Gamaker, Elan (2008) [Contribution to] I'll stop believing in you if you stop believing in me. (Book form).

Abstract

I'll stop believing in you if you stop believing in me is a catalogue of a non-existent exhibition. In South Africa it is a difficult for young artists to get on exhibitions regularly, owing to challenges of infrastructure and funding. Even more established artists must often grapple with similar concerns. The role of printed matter holds great significance in this context. Making and studying artwork in South Africa (and many other less central parts of the world) largely entails experiencing contemporary works through their documentation. That is, websites, books and magazines that were created to represent art events long after the fact. One of the most impressive things about the South African art world is the number of publications through which it is presented, as compared with the rest of Africa. Nevertheless, there is no comparison to the amount of printed matter generated in first world art centres in Europe and America. It is this that we address in I'll stop believing in you if you stop believing in me. We decided to cut corners and remove the exhibition altogether. Artists were invited to specially make works, following their own styles and concerns, but with this concept as a starting point. While the exhibitors had some control over how their work was displayed within this forum, the overall decisions lay in the hands of the curators. In this particular case, the participating artists are all known to have dealt with themes of authenticity and fictionality and were each allotted four A5 pages to explore projects that might not be possible in real time or space. The end result reveals a number of issues which highlight the context of working within the contemporary South African art world.

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