The way in which art fairs are perceived in conversations that centralise the argument that the visual arts is not as important as other art forms is wide open for all sorts of arguments. One could argue that the views shared can be distorted for someone who has not been to any art fairs in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Miami. Luckily for many, who attend, the art fair in Cape Town are privileged to see the tone being set for what is to be expected from galleries, artists and curators, alike, in 2022. At the same time, we can also understand that as an artist creates in the midst of such an enormous puncture in our reality, the reigns of power, drastically change, bringing a new dawn of works. 

Cinthia Sifa Mulenga

No one could have prepared us for the rise of Cinthia Sifa Mulenga. She has continued from strength to strength. Her mixed media works of sensual images of black women, moving forward through their lives, navigating ‘beauty’ and its contradictions has catapulted Mulenga as a maverick in her own right. Unlike most creatives, her social presence is consistently showcasing her ability to engage multiple audiences and remain relevant to communities of a broad spectrum.

Black women remain active in her art – making, bestowing dignity, respect and substance for many to witness at this year’s fair. A debut showing at this year’s fair, Mulenga presents 3 works, in collaboration with Botho Project Space as well as Latitudes Online. Botho Project Space was created by Nelson Makamo in 2019, to provide a natural transition for artists such as Mulenga, who choose to create on their own terms. Mulenga, a young force has been absolutely certain of her trajectory and talent through their mentoring.

The investment value of Mulenga’s work is increasing with each exhibition, project and her participation in international shows, which Latitudes Online has enabled for close to 2 years. Mulenga’s works encourage the viewer to see the parallels in which she draws from, pursuing a narrative,unique to her own heritage, background and experiences.

Mavis Tauzeni

A masterful, magical combination of figurative and abstract painting imparted by Tauzeni cannot be missed in 2022. One is immediately captured by her use of colour surrounded by patterns of grand size. Not a single of Tauzeni’s pieces leaves you not desiring to surrender to a tone of a world with harmonious rapture.

The point of Tauzeni’s work is to denote much more than the technique, which may very well be an outstanding feature to also be one of the Cape Town Art Fair’s Tomorrow /Today Art Prize recipients, however it is also to marry enormous ideas of pleasure and freedom and also mourn many other parts of Zimbabwe’s unpredictable circumstances. A word that comes to mind while witnessing Tauzeni’s works is omniscient. Mavis Tauzeni is part of the artist roster for the Harare – based, First Floor Gallery.

Luyanda Zindela

It’s no surprise to see Zindela honouring narratives of safe spaces, friendships, kindred spirits and times that represent kin when moments require such bonds. Much of Lindela’s body of work is steeped in memory and archiving the messages from encounters he has had with his peers. A Sepedi reference to this kind of creation would be the word, “Thake”, denoting someone who can be or is your peer. Life takes shape and is real within the margins of conversations with those we choose to be family and that is something Zindela does so well in his work. The artist is at ease with the people he profiles, capturing each and every comment, without fail..

As a curator and an artist, Zindela references his friends to enter a space of unadulterated territory, taunting the viewer to interrogate the ways in which they measure the depth of each conversation they are able to have with their own “people’. How real are these conversations? What is the main purpose of the conversations? Do they ever become more than just conversations? And when can it be that these conversions become reality? In 2021, Zindela had his solo show at SMAC Gallery and continues to be part of the artist roster. 

Investec Cape Town Art Fair

18 < 20 February 2022

CTICC, Cape Town (South Africa)

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Contemporary art currently accounts for 15% of the global secondary art market and is now the third largest collecting segment by auction turnover ($1.89 billion). Dynamic in nature, the contemporary art market represents an arena of unbounded discoveries, constantly fueled by new works and artists entering the scene. Aspire Art Auctions continues to prevail in this sector, currently holding the world auction records for works by: Moshekwa Langa, Sam Nhlengethwa, Mohau Modisakeng, Zander Blom, Georgina Gratrix and Simphiwe Ndzube amongst others. In South Africa, the auction house hold the records for works by William Kentridge, Pieter Hugo and Mikhael Subotzky.

An outstanding auction

Introducing the contemporary collection is an impressive range of drawings and sculpture by William Kentridge. Topped in value at R3–5million, Kentridge’s large scale mixed media work Whilst Reaching Down (Slowly), 2013, is a series of drawings on dictionary paper. 

Filmed in sequence, they become an animation, forming a progression of images in which Kentridge explores his inter-related interests in drawing, text and film.  Another drawing from this series as well as an animation with music and singing by Neo Muyanga, is currently on view in the exhibition, William Kentridge: Why Should I Hesitate? Putting Drawings to Work at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.

Works by Kudzanai Chiurai (Zimbabwe), Zemba Luzamba (Congo) and Kay Hassan, as well as Wim Botha and Zander Blom alongside Mustafa Maluka’s large painting We forgot how life’s supposed to be, and Moshekwa Langa’s Untitled abstract in blue ink add to the strength of the overall contemporary offering.

Other highlights include a striking city-scape Full Moon, 2017 by the late, much celebrated David Koloane as well as delicate works on paper by Pascale Marthine Tayo (Cameroon) and Kemang Wa Lehulere.

Spotlight on a new generation

The collection also introduces a new generation of bright young stars with works by Simphiwe Ndzube, Ruby Swinney, Pierre Vermeulen and Jody Paulsen.

