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The Curator's opening speech
Vivian van der Merwe
I have been looking at the art of Francois since 1986. That equals twenty years of aesthetic scrutiny, twenty years of professional admiration, and twenty years of artistic fascination. And twenty years later, there is no doubt that Francois is widely respected for his formidable imagination, skill and artistic rigor, and especially for his idiosyncratic pathos. All these qualities are compellingly obvious in the works on show here.
But upon seeing Francois' art hanging together, in close proximity, for the first time ever, one also senses something else: It is like a persistent theme that is less obvious, like a complex leitmotif in a large symphony. At its very core this exhibition engages a fascinating contradiction, and it is a contradiction that is central to visual art of our time.
History has shown us that there is an ideological pendulum that swings in art. It expresses a contradictory energy that drives art along its fascinating and often unpredictable course. Whether we choose to think of it as a cause and effect, or thesis and antithesis, it is clear that there are two opposing attitudes towards art, or more specifically, towards the role of art and the artist.
The one point of view suggests that art is not very useful.
In 1891 Oscar Wilde declared that, "All art is quite useless". He was, of course, referring to the business of aesthetic vision, or more correctly, to the notion of disinterested contemplation, without which art cannot exist. Oscar Wilde was certainly not the first, nor the last, to suggest that art has no real or physical value, other than that which we choose to project onto it.
As artists, we all battle with these questions. In some central way, it can indeed be argued that art is genuinely useless. It has no real purpose in a materially defined society. This sense of the social impotence and political irrelevance of art forms a major theme in contemporary art theory, and keeps reminding us of Oscar Wilde's dictum that says: "All art is quite useless."
But the ideological pendulum swings, and at the opposite extreme, we encounter the statement by Russian-German poet, Ludwig Rubiner: "Painter - you demand. You transform the world. Or else you are a private citizen. To paint for painting's sake is like rowing a boat in one's own room!"
Rubiner, not long after Oscar Wilde, was appealing for an art that would be socially relevant. He was condemning the notion of "art for art's sake". He demanded that art become "useful". Rubiner, along with successive generations of Avant-garde artists, tore down the ivory towers, liberated art from its elitist enclosures, and forced art to become politically relevant. It is no coincidence that the Modernist artists took the term "Avant-garde" from military language, referring to the shock troops that first advance across enemy lines to inflict the maximum damage. The Avant-garde therefore represents the other extreme, where artists have tried to make art useful, and socially, politically and economically effective.
Regrettably, a hundred years later, the Avant-garde has not yet succeeded in liberating art from its middle-class ennui. But did they prove Oscar Wilde wrong? Does this prove that art simply has no cultural relevance or value? Does this mean that Oscar Wilde and Ludwig Rubiner have covered all the bases, and that making art is a profoundly futile exercise?
In his art, Francois manages to achieve the near-impossible: He not only reconciles the contradictory aesthetics of the Oscar Wildes and Ludwig Rubiners, but he also presents South Africa with what I call a mythography that is at once beautifully sophisticated, and also socially relevant, and he does both to an extreme degree.
And for this Francois Smit deserves to be loudly applauded, and I declare this exhibition open.
Comments on 4 works 
Francois' art has always been driven by visual simplicity. His art is simple, but never simplistic. He distills and refines colour to within exceptionally fine degrees, and his work is therefore never achromatic (without colour). Upon closer inspection, a work such as this abounds with extremely muted, yet fine, variations of complimentary colour, the subtlest interactions of warm and cool hues, and subtlest tonal modulations. It is this quality of highly refined naturalism that sets Francois' work well apart from the generic school of "digital" illustration that has become alarmingly common in published media today. And it is this quality, along with the conceptual resonance of his imagery, which allows Francois to elevate the muchmaligned genre of illustration into an artform that is able to function, unapologetically, as visual art of the highest order.
