Archive: Issue No. 41, January 2001

With advances in technology, new ways of making art images emerge. Recently, a show was held at the Bell-Roberts Contemporary in Cape Town entitled 'Collaboration', in which artists invited by Russell Jones of The Scan Shop exhibited prints made by the inkjet or giclee method, as it is sometimes called. Respected practitioners in the field like veteran photographer David Goldblatt herald the technology. Goldblatt has said that he had never been happy with the results of his own colour photography, but that the inkjet print, scanned from his original, adjusted where necessary and digitally printed now gives him the controlled result he requires.

However, as with any new advance, the more one knows, the more one can assess the strengths and weaknesses of the new techniques. In the interests of opening up the debate, ArtThrob publishes an email forwarded by Geoff Grundlingh at the South African Centre for Photography. (ArtThrob's editors are in agreement that the term 'giclee' is absurd, and the plainly descriptive 'inkjet' is infinitely preferable.)

From saphotocentre-l@groa.uct.ac.za

"We've had many questions relating to the stability and durability of inkjet prints now that these are being bought and sold in the art market. Here are two interesting contributions from AD Coleman on the term "giclee" and on the archival qualities of these prints. (Sourced from an e-mail submitted to List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students photoforum@listserver.isc.rit.edu by Jan Faul

Jan,
I think your members need to know two premises that aren't apparent from my letter of January 2 [BELOW]:

1. In an earlier email, responding to your request for permission to circulate the text of one of my essays, I wrote, "I should add that I find the term giclee noxious, for several reasons:

"It's pretentious.
"It demonstrates a deep ignorance of the French language, in which the term connotes ejaculated -- as in male human sperm and cat spray. The French find use of this term in U.S. photo and print-making circles hysterically funny."
"It affirms the insecurity of Usonians in their own culture, and their abiding faith that Frenchifying something gives it class.

2. And, in your response to those comments, you wrote, "RE: the term Giclee'... While I understand the problems with it (and agree with your objections), it is an accepted term of art by many (not all). What can you suggest (in 1-2 words) to replace it and stand for 'museum quality, archival inket print'?"

You might all do well to remember that there is no commonly accepted 1-2 word term that stands for "museum quality, archival silk-screen print" or "museum quality, archival silver gelatin print." Why would you expect anyone to come up with one for inkjet prints? Why, in fact -- since we don't have one for photos, silk-screens, etchings, engravings, lithographs, or linoleum prints, and manage to get along quite nicely nonetheless -- do you and your colleagues think we need one for inkjet prints?
Remember, too, that -- according to Henry Wilhelm, and to Graham Nash of Nash Editions, and many others involved in the testing process -- the "archival" qualities of any inkjet print depend entirely on not just the archival quality of the inks and the substrates, but on the precise match between archival inks and archival substrates. Those who deceive dealers and collectors and curators today by using meaningless terms like giclee and throwing the word "archival" around loosely will poison the market for computer generated prints of all kinds well into the future.

Best wishes, Allan Coleman

Email January 2, 2001

I think you're wishful in proposing that giclee "is an accepted term of art by many (not all)." The term has been in circulation for only a few years; its use is mainly promotional. It was clearly picked out of a French-English dictionary or thesaurus by a non-Francophone who does not know colloquial French, and who found an unfamiliar yet euphonious word that officially translates as squirt or spurt, didn't think to ask anyone knowledgeable about its connotations, and slapped it on a process to make it sound fancy and continental and arty. Imagine, if you will, a French manufacturer deciding to do the reverse -- adopting an English term and calling a process "come-printing" -- and you'll have a rough equivalent of the ludicrousness involved.