Photography Auction

Aspire has made meaningful advances in developing the market for photography at auction, and the carefully curated selection of photographic works will excite discerning collectors. Included are works by some of the best-known, established and emerging, names in film and photography from Africa, some of whom are making their South African auction debut.

Rarely exhibited in South Africa is an early 1980s photograph Every Mother’s Son / Children of Suffering by the late Nigerian/British photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode. His work investigates the body politic and queer identity – one of the first photographers to do so. Fani-Kayode’s archive is enjoying a renaissance of international critical engagement and re-assessment following his inclusion in recent survey exhibitions and publications in the UK.

Three examples from influential Benin photographer Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou draw upon his hallmark portrait vernacular. In 2013, Agbodjélou won the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize from London’s National Portrait Gallery.

Kenyan artist Cyrus Kabiru was listed among the top artists represented at Paris Photo in 2019. Macho Nne 09 (Caribbean Peacock), 2014 is a striking image, typical of his meticulously crafted self-portraits from his C-STUNNER series.

Guy Tillim’s 2008 photograph Apartment building, Avenue Bagamoyo, Beira, Mozambique holds pride of place as the cover of his lauded book Avenue Patrice Lumumba. This image has, for over a decade, served as a catalyst for institutional discussion around the relationship between photography, architecture and society in Africa, whilst enjoying a lengthy roster of international exhibitions.

Legendary photographer David Goldblatt is represented with seminal images from his famous photo books Some Afrikaners Photographed and TJ/Johannesburg Photographs including the highly sought-after work – A railway shunter who dreamed of a garden without concrete or bricks, watered by this dam, Koksoord, Randfontein. 1962. Aspire currently holds the world auction record for Goldblatt’s work and continues to dominate this market globally.

Other highlights include photographic works by Athi-Patra Ruga, Mary Sibande, the brothers Hasan & Husain Essop, Nyaba Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Mario Macilau (Mozambique) and Mohau Modisakeng.

All works on auction will be exhibited from 12 – 14 February at OroAfrica House, 170 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town.

Download the e-Catalogue here.

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Investec Cape Town Art Fair is the largest contemporary art fair in Africa. With almost 100 galleries, over 15,000 visitors and 2,815 invited guests, it offers a platform for collectors, galleries, curators, artists, and art journalists from around the globe to create connections at the forefront of contemporary art. With an intimate experience of one of the world’s most unique art capitals, Investec Cape Town Art Fair has proven to be the place where the fast-growing African art market and the international art world meet. Art professionals and enthusiasts will gather for stimulating discussions at the upcoming Investec Cape Town Art Fair, from 14 to 16 February 2020.

An increasingly large contingent within the fair is made up of prominent galleries from around the globe. These galleries represent exciting, established and emerging artists with a presence in museums, bienniales, and important private collections around the world. For the first time, we welcome North African Yosr Ben Ammar Gallery and AGORGI both from Tunisia, Jahmek Contemporary Art from Angola and Galerie Veronique Rieffel from Ivory Coast. Their participation strengthens one of the fair’s goals to provide a platform for more voices from the African continent. Among participating for the first time, there is Belgium gallery Tatjana Pieters (Gent) and a collective comprising of 3 galleries including; PLUS-ONE Gallery (Antwerpen) Gallery Sofie Van de Velde (Antwerpen) and GEUKENS&DEVIL (Knokke). 

As a result of successful past editions the fair welcome the following new international galleries; 31 Projects (France), Afikaris (France), C+N Canepaneri (Italy), Galerie ElGEN+ART (Germany), Galleria Patricia Armocida (Italy), GIORGIO PERSANO (Italy), Hannah Hoffmann(United States), Lawrie Shabibi (UAE), Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea (Italy), Osart Gallery (Italy), Perve Gallery (Portugal), Prometeogallery (Italy), Galerie Raum Mit Licht (Austria), Sakhile&Me (Germany) Septieme Gallery (France) and Suburbia Contemporary (Spain).

Investec Cape Town Art Fair

14th – 16th of February 2020

Friday, 14 February 2020: 11am – 7pm

Saturday, 15 February 2020: 11am – 7pm

Sunday, 16 February 2020: 11am – 7pm

Convention Square, 1 Lower Long Street, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

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Investec Cape Town Art Fair is the largest contemporary art fair in Africa. With almost 100 galleries, over 15,000 visitors and 2,815 invited guests, it offers a platform for collectors, galleries, curators, artists, and art journalists from around the globe to create connections at the forefront of contemporary art. With an intimate experience of one of the world’s most unique art capitals, Investec Cape Town Art Fair has proven to be the place where the fast-growing African art market and the international art world meet.

Art professionals and enthusiasts will gather for stimulating discussions at the upcoming Investec Cape Town Art Fair, from 14 to 16 February 2020. The Investec Cape Town Art Fair Talks Programme brings leading art advisors, curators, collectors, critics and artists into dialogue, giving all Fair ticket-holders access to their expertise. For this edition of the Fair, the programme will cover a number of topics which are of great relevance in understanding the current state of the global and regional contemporary art world.

