Unspoken: Ceramics from the Corobrik Collection
Corobrik Gallery, Old Arts Building
October 2021 to December 2024

The exhibition Unspoken showcases signature South African ceramics from the Corobrik Collection. In 2021, a four-year loan agreement was signed to commit to a long-term exhibition by the University of Pretoria (UP) Museums held in partnership with Corobrik, Ceramics Southern Africa (SA) and the City of Tshwane’s Pretoria Art Museum (PAM). The exhibition explores the theme of the unspoken. In the past, ceramics were considered only as a medium and have ever since, been considered an iconic art form typical to the African continent.

The contributing artists are well-known South African ceramicists who remain foundational change- makers of both the past and present, and the contributions they made and continue to make as South African ceramics are globally recognised and appreciated as an art form. The ceramicists highlighted in the exhibition, examine how, and why their art is influenced by both personal journeys, the artistic profession and the role ceramics play within contemporary art. This often-unspoken art medium is complex beyond its materiality of clay that is transformed into diverse shapes, each ceramic on exhibition tells a deep and sometimes not obvious narrative.

Historically, Corobrik was founded in 1902, but have since become a market leader and a major South African manufacturer of clay bricks, masonry, pavers, and concrete earth retaining systems. Today, they produce more than 5 million products each day and have a footprint in every major city throughout South Africa. In 1982, Corobrik assumed sponsorship of Ceramics SA, which began as the Association of Potters of Southern Africa who earnestly began the ceramic collection in 1977. The earliest winning ceramics from National Exhibitions founded this collection and began with only three items which included: a porcelain bowl and a clay sculpture. Since then, Ceramics SA contributes ongoing to the Corobrik Collection from award-winning ceramics from regional and national exhibitions.

In Unspoken, works in the Corobrik Collection are paired into collectives to deliberately create conversations, explore shared histories, tensions and their contemporary functions and meaning, allowing for more nuanced perspectives in the world of ceramics. Ceramics are presented as both functional, symbolic, sculptural pieces and merely creative ceramic forms. The Corobrik Collection comprises 276 works by more than 184 South African artists and is on display in a dedicated Corobrik Gallery in the Old Arts Building until end of December 2024.

To not forget: 30 years of democracy 1994-2024
Old Arts Building
30 April 2024 to 30 November 2024

This 2024 exhibition of the University of Pretoria Museums observes and honours thirty years of democracy. To not forget, 1994-2024 features more than 30 South African artworks curated around three decades of annual acquisitions by the University Art Committee. The selected works were acquired by purchase, donation or bequest suggest transformation moments that propelled the University of Pretoria Museums in new directions after 1994. Many of the signature works are by former staff, post graduate students and Alumnus and serve as testament to the ties between the artists and the university. Since 1994, the University has acquired just over 2515 artworks to expand and improve on its art collection in terms of inclusivity, diversity, representatively and balance.

The title of this democracy themed exhibition is derived from the work by the South African Durban- born artist, Sfiso Ka-Mkame (b.1963), How could I ever forget. This artwork was selected to highlight the exhibition as it was the first acquisition made by the University of Pretoria in 1994 to honour democratic freedom. His work is built up with layers of the resplendent colourful oil pastel and ink on paper with etched symbols, patterns and designs, visually inspired by typical South African identity and reflects the political and distinctive genre of Ka-Mkame’s work. Another highlight of this exhibition is partnering with ten intern students from the Department of Architecture, part of the York Timber Research Chair’s ProtoBuilding Team in a design competition in making and producing a series of small timber commemorative markers installed on the slate staircase, whereby the ‘30 stairs of democracy’ becomes a key feature to the exhibition.

To not forget reflects a journey through 30 years of democracy as the museums played a pivotal role in enhancing art for the institution. Selected works by Sello Malemane, Velapi Mzimba, Nqaba Sipunzi, Dumisani Mabaso, Mashifane Makunyane, Collen Maswanganyi, Thulani Mntungwa, Willem de Sanders Hendrikz, Hezekiel Ntuli, Isaac Seoka, Ramarutha Makoba, and Nic Sithole. Featuring female artists include: Diane Victor, Jabu Nene, Viola Greyling, Henriette Ngako, Elizabeth Roos, Sara Noche, Lerato Ntili and Susanna Swart. The upper and lower foyer’s of the Old Arts Building were deliberately chosen as the exhibition space to reflect the central axis and meeting point of the UP Museums with the student installation offering a path of thought up 30 stairs to democracy. The exhibition runs for the duration of 2024 in the upper and lower foyers of the Old Arts Building.