Curators, scholars, conservators, and others generally describe works on paper not according to the terminology developed by manufacturers to gussy up their products or technologies (which is where giclee came from), but by precise generic descriptors: etchings, engravings, lithographs, silver gelatin prints. None of those terms implies "museum quality," which is in any case a value judgment, and an imprecise one. Museum collections include, for example, the original posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, produced in mass multiple editions on the standard poster paper(s) of their day. They include Andy Warhol silk-screened Brillo boxes on cardboard. Thus a commercially produced lithograph and a asually hand-screened reproduction on cheap cardboard have, at least at resent, more art-historical significance, more market value, and more status as museum-worthy artifacts -- more "museum quality," in short -- than any "giclee" print produced to date. As for the term standing for "archival inkjet print": surely we can both agree that the actual "archival" status of any ink-jet print remains to be demonstrated, regardless of manufacturers' claims or even Henry Wilhelm's projections. And there are ink-jet prints out there termed "giclee" -- by their makers, and their dealers -- that were produced a few years ago and several generations of inks back, whose lifespan will likely be quite short, certainly nowhere near what the most durable of today's prints will achieve -- which in turn will probably find itself outstripped by whatever we have five years down the pike. So to call anything today an "archival inkjet print" is optimistic at best, a scam at worst. Very few ink-jet prints produced to date have utilized a combination of ink and substrate tested under accelerated conditions and offering a hypothetical longevity of much more than two decades. Many of those already on the market will have deteriorated noticeably by 2010. There is no commonly accepted standard of what the lifespan of an "archival inkjet print" would be, and certainly no guarantee that anything now labeled "giclee" will endure as long as a Rembrandt etching or a Lautrec poster (or even a Warhol Brillo box). So wisdom (not to mention integrity) suggests the best course to be waiting till some ink-jet prints made with different inks and printers on different substrates have had a chance to live a substantial life in the world before applying the term "archival" to them, rather than using that concept vaguely and manipulatively to hustle collectors and curators. Additionally, of course, none of the standard descriptors for works on paper -- terms such as etching, engraving, lithograph, silver gelatin print -- in and of themselves indicate or imply anything about the "archival" permanence of the work in question. Indication of archival quality of such works may be suggested by additional, corollary information: etching printed on Arches paper, selenium-toned silver gelatin print on fiber-based paper, etc. The same precision and caution should govern the use of the term "archival" in relation to ink-jet prints.
Giclee is a sales term, pure and simple, a bit of hype devised to assuage the anxieties of insecure artists and to obscure for ignorant collectors the fact that this is a machine generated print. Especially given the fact that many people in the art world are French, and many more speak French and know colloquial as well as dictionary French, I'd be greatly surprised to find a decade hence that the term "giclee" -- with its lewd, crude connotations -- has taken root and is commonly used internationally by sophisticated people in the visual arts. Time will tell, as it usually does. As for me: I'll go on calling them ink-jet prints, which is what they are, and I'll refine that description further, as needed and on a case-by-case basis, with other information about the substrate, technology employed, etc. That's how I deal with all the other media I discuss; why should I change for this process? I simply can't bring myself to use giclee; I just find it too comical, on too many levels -- aside from it also being too imprecise for serious critical and historical discourse and painfully trendy, a lame, uninformed ad slogan masquerading as sophistication. From my standpoint, the term embarrasses and makes foolish all those who use it. But I know that won't stop you and your list subscribers. And it's fine with me if everyone else goes for giclee; I'll stick to my guns. As you probably know, I'm used to pissing (and even gicleeing) in the wind.

Gambling with Art
by Kathryn Smith

The first page of London-based independent curatorial partnership Smith & Fowle's project booklet reads: "Art is a contact sport". If only art was given the public attention that sport receives. But for all intents and purposes, let's stick with the metaphor for now.

Given the lack of privately-run galleries and spaces in South Africa, and the imminent closure or radical restructuring of several institutions and civic spaces in Johannesburg, it can be assumed that the gallery system as we know it is not functioning effectively. Years of cultural boycott and a dispensation that could politely be termed oppressive have resulted in a situation where arts and culture are not foremost on the agenda and we do not have a museum culture to speak of.

Having said that, we keep on keeping on. There are only two spaces in Johannesburg [The Goodman Gallery and Camouflage] that can be said to tap into - in greater and lesser ways - trends in international contemporary visual art. The recent establishment of CrossPathCulture South Africa (CPC) in Newtown, as a satellite of the eponymous New York-based organisation, bodes well. But the glamorous exterior of the Save-the-Bag-Factory auction being held at the Goodman on January 21, in conjunction with an exhibition of past and present residents, is quietly desperate.

