CHRIS THURMAN: In gloomy times we have art to give us hope
Starlight Classics and an exhibition at the Fire Station in Rosebank offer signs of a more hopeful future
If I had a few billion rand to spare, I’d offer everyone in SA a chance to see RMB Starlight Classics — funding a continually travelling cast, crew and rig who would take joy all around the country. It wouldn’t be the most sensible way of spending the money, of course. Infrastructure, education, health, welfare: these are the priority areas.
I'm a materialist at heart. If I’d lived in 19th century Russia, among grim mustachioed intellectuals debating the eternal topic, “Boots or Shakespeare?”, I would probably have said boots. Living in a context of privation and inequality, of perpetual energy and fiscal crises, has the effect of underscoring this inclination. It’s not that art per se is a luxury; merely that large amounts of money spent on the arts appear to be an indulgence that the public purse (and most well-meaning private purses) can ill afford...
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