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1 April 2009

Your Excellency, Ambassador Dieter Haller
Professor Schauerte
Professor Lehman
Curators Prof. Viola Koning, Alfons Hug and Peter Junge
Your Excellencies, members of the Diplomatic Corps
Professor Jati Bredekamp
Mr Peter Anders of the Goethe Institute
Mr Joe Dolby, Ms Nadja Dahnke and Ms Pam Warne of South Africa National Gallery
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Creativity is an intuitive ability or skill that enables an individual artist to capture and reflect an inspirational object or subject. The arts make us human. Though the arts are not essential for keeping body and soul together, yet no society seems capable of living without them. Louis I Kahn has commented that,

"The creation of art is not the fulfilment of a need but the creation of a need. The world never needed Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony until he created it. Now we cannot live without it."

Though I would say the remarks are overstated, they do reveal an essential element of the human personality. We are here today to attend the opening of a landmark exhibition which brings together pre-modern and contemporary artworks from the geographically defined belt of tropics. The idea and momentum came from the Goethe Institute in Rio de Janeiro with its director Alfons Hug.

There is an ongoing discourse on capturing world art history. For many decades what was available in Art History Books tended to be Eurocentric, reflecting the dominant position the countries of Europe occupied in world affairs during the 19th and twentieth centuries. The ancient artworks from the Tropics had a curiosity value.

Real value was only acknowledged when such pieces were housed in the museums of the world. The Art history of the rest of the world has remained relatively invisible and tended not be recognised. For far too long what is considered the mainstream of the visual arts world has been pale and male. It is a Herculean task to change this perspective.

This exhibition begins to address this firstly by putting the pre-modern art works on popular exhibition and secondly, by giving artists from many parts of the world a chance to exhibit their contemporary works in a few countries around the world.

An exhibition such as the "Tropics" is a success, not only because of the art works, the artists, curators, institutions but also because of the governments of the different countries assisting in facilitating it.

South Africa greatly appreciates the Bi-lateral agreement that we have with Germany. It is under the rubric of that agreement that this exhibition is taking place here in Cape Town. It is such co-operation that facilitates exposure to each other’s creative work among the countries and peoples of the world. Through it, we trust the peoples of Brazil, South Africa and Germany will begin to know and understand each other better. This exhibition is an important step in the right direction.

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Arts and Culture
1 April 2009