The William Humphreys Art Gallery performance and plans

The Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) reports that the William Humphreys Art Gallery briefed the Portfolio Committee on Arts and Culture on its perforance and plans.

Summary:

The William Humphreys Art Gallery in Kimberley (the Gallery) presented on its performance in 2009/10. This Gallery preserved, documented, researched and exhibited works of art which were broadly representative of the artistic heritage of all South Africans. It aimed to dispel the notion that museums and galleries were for the elite and took active steps to have schools from wealthier areas make donations to subsidise those from poorer areas. The Museum staff also did a great deal to mentor young artists, and offered a number of training programmes (which were described) for its own staff as well as offering outreach programmes for educators, an Early Childhood Development Programme, a skills upliftment programme for women and craft workshops at correctional centres for women.  The Gallery was managing to run quite effectively, and had managed to expand its collection of South African artists in the last year, despite the funding constraints. It would ideally like to have a fuller staff structure, by creating more positions, but could not do so within the present funding constraints. It had established partnerships and networking to try to supplement the lack of internal skills. From the financial side, it had again achieved an unqualified audit, although there were some concerns expressed by internal and external auditors that the small number of staff did not allow for proper delineation of financial functions. Members asked questions mostly about the staffing, and asked if the Gallery could contribute to job creation and youth empowerment. They also asked how the programmes continued to run despite shortage of funds, and suggested that it should apply to the National Lottery for funding.

To read the full minutes of the meeting, listen to an audio recording, or to view the presentation, see the PMG website

Source: Parliamentary Monitoring Group website

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