The Talks Programme will take place in the De Gama Room at the Westin Hotel, directly adjacent to the Investec Cape Town Art Fair venue at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

According to Talks Programme Curator, Tumelo Mosaka, discussions between featured artists and galleries will introduce ideas related to building value through art, as well as understanding the curatorial role within the cultural field. The mix will balance artistic and academic perspectives, along with those from private and publically-run institutions supportive of emerging artists.

Panels will feature esteemed academics and curators from diverse localities to unpack various topics including:

Art and Philanthropy in Africa

Friday 14 February: 12h00-13h00

Funding for the creative cultural sector across Africa has suffered setbacks from poor management, political interference, and corruption among the many issues. Over the past decade, Africa has witnessed an emerging creative economy that is providing employment and sustaining artistic production through commissions and acquisitions of art. Africa today hosts several world-class museums, art fairs, auction houses and artists residencies all invested in growing the arts landscape. This panel will examine the role of philanthropy in the arts, and expose the gaps and opportunities to advance the creative industries as a viable and important aspect of our daily life.

Moderator: Damian Nixon (Art Business Consultant, London)
Panellists: Matthias Leridon (Co-founder and Director of African Artists for Development, Cape Town); Marcus Desando (CEO of Arts and Culture Trust, Johannesburg); Danda Jarolimek (The African Arts Trust, Nairobi); Banele Khoza (Founder of BKhz Projects, Johannesburg)

A passion for collecting art

Friday 14 February: 14h00-15h00

Collecting art should always begin with a passion and only later be informed by self-education, specialist knowledge and commitment. While in the beginning it may be a daunting task; key to this experience is asking why you want to own this work. For many, collecting art can seem out of reach and only preserved for older and wealthy clients. This panel will address misconceptions and constraints associated with collecting art, while also exploring how passion manifests in collecting art.

Moderator: João Ferreira (Art Dealer and Advisor, Cape Town)
Panellists: Guido Giachetti (Private Collector, Cape Town)
Tristanne Farrell (Investec Wealth & Investment, Cape Town)
Kholisa Thomas (Private Collector, Johannesburg)
Martin Epstein (Private Collector, Cape Town)

Constructing Landscapes of probabilities

Friday 14 February: 16h00-17h00

In a country where it is impossible to not talk about the politics of identity and where to talk about it is a millstone that is hung around black artists necks, how does one navigate the terrain that is ‘black female subjectivity’ in South Africa creatively? This panel aims to explore the way in which these young women artists harness imagination in redefining black women’s subjectivities historically and in the contemporary moment, but also in imagined futures. The discussion will look at the artists shared common interests of painting and digital technologies, and will also tease out the ways in which both artists use imagination in their creative practices as a radical redefining methodology to present alternative narratives, which include renewed understandings of who and what (s)heros are; the possibility of alternate pasts; and the construction of landscapes of probabilities.

Moderator: Sharlene Khan (Artist and Scholar, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg)
Panellists: Malebona Maphutse (Artist, Johannesburg); Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi (Artist, Johannesburg) 

Museums in the 21st century

Saturday 15 February: 12h00-13h00

Traditionally art museums have functioned as a sanctuary, a place for meditation whilst also offering education. They have also been a cultural resource contributing to the economic engine that has strengthened local businesses through cultural tourism. In recent years, this model of museums as a shrine to history has been rethought particularly with an interest to dramatically increase audiences of every kind, whilst also recognising the role technology plays in everyday lives. It is said that museums have gone from, “being about something, to being for somebody”. Such a shift in perspective has raised many questions about what was and could be a museum in the 21s​t ​century. This panel will explore the various ways museums respond to pressures and challenges of the coming decade.

Moderator: Tumelo Mosaka (Curator, Cape Town, cultural & talks programme Investec Cape Town Art Fair)
Panellists: Adriana Rispoli (Independent Curator, Italy); Koyo Kouoh (Dir. Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town); Sonia Lawson (Dir. Palais de Lomé, Lomé)
Nana Oforiatta-Ayim (Founder and director of ANO Institute of Contemporary Arts, Accra)

The quest for sustainable art platforms

Saturday 15 February: 14h00-15h00

The panel examines the current and possible future model of art platforms and institutional spaces as self-sustainable entities. Challenges around sustainability for art platforms are well theorized and yet remains a question that most non-commercial entities grapple with. Competing for the same shrinking pot of funds and maintaining the intellectual autonomy of the projects while juggling the needs of the funder is a real challenge. How do we keep our doors open while occupying the space and practitioners that the museums and commercial entities do not reach?

Moderator: Nkule Mabaso (Curator, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town)
Panellists: Premesh Lalu (Factory of the Arts, UWC); Georgina Maxim (Village Unhu Collective, Harare); Angela Shaw (Director of KZNSA, Kwa-Zulu Natal); Kabelo Malatsi (Independent Curator, Johannesburg)

Artist in dialogue

Saturday 15 February: 16h00-17h00

The discussion will explore how these artists conceive of their practice and engage the public.
Moderator: Lorenzo Fusi (Director/Curator Yerevan Biennial 2020, London)
Panellists: Kemang wa Lehulere (Artist, Cape Town); François-Xavier Gbré (Artist, Abidjan)

Building Legacies: Investing in culture

Sunday 16 February: 14h00-15h00

There is a rise of private institutions in the form of museums, artist-led foundations and other types of non-profit organisations. While their functionalities may differ due to their business goals and how they position themselves, an underlying factor among them is their investment in culture based on place-making and legacy-building. This panel will unpack these processes by exploring questions and ideas about what role these institutions play in our culture today and how private objectives too can contribute towards national culture.