There are more private commercial galleries in Cape Town, boosted by organisations like Public Eye, Zayd Minty and Blac and Tom Mulcaire's newly formed ICA, which at this stage has no fixed space. One needs to strike a balance between the commercial and the funded (read philanthropic, presupposing experimentation and a greater ability to take risks). Given this, Johannesburg maintains what I'm sure is a fingernail - or just simply hallucinatory - grasp on its status as the 'centre' of the South African art world. We need audiences, we need funds. We know this.

But who and what constitutes the amorphous phantom we continue to refer to as 'the public'? Who are the 'public' that the Vita Art Prize seeks nominations from? The incentive of prizes, which have gone from trips to Paris to weekends at Sun City, doesn't seem to be working. This became embarrassingly self-evident at the nomination announcement this year, when the lucky draw 'winner' was nominee Berni Searle, having submitted her own nomination for a fellow worthy artist in her capacity as member of the 'public'.

Art needs to become more public. And by saying that, I mean it needs to reassess its role and grow a business head such that it can market itself in an appealing way without 'selling out' or delivering substandard goods. Several recent initiatives, like Red Eye @rt and Soft Serve have gone a long way in creating some sense of what may and may not work, often in response to cut budgets and depleting gallery attendance.

In Johannesburg, similar initiatives have not gone so well, dogged by a number of problems ranging from the reluctance of audiences to come into the city centre to the lack of the kind of roll-up-the-sleeves-and-muck-in community spirit apparent in artists in our other two major centres.

With regard to the financial support of the arts, it has become clear that, as it is overseas, the corporate sector is a most important patron. Here, Business Arts South Africa (BASA) does its best to foster relationships between artists and businesses, showing both how branding can be of mutual benefit. Foreign agencies like the French Institute, Pro Helvetia and the Netherlands Embassy are also integral in their sponsorship support, and while we don't want to rely solely on international funding, it seems that foreign organisations are that much more invested than our own. The government funding agency is the National Arts Council, and finally, there is the Art & Culture Trust of the President, which makes smaller financial - but nonetheless essential - grants for projects.

But what of the lottery, which in the UK has been a major boost for the arts and provided the funding for such handsome and expansive new museum buildings as the Tate Liverpool?

I don't know how many of you came across a pamphlet issued by NACLI close to the time of the launch of the National Lottery. NACLI was initiated by Mike van Graan's arts consultancy Article 27, and stood for the National Arts and Culture Lottery Initiative, intended to lobby public support to ensure that arts and culture got their fair share of the pie. That I hadn't heard a thing since was jolted by the increasingly loud rumblings in the press recently about the disbursing of lottery funds to charities - that they simply are not getting there. At that stage not sure whether NACLI was intended as an independent lottery to benefit the arts, or whether proceedings were to be gleaned from the Lotto, I wrote first to Van Graan in October last year, asking who the intended beneficiaries were, and an independent lottery was in the pipeline, why it had been squashed? He responded:

" Would suggest you speak to Steven Sack at DACST for the latest on the lottery� NACLI floundered on DACST's pig-headed attitude that it knew best about what to do with lottery funds (ho hum), and declined to really engage with NACLI (representing BASA, ACT and the NAC). From what I gather, nominations were to be made of an independent distribution agency, but this has not been set up, and DACST was not happy with the names coming from the sector, so Steven Sack now represents DACST on whatever interim body is dealing with the dispensing of funds. Good luck in finding out. When you know more, please let me know. " [October 15, 2000]

Sending the same questions to Steven Sack, he responded thus:

" The National Lottery Distribution Agencies (DA) for the support of good causes, ie Welfare, Sports, Arts Heritage and Environment, will be in place soon. I cannot give you an exact date as this is handled by the DTI. The Arts, Culture and Heritage allocation will be shared with Natural Heritage (Environmental Affairs). The Department will set broad criteria- these still need to be agreed and will be done within the coming weeks. The members of the DA will determine the beneficiaries and decide to whom money should be disbursed based on the criteria set by DACST. The names of the DA members have to my knowledge not been made public. " [October 20, 2000]

