Art attack!

The winelands increasingly provide a fertile environment for the development of local art. Melvyn Minnaar investigates.The art/wine relationship is so conspicuous that it borders on cliché: the parallel between inventing a painting, say, and producing a fine bottle of wine. Both comprise acts of creativity, talent, faith, expertise and the use of resources that easily take to mystification.

 

But the matrix is more complex and wide ranging - and in recent years, South African wine producers have substantially expanded and tightened the connection. The range of art galleries housed next to or in smart cellars is but one example, not to mention the elegant and inventive architecture of some new (and old) cellars. Meanwhile, not a few wine personalities flaunt impressive art collections, and the quality of local label design has put a few Cape wine bottles among the most attractive in the world.

The blueprint for much of the latter is, of course, Château Mouton-Rothschild’s famous art collection and once-off vintage labels. But ever since the baron commissioned an artist to make a special picture for the 1945 vintage, many great wine names all over the world have bonded with the visual (and other) arts.

Needless to say, there is cachet in being punted as a patron of the arts. Indeterminable as it is, status and stature are achieved by association and come in very handy when marketing is at the upper end. Yet snob value may not necessarily be the only motivation.

Graham Beck’s admiration for the great South African modernist sculptor Eduardo Villa has led to a dramatic intervention in the landscapes of the vineyards of the various farms where wines are made in his name. For longer than a decade and a half, an enigmatic sculpture by Villa has guarded the drive up to the beautiful “contemporary African” cellar that architect Johan Wessels designed for Beck’s Robertson outfit. More recently, after acquiring the property, a host of Villa works were installed in and around the vineyards of Steenberg. This, possibly the largest publicly viewable collection of bright, highly coloured pieces by the acclaimed 90-plusyear- old sculptor, makes for a remarkable statement in the Constantia vineyards. Sensitively if sometimes surprisingly placed, it is a fine example of how high sculpture can engage with its surroundings and the public.

Mark Solms, a fairly recent arrivée but a mover and shaker in the lesser-acclaimed wine area of Simondium/ Franschhoek, turned up the art ante by commissioning a mural for his cellar by Johannesburg artist Joachim Schönfeldt.
In keeping with Solms’ philosophy of uncovering local links and involving those who live there, the wall is an unusual art statement about the place, the people and the history of the land. The vast 33m x 9m cellar-wall “canvas” is also a beautiful encounter for any visitor. (Only at the historic Groot Constantia is another such riveting façade to be found: sculptor Anton Anreith’s mildly bacchanalian pediment, dating back to 1791, described by tourists of the time as “prurient”.)

Schönfeldt, an old varsity friend of Solms, took as his point of departure the map of 17th century wine renegade Adam Tas, and embroidered it with lyrical lines, the grouting executed mostly in natural pigments. The guarding “gargoyles” are cheerful cows, while the gold markings reflect the sun.

Neither Villa’s nor Schönfeldt’s work is particularly “easy” – and it certainly doesn’t pander to common, popular taste. Which means that Villa’s art in the vineyard and Schönfeldt’s on the wall are more an act of patronage and faith than playing for an audience (which may or may not buy the wine).

Zelma Long, the American wine fundi and part-owner of Stellenbosch “winemaking studio” Vilafonté, has been involved in an even more adventurous and cutting-edge art project. She has made wine as part of a project by the internationally well-known British artist Anya Gallaccio. Titled Motherlode, this is a site-specific work in Sonoma, California, for Terrain Terroir, a series of international artists’ projects for San Francisco’s New Langton Arts. The project, the organisation says, is a unique attempt to “produce a portrait of the county, using the essence of the land: its soil and the fruit it bears, to create six distinct Zinfandel wines made in collaboration with Long”.

In contemporary jargon, this will be categorised as “conceptual art” – a far cry from the stately oil-on-canvas paintings normally considered for inclusion in a grand art patron’s collection. But one only needs to consider the artist’s motivation to be reminded of that amazing parallel between the wine business and the art industry. Gallaccio says she is struck by the similarities and how wine and art markets revolve around the idea of connoisseurship and excellence. This, she says, is reinforced and maintained by a small select pool of collectors and producers – galleries and vineyards.

