Interview with Antoinette Murdoch
by Rat Western

Antoinette Murdoch has been appointed Chief Curator of JAG after three years as the CEO of the Art Bank Joburg. Rat Western speaks to her about her new appointment.

Rat Western: Have you experienced a major shift moving from a sphere that works predominantly with the corporate sector to a state-owned museum space?

Antoinette Murdoch: Not particularly, or at least not yet. The primary challenge that one faces in both jobs is learning to work within the system. I'll be the first to admit that I'm very outspoken, but I have worked long enough with bureaucracy to know where and when that can be appropriate. I worked at the Art Bank for three years and there I learned a sense of diplomacy. The Art Bank is partially state-owned so one has to learn to operate within that paradigm in order to achieve things. I imagine that someone coming in cold from the corporate sector would find learning to work within these systems quite a strain.

RW: What benefits or freedoms do you think you will experience in your new position that were not available to you before?

AM: I look forward to having a lot more conceptual freedom than I did at the Art Bank. There, the focus had to always ultimately be something that was easy to install and uninstall, and something that was saleable. Also, nudity was a big no-no.

RW: Conceptual freedom, yours or others, comes with some serious responsibility if you occupy the chief position. How do you feel about potential public criticism, given that as a public institution you can't please all the public all the time?

AM: I'm quite happy to deal with public criticism but I would prefer that to be from a well-informed, clear-thinking public [laughs]. I'm prepared to debate or negotiate in dealing with matters of a political or other sensitivity when that is evident in the work or the artist's intention. However, I had an occasion, when I was working for the Art Bank, where I was called into someone's office to remove a work by Stompi Selebi. The work was one of his russet coloured abstract prints hardly something that would provoke offence. But as was pointed out to me by the affronted office-inhabitant, the work contained 'the evil eye' and needed to be removed immediately. It's very hard to have a debate with someone who has taken their Rorschach interpretation of an image as the artist's intention and a deliberate insensitivity.

RW: What plans, if any at this stage, do you have for the future?

AM: I don't have any grand plans just yet. It's far too early for that. At the moment I'm just trying to sound things out, get a feel of my co-workers' expectations, and the way in which things run here. I'll be referring a lot to others in these early days, as I feel it's best to take advice from people who've been here much longer.

In the much longer term, I'd like to look at some house-keeping issues. The Gallery is after all a museum: this is our Louvre, so to speak, and not everything is run according to international museum standards. I'm thinking of matters like climate control in the exhibition spaces. But that will be a long term goal. In the shorter term I would like to try finding a way to balance the exciting contemporary exhibitions with new ways of representing some of the collection.

Clive Kellner's directorship of the JAG is a hard act to follow. He brought a lot of exciting things into the space, a lot of contemporary work which was sorely needed. During my tenure, I would like to find a balance between the contemporary and new ways of incorporating some of the older collection. This is something Kellner did with some of his curated shows, and those are the shoes I'm going to endeavour to fill. As a museum, we need to show both the cutting edge in Contemporary and remember that we are also a space of education. This means having more historical displays as well, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be imaginative.

RW: In the meantime, while you develop your future plans, what are some of the shows that will be coming up at the JAG in the next few months?

AM: In the Nando's Project Room, we have a young artist Mphapho 'Ra' Hlasane whose show 'For Tshepo: Ten Years Later' is on until June 7. The Khwezi Gule-curated exhibit 'Portraiture through Photography' can be viewed in the Basement Gallery, where one can also view some of JAG's recent acquisitions. This will close on July 3.

New shows opening are the Albert Adams retrospective which will open on Sunday May 10, after which we will celebrate International Museums Day on May 19 with a full day of festivities and guided tours. The focus is to 'celebrate ethical, responsible, sustainable tourism, showing how heritage can bring tourists and local communities together in new, mutually beneficial relationships'. There will be a lucky draw where the prize will be a collection of gallery catalogues and books. We will also be showing new displays of works from the JAG collection relevant to the schools' curriculum, including a tribute to the late Cecil Skotnes who passed away last month.

Johannesburg Art Gallery
Joubert Park, King George Street
Tel: (011)725 3184
Fax: (011)720 6000
Email: tinym@joburg.org.za