Art is a much better way to glam and still avoid state capture
It is a compliment of sorts that full-time narcissist, part-time chef and small-time celebrity David Manal chose to set up shop in SA.
Our country is the destination of choice for many a soulless grifter ... just ask the Guptas. Like them, Manal has found in Jacob Zuma a local patron: a dead star (somewhere between a white dwarf and a black hole) to which he could hitch his greedy wagon.
Let me reassure you that what I have just written is not defamation. Manal wears his credentials as “a rich, successful and ruthless businessman” with pride. The blurb for his ghostwritten autobiography, Kitchen Gangster, declares that Manal — born Ihsan Mohammed Manal Abdulatife Abdallah — has been obsessed, since he was a poor kid on the make in Saudi Arabia, with accumulating money and pursuing what he calls “the high life”, with little care for right and wrong.
If relentlessly amoral wealth and power are what you’re after, you need look no further than our former president. So, perhaps it is inevitable that Manal’s butchery of various cultural traditions under the portmanteau of “Mediterraneasian” cuisine should find its fullest expression in an international culinary franchise that happens to share Zuma’s name.
Still, inviting Zuma and his cronies to gloat and glam-cam at the opening of this eponymous restaurant was a case of playing with matches a little too near the tinderbox.
KwaZulu-Natal can ill afford such sparks. To switch metaphors, one might say that Manal has laid his cards on the table — a move with high risks and potential rewards. One can only hope that well-heeled South Africans who have even the vaguest moral compass will avoid dining at Zuma, lest the Mediterraneasian fare stick in their craws.
Those who want to see and be seen, but whose yearning for the high life is not so desperate that they would be willing to hang out with the low-lifes, have much better options anyway. The contemporary art scene is full of opportunities to spend money and look good without (for want of a better way of putting it) endorsing state capture.
This week I am thinking, in particular, of two big events on the Johannesburg arts calendar for 2023. The deadline for exhibitor applications for RMB Latitudes, which will take place at Shepstone Gardens from May 26-28, has just passed. While artists and gallerists who missed the boat will be kicking themselves, members of the public have a heck of an event to look forward to.
Cofounder of Latitudes, Roberta Coci, gives this taster: “Visitors will be able to enjoy a unique experience, strolling through a magnificent threeacre garden and engaging with a curated celebration of art from across the African continent. Central to the curation of the 2023 edition is sculpture, as well as solo and duo artist presentations. In addition to traditional art fair booths, galleries, curators and artists will be encouraged to create their own unique exhibition spaces, in response to the unexpected and intimate venue.”
Latitudes started out as an art fair held on Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton in September 2019. A deft Covid-19-era digital pivot allowed the Latitudes team to spend nearly three years “building the largest online platform for art from Africa ”— which, Coci notes, “has resulted in a community of thousands of artists, collectors and art enthusiasts. We’re incredibly excited to finally be able to bring this community together at our next physical art fair, and honoured to have RMB as our title sponsor.”
Latitudes Online is a fantastic resource. Its editorial content is strong, ranging from illustrated essays to provocations about the art market to news on forthcoming exhibitions. Moreover, it is an accessible mechanism for both new and experienced art buyers, including a substantial directory of African artists.
It was also announced this week that applications are open for the 11th edition of the Turbine Art Fair (TAF), which will be held at Hyde Park Corner from July 27 to July 30 next year. TAF, too, has built on social and economic capital earned over a number of years to develop a strong web presence that fulfils both a commercial and a public arts education mandate.
Now that’s something worth putting in front of the glam cam.