Ambitious New Month of Photography Planned
by Kim Gurney
Cape Town's Month of Photography (MoP), which in 2002 was the core visual-arts element of the Cape Town Festival, will next year decouple as a stand-alone event. It will also change its format because past shows have been too eclectic, according to curator Professor Geoffrey Grundlingh.
Speaking at a lunchtime lecture series last month [May] at Michaelis School of Fine Art, Grundlingh said the next MoP would be more structured. "We will invite people to submit curatorial proposals for exhibitions. A committee will review those and direct the MoP contents," he said.
Photographers will however also be free to exhibit a more varied choice of artworks at exhibition venues down Long Street, one of the city's main thoroughfares. The exact date of next year's MoP has yet to be decided.
Grundlingh said the idea for the event originally grew from frustration at the lack of a well-developed photographic culture in South Africa. Two successful exhibitions have already been held - the first in 1999 and another in 2002.
Grundlingh said MoP was not conceptualised in terms of any dominant photographic genre but rather to provide a viable, energetic platform for South African practitioners. He said: "Post-apartheid, many photographers needed to reinvent themselves because the political and social issues had fallen away."
As a result, he said photographers were more recently looking to new themes and ways of expressing themselves creatively. He added: "This is fertile ground upon which to build a stronger photography culture in South Africa. And we felt the best way was to launch our own initiative."
Grundlingh contrasted MoP to European exhibitions where the issue of funding usually became a bun fight among sponsors. In contrast, he said the main battle for MoP3 was finding deep pockets for financial backing.
He said: "Our capability depends on money. Most of our creative energy is put towards raising the required cash flow� We have very little time to construct the perfect event." Grundlingh said it would be ideal for MoP3 to find one substantial funding partner rather than relying on disparate donations that often arrived too late to be most effective.
Grundlingh also compared the South African photography market in general to its European counterparts. He pointed out that MoP served to increase appreciation for South African photographers - support which was found wanting in the past.
His talk included a potted history of major photographic exhibitions of the 20th century. In particular, he focused on three watershed shows: 'Film and Photo' in Germany (1929), 'Family of Man' in New York (1955) and 'Pictures', also in New York (1977). The latter was a turning point because it comprised photographs by mainstream artists who did not define themselves as photographers.
Grundlingh said the contemporary photographic biennales - particularly in Paris - had also provided a major boost to photography. He added: "It is largely through the global emergence of photographic biennales that photography has confirmed its authoritative position in contemporary art practice."
