Celebrating the art of the struggle years: Ifa Lethu's chairperson, Dr Mamphela Ramphela

RELATED LINKS: New curator to revitalise the Joburg Art Gallery CLIVE Kellner claims to be a "Mr Fixit" and in just two months since his appointment as chief curator of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the place has recorded its highest attendance in 10 years. Read more Priceless painting stolen from Joburg Art Gallery A FAMOUS 17th Century artwork worth millions of rands has been stolen from the Johannesburg Art Gallery. The Apostle Thomas, an oil on canvas from the studio of El Greco, was yanked out of its frame sometime shortly before July 3 when it was discovered missing. Read more Downtown Joburg in pictures FOR five months Guy Tillim roamed the streets of Joburg's inner city, taking pictures. His award-winning series, Johannesburg Downtown 2004, is on at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Read more Art galleries JOHANNESBURG has a number of well-established, world-class art galleries. The city boasts several corporate collections too: one of these, held by Absa bank, is said to be the largest such exhibition in the world. Here is a comprehensive list of what's on offer. Read more

An artist's impression: a recreation of Sam Nzima's photograph of Hector Pieterson, shot by the police on 16 June 1976

Struggle art takes to the open road A collection of more than 60 works of repatriated struggle art from the 1960s to the 1980s has been rounded up by the Ifa Lethu Foundation to form the Goodyear Mobile Gallery. October 3, 2006 By Lucky Sindane THE Ifa Lethu Foundation has teamed up with Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Holdings to give struggle art wheels. The partners have put together a mobile art gallery filled with South African art from the 1960s to the 1980s. Most of these works were lost to the country after they were bought by foreigners based in or visiting South Africa at the time, and taken overseas. The official launch of the Goodyear Mobile Gallery took place on Friday, 29 September at the Ubuntu Kraal in Soweto. Ifa Lethu means Our Heritage and the foundation's chief executive officer, Narissa Ramdhani, believes that the mobile gallery is an important way of taking heritage to the people "in the form of an outreach programme in order to reach communities that are disadvantaged, especially schoolchildren". Art from the country's time of struggle "Hundreds of works, from the visual to the written, were bought by diplomats and other people based in South Africa between the early 1960s and the late 1980s, at a time when few South Africans were buying anything with intrinsic value," she explained. Founded in 2005, the Ifa Lethu Foundation fosters a culture of understanding and healing through South Africa's heritage and through artistic work produced by its "struggle era" artists. So far it has organised the repatriation of more than 60 artworks, including paintings, drawings, carvings and sculptures, and is continuing to bring more heritage works back home. The collection will begin touring the country in 2007 so that people, especially youngsters, can learn about South Africa's proud artistic heritage. "By touring the country, we hope to identify potential and young artists and remove the notion that art is only for the wealthy," Ramdhani said. "We are celebrating our art. Most of the artists were not educated and [came from] poor backgrounds, yet they managed to produce creative artworks," said Dr Mamphela Ramphela, the foundation's chairperson. "The mobile gallery gives us a platform to celebrate our heritage. We'll be telling our stories from pain and grief, but we can still move on." Ramphela concluded by saying that Ifa Lethu undoubtedly contributed to the nation-building agenda. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 Print this Page E-mail this article to a friend Help using Joburg.org.za