So where is the money, and why don't we know who is responsible? When some R300 million is at stake, governmental responsibility cannot be shirked. Three whooping cheers must go to Artslink's new arts editor Darryl Accone, whom I always suspected had more up his sleeve than The Star newspaper would allow him. In a new daily column called ArtRap, Accone has recently taken much pleasure in lambasting what has become our culture - " the unholy trinity of casinos, Lotto and cellphones".

This gruesome threesome is a bit of a catch-22. Johannesburg is rapidly being surrounded by a laager of Eurotrash casinos. While casinos seduce many into relinquishing disposable and not-so-disposable incomes that may have been spent on other forms of culture and entertainment, the same casinos provide superbly appointed theatres for performers. And many an artist was employed in the mosaicing and faux-stonework of said buildings. I balk at the thought.

Let us concentrate on the Lotto, part of the funds from which were supposed to go towards arts and culture. Accone recently sat on a Kaya FM panel of Lotto honchos including one Victor Dlamini, head of Uthingo, which disburses national lottery money; representative from the Department of Trade and Industry Sunwibile Mencotywa, representative; economist Majakaphapa Mokoena; and BASA CEO Nicola Danby.

He described Dlamini as a 'teflon-smooth spin doctor'. While the DTI representative pointed out that 10% has been allocated to the arts from the Lotto loot, we must keep in mind that the arts shares this with heritage and environment. As Accone writes, " The best-case scenario would see arts emerging with 60 percent of that 10 percent, leaving it with a net gain of zero over the Wiehahn recommendations on what the Lotto should dish out to arts (six percent)... Tata ma chance may yet mean ta-ta to the arts."

As Accone has pointed out, as have we many times, arts and culture activists need to mobilise and be proactive. If we wish the arts to benefit, it is up to each of us to monitor the situation, and raise our voices where necessary.

Next week: The shaky future of galleries in Johannesburg and those who are doing it for themselves.

Under the title of Culture Zone, a new grouping of community based organisations such as Mediaworks, the Community Arts Project (CAP), Public Eye, BLAC, the Arts and Culture Forum, the WOW Festival and the Community Video Education Trust are spearheading an initiative to get for Cape Town what it has long needed: a multi-purpose centre for cultural activity. Here, arts and culture organisations could work, share resources, cross-pollinate ideas and provide multiple access opportunities for visitors to the city.

Generative spaces such as the Pompidou in Paris and the De Melkweg in Amsterdam have created the model for clustering education and presentation of arts in a dynamic format. Closer to home, though not without their problems, Johannesburg's Newtown Cultural Precinct and Durban's BAT Centre, provide centres for the arts.

With the support of the Government and the private sector, the Culture Zone initiative aims to identify and acquire an appropriate building which will be developed into a multi-functional complex. This complex will offer invaluable workspace to cultural organisations as well as shared facilities such as meeting places, a multi-purpose gallery, a resource centre, a café, and speciality arts related shops.

"Not only will this initiative improve networking amongst cultural formations but it will also increase our income generating potential", says Merle Falken, chairperson of the Arts and Cultural Forum speaking about the importance of the initiative. Regarding financing, Karen Thorne, Director of Mediaworks, says, "The aim is to get a building donated. We will pool our resources and do the rest."

Zayd Minty, Blac initiator and Coordinator of the recent One City Festival, spoke about the vision of the space. "Imagine a place where you can watch a cutting edge performance, buy locally produced CD's, books and crafts, hang out at a really trendy coffee shop and do some serious networking - a place to really hothouse a new positive culture for the city".

Recently, the Nigerian born, Brooklyn based curator, Okwui Enwezor, discussed the history of Documenta, a series of exhibitions held every five years in Kassel, Germany that was established in 1955. Following a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we discussed plans for Documenta XI and its unique Five Platforms. Prior to Documenta, Enwezor served in a similar role for the second Johannesburg Biennale.

