2003 in review
by Sean O'Toole
1) Best Show(s): Kendell Geers' 'The Prodigal Son', at the Goodman Gallery. Despite his tendency to create somewhat fortuitous, almost irritatingly naive artworks (Suburbia, his photographic studies of suburban security signage a prime example), the show as a whole charmed and beguiled. Of the numerous practicing artists of his generation, Kendell Geers is one of the few to consistently hold my attention, infuriating and delighting in equal measures. Also: the DaimlerChrysler Art Award for Photography exhibition, a mini-retrospective of sorts celebrating local photographic practice; and 'In Full View', at New York's Andrea Rosen Gallery. At first glance, a seemingly winsome joke, this homage to minimalist, conceptual art practice (featuring Carl Andre, Maurizio Cattelan, Olafur Eliasson, Sol LeWitt and Charles Ray, amongst others) really did it for me.
2) Best individual artwork: That golden matchstick! The Terrorist's Master (Bastard), by Kendell Geers.
3) Most memorable quotes: I have two. Lloyd Pollak delivered a scathing attack on Tuoi Stefaans Samcuia and Brett Murray's sculptural 'collaboration' for the Cape Town International Convention Centre. "The motive force behind this towering sculptural colossus is twee decorative whimsy," he wrote , "and what it portrays is a sentimentalised African Disneyland� What was wanted was a rousing national icon, not fretwork trees and Zoo biscuit plaques". Over the last year Adrian Searle, of The Guardian, has supplanted Ralf Rugoff as my critic of choice. He has a gifted ability with language, frank as only the English can be, yet still poetic given the subject matter. Having been somewhat disappointed by William Kentridge's Zeno Writing earlier this year, I found consolation in Searle's review of Damien Hirst's solo show, at the White Cube, particularly when he said: "We hold out unrealistic hopes of creative endeavours. We want Martin Amis's new novel to be better than London Fields; a singer's latest album to be the same as the last, yet somehow immeasurably better. We can't always have what we dream of, any more than the artist can try to deliver it. In any event, it is a bitter truth that most artists have only a few good years in them. The rest is consolidation, a career."
Adrian Searle, 'So what's new?' The Guardian
www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,1038458,00.html
4) Biggest disappointment: The exclusion of African photographers from 'Cruel and Tender', the Tate's first (!) dedicated photography exhibition. The scale of this show was both immense and impressive, but the failure of the curators to acknowledge even one African (let alone Asian) photographer says much about the West's sense of ownership of the realist documentary tradition. To include David Goldblatt, for instance, would have done much to show that photographic practice is universally concerned with man-made structures, portraiture and the poetic evocation of landscape.
5) Best review: There is no contest in my mind. 'Working the White Cube' by Colin Richards, published on ArtThrob's June 1 update, is a sterling bit of prose criticism. The sheer intellectual virtuosity of Richards' writing eclipsed even Ivor Powell's very fine Art South Africa review of the contentious Bruce Gordon artwork. What personally struck me about this review was that if Ed Young and Andrew Lamprecht were expecting a review that would legitimise their shenanigans, it certainly came at a price. "What is awkward," wrote Richards "is the rather toxic atmosphere of socialite dandyism and artiness around the project. This feels like a clique. And, in a way, this is as it should be, as conceptualism is no more immune than any artistic orthodoxy of recent vintage to a certain disciplined clubbiness." Of course let's not forget that asking Colin Richards to review the Bruce Gordon book only served to entrench this clubbiness even further (no matter Malcolm Payne's 'rebuttal' work at Galerie Puta, titled Colin Richards-Red-Slim Medium subtitled R. Butt). I might add that after reading Richards' review I had to laugh, rather loudly - at myself. Remember that as news of the artwork was made public, I was quoting Harold Rosenberg. Hell, who deserved the butt plug more than me? Another review that merits mention is Mario Pissarra's 'Short change: The curator as editor', published with this update. This review is meticulous and thorough, at times painfully so, but considering that it critiques the prevailing hagiography surrounding Okwui Enwezor, it could not fall short of being exhaustive.
6) Artist to watch in 2004: Kathryn Smith, but not because I believe the Standard Bank Young Artist Award has vindicated her practice. Indeed, this honour has suddenly placed a very focussed spotlight on Smith as an artist. Although widely feted as a curator and critic, Smith's art itself lags. Unlike (the not so young) Searle and Murray before her, Smith's oeuvre is rather underweight. In my view the Young Artist Award will probably give this artist an opportunity to concentrate her energies on this aspect of her career. This excites me. Having been thoroughly charmed by her assiduously choreographed Jack in Jo'burg performance, I have no doubt that Smith's art will form the subject of intense critical debate come winter 2004.
