in SA
New Writing, Photographs & Art
(1987), in which he confirmed this
early influence, adding that the cave
paintings still inspired the style and
sensibility of his work.
Dumile had started exploring
the Rotring™ fine pen medium
shortly before his departure from
South Africa in 1968. This was a
significant departure from his large
scale charcoal drawings exhibited
at Gallery 101 and the Durban Art
Gallery in 1966 and 1967.
Fine lines were employed in part,
in most of Dumile’s drawings to
achieve various pictorial effects.
The works he completed on his
arrival in London are particularly
significant as they are characterised
by the consistent use of fine lines
throughout the drawings.
Four figures and the series of 5
drawings shown on this exhibition
were among the first Rotring™
pen drawings Dumile produced in
London. Four figures was shown at
his first London exhibition, Dumile
Feni 37 drawings, at the Grosvenor
Gallery from July 29 to Septem-
ber 1 1969. The 5 drawing series
was acquired by Eric Estorick, the
director of the Grosvenor Gallery.
Dumile also contributed to the
landmark show; the Contemporary
African Arts exhibition at the Cam-
den Arts Centre, which took place
within weeks of the opening of the
Grosvenor Gallery exhibition. He
received favourable reviews for his
work at both these shows.
When researching the history of
these works and the circumstances
under which they were produced,
it becomes apparent how important
they are with respect to the personal
upheaval he endured at the time.
Apart from being uprooted from
the land of his birth, he also had to
leave behind his partner, Florence
Dyali, who was seven months
pregnant with their child.
In South Africa, because of Apart-
heid regulations, Dumile had been
unable to secure authorisation to
live and work in Johannesburg de-
spite having a supply-contract with
Gallery 101. Authorities threatened
to move him to a tribal homeland,
which would effectively have end-
ed his artistic career. This created
a moral dilemma for Dumile; if he
stayed until his child was born, he
risked being arrested.
Lionel Ngakane notes:
… Dumile failed to convince the
authorities that being an artist was
a profession and he was eventually
expelled from Johannesburg and
sent back to Cape Town. In Cape
Town he was given fourteen days
to leave and was endorsed to his
town of birth, Worcester. Worcester
also refused him a resident’s permit
and in turn gave him fourteen days
to leave, or be arrested and sent
to a tribal reservation. Dumile in
desperation returned to Johannes-
burg and applied for a passport to
leave the country. He had to wait
for a year before he was granted the
passport (Ngakane, Lionel. Dumile:
A Profile. African Arts/Arts de
Afrique 1970 volumeIII).
As a result of Bill Ainslie’s inter-
vention Dumile received an invita-
tion to exhibit at the Grosvenor
Gallery and eventually acquired a
South African passport.
The emotional turmoil he expe-
rienced in the first months after
his arrival in England, heightened
by the birth of his child in South
Africa, is evident in the dramatic
power of the work he produced
during this period. An inscription
on one of the drawings in the series
of 5 starts with the question, “What
shall we name the child: …”. His
daughter, Marriam, was born on 28
September 1968.
When Dumile arrived in London
he stayed with the exiled writer,
William “Bloke” Modisane, who
provided him with studio space. He
dedicated one of these early draw-
ings, Theme for Bloke, later shown
at the Grosvenor Gallery, to him.
This collection of drawings consists
mainly of figurative studies, pre-
dominantly of women in postures
of anguish, ranging from a single
female figure who appears to be
running out of the picture frame,
to a more complex composition of
nine figures.
The scale and positioning of the
figures fully utilize the large paper
format, where open space is used
for dramatic effect, emphasizing
the isolation of the figure or figures
in the composition.
The empty spaces are devoid of
references to landscape or any other
pictorial devices that define space,
much like the Bushman paintings
in the caves that his mother showed
him as a child.
These drawings are minimalist in
composition, but not in execution,
and some figures are more detailed
than others. The contrast between
the intensely detailed figures, and
the open spaces, heightens the ten-
sion in these unusual compositions.
Some figures are static, while oth-
ers are set in motion by the use of
fine lines ghosted onto the paper,
which suggest various stages of
sequential movement.
By 1969 Dumile’s approach to figu-
rative subjects had changed, and
his figures did not have the same
mass as in his earlier drawings. He
did, however, retain the use of fine
lines to outline his subject matter
and convey movement. Thereafter,
his drawings became progressively
stylized, although he never relin-
quished his use of the fine lines.
This stylistic development included
a solidification of the outlines of
many of his figures.
In the context of Dumile’s oeuvre,
the dramatic emotional events of
1968 - his displacement to London
and his absence from the birth of
his child - influenced his stylistic
development during this transition-
al period. This resulted in a body
of work which is unique, not only
in terms of the stylistic approach to
volume and mass, but also because
of its specific emotional content.