Moderator: Boitumelo Tlhoaele (Co-curator of the Talks Programme, Cape Town)
Panellists: Bongiwe Dhlomo-Mautloa (Artist and Curator, Johannesburg)
Craig Cameron-Mackintosh (Billy Monk Collection, Cape Town); Sipho Mdanda (Curator, Freedom Park, Johannesburg); Lindsay Hendricks (Education Coordinator at the Norval Foundation, Cape Town)

Investec Cape Town Art Fair

14th – 16th of February 2020

Friday, 14 February 2020: 11am – 7pm

Saturday, 15 February 2020: 11am – 7pm

Sunday, 16 February 2020: 11am – 7pm

Convention Square, 1 Lower Long Street, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

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“History and the past are not one and the same.” it is this very simple yet resonant line that makes me pay attention to Sepideh Mehraban’s latest show; Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians, The History Of The Hunt Will Always Glorify The Hunter. The setting off point for this exhibition (which includes eight works of mixed media on found carpets) is, of course, a quote from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
The exhibition proposes to us that history, as a study or retelling of past events, is in fact not neutral—it is shaped, crafted and moulded by those with power, where forces of censorship and propaganda are constantly in operation to undermine and silence.

Mehraban investigates, examines and cross-examines recent Iranian histories using “formal” and “informal” accounts and records (memories, stories, oral history, newspapers, archives, carpets, family photographs); both public and private, real and metaphorical records function as repositories that can be (re)negotiated and (re)interpreted. This amalgamation of personal and public accounts deviates from unchallenged methods that present history as final. Furthermore, the use of abstraction as a mode of creation (with the grid format of the newspaper as a source of inspiration) recontextualises how we think through history, lending the works as prompts into further inquiries as opposed to retellings of ‘facts’.

I interviewed Mehraban to find out more about the exhibition, her research and her practice.

NM: I was intrigued by the notion (in the exhibition text) that history and the past are not the same. Can you speak more about this?

SM: History is only one angle of the past, history is a story we are told, usually by those who manage to speak the loudest. The title of this body of work draws from a famous line in Chinua Achebe’s seminal work Things Fall Apart; Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians, The History Of The Hunt Will Always Glorify The Hunter.
My goal is to challenge the idea that someone or some entity can tell you what happened to you. It’s really critical to have these conversations, especially in places where the conversation is so highly politicised.

NM: Can you speak to us about the format of the newspaper as a source of inspiration? What do you feel this format allows you to do (or not do)?

SM: Newspapers are physical artefacts of the past. They belong to the time when cellphones, the internet and twitter didn’t exist. Their materiality, like books, is nostalgic and also in a way traumatic. They are traumatic because the news is tampered with over the course of history. In the case of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the news do not follow the narrations and stories that many Iranian families have experienced. The grid of the newspaper is a signifier of the structure of spreading information and at the same time control of information where we see the elements of propaganda and censorship play out. Censorship and propaganda are just as traumatic as the actual violence of revolution.

NM: I’m thinking of the newspaper from the lens of censorship and propaganda (as you’ve mentioned above). Through your explorations of history, what can you tell us about the relationship between these different parts of how history is told and experienced?

SM: My childhood experiences and family’s stories were at odds with the official state history, the controlled and censored domestic news channels, and also with the increasingly reductive international media and its lifeless headlines and statistics.
It is this discord between the grand narrative and the chronicles of everyday people that I explore in my work, the multitude of personal histories behind (and absent from) the headlines and politics. Stories of individual lives, of hopes for change, of disappointment and ultimately of the humanity behind the abstracted media coverage. It’s a subject with universal relevance, as I discovered on relocating to South Africa in 2012. I found parallels between the two countries: the complex histories marked by trauma and political turmoil, empty promises and disillusionment, and the abundant memories and lived histories of ordinary people.

NM: When I think about the carpet and paint over the carpet I have an image of covering and uncovering and I think we can say this with history as well, where we have an understanding of the accounts that make up history until we uncover more and more. With your research into the 1979 revolution, can you speak to us about things that you are uncovering?

SM: The 1979 revolution was a populist and nationalist movement consisting of Marxists, Islamic socialists, secularists and Shi’a Islamists. These diverse groups united to overthrow the monarchy but instead of a democracy, they ushered in an Islamic fundamentalist-led theocracy under Ruhollah Khomeini. There is propaganda by the current government to frame the movement as a religious uprising, which is not the case. The 1979 revolution was an uprising against a dictatorship with a hope for a better future.

NM: Can you talk to us about how you are thinking through post-apartheid South Africa and post-revolutionary Iran, together, if at all?

SM: Both of these countries have complex histories marked by trauma. The recent student movements such as Rhodes Must Fall, Fees Must Fall and Open Stellenbosch of 2015 are indicators of social and political changes. These protests influenced governmental action (e.g. university fees were frozen after the Fees Must Fall campaign in 2015). There were also student uprisings on the other side of the hemisphere in Iran; after the 2009 controlled presidential election, which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad come into power. At the present moment, there are still protests occurring in Iran after the increased price of petroleum where people are demanding a long-term resolution from the government. Over the course of a week, the government shut down the internet and at least 106 people were killed during demonstrations. There is no international coverage of this in western media nor in the Iranian national media. People are cut off from the world which is nerve-racking to witness in 2019.
In Iran and South Africa, the student uprisings and protests are characterised by the traumatisation and upheaval of ordinary lives. In both countries, protests are indicative of a need for political change and transformation.

