The Reddam House Art Opening

My friend Candice asked me to open the Reddam House School Art Exhibition with an address. It was a great show....if poorly attended.... (It seemed as though some of the artists weren't present!! Confounding.) Many hours of hard work have clearly been spent and some outstanding individuals had put out work. Thanks for the invitation and the bottle of red that will be quaffed with relish shortly I assure you.

This is what I said:

Evening everyone, my name is Justin. I am an artist and it is my privilege to be able to open your exhibition for you….

Primarily I want to talk to you students, I feel like I have advice that is more pertinent to you than your parents. Some of it might in fact seem like dangerous advice to your parents but maybe it will effect how they support you…

The Ideas I want to present to you are two disparate to present coherently in the “less than 5min” I have to present them, so I’d like to curate a couple of statements from people who have effected my out look and encouraged me along the way:

Let’s start with Jesse Martin

When I came into contact with him he was being broadcast on world television at the age of 14 saying (in a broad Auzzie accent),

"Ah, it wouldn't have been a tragedy if I'd died, a tragedy is when you get to 75 and you're not satisfied."

Now, I’ve given away the end of my address,  which is to say that I want to repeat this to you at the end and leave you to dwell on the idealism of that philosophy, and the notion that one might show signs of wisdoms like that at the age of 14 …

He was saying this on the eve of becoming the youngest solo round the world sailor, an 11 month trip without setting foot on land with the brave facilitation of his mother..

I assure you at that age I had no such wisdom.

In fact, in a rare act of humility for me, I’d like to own up to something rather self-depreciatory about how I remember myself at an even later age (more or less the age of you matrics). I, much like you, had had all these great teachers private school offers….. I had been given a gift of literacy of the level afforded maybe 3% of the world population. At that stage I was as blissfully unaware (probably much like you) of the level of privilege I had been granted. You will learn gradually how lucky you are….. and how useful a lever that can be to you in the task of self actualizing yourselves or put another way in becoming realized…. A  task you will have to try to do before you get to 75.

And my greatest ambition was to be……

Just like the guys on “30Something”, a trashy 80’s show about advertising.

It took me precious years to learn what a sham that goal was.

It did lead me to one of the greatest lesson about gaining knowledge at university: ironically through several failed degrees. It is:

Anything that you learn… you have taught yourself.

University is an exercise in self-education….. You will have to negotiate various lecturers and curriculums to exercise your own choice….

I had totally discrete careers in industrial climbing, bicycle couriering and production management before I made art. I had totally separate educations in Science and art. My world-view falls somewhere between Poetry and Science. That is to say I’m mired somewhere between metaphor and fact at any given time.

That brings me to my next hero, a local Cape Town Poet called Gus Ferguson who says:

 Truth is the shadow left by metaphor.

Now if I had given this address last week when I was invited to, I’m afraid I would have struggled to bridle my vitriol for the task of being an artist…….

I’ve just spent the last month at the inner sanctums of where my faith in art buyers was meant to be restored, becoming disillusioned. On their invitation to install some level of the poetic at the airport and one of the countries largest investment funds, I discovered that at least these two South African buildings, an airport, and a  corporate head quarters were devoid of the poetic, and show little experience in buying art. That was a disappointment.

But a friend changed my mood a bit for me…by telling me this:

Life is bigger than art…

 Franz Kafka Might have meant something similar when he wrote:

It is not necessary that you leave the house. 

Remain at your table and listen.

Do not even listen, only wait.

Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone.

The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

So maybe it is possible not to make art. Art is a contrivance and next to, for instance,  the baby growing in my girlfriend tummy the sculptures I’ve made pale abit even in terms of creative process.

And that has been a relief to me, a shift in perspective that has ironically let me regain some of the original idealism that made me try and make things in the first place… 

Art and  poetry and music and human expression, in all it’s abstraction and metaphor can break through all the logic and the reason and build a rickety bridge to a fabulous view of the sublime, the ineffable and that is a power worth having.

It turns out that for those of you that take the process of fine art out in to your adult professional lives with you,

 to really be of benefit to society will not only have to build that rickety bridge, but develop some skills in helping others to climb on it too.

Let’s come back to Jesse Martin

At the age of 14 saying (in a broad Auzzie accent),

"Ah, it wouldn't have been a tragedy if I'd died, a tragedy is when you get to 75 and you're not satisfied."

It is my pleasure to declared this collection of hundreds and hundreds of careful hours of work in searching for beautiful and meaningful work, which is this Reddam House school art exhibition officially open.