JOBURG – The Bag Factory auction is a great success.
Racine Edwardes
STARK: The minimalist layout of the Bag Factory makes the beautiful art stand out.
The collaboration between the Bag Factory and Absa results in a long career for local artists.
Absa and the Bag Factory hosted an exciting auction to raise funds for the now 25-year-old art space in Johannesburg.
The auction was held at the Absa Art Gallery in the CBD and art lovers turned out in their numbers to get the chance to own a piece of history or a never-before-seen piece of art from some of the country’s favourite local artists.
Aysha Waja, art curator at the Bag Factory, talked about the significance of the auction, titled 25.
“Twenty-five years is an incredible achievement within the NGO and Arts sector – for an organisation to survive for so long on the support of patrons and funders is amazing. The Bag Factory is a significant role player in the visual arts, it was the first communal studio space in the country and has housed artists like David Koloane, Penny Siopis, Deborah Bell, Sam Nhlengethwa, Kay Hassan, Lerato Shadi, Paul Emmanuel and kickstarted the careers of artists like Blessing Ngobeni, Asanda Kupa who have come through our award programmes.”
ART SPOT: The Bag Factory has been in Johannesburg for 25 years.
Ecstatic about the results of the auction, Sara Hallatt, director of the Bag Factory said, “We managed to raise more than R1 million, which we will put towards extending our programme and use for our upcoming renovations in the next few years.”
Through the auction, 90 per cent of the art pieces were sold and the remaining few will still be sold in various auctions and sales next year.
Basing their goals for the Factory on that of the Wits Art Museum, Hallatt continued, “It took Wits Art Museum 10 years to do what they did, and while we’re not aiming to go as big as they did, we would like to raise about R7 million in the next seven years for renovation and the artists.”
Waja explained what art lovers can expect in 2017.
“Our 2017 programme is packed already. We have the Cassirer Welz Award exhibition opening on the 2 February 2017 at Circa gallery. We have a year packed with international residencies including an exchange programme with Village Unhu, a residency space based in Harare for which we will have a number of exhibitions planned so check out our social media pages for all the info.”