NM: I’m interested in this idea of intergenerational trauma; how do you see this manifesting today and how do we begin to think of ways of fracturing that trauma and moving towards healing?

SM: We need more empathy toward each other and our world. We need more care. We need leaders who promote humanity and equality for everyone. We could make small changes by starting with our families and our communities. We need to listen. There are many voices that need to be heard and it takes years to heal completely but it’s not impossible. The future is bright with our younger generation—with their awareness and knowledge of their world and themselves.

Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians, The History Of The Hunt Will Always Glorify The Hunter is on view at SMITH in Cape Town until 30th November. For more information about the exhibition or the artist, you can contact Jana Terblanche at jana@smithstudio.co.za.

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Katharien de Villiers’ Bananas and Saints Alike is a seedbed for humour, exploration, fantasy and joyful emergence. In this exhibition, showing at SMITH in Cape Town (till 30th Nov), de Villiers presents a collection of paintings in mixed media—fabric, wood, oil pastels, acrylic, car paint and found objects—these components that do not always exist together in a gallery setting create a complicated and irregular network of paths, inviting the viewer to join in on the journey of meaning-making through spontaneous and undirected playfulness. The starting point is a question (or perhaps questions), followed by states of confusion. However, de Villiers doesn’t run away from this confusion, she welcomes these tattered shards of incertitude and embraces them as potentially generative.

From the title, all the way to the imagery, Bananas and Saints Alike accepts the fundamental notion that life is often incongruous, illogical, perplexing and un-encompassable. There is no illusion of order, no imposition of narrative, no metaphors, no ideology, no historical analysis or even politics. Meaning is created through engagement, but it also reconstructs and mutates through multiple re-engagements.

Below is a short but very insightful conversation I had with the artist about the exhibition.

NM: For this exhibition, the question of “what is the show about?” remains unresolved. Given this state, what would you say the exhibition is pointing us to or asking us?

KdV: The question “what is the show about” remains unresolved simply because the show is many things. The show is one founded on questions and potential relations instead of answers and clear understanding. In its confoundedly unresolved nature, Bananas and Saints Alike is waiting in anticipation for the viewer to respond.
I am drawn to scenarios that don’t feign truth, but rather acknowledge the prevalent confusion of real life. This confusion is fueled by multitudes of meta-narratives driven by vastly different bodies and minds. Bananas and Saints Alike is a world open to the grey of the daily, the hybridity of understanding and the overwhelming nature of even the simplest moments when one wishes to understand.

NM: If a show defies political commentary, historical analysis, or self-examination then it seems the idea of storytelling becomes one of the ways in which the work can be interacted with. What stories are you personally interested in right now?

KdV: A year ago I read a book by Nigerian author, Teju Cole, called Known and Strange Things. It is a collection of essays which takes the reader into the non-linear, relational mind of this incredible author. Similar to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Cole peels back the readers’ eyelids, forcing one to acknowledge and experience the complexities of contemporary “truths”/ moments. These stories have had a massive impact on my work— not because of the subject matter, but rather because of the exploratory nature of the author’s voice. With this body of work, I was driven toward exposing mundane narratives (a washing line, a fruit basket, a low-budget shrine) as the complex things they have become over time and in the mouths of many.

NM: As an artist, what is your relationship with play?

KdV: In my practice playing can be immediately related to making. Making is simply thought made visible, and has proven itself to be my most successful means of finding out whether something would work. The possibilities that thrive in play cannot always reach their potential if the outcome has been programmed, but when thought is translated as rhizomatic progress through making, play reigns supreme.

NM: One could argue that there is a “withholding” in this exhibition. “The act or art of withholding” conjures up ideas of mystery for me, do you feel that there is still enough mystery in the (art)world? Maybe the starting point should be why mystery?

KdV: Why not mystery? Mystery exists in all the most beautiful facets of our lives—love, spirituality, forgiveness, and ultimately, it is the core of this thing called life. For thousands of years individuals have been caught up in “the truth of life”—personally, I prefer the mysteries. Mystery exists sometimes despite the hard truths we find in our daily lives. It is the feeling before you fall asleep and the moment the sun sets behind the horizon. It is what you take home after watching an inspiring film or eating a mouthful of delicious food. There can never be a shortage of mystique; only our inability to acknowledge it. Reality often tries to replace mystery with understanding, but why open yourself up to such disappointment?

NM: I’m interested in the idea of mutation as method, why is this notion of mutation worthwhile? What does it do?

KdV: Mutation allows change. It is free-flowing energy designed to allow external forces to influence and alternate the path a piece was originally set on. Besides the physical presence of mutation (interaction between 2D and 3D, the morphing of the boundaries of canvas or super-imposed imagery contorting a clear understanding of the work) the most powerful changes take place once the works have left my studio and enter the public realm. There they are exposed to all kinds of projections from every engaging viewer. The ultimate mutation is the works bending and folding to fit versatile narratives. Being made as subjects in flux, it is only natural for the works to be opened up for further transformation.

