Art lovers asking what happened to the Keiskamma Guernica, a massive commemorative embroidery bought for R200,000 for the Red Location museum precinct but never publicly displayed, can breathe a sigh of relief.
The iconic artwork was sent back to the Hamburg group of women who originally made it for repairs and safekeeping until its planned home in New Brighton is able to hang it.
This week the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum (NMMAM) announced it would display the Guernica as the central part of a Keiskamma Trust exhibition opening in April and running until May.
The Guernica, a South African response to the late Spanish painter Pablo Picasso’s famous Guernica war painting, was bought by the Mandela Bay Development Agency 10 years ago for the city’s art collections, and the plan was to hang it in the library of the award-winning art museum.
However, Weekend Post reported earlier in February that Red Location, closed for years now, is still in a state of disrepair with exhibits gathering dust and several damaged by years of neglect.
Questions rose on the artwork’s safety after the museum’s decrepit state was highlighted but, fortunately, the tapestry’s custodians realised its cultural importance and had already taken steps to safeguard the Guernica.
“It really is an asset to the city,” Dorelle Sapere, MBDA project manager for urban design said. “It was in a crate for a long time and we decided to send it back to Hamburg to be repaired.
“Picasso’s Guernica is a social comment on facism in Spain and the Keiskamma Guernica was a comment on the struggle events in SA.”
There were poignant aspects to its creation, she said, for example, pieces of “the blankets that people had wrapped themselves in to keep warm have been incorporated. You can see the heart and soul the women had put into it”.
“It is the story of a community struggling with the challenges of Aids – the women are unemployed and so were taught embroidery as an employment strategy.”
NMB councillor Rory Riordain was one of the main movers for the city to buy the work 10 years ago.
“It’s been an infuriating and utterly depressing period,” he said of the delays over the years.
“At the time certain members of the community said to the ward councillor that they were either going to burn down Red Location or close it, so those were the two horrendous options.”
Although closing Red Location was the lesser of the two evils, this delayed the chance for the Guernica to go on display.
“It’s been an extremely long and unnecessary wait to get Red Location open again,” Riordain said, voicing his hopes that the process was now on track.
He said it had always been transported by professional art movers in a crate specifically designed for it, “packed with polystyrene and wood so it’s always been very adequately stored”.
Due not only to its size but also to how it was made and its materials, it did need special care.
“It wasn’t made by a factory, it was put together by a team of ladies in Hamburg working with a needle and thread, and it is very delicate as pieces go.”
However, Riordain said, referring to the extensive restoration work done on Michaelangelo’s Pieta in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, even though a vandal had attacked that precious sculpture with a hammer, art specialists had been able to restore it to near perfect condition.
“Today you cannot see where the damage was so I’m sure the ladies in Hamburg will sort it.”
Picasso’s original
The Keiskamma Guernica is a culturally significant piece of South African art which, despite travelling internationally, has yet to find its permanent home.
The giant appliqué with decorative embroidery using felt and blankets was made 10 years ago by about 50 women from the Keiskamma Art Project (now the Keiskamma Trust) in Hamburg in the Eastern Cape.
Its monumental width of nearly 8m and depth of 3.5m means it needs a large space to be shown, and so when the Mandela Bay Development Agency bought it in 2009, it planned to hang it in the library and archive of Red Location Museum in New Brighton.
The bayeux tapestry style embroidery is an ode to the lives lost to Aids in SA, a reflection of Picasso’s original Guernica oil painting of a similar size, which also covered a sombre subject.
Where Picasso shows the bombed city of Guernica in Spain and is a visual comment on the horror of war, the SA version shows a slower death, where a community is killed by poverty and illness.
Trust founder Dr Carol Hofmeyr co-designed the piece that was almost immediately acclaimed for its artistry and significance. Since then, three smaller-scale Keiskamma Guernica’s have been created. (2011, 2012, 2015)
Eastern Cape viewers first viewed it at the 2010 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, and the work then travelled to Europe for the Venice Architecture Biennale of 2012. It was also shown in Cape Town in 2013.
The artwork consists of fabric from hand-made traditional Xhosa felt skirts and the blankets of Aids patients at the Umtha Welanga Treatment Centre near Hamburg.
Where a horse is at the centre of Picasso’s 1937 work, cows – which traditionally hold connotations of wealth and health in the Xhosa community – feature in the Keiskamma Guernica.
The embroidery is one of several remakings of iconic Western artworks including the Keiskamma Tapestry – a 73-panel, 120m-long wall-hanging which is a version of the Bayeaux Tapestry and hangs in parliament in Cape Town.