(BCS).
Terence McCaw Kalk Bay, Cape Town
Profile: Terence McCaw
Founder member of the New Group
and created appeal for Cape Impressionism
Terence McCaw (1913 – 1978)
was awarded a scholarship to
study at the Witwatersrand Techni-
cal Art School, where he was
enrolled from 1930 to 1933 and
studied under Sydney Carter and
Emily Fern – the influence of Cart-
er on his work endured throughout
his artistic career. McCaw and
Walter Battiss met and became
close friends while studying to-
gether; with Battiss declaring him
“without doubt the best painter
at the school.” They maintained
a life-long friendship and went
on several painting trips together.
Determined to earn his living as
a professional artist he worked
in Cape Town for a year after his
studies before returning to Johan-
nesburg to work as a commercial
artist. One can only guess that
this was a compromise brought
on by the harsh reality of trying
to earn a living from his art while
he was yet to establish a reputa-
tion. In 1935 his extremely skilled
draftsmanship saw him taking first
prize in a South African Railways
poster competition. Thereafter he
was awarded with a travel bursary
to study art abroad. He furthered
his training in London at Heath-
erleys and the Central School of
Art. While in London he exhibited
with the London Group and Royal
Watercolour society. His talent
and skill was such that while still
a student he had paintings hung
in the Royal Academy, the Royal
Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal
British Association, the Royal
Portrait Society and at Agnews of
Bond Street. He then spent six
months traveling and painting in
Spain and Morocco before return-
ing to South Africa in 1937, where
after he returned once again to
Cape Town.
McCaw then became a founder
member and active protagonist
of the New Group, established in
1938 with Battiss and Gregoire
Boonzaier. While working in close
association with Boonzaier, Mc-
Caw would have been exposed to
the work of first generation Cape
Impressionist - Pieter Wenning,
who had been a close friend of
the Boonzaier family. Wenning’s
influence is discernible in Boonza-
ier’s work but is much more
strongly present in McCaw, even
though McCaw states Cezanne as
influence; this is more visible in
Boonzaier’s work. Therefore these
two young artists seem to share
much cross-pollination of inspira-
tion, intent and influence. Simi-
larly both artists were caught up in
the same position. Starting off as
highly talented, skilled and ambi-
tious; that which would have first
been ‘new’ work, though hardly
avante garde especially as second
generation Cape Impressionists, as
the public received their styles fa-
vorably they were then forced into
a position of maintaining a course,
lest they lose their buying public.
In contrast, Battiss did not depend
on his art sales for his income, for
this he relied on teaching art. He
was therefore free to keep pushing
the boundaries of his artwork and
experiment freely – leaving the
other two behind in terms of stylis-
tic trends and thereby remaining at
the forefront of South African art
developments throughout his life.
“Terence told me how doing Com-
mercial Art for a living in Johan-
nesburg had injured his creative
vision. Actually that’s what later
undid him… I think with all his
easy talent of elegant style Terence
finally signed his artistic death
warrant painting for a commercial
gallery and getting tied up, with no
escape.”
He was appointed in November
1943 as one of the Official War
Artists for the South African
Defence Force to record the events
of WWII, where he was mainly
stationed in Italy. This allowed
ARTIST PROFILES & SOUTH AFRICAN ART AUCTIONS MAY 09 | BUSINESS ART 07
Garden, Hout Bay (Estimate R120 000 – R150 000) one of six works by the artist on the Cape Town Swelco auction 26 May 2009
South African Art Auction May update
some respite from the ideals of the Michael Coulson The only two lots to top GBP10 gross of R5.36m was well short of 000, was bid up to R123 200.
New Group in order to capture the 000 in this section were two the low estimate of R8.10m. How-
landscape of warfare in a fairly The two most recent auctions in- Kentridge graphics, lots 33 and 42, ever, the final result may beat this, Swelco notes that artist records
realistic manner. The spontane- volving SA art confirm two trends: at GBP15 600 (GBP8 000-GBP12 as several lots on the auctioneer’s were set for landscapes by Cath-
ity, directness and strong visual firstly, that the market for SA art 000) and GBP20 400 (GBP20 000- price list are marked TBA (to be cart Methven landscape, at R201
appeal of Cape Impressionism was is in SA; and secondly, that, no GBP30 000) respectively. advised), implying that the con- 600 (R80 000-R120 000) and Ger-
well-suited to this purpose as “his doubt in part as a result of tough signors may accept below-reserve hard Batha, at R67 200 (R20 000-
economic conditions, buyers are Given these failures, the surprising bids after the event. R30 0000), the latter reportedly
pictorial account of people, places
and events along the battlefront shying away from some artists that top price went to an acrylic and greeted by “applause and amused
won him further acclaim.” After have been commanding the highest watercolour painting by Nigeria’s These included the top estimate reaction.” Battiss and Boonzaaier
the War he returned to South
Africa and settled in Hout Bay. In
1948 four works were included in
prices.