NM: Can you tell us about specific works in the show, that have completely mutated or transformed from what they were when you began making them (either in terms of the idea, the materials or the entire form)?

KdV: By far my greatest challenge was Bananas and Saints Alike. The title piece of the show started as a relatively small collage of snake-skin material, Mary with Baby-J and about four bananas. What started out as a manageable piece became the heavy-weight championship of my young career. It was also the first piece that broke the boundaries of the canvas (and my first real engagement with yellow- in no uncertain terms). The piece’s mutation set the tone for further works, forcing me to push each piece beyond the point of breaking into a realm where it can exist beyond its original context.

Katharien de Villiers was born in 1991 in Cape Town. She currently lives and works in Cape Town.
For more information about the exhibition or the artist, you can contact Jana Terblanche from SMITH Gallery Cape Town at jana@smithstudio.co.za.

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The first exhibition to address Kentridge’s output as a sculptor

Why Should I Hesitate: Sculpture will be the first exhibition internationally to address Kentridge’s output as a sculptor, and is a unique focus on this aspect of his practice. Covering several bodies of work, and testifying to his longstanding improvisation when handling three-dimensional form, this exhibition sees the origins of these works in props from his operas and images from his animations stepping off the stage and out of the screen, confronting us directly at ground level. Why Should I Hesitate: Sculpture will also premiere new works commissioned for this exhibition.

A central concern of Why Should I Hesitate: Sculpture is an understanding that Kentridge’s sculptures have agency. Kinetic sculptures make use of megaphones on survey tripods, a deft nod to Russian Constructivism, and imply a propogandist’s broadcasting of an impersonal and mechanical authority. In Singer Trio (2018), for example, ‘ready-made’ sewing machines are given voices for a performance enacted in unison, their megaphones synchronised as they take on a new and humorous presence in this world. Many of Kentridge’s sculptures embody an animated spectacle. Proceeding through a seemingly random construction of abstract planes, as in World on its Hind Legs (2009), we see how graphic forms unexpectedly align, snapping into an organized whole which is visually and metaphorically charged. Move a little further, and the form dissipates once again.

“Norval Foundation is presenting, for the first time, an exhibition focused solely on William Kentridge’s sculptural practice, working in conjunction with the artist and his studio. Kentridges’ sculptures embrace a spontaneous approach and have recently evolved towards the massive, and the monumental. Simultaneously, and in tension to the monumental aspects of his practice, he is revealed to be a choreographer as much as a sculptor.”

Karel Nel, Senior Advising Curator, Norval Foundation.

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Elsewhere, Kentridge’s repertoire of everyday objects and off-the-cuff ideas are translated into rows of small bronze sculptures, syntactically arranged on a shelving unit to read as lines of text on a page. In Paragraph II (2018), horse, nose, jug, camera, megaphone and others, line up to seemingly make rebuses, those visual puzzles evoking words which so delighted the early Surrealists. Several pieces from Kentridge’s visual lexicon have been reworked into scaled-up plaster prototypes from which monumental bronze sculptures have been cast: a gigantic corkscrew, a collapsing jug of Cubist descent, a visual flourish in the form of an ampersand, and the intense presence of an enormous ciné camera – the observing alter ego of Kentridge’s prodigious output perhaps?

The ruptured narrative, so powerfully visible in Kentridge’s work, is choreographed into serried dislocations which collide the space between the personal and the political, the operatic and the mundane, the apparently irrelevant and the socially pertinent. Approaching Kentridge’s sculptures opens us up onto a Dadaist landscape, which both challenges and beguiles.

“Norval Foundation is proud to be hosting Why Should I Hesitate: Sculpture. A key aspect of the Foundation is our commitment to exhibiting the sculptural and installation based practices of a variety of artists, which is facilitated by our purpose-designed building. In particular, we invite artists and curators to respond to gallery eight, our largest gallery, with William Kentridge’s exhibition exemplifying this. The gallery has reinforced floors to support works that weigh as much as eight tons, and reach as high as nine metres. The monumental size of this gallery sits in an ideal contrast to the anti-monumental, spontaneous and theatrical sculptures that form part of this exhibition.”

Elana Brundyn, CEO, Norval Foundation.

Why Should I Hesitate: Sculpture will be accompanied by a visually rich publication, conceived in collaboration with the artist, extending the exhibition in print form. It includes a section that is a catalogue raisonné of William Kentridge’s sculptural practice to date, with another presenting preparatory sketches for several key artworks. It also includes a photo essay charting the development of Kentridge’s large Lexicon sculptures that are included in the exhibition, from maquette stage to plaster original, and then through the bronze casting process itself. A comprehensive essay by Dr. David Freedberg, Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art at Columbia University, and Director of The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, locates William Kentridge’s work within several key artistic practices and movements of the Western art historical canon.

William Kentridge, Why Should I Hesitate : Sculpture

24 August 2019 – 23 Mars 2020
Atrium and Galleries 2–8
Norval Foundation
4 Steenberg Road Tokai, Cape Town 7945 South Africa

Exhibition Curators: Karel Nel, Owen Martin, Talia Naicker, Vicky Lekone

Monday – Sunday 10:00 – 18:00
Tuesday Closed
Last admission 45 minutes before closing

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This exhibition at the Norval Foundation features the immersive video artwork in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015-17) by Lisa Reihana (born Aotearoa New Zealand, 1964). Integrating hand-painted landscape with live action figures and a densely layered soundtrack, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] invites viewers to observe a series of restaged historical events, both real and imagined, of the first contact between British and Pacific peoples.