Homage to Pretoria
Bridge Gallery, Javett-UP
16 May 2024 to 18 October 2024

Homage to Pretoria will present signature works predominantly drawn from the University of Pretoria Museums institutional art collection. The artworks are curated across time and space, drawn from a wide selection of leading South African artists from the 19th to 20th century such as JH Pierneef, Frans Oerder, H. Pennington, Anderson, Pieter Wenning and more contemporary artists such as Michael Mmutle, Lucky Sibiya, Elizabeth Rampa, Peter Sibeko, Lefifi Tladi and Paul Ramagaga to name a few. The selected artworks are unique, educational and research-based, emanating from the UP Museum Collection and a heritage art campus context.

“Homage”, meaning ‘an expression of high regard, honour and respect’ is a well-balanced exhibition that pays creative homage to the city, a landscape, and its people. The exhibition seeks to surface the complex and nuanced histories of the City which are woven into the fabric of the entire country. The narratives in the artworks on exhibition pose pertinent questions about the possibilities and difficulties in paying homage to this city of power that has been a symbol of state control and repression for many people in the country.

The exhibition also aims to be a visual and artistic commentary on the thirty years of democracy, exploring 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 in the present.

The works in the exhibition were selected based on either choice of subject matter, social or political commentary, landscape, identity or reflect architecture that broadly pays homage to Pretoria as a city and a symbol of the South African state and condition. A central theme in the exhibition is the making and creation of the City, to highlight Pretoria as the capital city showcased with some of the earliest artworks of the Union Buildings since 1910. The work on displays is therefore an examination of the establishment and construction of the City (and by extension South Africa). The exhibition is therefore an opportunity to reflect on how the Country has been shaped by the City how the City has shaped the Country, and how artists have responded to this question.

Artology
Javett Bridge Gallery
April 2023 – August 2023

Artology, n. [a:t/ ol-uh-jee] … The study of art or an object as art. A branch of knowledge or research strategy applied to curatorship in a university museum context, including practical and theoretical perspectives. A variety of responses and methods to art-making, physical or visceral experiences. The innovative ability to transform information into a thing, ideas, processes and new knowledge into the visual or art. A specialised fusion of mutually creative, research and a transdisciplinary approach to objects in collections and archives.

Artology: Select works from the University of Pretoria Museums is an exhibition inspired by a word not yet defined in any dictionary. The term Artology is a curatorial perspective and an investigative tool that probes into the University of Pretoria’s collections by actively researching its archives, conserving and curating its collections and interacting with audiences within the framework of a university museum setting. It is through this tool of Artology that the UP Museums will continue to curate and collect to build and reimagine the future of the University of Pretoria’s permanent art collection.

The University of Pretoria’s art collection is curated and cared for by the UP Museums. It comprises an extensive list of works created by prominent South African artists dating as far back as 1922, with a 1915 linocut of a portrait of Paul Kruger (1825–1904). The work created by Hendrik Pierneef (18861957) was donated by the artist to the former Transvaal University College which in 1930, it became the independent University of Pretoria. Artology brings together several works that reflect on the contentious timeline of making art within South Africa. The works selected for this exhibition reveal complex historical narratives that are articulated from collective and personal experiences of both yesterday and today. The artworks within Artology, not only speak to the audiences of this exhibition, but they are also in conversation with each other. These intended and sometimes accidental moments of adjacency open up avenues for extended readings that may go beyond the intended.

The UP Museums curate a remarkable collection of nearly 10 000 artworks. An institutional collection of this magnitude and spanning a time frame of more than a century of collecting in South Africa can never be perfect or concise. There are obvious gaps and omissions given the shifting social, economic and political histories and as a result of divergent and even contentious histories. The permanent collection is regularly expanded through new additions made through purchases, donations, bequests, gifts, fieldwork, or long-term loans.

Artology aims to rethink and reframe how university museums actively work to fill narrative, identity, and representational gaps, while simultaneously capturing an institution’s memory of the past and present. Gathering data and conducting active curatorial research further reveal numerous shortcomings, flaws, blemishes, and deficiencies as seen through the prism of shifting times that span the institution’s lifetime. The UP Museums collection is one of the most remarkable collections within institutions of higher education in South Africa. Artology and select works is also available in a book.

Artology acts as witness to the history of its growth. The exhibition showcases the iconic, the unexpected, as well as lesser-known works, all of which serve to make a statement about a century of creative outputs and originality of works by artists working in South Africa. Artology: select works from the University of Pretoria Museums includes works by Irma Stern, Lucky Sibiya, Sydney Kumalo, William Kentridge, Diane Victor, Nandipha Mntambo and Maggie Laubser only to name a few.