Haphazard, Random, Unprofessional Attitude Towards Art and Artists
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Has anyone heard of the South African National Gallery? It's South Africa's "premier art museum". Has anyone seen that big billboard advertising Picasso and Africa? It's quite an important show, I hear. And did anyone get to go to the Seminar on Picasso and Africa today? I know of at least one person who didn't. And he was actually on one of the panels: Begging, borrowing and stealing and other ways of making art
To: Robert Mulders
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: Seminar
dear robert mulders
thank you for your update but with all due respect its just not good enough.
lets go through this - you invite me to participate in a conference at the last minute, which i agree to, providing i can fly business class since i will be on the ground in south africa for a little more than 24 hours. i quote you a ticket price from the internet which you accept. you even go ahead and send me a ticket confirmation. some hours later you explain that the ticket purchased was 3 times higher than my quote so i check again and whilst the price has changed, its still very close to my quote so i suggest you buy it from the internet rather than through an agency. i am then told that the internet budget is still acceptable and that i should go ahead and purchase the ticket with my own money and be reimbursed and yet you provide me absolutely no indication of by whom, when, how or in what currency. naturally i cannot accept such a vague offer since all that remains is for somebody to input a visa number on a website in order that i may fly to south africa this morning but neither the friends of the national gallery, the national gallery, ifas your
sponsor, yourself personally or anybody else seems willing to do what you asked of me, to pay upfront for the ticket in order to be reimbursed.of course there is no harm done since i am very happy to spend this weekend with my pregnant wife and little daughter however this entire episode reeks of the unprofessional. it is indeed a very pathetic state of affairs when south africa's flagship art museum, hosting an exhibition of picasso, one of the worlds greatest artists, sponsored by standard bank, one of africa's largest banking organisations and ifas, the cultural representative of the french government in south africa cannot between them input a visa number on to a website for an amount of money that has been authorised. if the national gallery and the friends of the national gallery behave in such an unprofessional manner, what hope is there for the rest of the country ? it is precisely as a result of this haphazard, random, unprofessional attitude towards art and artists that i decided to work in europe where artists are respected in the very same manner as bankers, doctors or accountants.
i am sad that i shall not be present tomorrow for the discussion but had you treated the entire invitation more professionally i would not be nearly as offended as i am for these things happen. as it turns out your excuse is pathetic and sadly only adds more controversy to an exhibition that i think deserves a more credit and a more precise level of debate. this is the first time in history that the primitivism debate is taking place in africa with concrete examples in front of the viewer and gives us africans a unique opportunity to have our voices heard rather than being spoken for. i hope that the discussion shall be more professional and of a better standard than your invitation. i wish you luck with the debate and hope that it shall be generous in both spirit and intellect.
sincerely
kendell geers
ps - i am sending this email BCC the press because i think that as a public institution you should be held accountable to the public at large for your lack of professionalism.
This just seems such a pity. As you can gauge from this letter, one of South Africa's premier artists didn't make it because of an organisational failure. But it speaks of a far larger problem, that of institutions failing artists because of pointless bureaucracy (another example would be the Havana Biennale, in which the invited South African artists were denied funding from the Department of Arts and Culture). So we must ask the question, why are most of South Africa's best artists working overseas?
posted by Robert Sloon at 6:58 PM
9 Comments:
well done on your verbose letter. lets hope the "press" edits the crap out of it. you do raise a good point, but its difficult not to come out sounding like an angry white man
Art Heat is here so you can get all the crap, without the "press" editing out anything.
Love Art Heat
Fuck guys... are you stupid. Kendell Geers has no need to sound like an "angry white male". Who ever posted this is fucked in the arse. Do you not understand the seriousness of this letter. Oh... wait. Maybe you are Marilyn Martin. Sorry. The issue was about professionalism not race you fucking twat. Either first year or Marilyn. What will it be....
i think he intended to sound like an angry white man.as opposed to what - a green man, a blue man?he is a white man you retard. and i think his tone was more disgruntled than angry.
Cant see if you agree or not. Your answer is strange. I know he is white. I know he not angry. He is merely pointing out the mediocrity that this country is so easily satisfied with. you lousy motherfuckers. before you write next time. Kick start your brain. If you can't ask your girlfriend to help you.
well at least i have a brain to kickstart, you silly piece of turd
so sad tha this has turned into another mud slinging match, cant you guys go to therapy and get all your anger out in private...oh i forgot it is a way to escape dealing with the real issues, no wonder kendell thinks the za art scene is festering under a rock...it is!
sorry, but what exactly are the real issues?
....dear kendall we feel your sentiments.......but do not understand....... since we last saw you at the eKapa conference dissing Tracy Rose like you were opponents in the jerry springer show....which obviously left us quite amused......but none the less perplexed.......especially after reading this article..............
Grande Amore
the perturbacion
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