These are highlights of that interview.

Okwui Enwezor: Platform One is, "Democracy Unrealized," in Vienna, March, 2001. It has three parts: Vienna, London and Berlin. Platform Two is, "Experiments with Truth," transitional justice and the process of reconciliation. That's in New Delhi, May 7 to 14, 2001. Then, in November, we deal with, "Creolite," as an ethic of modernity not as hybridity. If we take the idea that the world is in the process of creolization then we are not dealing with issues of hybridity but with issues of contact between culture. Within that, you have a kind of resistance to localism, which insists upon the production of a very specific cultural ethic out of which everything emerges. In which, the larger world is engaged. It is in American culture, which is something that people always speak about. What is that? What is American culture. It is an idea that comes from a manifesto written by three Martinique intellectuals in 1989. We want to critically engage this question. Because, in the discussion of globalization, we often make this hybrid relationship to globalization, and we want to say that this is, in fact, not the case always. Because, how do you have a productive resistance to globalization that is not reactionary, but is critical to understanding the operation of how the paradigms continue to thrive, and continue to produce very complex cultural patterns that are not easily commodified, or assimilated by global tendencies. We want to use, as a test case, a very small island to do this. The fourth one, "Under Siege," will take place in Lagos, Nigeria comprising four African cities under siege. Freetown, Kinshasa, Cape Town and Lagos. We are exploring not urbanism, or architecture, but the social conditions in which cities under enormous social stress reconstitute themselves. Certainly, if you look at Johannesburg, with crime, or the collapse of infrastructure in Lagos. There are so many things that we can begin to play with.

So, we will invite architects, urban planners, anthropologists, artists, philosophers, to grapple with this question. Platform Five is the exhibition which opens, in Kassel, in June, 2002.

CG: How are you dealing with being in Vienna? Artists have been asked to boycott Austria because of the Haider situation. (Dr. Joerg Haider, head of the far right, Freedom Party) Are you strike breaking?

OE: I am a man from Nigeria, who travels constantly, and carries an American passport. Always subjected to submitting to some of the most humiliating searches. I cannot tell you that I am breaking any strike. I think it's my lot when I travel when I am participating in Documenta or not. And I think it's really important that in relation to Austria that one certainly looks at what is going on there. And really to try very critically to engage ideas that have a point of engagement with what local people are thinking. I deeply empathize with what artists are doing and what the boycotts are calling for. But I think it is na�ve to think that the only way that we can engage with that, with Haider and his lot, is shutting down everything else. I think there has to be a counter politics of some sort.

CG: Are you receiving any government money?

OE: I wouldn't say we are not using Austrian money. We are certainly not using money from the Austrian state. But I wouldn't say we're not using Austrian money.

CG: How can artists make a positive impact in very tense political environments?

OE: I think they also risk not making any statements at all. Indeed, I have colleagues who work in Austria who have been very supportive. There have been different attempts by artists working in different categories working in Austria. So, what do we do? Abandon them? I think Haider is not Austria.

CG: Hitler wasn't Austria either.

OE: I am not trying to say that the initiative of the boycott is a wrong move. But it cannot surely be the only response. And we are not making this in response to Haider. Really. In any way shape or form. What I am trying to put forward is something really simple. The global response to Haider is for me very important; how exposed the relationship is between art and politics. And this is precisely what we want. We cannot be na�ve about the critical role that art and culture has to play. What I am proposing is that there has to be a counter politics as well. If not in Austria where else can it take place? I feel our position is not indefensible at all. Because there are artists who call for a boycott and artists who do not call for a boycott. You are referring to people like Robert Fleck who call for a boycott and people who say we don't need a boycott. So how do you reconcile those two things?