“We are often drawn to brand names and labels that we assume represent quality. Buying wine seriously is an act of faith that I believe replicates the act of buying the work of a living, evolving artist. Wine is alive in the bottle and continues to develop and change. Once the bottle is opened, it has to be consumed. Even though you can only speculate whether it is at its prime, this can be a very expensive gamble. I have always felt that there are similar conditions at play with collecting contemporary art. Wine being a living thing, a material in flux, representing a process with an anticipated conclusion but not one guaranteed, of course struck a chord with me.”
Both Gallaccio and Long seem to take pleasure in the contradiction – the pleasure paradox at work – that at some stage the beautifully labelled six-bottle pack of individual wines should be opened and drunk. At this stage, when only an empty bottle remains, the art concept is fulfilled, of course.

The same conundrum faces collectors who bought any or all of the special, limited-edition bottles of wine from Boekenhoutskloof, Hamilton Russell, Meerlust, Quoin Rock, Rustenberg and Tokara, labelled with top South African artist William Kentridge’s drawings for his Mozart Die Zauberflöte last year. Do you keep them forever – like an artistic print in a frame – or drink up and keep the empty, or just throw away the bottle and try to register the memory, like you do when you visit a famous painting in a foreign art museum? (Of course, some wine bottles are destined never to be drunk. Will you ever open your Château Cheval Blanc 1947?)

The migration of an existing artwork to the label of a wine bottle, as per the Kentridge (charity) deal, doesn’t always work. Take Distell’s Zonnebloem brand. A couple of years ago, and for some time, it had an annual “art label” – copying the famous Mouton-Rothschild concept – for which it either solicited design entries or commissioned established artists. Although the latter produced some fine paintings, it never quite worked on the label.

The graphics and aesthetics of wine-label design make it a tricky, specialised field. South Africa has only a few very smart such packaging examples. But if art endeavours are not always tuned to highest creative excellence in the South African wine industry and culture, there certainly is some swell art to be found. A number of cellars have excellent exhibition spaces if not full-on art galleries.

Tokara Winery on Helshoogte is one of the winelands’ architectural gems, designed by architects Van Biljon & Visser, with an art gallery at the centre of the building: a space that physically links wine, food (the restaurant) and art. Curated exhibitions here are often finely tuned, top-notch affairs for connoisseurs of wine and art.

On the Paarl side of Simondium, Glen Carlou Winery has a full-on, professional exhibition space that is used for an annual rotating exhibition of works from Swiss owner Donald Hess’s substantial if eccentric art collection. This year, as a treat for South African art lovers, it hosts a few works by one of the world’s great “land artists”, Andy Goldsworthy.
In Franschhoek, the Gallery at Grande Provence is a fine space for showing thematic if sometimes commercially focused exhibitions. Stylish it nevertheless is, and tourists enjoy it, sometimes ringing up good sales.

Saronsberg near Tulbagh is a young, modern, awardwinning winery with well-managed public appeal of which art is a natural extension. It has a good exhibition area, but if the artworks – judging by the first themed exhibition this year – are more of the kind that accompany smart decor than the type challenging the mind (an artist of the latter ilk is featured on their top red wine), they do evoke a “cultured” air.

In the Darling region, meanwhile, the local tourism organisation has laid claim to what it calls the “Wine and Art Experience”, bonding local wine and extensive art production.

It’s this kind of social interaction between art and wine that propelled strategies in earlier times when big wine and drinks companies like the KWV and the predecessors of Distell supported the visual arts – something Spier Wines took up this year, sponsoring the first and quite successful Spier Contemporary, a big-deal show encouraging contemporary South African art. It is to be repeated bi-annually and represents a rare and noteworthy support for local art.

It seems the Spier owners recognised, like Anton Rupert way back (with fine art in collections from his era housed at the Rembrandt van Rijn and Rupert museums in Stellenbosch), that by associating a brand with other creative endeavours, the makers generate a lot of goodwill – and possibly a lot of cheerful consumers. At this level, the association of wine and art needs little analysis. The parallels in invention, craft, knowledge and being tuned in to what nature and talent offer – or not – blend seamlessly into the thrill of pleasure, whether purely sensual or challengingly cerebral.

Melvyn Minnaar is a freelance journalist who writes wine and lifestyle articles for a variety of publications. He is also an art critic, curator and judge.