Bell-Roberts Bye Bye
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Bell-Roberts Gallery is dead. Long live the Bell-Roberts Gallery.There were good times and bad times. Help me write an obituary for the gallery for ArtHeat and send me what you remember best of them or put it as a comment here. Me: I remember being so pissed on free Johnnie Walker at the Josie You and Me show that I could hardly stand. Can't remember the art.
posted by Robert Sloon at 12:22 PM
21 Comments:
piss cat
Though Josie was also my most memorable (and hard to remember)night [remember Bruce Gordon and more whiskey at the waterfront Sloon?] I would say KFC and strippers and beer and a certain friend of ours vomiting in the corner of the gallery at Asshole
I remember the night my friend's car was broken into by street dwelling children (when the gallery was in Loop Street) and his camera was taken, and he wanted to kill them, and later was crippled with guilt because one of them was shot dead (about an hour after we all went home) by the owner of the strip joint next door.
jesus
Grahamstown students don't remember Bell-Roberts. Lucky or unlucky?
I remember when they broke Nicholas Hlobo's white ceramics.
the gallery did seem rather out-of-place in between Michael Stevenson and Goodmand Gallery Cape.
was gonna happen to ArtSouthAfrica?
grammar dipshit. ASA continues, albeit cut by 16 pages as rumour has it.
wunna if a they cutta the crap or they cutta the good stuff
did you know they sell their back cover advertising for R35000 a time? Given that Gallery Momo is always on the back cover, ASA makes R140 000 from them per year. Just thought you should all know...
What the Momo? If they sell 10,000 copies a year including 4 to me, we would have to pay an extra R14 per copy to list all our 2,750 names on the back cover.
Nice to know that Momo can afford this, because I can't.
Its true: I checked out the ASA website, found a rate card and did ther math. Pretty fucking Nancy Drew of me, I thought...
That said, I really hope ASA continues. Its great.
How many copies do ASA print - its less than 2000 isn’t it?, its all so secretive, and the BR thing is overrated, the best thing about ASA is Sean O'Toole, the rest is crap. Sean should do his own mag and take the advertisers over with him
Why are we surprised that ASA makes R140 000 rand from MOMO. That's fuckall, if you think about how much it costs to put out an edition.
Anonymous 8:57,
Of course its secretive, its business. A publishing business has absolutely no need to discuss its distribution with you unless you want to advertise.
And don't be a fool, Sean is good, but the magazine could run with a different editor and still be great.
Not surprised, and also don't think its too much, its just always good to know facts and figures.
And, my good friend, its a bit odd to say a publishing business has no need to discuss distribution with its clientele: distribution is usually a very up-front and available fact in publishing: it has implications primarily for advertising, but also for one's general understanding of the reach of the puvlication, the geographical breadth and readership depth in any given city.
Heaven knows that many people who buy and read ASA are also contributors: isn't it my right as a contributor to know, if I choose to do the research, what sort of audience my writing has in various cities?
And, no Sean is a one-in-a-million editor. I read Art World, Modern Painetrs, Frieze and a few others when money allows. Sean can hold his head up high amongst a peer group of editors from these publications: the way he is able to pull together an increasingly coherent picture of a very fragmented scene, and is also managing to include writing and reportage from north of our borders is impressive.
Sean is a one-in-a-million editor, I agree. But he isn't the sum total of talent in South Africa. It would be a different magazine without him, but it would still be Art South Africa. However, I concede the point that his work is excellent. What I meant to emphasise was that denigrating the role of the publisher of the magazine is unfair.
I may have a skewed view of publishing, but people are very quick to criticise the way galleries in South Africa are run, without necessarily understanding the nature of the tough business. Maybe I am knee-jerk reacting, but I think in a comment thread which was meant to be an obituary, the scorn is out of place...
Ja, I agree. I think we are so quick to stand over the corpse of the recently deceased in the art world, pontificating on the quality of their work and offering opinions on their own culpability in their demise, etc. But I guarantee many of the people who spout such opinions would give their left ball to get onto a show at ANY gallery.
Also, you do have a point about Sean not being the beginning and end of ASA. Contributors do make a mag to a point.
it is a real pity that they are closing. one gallery less to show contemporary work at and heaven knows how much money down the drain. all young south african artists should be worried - counting ws in johburg, its the second one this year. make no mistake there are tough times ahead boys and gals. as regards art sa...sean is great but no-one is irreplaceable. its just a simple fact of life.
All thanks, and all noted. Yes there are most certainly tough times (past) and ahead. Sean is the greatest editor ASA has had, and possibly will ever have. Go Artheat Go!!
The Publisher...
I had the great misfortune of working for Bell-Roberts and can comfortably say that Sean ran the magazine. The owners input was useless as far as I'm concerned.
It's sad that another gallery has closed down, but with the way BR treated their staff and artists, its no surprise.
Good riddance.
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