MTN New Contemporaries Award postponed
by Kathryn Smith
The MTN Art Institute announced this week that the MTN New Contemporaries Award, launched last year and won jointly by Usha Seejarim and Thembinkosi Goniwe, will only take place again in 2003. The award consists of an exhibition, a catalogue and R20 000 prize money for the winner, and cellphones for the runners-up.
Targeted at artists who have either recently graduated from art school or who have not yet received widespread recognition, the award showcases installation, video and new media works which are deemed to reflect the social and theoretical issues of the day in contemporary South Africa. Structured differently to other "art supermart" awards where entries are widely solicited and edited down, the MTN award appoints a curator who shortlists between three and five artists who are invited to show either one work or a body of work. A judging committee then selects a winner.
This curator-based approach is an interesting one that looks to broaden what is commonly perceived as the contemporary field of visual arts production. For the past few years, the MTN Art Institute has run a Young Curators programme, aimed at producing a new generation of curators who are well-versed in both traditional and contemporary curatorial practices. This competition looks poised to benefit these graduates as well as independent practitioners.
As Yvonne Muthien, MTN's Group Executive: Corporate Affairs, has commented, the landscape of opportunities in terms of funding and suitable spaces to show the work of young contemporary artists has shifted measurably over the last few years. She sees this award as a first step towards the integration of the young artist into a broader professional art system.
Last year the award took place in July, and Johannesburg was poised for the next round in a few months' time. Now, the Institute has announced the award will next take place in 2003, and will be held every two years from now on rather than every year, "to give young, up-and-coming artists more time to develop their bodies of work".
The media release did not mention whether the artists for next year have already been invited by the appointed curator, or who the appointed curator is.
The MTN Art Institute has recently been incorporated into the MTN Foundation's Arts and Culture Portfolio and is no longer an independent body. This is an equally good and not so good thing, sacrificing total independence on one hand but gaining greater stability in exchange. With the current cultural climate, stability - at least the transparent and well-managed sort - is key. The Foundation was set up to manage the cellular giant's social responsibility programmes, and the Institute's incorporation has meant some restructuring.
Under the guidance of the institute, MTN now has a corporate collection of 1 035 artworks by African artists, including the largest collection of contemporary South African prints on the continent. The collection is used extensively for education and training of scholars, the public and MTN staff and it travels to outlying areas in the Art Bus. The Institute has gone some way towards filling a glaring gap in published material and resources for art teachers and learners in South Africa.
At the moment, Ardmore ceramicists Wonderboy Nxumalo and Petros Gumbi are in residence at the Institute. The Institute's staff are also currently exhibiting some of the more talked-about pieces in the collection, including an image from Yinka Shonibare's Diary of a Victorian Dandy, in what they've termed the Controversy Corridor at MTN's headquarters in Sandton, Johannesburg. The public is welcome to book to view the exhibition or visit the artists-in-residence. And we look forward to the next art-prize instalment on our otherwise action-emancipated arts calendars.
