Sunday, March 29

On Saturday at the Joburg Art Fair the highlighted event was the keynote speech by invited guest, Klaus Biesenbach, Director of PS1 in New York, and curator at large at MoMA. No title for this speech appeared on the programme, no theme, and perhaps this was the problem. The suave curator appeared to be speaking from the hip.

Klaus Biesenbach in Johannesburg

Biesenbach opened his attack by saying 'I don't like art fairs' where you can 'buy things to carry back under your arms', contrasting them to biennales, under the direction of a single curator, which provide 'an incredibly important way for people to talk'. He did concede that an art fair 'might be bearable and useful in a city like Johannesburg, where there is an art scene.' His audience, largely only too well aware of the differences in intent of an art fair and a biennale, was not receptive to this prescriptive approach.

William Kentridge, with whom Biesenbach has worked closely on Kentridge's current exhibition at MoMA, responded from the floor that the Joburg Art Fair was obviously not a biennale, but whatever its limitations, for the art community of the country, it was 'our best and only meeting point', where artists and curators gather to talk and see what is going on.

And so saying, Kentridge summed up what seemed to be the general feeling about this year's Art Fair. Of course there is the usual component of less than great work, but overall there is much to see, the contributions from foreign galleries are welcome, and one feels the big galleries have gone to considerable trouble to present new work from their top artists.

And it is a real opportunity to talk, even informally.