Important South African Construtionist Artwork sold for scrap


By Jeanne Wright, Port Elizabeth

An important South African
Constructivist sculpture by renowned sculptor Edouardo Villa - was recently discovered missing by Dr Melanie Hillebrand, the Director of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, after she and a colleague attended a meeting at the City hall recently.
When Dr Hillebrand made enquires, an official said that the four and half metre high work had become unsafe and it had needed to be taken down and stored until repairs could be made.
The sculpture, titled “Suspended Form (Wind, Sails and Sea)”, was commissioned by architects Stauch and Vorster for the City Hall foyer in 1981. It is currently valued at half a million rand.
Dr Hillebrand and the Museum’s conservator, Anthony Keogh, immediately went to the work shop to inspect the sculpture and discovered that not only had it been dismantled but also dismembered. “It appears that the steel frame had also been cut up” she said. “It is now in small pieces and utterly incomplete. The sculpture’s bronze, copper and brass components were missing altogether. It looks as though an angle grinder has been used to dissect the parts away from the frame. It has obviously been there for some time as it is covered in dust and pigeon debris”
Dr Hillebrand said that she had personally photographed the work in situ in the City hall for inclusion in a 2005 publication celebrating Villa’s work – “Villa at 90” - so the work went missing some time after that. Sculptor Edouardo Villa’s agents, the Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg, contacted the artist at his Johannesburg home to obtain an estimate from him for the cost of replacing the materials and the rebuilding of the work.
Villa, who is an energetic 92, reacted sharply to the destruction of his work saying: “I believe it was a unique piece and so pure. The municipal people don’t give a
damn about the concepts (behind the work). They only wanted to sell it for scrap metal”. He is adamant that he will not reconstruct it as the damage is too extensive.
The issue of the sculpture was raised at routine safety and security meeting of the Municipality on the 27th March. All councillors agreed that an investigation should be conducted and that a full report submitted. The matter has been reported to the police and investigation continues. At the present time, there are no plans to replace the work. “Wind, Sails and Sea” consisted of a steel scaffold upon which free form rectilinear bronze, brass and copper plates in curved configurations were randomly distributed throughout the structure. The large and visually imposing work would have needed considerable effort and expertise to remove.
It was suspended on substantial steel cables and supports which were welded to brackets on the walls. The construction hung from the ceiling with a specially designed pulley and winch system, accessible from the roof, to be used when servicing was needed.

As her office is held responsible for all works of art belonging to the Municipality and the work was registered in the Museum’s collection as well as in the inventory of works held by the Municipality Dr Hillebrand had felt it her duty to pursue the matter with the council about its storage.

After many phone calls, she was told that the sculpture “was not the Museum’s concern as it was just another fixture at the City Hall”. No one could provide information on the date the actual removal of the sculpture took place. Senior Municipal officials had no idea who had ordered the removal. But the mayor’s office manager Roelf Basson said he believed that it had been removed from the ceiling because ‘a retaining cable had become loose’.