This interview first appeared on the New York Arts Magazine: site bulletin board, January 3, 2001
http://nyartsmagazine.com/bbs2/messages/321.html, and included this email from Robert Fleck, updating his position on the Austrian Arts Boycott:

It's the time of the year when we look back on the last 12 months, and consider which artists made an impact on the South African art scene. Each of ArtThrob's editors, Sue Williamson (Editor in chief), Kathryn Smith (Gauteng) Virginia MacKenny (KwaZuluNatal) and Paul Edmunds (Cape Town listings, Feedback and Exchange) compiled a list independently, giving a short reason for their choice. All practising artists, the editors naturally put themselves out of contention. They would also like it noted that their lists are not in any particular order.

You probably think there are glaring omissions. Let's hear about them. Or you'd like to dispute some of our selections. Send us your three favourite artists of the year with your reasons why. In the February issue, we will publish a list of Readers' Choices and comments. Email us at artthrob@mweb.co.za.

Paul Edmunds' list

1. Greg Streak - for the whole Pulse project, as well as his elusively poignant works on both the 'Open Circuit' show and '!xoe2 Off Site'.

2. Jane Rademeyer - for 'Lawaai', the environmental sound piece at the One City Festival. Although its execution could never be experienced in whole by any one person, the idea alone was enough to carry it into my Top 10.

3. Renier le Roux - for work on the 'New Signatures Revisited' show in Oudtshoorn. His exquisitely carved, humble everyday objects probed some dusty areas of the national psyche.

4. Alan Alborough - for his Standard Band and Stellenbosch Shows. Successfully avoiding interpretation and categorisation, Alborough manages to produce incredibly compelling objects and situations.

5. Clive van den Berg - for directorship of Die Klein Karoo Kunste Fees and his solo show (of which I have only seen reviews). Van den Berg's return (once again) to more physical artworks is refreshing, encouraging and brave.

6. Brad Hammond - for work on 'New Signatures Revisited' in Oudtshoorn. The unassuming air and simplicity of his work belies its depth and shows great promise for the future.

7. Wim Botha - for work on 'New Signatures Revisited' in Oudtshoorn. His large carved paper works explore unusual territory and are underscored by an acute sense of form and material.

8. Bridget Baker - for work on the 'South Africa Holland Line' show. Time and again Baker manages to imbue apparently lifeless objects with a very acute humanness.

9. Conrad Botes - for Die Foster Bende. This true gangster tale, set on the East Rand, has all the elements of any great myth and takes me back to the koppies around where I grew up.

10. John Murray - for his show at the AVA. Murray produced some fresh South African Pop, executing it in a really irresistible manner.

Kathryn Smith's list

1. Robin Rhode - for consistently extending the boundaries of drawing and performance, and irrepressible energy during his Fresh residency, the Joubert Park Project, the Levi's project and an outstanding solo exhibition.

2. Brett Murray - for 'I Love Africa', which articulated things everyone is thinking but is often not prepared to admit. And for not backing down over the public sculpture controversy.

3. Greg Streak - for bringing the excellent 'Pulse: Open Circuit' to Durban and displaying faultless professionalism in the process.

4. Rodney Place - for car park project RETREKS: unSUNg city, which blended spectacular video projection with pop culture in an awesome venue. Hopefully it will become an annual event.

5. Peet Pienaar and Thembi Goniwe - for stimulating much needed discussion around masculinity, cultural property and 'ownership'.

6. David Brown and Willie Bester - for their parts in the stolen JAG sculpture controversy.

7. Robert Hodgins - for turning 80 and not losing speed.

8. Marcus Neustetter - for unfailing efforts to bring new media art to our attention.

9. Brad Hammond - for producing insightful and challenging video art and being the worthy winner of the ABSA Atelier 2000.

10. Clive van den Berg - for intelligent direction of the KKNK and a highly original and thoughful solo exhibition at the Goodman Gallery.

11. Samson Mudzunga - for continuously challenging the cultural context in which he works and not being afraid to engage in potentially damaging confrontation with certain bodies of power.

12. Colbert Mashile - for producing fresh and sophisticated commentary on circumcision rituals and for his merit award at the ABSA Atelier 2000 and his solo show at the Bill Ainslie Gallery.

