Art fairs and art prizes have a history of being pilloried by critics and artists alike. The usual criticism leveled at art fairs is that they are solely engaged with art as a marketable product, whilst, in South Africa at least, art awards are always rumoured to be in the gift of certain galleries. Post an award ceremony suspicious whispers often circulate that ‘so-and-so was awarded the prize not because of the strength of their work, but because of the gallery they are signed to has a ‘corrupt’ relationship with the sponsors.’ There, at times, seems to be some circumstantial evidence for these whispers, but most often one can put them down to envy and jealousy.
The questions remain, who deserves an art award and who should be the person deciding who should win one? Both these inquiries are complicated ones that almost certainly have no clear answers. This year at the Art Fair there are two prizes and both have had a similar selection processes. In the FNB Art Prize the artists were put forward by the galleries themselves. In the case of the Sovereign African Art Prize artists had to be nominated by an ‘expert’ – as often as not it was by the artist’s gallerist/representative. There seems little disingenuousness in this system, information about both prizes has been published on the Internet and, unlike the circumstance surrounding the selection of the artists for the Venice Biennale this year, the processes for both awards have been transparent.
The selection of the finalists was, however, distinct. Unlike the FNB Prize the Sovereign Group appointed a committee of objective and disinterested experts to make the final choice. Their website states that considering their commitment to ‘funding charities in Africa’ the award intends to ‘raise public awareness of African art’ and to ‘provide much needed exposure, recognition and opportunity to African artists.’
The website goes further to state that they are committed to ‘discovering mid-career artists.’
If this was in fact the brief given to the committee then some questions seem to arise from their selection. In particular what the committee understood by the terms ‘mid-career’ and ‘African art’. Most awards that claim to be about ‘young’ artists or writers use 35 as a cutoff age. One would then assume that ‘mid-career’ would then mean between 35-50. If we are to use this basic heuristic then the award would seem to exclude the likes of Wilma Cruise (66) and David Lurie (59).
Of course the most difficult term for the committee to deal with seems to have been what precisely is meant by ‘African art’. Is ‘African’ a culturally relative term or is it a universal concept simply meaning art produced by people with some tenuous African connection? If they meant the latter then the inclusion of the all the artists would be valid. If, however, it is the former and concerns a specific art making practice then perhaps only Olanyi Rasheed Akindiya comes closest where Wildenboer and Mulcaire maybe furthest away.
Looking at their final selection, however, they do seem to have denied that ‘African’ suggests those artists who remain largely untouched by occidental influences. They rather appear to have accepted the Kantian idea of the universality of art, in which case it could be argued that Sovereign’s use of the term ‘African’ is superfluous at best, and at worst, pejorative.
The problem – and the solution to the problem – of course lies in the fact that no committee would ever be able decide on a stable definition of what the protean concept ‘African art’ is. It is, with some relief, that the Sovereign African Art Prize seems to reflect the woolly thinking of a committee who cannot settle on a definitive understanding of it. This, at the very least, has allowed for a laudable diversity of artists and artworks.