By George Chapman

There is a definite improvement on not only the amount of paintings on display this year but also the quality and variety of the work. Perhaps last year's recession-struck fair left the impression that fair-attending galleries should stick to the discarded conservative idea of painting: that object which can be bought, shipped and hung neatly on the living room wall. I don't agree with this notion but regardless I was pleased to find more (new) paintings to love and hate in 2010.
On beginning my rounds of gallery-hopping I was disappointed by some of the rubbish offered by newcomer galleries (won't be named, rather see if you can spot them yourself) displaying works of their stable in the vein of lame expressionist and pseudo-analytical cubist portraits. Some unknowns were even selling for R60 000, satisfying Africa-fetishists who wouldn't look twice at the same work produced by a refugee on the street corner, but nonetheless feel validated in splashing out thousands of Rands because of the work's presence at an art fair.
Ugh.
I also felt a bit nauseated by some of the opinions I overheard while scoping out the general offering of paintings. Looking at Matthew Hindley's work at iArt, someone whose work I really admire because it requires an autodidactic ability to resolve something that can’t be gleaned from a photograph, I was unsurprised by the kinds of comments at photo-realistic portraits by the likes of Paul Emsley and John Walters. Work that is resolved via photographic impression does require genuine skill, but in my opinion leaves the work looking stale and flat. It's another one of those misconceptions that painfully rigorous work bordering on obsessive-compulsive disorder automatically makes a work 'good' or 'important'.
SMAC's offerings of Wayne Barker paintings are an excellent artistic response to the modernist booth hosted by Graham's Fine Art, the only actively-retro gallery at the fair. Barker's new series of paintings from his current Super Boring show offers an amazing tongue-in-cheek response to the banality of South African modernism still overshadowing the minds of collectors. Pop art meets trashily-reproduced Maggie Laubser signed off with a 'super boring' declaration in glaring neon makes me smile.
Rooke gallery's acquisition of Mark (brother of Joe Dog) Kannermeyer's once-off series of large-scale expressionist pieces were also really nice to see. Other galleries like Artco seem to be taking the theme of art and industry quite literally, displaying a series of commissioned paintings by Francois du Plessis and George 'Afdezi' Hughes all based on the notion of ‘art and football’ (sic). The fact that they are also the only gallery to make this shameless exploit leaves one wondering whether they officially endorsed by FIFA.
It is nevertheless great to see the popularity of paintings on the rise at the fair, leaving us with the amazing experience of these weird, gross and awesome works.