Art Community Profile: Clive Kellner- Michael Coulson chats with Clive Kellner and his new role

Clive Kellner reckons the optimum period to run a major art institution is 10 years. So why is he quitting as head of the Johannesburg Art Gallery after only four-and-a-half years, participating in an exodus that – for various reasons – is seeing the departure of the heads of almost all SA’s major public galleries?
It would be tempting to see this as a result of the frustrations of working anywhere in the public sector at the moment, but Kellner is more diplomatic.
“It’s the right time, both for me and the institution. I like to build and fix things, not just maintain them. Despite the challenges of the lack of resources, I believe we’ve managed to turn JAG around after a somewhat subdued phase, and made an impression on not just the African, but the world stage.
“But I sense that in the current climate a change is necessary, for both our sakes.”
Though he’s reluctant to be drawn on his future, saying that other developments could also be in the pipeline, it’s no secret that he may join forces with Gordon Schachat of African Bank Investments, a major collector and patron of the arts.
At the same time, reading between the lines it’s clear that he’s unhappy with the lack of support JAG receives from the Jo’burg Metro, in common with our other public galleries. No municipal money has been made available to supplement the collection for money years, though JAG has one advantage over its peers: an endowment from Anglo American, which at present generates about R700 000 a year for purchases.
When I point out that at current rates that will buy about half a Pierneef, Kellner concurs.
“But that’s not what we’re doing. There are gaps we need to plug in our historic collection, but we must spot the younger emerging artists, that aren’t overpriced.
“Fifteen years ago we bought a number of Sekotos and Irma Sterns at what were still affordable prices. In 1981 the then director, the late Pat Senior, was able to buy works by Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein from major commercial galleries in London for tens of thousands of dollars.
“They were sent out by courier in plain cardboard tubes – today they’d have to be accompanied by armed guards! That sort of talent spotting is what all galleries have to do. We’re continually searching for future trends, and we’re also looking at photography – we’ve recently been buying David Goldblatt, for example.
“And we’re already loaning out works by emerging artists to major international museums – that’s both positive and significant.”
For all the frustrations, he insists “It’s an extraordinary privilege to have managed this institution. We own 9 000 works, and the responsibility of caring for them gives one a sense of purpose and mission, as well as constantly reminding us of their historic significance.”
He has no doubt about the major achievements of his tenure: the Kentridge show and Africa Remix. More prosaically, JAG has also completed the first-ever comprehensive cataloguing of the collection.
Kellner could easily have become an artist rather than a curator. He studied art history and studio practice, and won an award to Paris, where he says his education really started. He and a friend spent a year backpacking around Europe’s art centres: Paris, Rome, Basel (the Dokumenta) and elsewhere opened up a whole new range of possibilities. He began to understand the power of big exhibitions, triggering a change in his mindset from maker to curator.
On his return to SA, he joined the ANC Youth League and worked for MK and the Women’s League. The artistic breakthrough came when he joined an 18-month curator’s programme for the first Johannesburg Biennale, with Jean Hubert Martin; then came a 9-month programme at De Appel, in Amsterdam, which was largely an introduction to the politics of the art world.
The final stage of his transition into a curator was being part of the management team of the second Johannesburg Biennale in 1997-98, with curator Okwui Enwezor. Between then and joining JAG in 2004, the highlight of his career was running Camouflage, a non-profit art centre in Johannesburg and Brussels, until its sponsor fell out, through illness.
Now he faces new challenges, but whether in association with Gordon Schachat or elsewhere, you can be sure the art world has not heard the last of him.