Interview with Warren Siebritz - By Michael Coulson

I first ran across Warren Siebrits at Trent Read’s contemporary art gallery in Parkwood in the early 1990s, and that relationship was a crucial stage in his development. Like many of us, he regrets the failure of that venture.
“It was a well-conceived business, but launched when the art business was at rock bottom. You could pick up Pierneefs for R160 000-R180 000, and nobody was interested in modern art.” Only Ricky Burnett, with his Tributaries show, had previously explored this field, Siebrits feels.
Unlike many gallerists, Siebrits says he fell into the art world largely by accident. To defer national service, after matric he enrolled for a BCom at the then RAU (now University of Johannesburg). There he met Stefan Welz’s son Conrad. They became friends, and Siebrits says that visiting a house like a lived-in museum is what first led him to appreciate beautiful objects.

Welz offered him a job after the ultimately unavoidable military service. But though the experience was invaluable, he didn’t feel the auction business was for him. “An auctioneer is purely an agent, he can’t choose what to deal in. And there’s some horrible stuff out there!”

So he was thrilled when Trent asked him to join him, and stayed virtually until the gallery closed in 1995.

Between then and opening his own gallery in 2002, Siebrits was at various times arts adviser to bodies like the Gauteng Legislature, Gencor (now BHP Billiton, in association with his great friend Kendell Geers) and the Sandton Convention Centre. He briefly ran Metroplex, a gallery operating from two shop windows in Rosebank, and with Johans Borman curated and published Aspects of SA Art, a big show at the Convention Centre.

He remembers buying the likes of Jane Alexander, William Kentridge, Robert Hodgins and Joachim Schonfeldt for the legislature collection at what would now be bargain-basement prices.

Gencor was a different challenge. Then CEO Brian Gilbertson said the collection must reflect the changing nature of society, to try and help the staff adapt. “But initially this had the opposite effect. Many of the older, more conservative staff found the work offensive, and complained that ‘Satanists were at work’ “. But Gilbertson stuck to his guns.

Siebrits kept driving through Parkwood, past the site of Clive Kellner’s defunct Camouflage gallery with a “To Let” sign in the window, and was increasingly intrigued by the availability of a ready-made space. He also needed a big space for Kentridge’s Casspirs Full of Love project, and eventually couldn’t resist the challenge.

With time, his exhibitions have taken on an individual identity, with a strong social conscience. His latest show, for instance, includes a large collection of “struggle” posters, marking protest meetings and the deaths of activists like Neil Aggett. His social awareness is also reflected in his commitment to wear a hat daily for a year, in commemoration of the senseless death of his friend Sheldon Cohen.

Other shows encourage younger, lesser known artists, which he sees as an important function of commercial galleries.

Another feature is the excellent, well-written catalogues he produces, which set a high point recently with Jo Ractliffe. Helped by sponsorship, this cost upwards of R300 000 – more than 10 times what he normally spends. He sees catalogues as both important historical documents and evidence of provenance, beliefs he also drew from Stefan Welz.

Siebrits does not buy much art for himself, saying it would be wrong to compete with his clients. He does collect vinyl records, of which he now has over 10 000, and books, especially on SA art. But his life is so bound up with his business, one can’t imagine he has much time to listen to, or read them.