13. Terry Kurgan - for being the Vita star and continually challenging herself and the print medium.

14. Bernie Searle - for her consistent international presence and awards won at various international biennales.

15. Moshekwa Langa - for his solo show at the Goodman and creating an international profile for young South African artists.

16. William Kentridge - for being our consistent art star.

Virginia MacKenny's list

1. Peet Pienaar - for managing to create debate and gain (possibly) the highest newspaper and media attention of all South African artists for his circumcision piece

2. Samson Mudzunga - for creating his incredible drum sculptures and, on a somewhat more cynical note, also, inadvertently perhaps, 'drumming up' enough media participation around his 'performances' to initiate critical debate around who is using who and to what ends in the cultural appropriation merry-go-round.

3. Andries Botha - for sustained international exhibition participation (Dakar, Holland, Brazil amongst others), and visionary projects in support of disadvantaged communities in far flung, less big time, corners of the globe (Mocambique, Martinique and Durban (!)), as well as passionate and inspirational teaching.

4. Moshekwa Langa - for continued international exposure and the only visual artist to qualify for the Mail & Guardian's Making their Mark list for 2000 - (Peet Pienaar managed to make the Lowlights section).

5. Alan Alborough - for his travelling Standard Bank Young Artist show which has brought back a bit of the wonder into contemporary art making and continues to astonish and delight both the aficionados of art and the general public.

6. Kay Hassan - for winning more money than any other artist in a single shot in the Daimler Chrysler prize.

7. Clive Van Den Berg - for the highly successful combination of creative visualisation/artistic collaboration that marked his directorship of cultural activity in the dustiness of the Karoo as well as an intriguing one-person show at the Goodman and sustained inspiration to students and fellow artists.

8. Greg Streak - for continuing to produce his own work of calibre (recently seen on the Icelandic show) and for not eschewing the traditionally designated 'cultural backwater' of Durban and migrating to 'greener' pastures, but instead staying to fuel a thoughtful and productive initiative called 'Pulse' under the auspices of RAIN (Rijksacademie International Network) which produced a international exhibition of calibre called 'Open Circuit'

Sue Williamson's list

1. Alan Alborough - for making work that is totally authoritative, and maddeningly obtuse until one realises it isn't obtuse at all, and is there to be enjoyed for its industrial beauty.

2. Bridget Baker - for her talent in taking the every day and putting a fresh slant on it. For an exhibition produced during a residency in Germany, she date stamped each invitation, and wrote something she had said that day next to a printed copyright emblem, marked 'Bridget says', making each an individual artwork. And for HSAL.

3. Robin Rhode - for making performance art that links back to the oldest form of artmaking - drawing in charcoal - nods to the great age of slapstick films - and remains fresh and contemporary.

3. Tracey Rose - for her astonishing and compelling video TKO, in which the artist placed a camera in a punching bag, thus taking the role of both punisher and victim, and had it film her punching the bag in what develops into a cathartic frenzy.

4. William Kentridge - for successfully combining his vast knowledge of world classics with a sharp eye for the essence of the people and landscape and madness of his hometown of Johannesburg, and spinning both into art that works both here and in the top art venues of the world.

5. Willem Boshoff - for caring about the little-noticed, like language and obscure words, and through his intriguing work, like Shifting Sands on the Havana Bienial, presenting a persuasive case for their careful preservation.

6. Jeremy Wafer - for his pared-down aesthetic and works like his series of photographs of antholes on !Xoe2.

7. Candice Breitz - she may be out of the country, but as one of the most professionally organised artists around, her slides and press releases of her ideas-based work regularly reach ArtThrob, enabling us to chart the course of such pieces as the Surrogate Archive around the galleries of Europe and the US.

8. Lynne Lomovsky - for documenting her treatment for cancer in an objective and lighthearted way, and making a video about a hospital visit for bone scans entitled Cross Section that demystified the process and came out looking something like an upbeat music video.

9. Brett Murray - for his public sculpture I Love Africa and for his piece I must learn to speak Xhosa which so simply and perfectly articulated the weakness of white efforts towards cultural assimilation.