O n a Sunday in March, Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, ended his day-long blitz of various Cape Town museums by visiting the Denis Goldberg House of Hope in Hout Bay. It was an auspicious moment for this modest community arts centre opened just two years ago, but equally consequential for the wider arts and culture sector of the continent. Hollein is the first director in the Met’s 154-year history to make an official visit to Africa.
Tall and smartly dressed in a business suit, Vienna-born Hollein listened as former judge Albie Sachs recalled the life of the avuncular political activist for whom the arts centre is named. When Hollein was invited to say a few words, he complimented artist Ralph Borland for his presentation exploring the overlaps and affinities between art, design and science. “We live in a world that is a better world because of art and artists,” remarked Hollein, who heads up the fourth-largest museum in the world and the largest in the Americas.
But Hollein wasn’t in Hout Bay to dish out impromptu plaudits to local artists. His visit to Cape Town marked the start of a two-week business trip to museums and cultural sites across southern and East Africa. Accompanied by Alisa LaGamma, the Met’s curator of African art, his itinerary included guided museum visits in Cape Town and Johannesburg, as well as tours of Great Zimbabwe and the ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani, off the coast of southern Tanzania.
The diverse itin.