Posted on October 31, 2024
The University of Pretoria Gardens/Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) has taken a significant step in bridging the university’s art collection with the wider community through its latest exhibition, Homage to Pretoria: Narratives from the UP Museums Collection. This University of Pretoria (UP) Museum exhibition, which opened at the Bridge Gallery within the Javett Art Centre on 16 May 2024, marks a new chapter in how UP’s permanent collection is being showcased.
This recent strategic decision by the University of Pretoria Executive to re-allocate and dedicate this gallery space to its institutional art collection and to others within the university is a means to bring Javett-UP closer to the broader university community.The Javett-UP Arts Centre was launched in September 2019 to bridge the UP Museum’s transdisciplinary collections with the arts and for wider use within the UP community and for other institutional collections. The Bridge Gallery was originally intended to exhibit the University’s vast and diverse museum’s art collection and open the space to others within UP.
The Homage to Pretoria exhibition was curated by Uthando Baduza, UP Museum Curator of Arts Exhibitions & Galleries and Gerard de Kamper, UP Museum Collections Curator. It presents signature works predominantly drawn from the permanent art collection.
The exhibition was formally opened on 15 May 2024 by Prof Caroline Nicholson, the Registrar of the University of Pretoria with Dr Alastair Meredith, Senior Art Specialist from Strauss & Co, as the guest speaker. This launch of Homage to Pretoria also marked both 30 years for democracy in South Africa (1994-2024) and was the theme of research and education for International Museum Day.
Homage, meaning “an expression of high regard, honour and respect” served as a departure point for looking at the University of Pretoria art collection to see what works have paid creative homage to the city, its landscape and its people.
The exhibition sought to examine the complex and nuanced histories of the city which are woven into the fabric of the entire country. Through the narratives in the artworks on exhibition, it poses pertinent questions about the possibilities and difficulties in paying homage to Pretoria, a city that has been a symbol of state control and repression for many people in the country, and a source of pride and accomplishment for others.
Over 90 artworks are curated across time and space, drawn from a wide selection of leading 19th to 20th century South African artists such as Jacob Pierneef, Frans Oerder, Gerard Sekoto, Pieter Wenning and more contemporary artists such as Michael Mmutle, Lucky Sibiya, Diane Victor, Peter Sibeko, Christo Coetzee and Nic Sithole to name just a few.
In his opening address during the Homage to Pretoria launch, the recently appointed Curator of Art Exhibitions and Galleries at the UP Museums, Uthando Baduza, said: “What all these works have in common is that they weave different narratives of the City and by extension the country, yet one can’t ignore that there are definite gaps the most significant in view – is the absence of any reference to the Women’s March 1956 to the Union, which we have tried to mitigate by having a significant number of women being represented in the exhibition. I am sure that many will point out other gaps, which I don’t think is a bad thing but is an opportunity to have the conversations that the exhibition seeks to stimulate.”
The exhibition is a visual and artistic commentary on the thirty years of democracy. It explores how the city has changed over history and each artwork reflects the city – and South Africa – as an eclectic and complex social, cultural and heritage landscape.
Other works reflect the de facto capital of South Africa as both the administrative and diplomatic heart of the country and how artists have interrogated and resisted their relationship with the state. Many of the works are historically significant and depict an iconic ‘Pretoriana’ landscape and how the people, events and moments have shaped the city (and South Africa) in ways that we are still trying to make sense of today.
Some of the exhibition artworks feature iconic architectural buildings that are well-known at the University of Pretoria such as the Old Arts Building and the Old Merensky Building. This subtly suggests the university’s place and space within the city over time.
There was a deliberate attempt by the museum curators to ensure that not only signature artworks are exhibited. The exhibition further included works that have not been really shown in public or works by black or female Pretoria-based artists that have not received the due recognition within the art space and creative sector of the city are also being showcased. Such marginalised artists were also highlighted in the exhibition.
This has emerged as a key research question going forward. How does the University commit resources to ensure that adequate research is done on artists that have worked and practised in the margins? How can we produce credible knowledge about these artists that can make a tangible contribution to the South African Art historical canon?
These will be some of the key considerations for the UP Museums going forward. These considerations will inform curatorial programming into 2025 and will be top-of-mind when the University of Pretoria Art Committee makes new annual acquisitions for the art collection.
In an effort to stimulate conversation and interaction around the artworks in the Homage to Pretoria exhibition, and to promote a forward-thinking approach to transdisciplinarity of the UP Museums, three museum curated events were scheduled around the exhibition.
On Heritage Day 24 September, the UP Ovuwa Cultural Ensemble performed a repertoire of traditional and indigenous songs inspired by the museum exhibition titled: Songs and Melodies of Pretoria. The well-attended performance added texture, emotion and history to the exhibition.
Further programming around the exhibition includes a conservation project in collaboration with the UP Museums, the Tangible Heritage Conservation Programme and Yale University’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. This project focuses on the conservation and technical analysis of Christo Coetzee’s majestic Homage to Guernica (1987).
The Homage to Pretoria exhibition closed off with an expert guest lecture by Bongani Njalo, an award-winning Artist, Curator and Cultural Projects Co-ordinator at the Goethe-Institute who presented an artist’s reading and reflection on the exhibition.
The UP Museum’s Homage to Pretoria exhibition comes to an end on 18 October 2024 and in 2025, the proposed UP Museum’s Bridge Gallery exhibition will be dedicated to the University of Pretoria’s fine collection of tapestries, many unseen to the public eye.
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