DECADE – THE SANLAM ART COLLECTION (art exhibition, Main, Thomas Pringle Hall until July 5) Reviewed by Leon Muston, Arts Editor
IF this exhibition is supposed to represent the best South African art that Sanlam has added to its collection in the past decade, all one can say is that the person responsible for making the purchases has more money than sense.
Admittedly, there are some great works on show, such as George Pemba‘s Harvest, showing women gathering wheat in a field with a beautiful mountain scene in the background, or Jurgen Schadeberg‘s photograph of Nelson Mandela, aged 33, at his law firm.
There are equally stunning oil landscapes from William Methven of the Drakensberg covered in snow, or Volschenk‘s Riversdale Veldt and Mountains.
But much of the work just makes you scratch your head and wonder why it‘s there.
There are pieces which look as if they were made by pre-school children, such as Andrew James Murray‘s cartoon-like work Cape Town or the strange polychromed marula wood sculpture Jesus Walking on Water by Johannes Maswanganyi. The crudely designed piece makes Christ look more as if he‘s waterskiing on a crocodile than performing his famous miracle, and don‘t ask me why there are conjoined twins in a basket floating next to him.
The exhibition gets more and more weird – Leora Ferber‘s photographs of sewing a needle through her own flesh, Wim Botha‘s paper maché male/ female headless human sculpture – and more.
You might find a few pieces which appeal to you in this exhibition, but most visitors I overheard seemed to be commenting that it was weird, sub- standard and in some cases, disgusting.
Tags: fine art review