Rather than replicating a European perspective, which dominates the majority of accounts of this moment, Reihana integrates Māori forms of knowledge and social practices into how the work is structured, offering a sophisticated counternarrative. Simultaneously, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] draws upon traditions of popular culture and theatre, including the moving panorama, a type of rotating panoramic history painting that was popular in the 1800s, and pantomime, a form of musical comedy.

At 17 metres wide and 64 minutes in length, this is the Auckland-based Māori First Nation artist’s most ambitious project to date, and involved a decade of research, filming, production and post-production. This is reinforced with the use of cutting-edge digital technologies, including the work being shot in 15k resolution, to form an immersive multimedia experience for the viewer, placing Reihana’s practice within a lineage of video and installation-based artists such as Nam June Paik, Isaac Julien and Pipolotti Rist.

A key reference for in Pursuit of Venus [infected] is a decorative wallpaper titled ‘Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique’ (1804-06), designed by French artist Jean-Gabriel Charvet and produced by Joseph Dufour et Cie, a French company that specialised in luxury wallpapers and textiles in the late 1700s and 1800s. Popular among affluent Europeans and Americans at the time, the wallpaper, formed of twenty separate sheets or ‘drops’, ostensibly depicts the different peoples that British explorer and cartographer Captain James Cook encountered on his three journeys across the Pacific from 1768 until his death in 1779.

Behind the figures is an Arcadian landscape, amalgamations of Hawai’i, Tahiti, Aotearoa New Zealand and other locations in the vast Pacific region. This imaginary space is more reflective of how the British viewed the peoples they encountered, and therefore the British, rather than the peoples and cultures themselves.

Indeed, when Reihana first encountered ‘Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique’ at the National Gallery of Australia (Sydney), she was struck by how the representations of Māori peoples in this work were removed from her own experience as a Māori person. In response she created a ‘counter archive’, as scholar Nikos Papastergiadis has characterised it, presenting a complex series of encounters and a nuanced understanding of Māori peoples. 

Lisa Reihana is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice spans film, sculpture, costume and body adornment, text and photography. Since the 1990s she has significantly influenced the development of contemporary art and contemporary Maori art in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has earned an outstanding reputation as an artist, producer and cultural interlocutor with her attention to the complexities of contemporary photographic and cinema languages expressed in myriad ways. Her ability to harness and manipulate seductively high production value is often expressed through portraiture where she explores how identity and history are represented, and the intersection of these ideas with concepts of place and community.

Cook’s three voyages to the Pacific, as historical events, also feature directly in Reihana’s work. In particular, the title refers to both the transit of Venus that Cook observed in 1769 in Tahiti, and the beginning of the British colonial project in the Pacific. The observation of this remarkable astronomical event was a milestone in astronomy, facilitating an accurate calculation of the Earth’s distance not only to the planet Venus, but also Earth’s distance to the sun. In a sequence of in Pursuit of Venus [infected], a British astronomer, presumably Cook, discusses the use of a telescope with a group of Māoris, and later on a telescope is again visible in the background.

Yet, however remarkable this scientific achievement was, advancing our understanding of Earth’s place within the solar system, the arrival of the British in the Pacific marked the beginning of a devastating period of European colonialisation, the consequences of which are still being dealt with.

Reihana represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with the large scale video installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015-17). The work premiered at the Auckland Art Gallery in May 2015 and has since become a seminal work in Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history canon. in Pursuit of Venus [infected] has since been shown around the world and garnered widespread critical acclaim.

In 2014 Reihana was awarded an Arts Laureate Award by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, the Te Tohu Toi Ke Te Waka Toi Maori Arts Innovation Award from Creative New Zeland in 2015, and in 2018 she was made a Member if the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Reihana addresses issues of post-colonialism, injustice, transnational relationships, and indigenous autonomy. She says that the work aims to “indicate a level of complexity, to elicit some kind of empathy and alert people.” The impact of colonialism is not unique to the Pacific or relegated to the past. in Pursuit of Venus [infected] raises questions relevant to any contemporary society wanting to learn from its mistakes.

in Pursuit of Venus [infected] : Lisa Reihana
3 August 2019 – 20 January 2020
Gallery 1, Norval Foundation
4 Steenberg Road Tokai, Cape Town 7945 South Africa

Exhibition Curator: Owen Martin
Curatorial and Public Programme Coordinator: Vicky Lekone

Monday – Sunday 10:00 – 18:00
Tuesday Closed
Last admission 45 minutes before closing

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The ocean is the world, without partition and division, only depth and expanse. Because of its depth, it serves as a burial place. So if you point a camera at a mass of water, you get an opaque representation, of gods and languages and objects and songs, everything thrown in with bodies from the West African coast. The opacity of the sea is therefore its rich, dangerous promise. Some will drown, and some will reach harbour. –

Emmanuel Iduma, The Stranger’s Pose (2018)

Jo Ractliffe writes:

I live in a house on the mountainside, overlooking the sea. Every morning I breathe in the sea’s air. It’s a smell like no other, sometimes intensely humic, at other times bearing just the faintest trace of brine. I draw it in as deeply as I can, as if that breath could gather in all the depth of the ocean. It fills me with a pure momentary contentment and I know I am here with the living, not the dead.