- Vivian van der Merwe
Postmodernist art is well known for employing visual and stylistic references to "other art". This device is often referred to as historicism and appropriation, and should never be mistaken for plagiarism. It is this quality of appropriation that gives Postmodernism its so-called eclectic quality. In a visual culture saturated with media imagery and competition for attention that operates with an increasingly indiscriminate "cut-and-paste" mentality (smelly or otherwise!), this work stands out like a "breath of fresh air"!
One of the most intriguing qualities of Francois' vision is his ability to work with surprising and incongruous subject matter. His juxtapositioning of a universal, and often potent, iconography leaves the viewer intrigued, slightly disturbed, and always smiling. It becomes like Chaucer, or Cervantes, but without the text or words, evoking deep and pre-cognitive responses in the viewer. It is precisely this quality that sets Francois apart from most other visual artists. Whereas most visual artists working illustratively would tend to work from a conceptual premise (the narrative, the meaning, the story, the idea) and then seek "appropriate" imagery that either "reveals" or "conceals" (or sometimes a bit of both), Francois has always understood the primacy and potency of visual intuition. His idiosyncratic imagery always triggers some or other recognition of the human condition, either in its fallibility, its absurdity, its profundity, its beauty, and sometimes even, it's incredible simplicity.
While this image confronts us with a many layered parody, deliberately incongruous stereotypes, and an arresting tableaux of art historical innuendo, it also functions as a visually compelling artwork. Formally and technically, Francois leaves nothing to chance. His use of form and counter-form, ground-figure relationships, compositional devices, and the overall spatial construct, express a mastery of the medium that obliterates any notions about digitally conceived art being inferior to "great paintings".
- Vivian van der Merwe
At first glance, this image confronts us with a seemingly ordinary, somewhat austere still life: a simple rice-bowl with chopsticks on a printed sheet. The Korean text and small white crosses (substituting the rice) provide clues as to the content and scope of the accompanying article. Closer visual interrogation reveals a heightened austerity with ambient colour having been drained from the sheet containing the text. This severe austerity, and icon-like symmetry were redefined and refined repeatedly until Francois had achieved the subtlest balance of formal elements, along with an intense feeling of extreme exposure. By contrast, the background is occupied by a naturalistic rendering of an oppressive and turbulent sky, filled with cumulus storm clouds. It is this intentional juxtapositioning between a harsh yet subtle simplicity, organised with the eye of a Flemish still-life master, and the Wagnerian background with its naturalistic sturm und drang, which gives this work its peculiar intensity.
Much of the power of Francois' art derives from the fact that he conceives his unforgettable mythography, both in spite of, and because of, the given text. This is a complex process that cannot be "explained", and one that too many artists avoid. Herein lies the unceasing paradox of visual metaphor, and a clue to the compelling magic of Francois' work.
- Vivian van der Merwe
With the overwhelming prevalence of so-called Conceptual Art, many new theorists suggest that figurative or representational art is a spent force in the contemporary artworld, implying that the human imagination has to seek new or alternative modes of expression.
And yet, a work such as this, using seemingly conventional pictorial techniques and devices, presents us with a dream-like vision that seems both "real" and unquestionably "original". Francois has always had an uncanny ability to turn the world upside down and inside out, especially when least expected, but he never leaves the viewer doubting the pictorial integrity of his vision. He never uses gratuitous devices or predictable tricks. Between the Rembrandt-like chiaroscuro (the dramatic flashlike contrast between light and dark), the superbly accurate rendering (slightly distorted) of recognisable elements, and the "surreality" of this visually disconcerting "event", he confronts us with a world that us at once strangely unnatural and yet compellingly real.
As with all of Francois best works, one senses his unique visual alchemy, which shifts uneasily, yet intentionally, between intense humour, bizarre theatricality and riveting beauty, which always combine in a profound seriousness and sincerity. If forced to classify or describe Francois' work, one feels that we're looking at a Postmodernist re-invention of the medieval morality tableaux, where Francois is at once the jongleur-joker, the mythographer, and most importantly, the utterly serious master of his visual craft.
Francois' work is a powerful reminder of the fact that the artist's imagination will never rest, regardless of medium and method.
