Art life renews itself through recession

Alex Dodd

‘What we’re going through is not unique,’ says Siebrits. ‘Sadly, no one is immune.’
We started out the year on tenterhooks, not knowing how the global economic recession would hit our local contemporary art market. Dark murmurings from over the stormy seas weren’t very encouraging, with reports of the almost irrationally exuberant boom experienced since 2005 crunching right down to a slow crawl. ‘Gone are the days when artworks were being snapped up at the blink of an eye,’ wrote Juliette Lim-Fat and Roger Signer of global financial services company Credit Suisse. ‘Nowadays, deals are taking longer to close. Buyers are more prudent and taking more time to get to know the paintings before reaching a final decision.’

It didn’t help that a large percentage of contemporary art buyers in recent years have been cock-a-hoop hedge fund managers, as well as the newly bling emerging from markets like Russia, China, the Middle East and India, many of whom have caught a nasty cold during the recent winter of our discontent, with the credit crisis slashing their wealth and putting their demand for art on ice.
Still, all this nasty weather seemed quite distant and academic to us down here in the sun-drenched South – until sales figures from the recent Joburg Art Fair came home to roost. Art sales at this year’s Fair grossed R12-million, about half of what was achieved last year – and this downturn despite the fact that the Fair’s attendance was up by 4 000 and that the production value of this year’s event way outstripped last year’s. It was a jackpot of a Fair in every sense other than sales, which can only really be attributed to the dreaded slump having metamorphosed from a hazy projection into an uncomfortable reality.

I tiptoed into January with a dreaded sense is that our landscape was going to be morphing quite irrevocably over the next few months and that the status quo we currently take for granted as standard and unchanging will, despite Trevor Manuel’s bizarre assurances to the contrary, undergo something of a seismic shift. The first evidence of the quake hit me this week, with the lousy news that Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary will soon be no more. Despite the blessed irony of having just had a ‘phenomenally successful Art Fair’, the gallery’s doors will only be open until the end of May.

This is no flash-in-the-pan, fly-by-night gallery, but one of Johannesburg’s most exacting and scholarly minded contemporary art institutions. Warren Siebrits has been responsible for reviving the reputations of many 20th century artists (Alfred Thoba, Cyprian Shilakoe, Lucas Sithole…) whose legacies were overlooked or underestimated due to their place in history under apartheid, as well as for adding muscle to some significant contemporary careers, from that of Jo Ractliffe to Gerard Marx, Stefanus Rademeyer and Sabelo Mlangeni.

Fuelled by his passion for historical context, Siebrits has been dedicated to the research and publishing side of his business, having produced a range of immaculately produced catalogues, contributing to the growth of the careers in his care.
But at R150 000 per month, before they’d even started with catalogue expenses, their overheads had started to become crippling, says Siebrits. ‘We’ve been subsidising our contemporary shows through our sales in the secondary market for some time now.’
More than a freak quirk, the gallery’s imminent closure is a sign of the times. ‘What we’re going through is not unique,’ says Siebrits. ‘Sadly, no one is immune.’
But on a more heartening note, he recalls one of his personal highpoints since opening the gallery seven years ago. He doesn’t hesitate in saying that handling Gerard Sekoto’s painting, Soka Majoka (Sixpence a Door), featured as part the 2003 group show, Art and Urbanisation, has been his greatest honour. Painted in 1946/7, it is considered Sekoto’s most important painting, having been part of an exhibition that travelled the world in the late 1940s, when it was admired by the Queen Mother and featured in Time magazine. ‘In 2002, I sold that painting for R1-million, and played a part in catalysing the Sekoto market,’ says Siebrits proudly, from under the dapper brim of one of his signature hats. ‘At that stage, no South African painting had sold for so much. If it went back on the market today, it would fetch about R10-million, conservatively, which shows how much the market has changed since when we first started the gallery.’
Siebrits will soon be embarking on a new chapter working privately as a Web-based dealer, specialising in rare art, signed books and other ephemera (warrensiebrits.co.za). His gallery might not be around for much longer, but we’re likely to hear more from this indomitable character who has already made a significant mark on South African art history.This week’s news must have come as a tough blow to his artists, but Siebrits is committed to finding the right match for each of them with other leading galleries and to sustaining his relationship with them on a personal basis.
Something about the solid and ethical manner in which Siebrits and his partner, Lunetta Bartz, have run their gallery had me believing that, like hot buttered toast, it would somehow always be around.