Bonham’s sale of African Con-
Benedict Enwonwu, estimated
at just GBP20 000-GBP30 000,
which was bid up to GBP66 000,
work, the Irma Stern double
portrait (R800 000-R1.2m) and a
clutch of five Adriaan Boshoffs
were also well supported.
Next major event is Graham
the Overseas Exhibition of South temporary Art in London on April followed by GBP30 000 for a (ranging from a low of R150 000 Britz’s auction of the Brett Kebble
African Art. In 1950 he joined a 8 was nothing short of a disaster. sculpture by Ghana’s El Anatsui to a high of R900 000). collection, about which I can say
scientific expedition to Mozam- Overall, 50 of the 95 lots sold, or (GBP8 000-GBP12 000). little as Britz declined the normal
bique and Zimbabwe as official 53%, but as the highest estimate Others left on the shelf include professional courtesy of provid-
artist to record newly discovered works failed to sell, the gross of Stephen Welz & Co in Association two Pierneefs (R300 000-R500 ing the media with copies of the
paintings of the ‘Bushmen’. This GBP352 000 (as always, including with Sotheby’s (Swelco)’s Johan- 000 and R200 000-R300 000), two catalogue. But I note that earlier
trip resulted in a show in Harare buyer’s premium and Vat, where nesburg sale on April 20 went Ngatanes (R250 000-R350 000 suggestions that the gross could
and included landscapes of the applicable) fell under half the low better, especially the first session, and R100 000-R150 000) and two reach R100m have been moderated
Zambezi area. Following this he estimate of GBP731 000. which as usual comprised minor Lucky Sibiya wood panels (R100 to R50m-R70m, while my main
spent a year painting in Zanzibar, works. Seventyone of the 90 works 000-R150 000 and R80 000-R120 impression of the preview was a
the artworks from this time he In terms of numbers, works by SA sold, or 79%, grossing R657 000, 000. wall full of overcleaned and gloss-
then exhibited in Nairobi. In 1952 artists matched the overall figure, well above the low estimate of ily varnished Sterns that looked as
he returned to visit Italy and lived 19 of 35 selling. But because the R455 000. Top prices were an ex- After the Bonham’s experience, if they had come off the easel that
on the island of Ischia for a year. two highest estimates were in this travagant R28 000 for a Christiaan there must have been smiles of morning.
While he returned to live in Hout category, and neither sold, the Nice landscape (R5 000-R8 000), relief all round when Kentridge’s
Bay he was to make many return gross was a dismal 27% of the low and R24 600 each for an Andre cover lot drawing The Highveld Swelco’s next auction is in Cape
visits to paint in Italy. The ‘50’s estimate: GBP105 000 of GBP391 de Beer genre scene R6 000-R9 Style Masked Ball reached Town on May 26 and 27. The
were not a particularly produc- 500. The two casualties were lot 000) and a Battiss Nude litho (R5 R560 000 (R500 000-R700 000). house says highlights include
tive time artistically for McCaw. 32, a Kentridge oil estimated at 000-R6 000). Another Pierneef did sell, at R392 a Stern portrait of Zoe Randall
He fell ill and seemed to struggle GBP100 000-GBP150 000, and lot 000, just under the estimate range (R1.8m-R2.4m) and landscapes
to regain his health. One may con- 39, a Marlene Dumas watercolour While the sales percentage was (R400 000-R600 000), while a by Hugo Naude (R250 000-R350
jecture that he was perhaps floun- and pencil nude (GBP80 000- similar in the second session (101 Pieter Wenning landscape fetched 000) and Terrence McCaw (R120
dering to find his way artistically, GBP120 000). of 126), here too some top-priced R560 000 (R500 000-R800 000). A 000-R160 000).
having for so long painted to fulfill works fell short, so the reported Preller still life, est R40 000-R60
public demand and expectation of
his work. Consequently he painted
only sporadically which resulted
in works of varying degrees of
quality during the 1950’s.
The 1960’s saw McCaw concen-
trating his creative energy into his
property at Hout Bay and his re-
portedly magnificent garden. This
nurturing of his surrounds bore
artistic fruit and a second wave of
renewed energy as McCaw went
on the have two highly successful
one-man exhibitions in 1972 and
1975. He died at the age of 64 in
February 1978. “He had painted
for over 40 years, exhibited
throughout the world, and won the
acclamation and respect of critics
and public alike both here and
overseas.”
