Art
fit for a prince
The hamlet of
Prince Albert
is becoming a destination for art aficionados, writes Brenton Maart
January 12 2007 Mail
& Guardian on-line
In
isolated Prince Albert (no relation to the popular genital piercing),
the gallery shows local paintings of flowers and fields dotted among
some of the most important critical visual commentary on historical and
contemporary South Africa. To get to the town, leave
Johannesburg
before dawn, drive south along the N1 for about 10 hours and turn left.
A short while later, in keeping with the signage of many small Karoo
Towns, the settlement marks itself with white stones on a hillside:
P-R-I-N-C-E-A-L-B-E-R-T. The sign, like its
Hollywood
counterpart, provides hints of the drama and intrigue to come.
The
Prince Albert Gallery -- housed in the Victorian splendour of the Seven
Arches building -- was established and is still managed by Brent
Phillips-White, an ex-Gautenger who has made the gallery his life’s
work. Currently on show is David Goldblatt’s Gamkaskloof 1966-1968,
Richard John Forbes’s The Quiet Revolution, Derek McKenzie’s
local photographic document and the perculiarly post-modern paintings of
George Coutouvidis. Not bad for a town in the middle of, what some may
term, nowhere.
Without
doubt, the key attraction is Goldblatt’s historic series of portraits
of the then-residents of Gamkaskloof taken in the 1960s at the height of
the entrenchment of the Nationalist small-town mentality. First
published in 1975 in the book Some Afrikaners Photographed (the
book didn’t sell and was remaindered for R2,50) this work has been
recently expanded and republished as Some Afrikaners Revisited.
The
photographs show old-stock Afrikaners, cloistered and cut-off in their
enclave in the
Swartberg
Mountains
. Goldblatt notes that, at the time, he was “aware that not only were
these people Nationalists, strong supporters of the party and its
policies, but that many were racist in their very blood … they made no
secret of their attitude to blacks, who at best were children in need of
guidance and correction, at worst sub-human”. Goldblatt, this year
honoured with the Hasselblad Award in recognition of his lifetime
achievements, writes that he was “troubled by the contradictory
feelings of liking, revulsion and fear that these Afrikaner encounters
aroused” and his photographs were in response to “come closer to
these lives and probe their meaning”.
The
17 photographs on exhibition provide insight into the historic residents
of Gamkaskloof, also known as “The Hell”. This isolated community,
15km from
Prince Albert
, would only interact with its neighbours once or twice a year. After
the road came, notes Goldblatt, the youngsters went to the towns and
never came back, increasing The Hell’s isolation. By 1992 all the
farmers had left and “the houses became derelict and their orchards
and fields overgrown”. (Today, Gamkaskloof is managed as part of the
Zwartberg Nature Reserve.)
Photographer
Derek McKenzie lives in the old post office in the nearby town of
Calitzdorp
. In keeping with the mythology of death that surrounds photography, all
previous owners of his equipment are now deceased. Andrew Meintjes,
killed in
Johannesburg
a few years ago, invented McKenzie’s Panfield camera. The previous
owner of his large-format equipment was killed in a motorcycle accident,
while the owner of his lenses was swept out to sea.
Of
McKenzie’s work on show in the gallery, one series stands out.
Recording the charcoal graffiti of Gustav Roller, a resident of
Calitzdorp (the country’s port capital), the photographs give glimpses
into the ongoing village sagas. Scandalous accusations of child abuse
and homosexuality rub shoulders with messy local party politics and
quotations from Albert Camus. In kitchen Dutch, the graffiti and its
documentation give indications of the Sodom and Gamorrah lurking in the
minds of a local Karoo town plagued by vestiges of the dop system that
still lead to the deformed births typical of alcohol foetal syndrome.
The night of Richard John Forbes’s exhibition opening, rooikop (red
head) Tanya sums up this form of making news: “Everyone knows what’s
happened, and if they don’t they make it up.”
Forbes
first gained prominence with his miniature theatres for William
Kentridge’s The Magic Flute. A building conservationist and restorer,
Forbes has recently gained recognition for his giant metal and wood
spinning tops and the etchings they make. Conceived as an interactive
installation, Forbes invited audience members to spin his tops on copper
plates. These are then processed into dry-point etchings. The resulting
prints, on show in
Prince Albert
, are a series of fantastical universes where stars and planets and
other heavenly bodies seem to give an indication of the organised and
systemic chaos that has given rise to life as we know it.
Also
on show at the gallery are the works of Gideon Engelbrecht who says that
“
Prince Albert
chews you up. Then it either spits you out or swallows you in.” As it
turns out, the town swallowed Engelbrecht, who now runs Avoova, a
company that creates and exports ostrich eggshell mosaic work that is
best described as exquisite. Years of chemical and physical
experimentation has grown into a small business that now employs 15
people to create indoor and outdoor furniture and homeware that is sold
as far afield as
Italy
.
In
a town that is rapidly outgrowing its local population, the paintings of
George Coutouvidis seem apt. Coutouvidis, an artist who has made the
town his home, combines classic imagery with African contemporary
sociopolitics, creating a cartoony post-modernism that goes some way to
explain why the town’s property prices are now on par with
Johannesburg, putting them way out of the reach of the local community.
Now gobbled up by “investors from out of town”, these houses stand
empty for 11 months of the year, filled in the 12th month by
out-of-towners who arrive with their bags of Woollies goods and are of
little or no support to the local industries.
For
information on
Prince Albert
tourism, accommodation and other facilities, visit: http://www.patourism.co.za/,
Tel: 023 541 1366 or email: princealberttourism@intekom.co.za