- Vivian van der Merwe
An interview with the curator
Caroline Hooper-Box interviews Vivian van der Merwe
HB: How did you meet?
vdM: He was a student of Fine Art, and I was a lecturer in Fine Art. That was 20 years ago, in Port Elizabeth, and from the very first moment, he made a big impression on me. I those early years Francois spoke in a very distinctive Kakamas Afrikaans that is impossible to translate; even into mainstream Afrikaans! Even as a young art student he brought some really intriguing and idiosyncratic values to visual art and art discourses. I also immediately became aware that Francois had that unique Namaqua-Afrikaner gift for social and cultural narrative.
HB: What sort of work was Francois doing when you met him?
vdM: Typically, as a young art student, he was experimenting with various media, approaches and visual idioms. His work ranged between interdisciplinary multi-media constructions and more conventional figurative painting and drawing. From the beginning, Francois' work demonstrated high levels of technical and perceptual virtuosity, but the thing that intrigued me most of all, was an underlying visual intelligence that you seldom find among young art students, even among the most talented. Francois' work was always charged with a complex uneasiness that is difficult to describe. I saw it as a kind of intense, uncompromising, sometimes dark, and visually compelling iconography that increasingly expressed a highly sophisticated visual sensibility. His obsession with questioning current conventions and trends in visual art often resulted in studio debates that were very lively, often extremely heated, always intelligent, and inevitably affirmed new and constructive insights. I believe that Francois' intense struggles during those years, yielded the first evidence of the mythography and visual eloquence that distinguishes his best work now. Those certainly were very memorable years.
HB: Why do you think you sustained your relationship?
vdM: With students of Francois' calibre you quickly realise that you're dealing with a potential peer or younger equal, something that happens very rarely. You never talk "down" to someone like that, since that would be insulting and condescending. Also, studiowork tuition is based on a one-on-one dialogue, and therefore becomes highly individual, which means that you often get to know your students intimately. Art history contains many stories of life-long artistic friendships that have developed between teachers and their former students. Thankfully, artistic dialogues such as these outgrow their institutional confines, or origins, very quickly. I suspect that we also share something when it comes to some of the deeper or tougher issues relating to South African colonialism and progressive Afrikaner identity. And we both have much in common when it comes to the nature-culture debates.
HB: How do you experience Francois as a person?
vdM: Francois is an intensely creative person, and he is driven by interesting passions and aversions. His origins are in a much misunderstood and maligned Afrikaner sub-culture. There is a distinctive linguistic-social paradigm that's often referred to in the popular media as that of the Namaqualanders. If you don't understand South Africa and Afrikaans really well, you'll never fully appreciate the complex depth, richness, subtlety and contradictions that Francois not only brings to his art, but also to his incredible sense of humour. Along with Francois, there comes a Namaqualand ethos and pathos that is almost impossible to explain or contextualise in English. Beyond the art, there's something quite formidable about Francois' sense of humour and his ability to tell stories.
HB: Do you have anything in common as artists? Are there very clear points at which you diverge? (conceptually)
vdM: I sense that we both believe, as artists, that formal/technical integrity is non-negotiable, or to put it simply: that "how well" an artwork is conceived is of primary importance. Regardless of style, intent, content, medium, or context, an artwork should be well conceived and well executed. This does not mean that one is subscribing to a formalist or academic aesthetic, it simply suggests that the artwork is a visual manifestation of visual intelligence and therefore cannot be conceived around conceptual-semantics alone. When Francois speaks about the "integrity" or "dignity" of an artwork, I am sure that he's referring to this fact. After all, there is no doubt that Francois' best works stand, without needing any annotations or justification, as autonomous and fully independent works of art. Nevertheless, given the media context/environment, the prescriptive subject matter, the content, Francois obviously works with visual narratives. His art has to include this. To what extent these narratives merely become subject matter (like still-life objects become subject matter to some painters) is a very complex question. I don't think one can merely substitute the one with the other. Our art differs in many fundamental respects, formally, technically and conceptually. But we've always had great mutual respect for each other's work.
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