“A fantastic innovation of this year’s auction is that it’s going to be online before the actual event. So people will be able to bid all around the world on the online auction,” said Lesley Cohen, curator of the Wits Art Museum.
Online bidding for the 47 art pieces has opened, a technological first for the auction, much to the delight of art lovers worldwide. The online bidding form will close promptly at 1pm on 26 May and can be found here.
The Wits Art Museum Endowment was launched in 2013 and Cohen said they set themselves an ambitious target of R25 million.
“In less than two years, we’ve achieved R18 million towards that endowment, which we think is extraordinary in the South African context,” she said.
The endowment was put together to grow diverse activities in the museum through donor funding, and thanks to a number of generous individual donors, the museum has put together programmes and catalogues to promote the gallery, including bigger and better exhibitions, educational resources for touring schoolchildren and even a drop-in drawing workshop that is held every month.
The works of art were generously donated by 25 contemporary artists, specifically to go on auction.
“We would never sell works from our collection, people get a bit confused about that,” Cohen added.
The works on sale include pieces from local artists like Joni Brenner, Paul Emmanuel, Phillemon Hlungwani, Walter Oltman, Johannes Phokela, Richard Penn and Bronwyn Lace.
Trent Read, owner of Knysna Fine Art and brother of Mark Read, owner of the Everard Read Gallery and Circa in Rosebank, also made a generous donation of a group of Limpopo sculptures for the museum to use as they saw fit. A total of 10 of the statues was added to the WAM art collection, while some of them will be on sale during the auction as well.
Bronwyn Lace, one of the contributing artists, has put a few of the pieces from her Collapse series up for auction. “I create site-specific installations and this was a large column of fishing line with these fishing flies suspended in it as if it were a storm. I hope it brings something for the museum. I was a Wits student, I did my fine arts degree here, and this is a very important space to me, and to the city and to the country.”
Richard Penn, another contributing artist, said in regards to the endowment, “It’s very important. Wits has a fantastic collection, so it’s an absolutely essential programme.”
The Endowment auction will take place on 27 May from 6.30pm at the Wits Art Museum. There is no cover charge, but space at the event is limited. Bidders are advised to contact Cohen on Lesley.Cohen@wits.ac.za
Details: www.wits.ac.za
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