To mark 40 years of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award (SBYA), launched in 1984 with the National Arts Festival, Standard Bank has opened an exhibition that traces the history of South African visual art through the artists who have won this award.
Titled SBYA Visual Art 1984 – Now and curated by Dr Same Mdluli, the exhibition features 40 artworks selected from the country’s public and semi-private collections, including the SABC Art Collection, the Rupert Museum, the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), Iziko South African National Gallery, Wits Art Museum (WAM) and Standard Bank’s own corporate art collection.
The showcase – held at the Standard Bank Art Lab – sparks conversations around the role and archival purposes of collecting, and the accessibility of art collections. It also highlights an educational component that many of the artworks at WAM, JAG and Iziko carry, now subversively positioned in the commercial location of Nelson Mandela Square.
Preserving South Africa’s Artistic Heritage
Standard Bank boasts two art collections that preserve African artworks for posterity. This is a direct response to the high number (an estimated 90 per cent) of African art and artefacts held in private collections and museums outside the continent.
In 1978, the Standard Bank African Art Collection was established in partnership with Wits University. Situated at WAM, it comprises more than 5 000 artefacts from across Africa and a large collection of classical African art from the southern region.
“The Standard Bank African Art Collection preserves a very critical part of Southern Africa’s heritage. Many of the items in this collection would not be on the continent had it not been for the foresight and visionary approach of these two institutions coming together and decisively and intentionally putting in place an agreement that ensured the preservation and conservation of these items for future generations,” Same says.
The Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection, established in 1968 and held in the bank’s spaces at its Simmonds Street and Rosebank headquarters in Johannesburg, the Global Leadership Centre, and regional offices, has more than 1 200 works by 250 artists.
“This collection has not only collected some of South Africa’s boldest contemporary artists, who at the time of making the work were making very bold statements about the state of society and the country,” says Same. “But the tensions and contradictions, the pains and traumas, as well as the joyful and delightful moments of living in a society like South Africa, are reflected through the subject matter they represent.”
Making South African Art Accessible
The SABC Art Collection represents a diverse collection of historical and contemporary South African art. It upholds the national broadcaster’s mandate to communicate the nation’s social ideas, values, crises, and events as evoked and captured through art.
The collection includes artworks collected during apartheid, dominated by white artists and reflecting the political system’s structural exclusion. This informally managed period of the collection also depicts the textures and realities of South African life in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The collection became formalised under the curatorship of Koulla Xinisteris after the country’s first democratic elections in 1994 and the subsequent restructuring of the SABC. Koulla’s acquisition policy balanced the collection’s initial erasures with the inclusion of iconic works by Black South African artists of different generations.
The SABC Art Collection —an ongoing project — actively loans artworks to institutions nationally and worldwide as part of its commitment to make the collection accessible. This is in addition to its public tours and social media presence.
Inside the Curator’s Vision
Six works by Standard Bank Young Artists from the SABC Art Collection feature in the SBYA Visual Art 1984 – Now exhibition. Among them is the striking sculptural mastery of distinguished sculptor and 1984 SBYA winner Peter Schütz as you enter the space. Titled Budding Daphne (2008), it showcases his interest in the human form, ancient cultures, and issues of representation and identity.
Same’s curatorial vision for the exhibition highlights the impact the SBYA has had on the trajectory of the artists who have received the accolade, while reflecting on the state of contemporary South African art over the past four decades through their work.
“The selected artworks reveal the different phases of how art and our understanding of what constitutes its characteristics have evolved in South Africa. These characteristics are informed by the kind of society South Africa has evolved into, in the lead-up to democracy and post-democracy. That we are a complex yet culturally rich society,” she says.
The artworks map South Africa’s past and present social tensions and showcase personal and political moments and ideas for collective reflection. From the spirituality of the land in 1989 SBYA winner Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi’s oil painting Little Landscape Near Bloemfontein (1988), to the evolving post-apartheid identities as captured in 2008 winner Nontsikelelo Veleko and 2013 winner Mary Sibande’s photographic works, as well as the environmental issues highlighted in 2021 winner Buhlebezwe Siwani’s installation Inkwenkwezi.
The works are thematically linked and underscore how artists are not separate from the society they reflect. 2006 winner Churchill Madikida’s Virus (2005) brings into focus South Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, and speaks to the inclusion of 1990 joint winner Bonnie Ntshalintshali, who died of AIDS in 1999.
Honing in on prevailing social ills is the 2019 winner Gabrielle Goliath’s confrontational and daring sound installation Roulette (2014), which draws attention to the plight of femicide in the country. This work is consistent with the artist’s 2019 SBYA-winning exhibition, This Song Is For, a poignant and meditative audio-visual installation of dedication songs for survivors of rape.
The Art Lab: Experimentation and Dialogue
The SBYA Visual Art 1984 — Now exhibition is the second showcase held at the Standard Bank Art Lab, which launched four months ago at Sandton’s Nelson Mandela Square. It’s a space designed to incubate ideas and collaboration, and to hold critical dialogues.
On what the dialogues and experimentation held at the Art Lab reveal about the local art landscape so far, Same says:
“In some respects, South Africa is still a very conservative country and in others not so much. This is expected given its history; however, this is starting to change with the local art scene demonstrating a spirit of embracing experimentation and exploration through unconventional collaborations and partnerships.
“Local artists are starting to recognise the power of working collectively towards a common goal. This includes working in an interdisciplinary manner, where it becomes important to engage and interact with peers in other genres. In the end, this not only broadens the positive reception of the arts but also exposes it to a wider audience.”
Look out for a fireside chat with the curators of the collections from which the works are drawn on 8 November, as well as a children’s programme at the Standard Bank Art Lab in December.
The SBYA Visual Art 1984 – Now exhibition runs until 31 January 2026.