Eds. Harmsen, F. & Cook, D. (1979) De Arte 23
April 1979, Unisa Journal of the Department of Art
History and Fine Arts, Pretoria: Unisa, p. 48 quota-
tion from a letter by Walter Battiss.
Eds. Huntingford, N.P.C & Hardy, R.E. (1982) The
WWII Works of Terence MacCaw S.A. National
Gallery Catalogue 1983 Johannesburg: S.A. Na-
tional Museum of Military History.
Eds. Harmsen, F. & Cook, D. (1979) De Arte 23
April 1979, Unisa Journal of the Department of
New blood at Stephan Welz and Company, in association with Sotheby’s, (left - right) Jennifer Schultz, Anton Welz, Karen Randle and Michael Chandler
Art History and Fine Arts, Pretoria: Unisa, p. 48
quotation from a letter by Walter Battiss – italics
his emphasis
Eds. Huntingford, N.P.C & Hardy, R.E. (1982) The
WWII Works of Terence MacCaw S.A. National Moving In and Up at Stephan Welz and Company, in association with Sotheby’s
Gallery Catalogue 1983 Johannesburg: S.A. Na-
tional Museum of Military History
Ibid. The start of 2009 saw a number of new faces crossing the threshold of Stephan Welz and Company, in association with Sotheby’s. The Silver Depart-
Ibid. ment gained the flair of Jennifer Schultz and Karen Randle, while the Furniture Department has been boosted two-fold with the passion of Michael
Werth, A.J. Bulletin, Pretoria Art Museum, Volume
12 No. 3 July 1978. Quoted from the 1974 exhibi- Chandler and Anton Welz. Jennifer and Karen, with respective backgrounds in Jewellery and Fashion, have brought with them their keen sense of
tion catalogue. detail. Jennifer is also a winner of the Anglo Gold Riches of Africa design competition. In the auction business many lifelong key members start at the
Eds. Huntingford, N.P.C & Hardy, R.E. (1982) The
WWII Works of Terence MacCaw S.A. National lowly level of intern and this is true for Karen and Michael. Michael worked as an intern in 2007 before leaving to complete his Honours in Art History
Gallery Catalogue 1983 Johannesburg: S.A. Na- and subsequently worked for both Deon Viljoen and the Everard Read Gallery before returning full time at the beginning of the year. Karen joined
tional Museum of Military History
Stephan Welz and Co. as an intern mid-2008 and having proven her passion for the department was made full time at the end of 2008. Anton, sharing
a department and a famous surname, returned to Stephan Welz and Co. at the same time as Michael. Anton gained his History of Art degree in Cape
Town before heading up to Johannesburg for two years to be mentored by his uncle, Stephan Welz. He then entered the corporate world before re-join-
ing the company, this time in Cape Town. With their combined efforts and enthusiasm these new members of staff are on hand, together with the rest of
the team, to carry on the respected services of Stephan Welz and Company, in association with Sotheby’s.
See more McCaws
at the
following Galleries
Johans Borman
Gallery Administrator
Fine Art Gallery
Cape Town
The South African Print Gallery
www.johansborman.co.za
We are looking for an efficient, creative gallery administrator
Philip Harper Galleries
Hermanus
Quality preferable
www.thephillipharpergalleries. co.za
Knowledge of South African Art and Artists
BA Fine Arts (Hons)
Stellenbosch Art Gallery Computer and Internet literate
Stellenbosch Good manner and writing style
www.stellenboschartgallery.co.za Ability to work with artists and good grasp of logistics
See Stephan Welz and Company, Please e-mail your CV to: info@printgallery.co.za
in association with Sotheby’s,
Closing date for applications 31 May 09.
upcoming Art Auction at
www.swelco.co.za
SA Print Gallery 107 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Part of the new gallery strip.
 Now available:

South African Art Information Directory

Now in its 6th edition The SAAID 09 provides the user with a wealth of art information - both in terms of size and access into the South African arts community- and is South Africa’s white and yellow pages of the South African art world.

“ (The) South African Art Information Directory is packed with all sorts of useful information. In many ways, it really starts to taper the long-standing rifts in the South African arts communication network “. Suzie Copperthwaite, Artthrob

Contents include 152 pages of: SA Art Infrastructure : Corporate Collections, Art Museums, Art Galleries, Art agents, Art Auctioneers, Art Material Shops, Media, Schools etc. Art Opportunities : South African Art Competitions, Events, Grants, Funders

Promotional special R 169,- including postage and packaging

See www.saaid.co.za for more details