But where corporate sponsorship of the arts in some countries tends to make up for the short-fall, in South Africa support for the arts is often low on corporate marketing and social investment agendas. According to Enwezor, South African media is to an extent complicit in the stifling of new arts projects, tending as it does to focus on the failures of contemporary artistic and cultural engagement. The fate of this year's Johannesburg Biennale is no exception. With just over six weeks to go before launch-time, it has, according to the Biennale offices, received negligible coverage that has been more concerned with the political fallout of its predecessor than with any fresh insights the new exhibition might offer. Culture in South Africa is a necessary ingredient of democratic transformation - it must have full participation as a site of exchange of ideas between people.
Debate is a sign of life.
We must see art not as a pure phenomenon, but as a language that challenges and complicates our relationship to the world. Confirmed local artists include Santu Mofokeng, Jeremy Wafer, Moshekwa Langa, Marlaine Tosoni, Willem Boshoff and Jo Ractliffe, among others, and the international contingent includes such luminaries as America's Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Nigeria's Oladele Bamgboye and Mexico's Gabriel Orozco. Despite financial struggles, and even rumours that the show might not go on due to lack of sufficient funding, it seems that Enwezor will have the capacity to deliver a tightly conceived and impressive show. Although the Department of Arts and Culture is contributing financially, Enwezor sees the real task for himself, his successors and the South African arts community, as bringing in partners from the private sector.