In 2015 I sustained an injury that altered my life and the way I see things. Consequently, my photography has shifted away from the research-based, extended photo essay, which required lengthy and repeated journeys into the landscape. These days I find myself working in spurts, more spontaneously and responsively, and observing the dynamics that emerge when a collection of apparently disparate images, made without a clear or sustained intention on my part, comes together. I find myself less invested in my own desires than in what the photographs appear to want from each other. When selecting and editing images for Everything is Everything (2017), I was curious to see the patterns and repetitions that had developed – independently, it seemed, of my intentions – as well as the tone of the work as a whole – despite the range of visual attitudes, photographic modes and camera equipment used over a 30-year period. Similarly, with this body of work, there have been a number of images that have refused to comply with my attempts to edit them out and repeatedly found their way back into the group. This may sound strange: we don’t usually grant the image its own agency, but I’m beginning to see that photographs do have their own force; they push back at us, and if we pay attention, we can enter into different relations with them.

Most of the photographs on this exhibition were made during the past 45 months; a few extend back as far as 1986. They come from many places: the Southern Cape, up the West Coast, to Angola and across the Atlantic to Mexico. From the mermaid in St Helena Bay to Buffel, the southern elephant seal, who journeyed some 2 100 kilometres from Marion Island to undergo his catastrophic moult on Fish Hoek beach earlier this year, this exhibition begins and ends with the sea.

The exhibition will open on Thursday 16 May from 6 to 8pm.

_____________________________

STEVENSON

Stevenson gallery, has an international exhibition programme with a particular focus on the South Africa region. The gallery opened in 2003, and has spaces in Cape Town and Johannesburg. It is jointly owned by its eleven directors. Stevenson participates in Art Basel, Frieze London, Paris Photo and Art Basel Miami Beach.

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The range of experience has been broad covering an array of project types ranging in scale and complexity with the focus on delivering a service matched by the quality of the product. The firm thrives on new challenges to test their skills in imaginative and creative ways backed up with the use of technology to achieve their objectives. In line with global trends, the architecture firm believes that the provision of a quality service is exacting and realizes the best potential in people as a strategy for continuance in world markets.

“Our approach is a holistic one and a total design service is offered. Each project is considered in its entirety, touching not only on the design of the physical fabric of the envelope, but also on the interiors, furnishings and landscaping, and the attention to each of these in great detail is the recipe for the success of the final product. Our process is one of constantly questioning and measuring all that we do in an ongoing quest for timeless, elegant and relevant design solutions. Our commitment to this is total from inception through to the final culmination of each project.”

House Sealion, located at the foot of the mountain in the Atlantic Seaboard of Cape Town – South Africa and it was designed with the intention of an entertainment home. The site presented a challenge of making the mountain and the ocean integral parts of the experience of the home.

Privacy was an important issue, while trying to optimise on achieving maximum allowable height. The close proximity of the adjoining neighbours presented an opportunity to think differently about how to organise the building on the site. The resolution was to stack the building and optimise on height, by separating the main volumes by way of courtyard spaces – which offer an additional layer to the horizontal spatial relationships. Key to the clients brief was an integral relationship between the mountain and the ocean. This is central to the way one circulates through the central circulation spine that connects the two key volumes of the house. The internal courtyard at ground floor level and upper bedroom levels become integral extensions of the internal spaces.

Double volumes work to shift the spatial experience at the entrance and living levels where the mountain and ocean gain special emphasis respectively. The main staircase double volume opens onto a more intimate, water feature courtyard and extends towards the living area, the sliding doors in the living room and dining room slide away into cavity walls, which allows the living room and dining room to flow out onto the Pool and BBQ Terraces. The Master Bedroom, situated on the Second Floor level enjoys access to it own terrace, where the experience and relationships to the mountain backdrop and ocean below dominates.

The street edge is protected with splayed concrete walls with intentionally placed window openings from the Master Bedroom and Study desk. The laser cut screens serve a dual purpose of security as well as the slick aesthetic contribution to the facade of the house. Being very sociable people and great hosts, the client needed both a home and a place to entertain and “share” the incredible natural beauty offered by the special location.

The minimalism of the interior finishes, creates a sense of calm, which is immediately contrasted by the bold and colorful decor. Bold and discreet lighting has been layered to evoke contrasting but complementary moods throughout the house.

“We are thrilled with the house that Greg Wright Architects have created for us. We set a challenging initial brief that included an ocean view from every single room in the house; quiet garden spaces, as well as a strong connection between inside and outside. We wanted to create a ‘journey’ through the house so people could appreciate both our art and the views. We have a strong focus on entertainment within the house, with the desire for all key needs to be on one single spacious level – this included the kitchen, scullery, wine cellar, dance floor, cinema, living room, gym, sauna, BBQ and swimming pool. Greg Wright Architects have definitely achieved our brief and helped create an amazing contemporary but yet cosy home with amazing views out of each section of the house.” The client.

Greg Wright Architects
Units 9 & 10,
Canal Plaza, Battery Park, V & A Waterfront
Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

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