There is always pressure on a new gallery to achieve something different with their first few exhibitions in order to construct some sort of identity that separates them from the marauding horde of stagnant fine-art-by-numbers art-bistros crowding the scene. The email invitation to the Muti gallery's 'Supermarket' made a few curious claims, promising that 'rather than demonstrating an artistic response to the economic climate, "Supermarket" is a reactionary model in itself. This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to appreciate and buy affordable artworks... by emerging and established artists from South Africa and Brazil'. Interesting claims, but does this 'reactionary model' work? Not too well, apparently.

One can only assume that the 'supermarket' analogy is supposed to absolve it from the glaring lack of all things curatorial; a variety of products housed under one roof with prices aimed more at accessibility than those of their snootier counterparts. The problem is that it doesn't. Even your humble neighbourhood grocery store has some form of internal logic and structure that dictates the manner in which stock is arranged and displayed. Unless your Pick 'n Pay is actively post-Orozco, you are unlikely to find cat food in the watermelon aisle.

Not so with 'Supermarket': there's no logic evidenced in the organisation of the hanging and display whatsoever. It seems as though works were just placed wherever there was space for them. As a result, viewing is often extremely awkward. Take for instance Paul Shelly's 1.2 x 1m painting Hobby (2008). It is probably the largest work in the show, yet is placed in the narrowest section of the gallery, bestowing the viewer rather claustrophobically with a maximum distance of about two meters from which to stand back and view it.

Conversely, Justin Fiske's Stretch-108 (2008) which is a much smaller piece (and one which requires the viewer to stand directly in front of it in order to interact with it) is situated such that the viewer has a good 5 meters of viewing space within the gallery, not to mention the street outside. One can barely see Fiske's work from outside; surely such a spot of real estate is infinitely better suited to Shelly's work? It is discrepancies such as these that make 'Supermarket' a badly planned show rather than an 'uncurated' one.

The selection of the artists seems similarly random: the overarching criteria was apparently that Muti had all of their discipline-bases covered. While there isn't anything wrong with that, it still perpetuates the decided lack of ambition that mars the show as a whole. Consider the 'emerging and established artists from South Africa and Brazil' section of the invitation text. The inclusion of Brazilian artists becomes a point hardly worth mentioning when it applies to only one, Roger Sakamoto. Surely something more interesting could have been done with this angle if the connections are there? The 'The Brazil of Africa' analogy is always a fruitful area of inquiry. Gabrielle Raaff's Rooftops (2009), for instance, are perfectly suited to that manner of interrogation. If this potential exists within the chosen works, why not exploit it?

Essentially this set of conditions creates a viewing context that doesn't do the works any favours. So how do individual works hold out? Many of the works remain enjoyable in and of themselves, even though their reason for inclusion remains opaque. Others, such as Theresa-Anne Mackintosh and Monique Pelser's contributions, do little to fill one with aesthetic delight, and are somewhat typical of the kind of works that one would expect to find in an exhibition of this model.

Lizza Littlewort's biting satire has proven to be pretty resilient to contextual interference: all it really needs to be activated is a shiny white gallery wall. Placed directly in front of the aforementioned Shelly piece, Littlewort's acerbic delight The History of Art (2008) (in a rare spot of presumably unintentional inter-work dialogue) seems to be deriding the former work with its proclamation 'What an ugly painting!'

Not all of the works are this lucky. A case in point is Linda Stupart's bronze My Little Pony (2005). Stupart has an astute understanding of curatorial models, and one of the strongest points of her works is that they are remarkably receptive to contextual dialogue. They are clever in their own right, but within a shrewdly curated show they are very conducive to the flow of contextual conversation. Without that luxury however, this particular bronze equestrian finds itself in discourse-purgatory, and it is not amused.

Fiske has been gaining popularity of late, a fact notably testified to through his winning of the first People's Choice Award at the 2007 Spier Contemporary. Yet, in this writer's opinion, viewing his works is always accompanied by a mild sense of annoyance for anyone who has seen his Bradshaw Shaffer-helmed documentary Suspension. This is because however poignant his creations are, for some reason Fiske never seems to display the best ones depicted in the documentary. So while the aforementioned Stretch-108 is still reasonably impressive, we know that somewhere out there he is hiding ones that are better.

At the end of the day the point is this: Cape Town's fine art galleries are going through a time of uncertainty. Whilst the Great Woodstock 'Kunstrek' seems to have been beneficial to those who relocated (Whatiftheworld, Goodman Cape, the Michael Stevenson), it has had repercussions for those left in the CBD. Small galleries such as Muti are sprouting everywhere, and if they wish to sustain themselves, they need to exhibit a greater level of ambition. There's nothing wrong with the Muti Gallery space: it has all the potential. It's just that many of the artists on 'Supermarket' are talented, award-winning artists: their work might be worth more if it weren't just being siphoned into a 'reactionary model'.

Tim Leibbrandt in his Honour's year at Michaelis School of Fine Art

Opens: February 11
Closes: March 15

The Muti Gallery
3 Vredehoek Avenue, Oranjezicht
Tel: 021 465 3551
email: mutigallery@mutifilms.co.za
Hours: tue - Fri 10am - 4pm, Sat 10am - 1pm