[MSN] South Africa. Opinion about disappearance of at least 14000 of the country's art treasures over the last four years.

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Our Opinion


Please just get to the art of it


When the DA's MP Dianne Kohler-Barnard last week challenged Arts and Culture
Minister Pallo Jordan on the disappearance of at least 14000 of the
country's art treasures over the last four years, he launched a stinging
attack on the MP and her party.

Her rebuked her for speaking "as if she is the champion of the arts
community" and accused the DP of a "schizophrenic attitude" towards his
department.

On the issue at hand - the wholesale ransacking of South Africa's cultural
heritage from museums, galleries and collections nationwide - the Minister
was deafeningly silent. How sad, considering the scale of a very real
problem.

Last year a list of missing key artworks worth millions was drawn up. It
included:

*An oil painting by Gerard Sekoto, titled The Gardener. It was stolen from
an unnamed university in Eastern Cape in 1999;

*Another Sekoto masterpiece, Hotela Bantu was stolen the same year from the
same university collection; 

*Pierneef's Near Golden Gate, ripped from a wall at the SABC in Johannesburg
in 2005. The 1955 commission is believed to be the artist's biggest work and
has an estimated value of R5-million; 


*An animal totem by Henriette Ngako and a Moses Seleko sculpture, The
Gumboot Dance, both stolen in Pretoria 2005.

Then there are the bronze sculptures - some of them huge - that have walked
out of collections and "evaporated" or, in some cases, turned up in
scrapyards.

Some thefts - like El Greco's oil, The Apostle Thomas from the Johannesburg
Art Gallery- have only been noticed months after their disappearance.

According to Gerhard de Kamper of the South African Museums Association,
paintings, ceramics, period posters etcetera, dating back to the 18th
century are stolen daily, but are often not reported to police. This is
because galleries do not want word to get out that valuable pieces are being
stolen from under their noses.

A Stolen Heritage Objects Awareness campaign was launched last year in a bid
to recover art works, but we have yet to be informed of any significant
results.

Speaking during last week's debate on the Arts and Culture budget vote,
Kohler-Barnard said the management of the department - which is ultimately
responsible for safeguarding South Africa's cultural treasures - was
shambolic.

The last Auditor-General's report found "a whole new batch of problems
generated in the absence of any tangible leadership: Assets misplaced, not
recorded, incorrectly recorded or just plain missing," she said.

She raises a valid point and the Minister would do well to face it head on
instead of stooping to nasty personal attacks. Failing that Andy Warhol's
definition of art as being "what you can get away with" will take on a whole
new meaning in Africa.

http://www.dispatch.co.za/

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