Art Bank Joburg faces challenges

Michael Coulson

Halfway through the initial five-year period in which it was hoping to break even, the Jo’burg Metro’s struggling pioneer art bank is to adopt a new business plan and move to a new location.
The Canadian art bank on which Art Bank Joburg is modeled took nine years to break even, and CEO Antoinette Murdoch admitted recently that this sort of time horizon is probably more realistic. The Joburg Metro Council invested R5m in Art Bank Joburg, of which R3.1m has been spent on art works. According to Joburg cultural supremo Steven Sack, a council report, which has not yet been publicly released, estimates that another R4.5m is needed to make the body self-sufficient.
So far, the art bank has acquired 30 clients, of which 60% are public-sector (mostly municipal) and the balance private-sector. It owns 1 090 art works by 290 individual
artists with a total value
of R3.1m. The average value of R2 830 reflects the bank’s remit to encourage developing artists, and Sack points out that the maximum price the bank may pay for a work is R15 000.
They are hired out at 20% of market value, and revalued every year, so this income should rise gradually, but clearly not at a rate which will make the venture economic in the foreseeable future.
Sack in fact would like to spend another R7m on art, taking the stock to R10m, which should make the art bank profitable but, he admits, will take several years.
He concedes that current tight economic conditions are unpropitious for raising funds from the corporate sector, but has several creative ideas for getting around this. For example, a client may be prepared to buy art, donate it to the bank and display it in its own premises, but only start to pay “rent” some years later. He reminded me that the arts White Paper recommended that the Department of Arts & Culture set up a national art bank. It hasn’t done so (which will come as no surprise to cultural workers), which could make it possible for Art Bank Joburg to take over this role.
It’s also possible that the Metro Council could be persuaded to supplement its original investment. And, finally, when it can produce three years’ audited accounts – which shouldn’t be that far away -- the art bank could apply for national lottery money.
But the art bank is not sitting idly waiting for manna from heaven. As well as developing its existing activities, it’s co-ordinating the commissioning of a large tribute to Walter and Albertina Sisulu that the Metro Council plans to erect in Loveday St in Braamfontein. This will be a major piece of public sculpture, for which there’s a budget for labour and materials of up to R600 000 – though not all of this has yet been raised. The target date for completion is June this year, though this could be optimistic as it will require a tight time scale and such projects trend to lag behind schedule.
The bank, which announced last year that it was to move from Newtown to the old premises of the Sandton Civic Gallery, is now to relocate to Spark, the old electricity sub-station in Norwood which has seen sporadic success as an art gallery and craft centre but has never really fulfilled the potential held out by its attractive space.
So it’s clear that the institution faces major challenges. If the new business plan doesn’t bring it closer to break-even fairly soon,
one must wonder for how long the Metro Council – which doesn’t attach a high priority to the visual arts, judging by how the Joburg Art Gallery is starved of resources – will be prepared to carry it.
And there’s one last wild card in the pack. Murdoch is widely tipped as a front-runner to succeed Clive Kellner as curator of JAG. Should this happen, for all Sack’s commitment to the art bank, another unwelcome element of uncertainty would enter the equation.