New director for African Art Centre

OVER the past 56 years the African Art Centre has earned the reputation of being the longest surviving South African organisation involved in the development and promotion of African artists and crafters.

Following on this rich history, the Centre appointed Magdalene Reddy as its new executive director. Magdalene holds an Honours Degree in Music and has been a manager in a number of sectors within the arts and culture industry over the past 10 years.

Most recently, she worked with the SA Seasons’ team on promoting South African arts and culture in both France and the United Kingdom in the SA-UK Seasons and the SA-French Seasons, which were projects of the Department of Arts and Culture that saw thousands of South African artists perform and exhibit their work across these countries.

Prior to this, she worked at the Centre for Creative Arts playing a vital role in the implementation the CCA’s four iconic festivals – the Durban International Film Festival, Poetry Africa, Time of the Writer and the Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience.

“Although my first love for the arts was through music, my work at the Centre for Creative Arts developed my interest and experience across all artistic genres of African culture. I was privileged to have been part of creating a platform for African and international artists to share the beauty of their expertise with Durban audiences. This intercultural exchange of artists and arts practitioners had helped me appreciate all forms of art in a special way,” said Magdalene.

Magdalene now brings her passion and experience to the African Art Centre helping to steer the ship into the next era.

“The wealth of local South African art needs to be shared with the world, we need to create processes and platforms for our artists to thrive. The African Art Centre is here to help grow South Africa’s creative economy by developing market access and professional exhibition platforms for cutting-edge and relevant work by the artists and crafters of KwaZulu-Natal,” she said.

She said the Centre's vision is to create an enabling environment for the sustainable development, promotion and preservation of African arts and crafts with special focus on KwaZulu-Natal.

“Our focus now is to strengthen the economic benefit for local KZN artists. This will be achieved through three primary pillars – local and international exhibition platforms, development programmes focusing on the creative and business aspects of the art and the provision of a retail and wholesale outlet for artists and crafters.”

To kick off the 2016 exhibition programme, the African Art Centre recently released a call inviting local KZN artists to be part of a Human Rights exhibition themed 20 Years Later: A Fresh Look at the Bill of Rights. This group exhibition is curated by Carol Brown. Justice Albie Sachs will launch this exhibition of prints, drawings, paintings and photographs, all created especially for the exhibition by well known artists as well as unknown young talent.

The exhibition opens on Thursday 10 March at 5.30pm at the African Art Centre, 94 Florida Road, Durban, and will run for three weeks.

For more detail contact the African Art Centre on 031 312 3804/5, email: africanartcentre@afri-art.co.za or go to www.afriart.org.za