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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Presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem “Thomas J Price: Witness” marks the British sculptor’s first US solo institutional presentation. Price’s nine-foot bronze figure, The Distance Within (2021), is sited within Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park and depicts a young Black man looking down at his cell phone. The form of the piece pays homage to a work titled Network that the artist originally presented in the UK in 2013. Price’s large-scale figural sculptures are inspired by real people, often those who live and work in his hometown of South London, where the artist was born and raised, and resides today.  

Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, says, “We are thrilled to continue the Studio Museum’s history of introducing the public to artists of African descent and advancing their work by being the first US institution to mount a solo presentation of the sculpture of the remarkable Thomas J Price. In The Distance Within, he celebrates ordinary blackness, rendering it extraordinary, and asks us to deeply consider the very function of monuments as defining the familiar. We feel certain that our public in Harlem, and throughout the city and the world, will find this installation thought-provoking, moving, and extremely powerful.”

Price’s relationship to Harlem comes via his lived experience as a Black man looking “across the pond” from his neighborhood of Brixton to where he describes as his home’s “counterpoint.” Both historically Black neighborhoods with rich social and cultural legacies, the respective landscapes of Harlem and Brixton remain in dialogue. Thus, for Price, Harlem holds a special significance as a place the artist considers a home away from home.  

With Witness, the artist continues his exploration of blackness and Black masculinity at monumental scales. In The Distance Within, Price asks us to consider what is projected onto Black bodies as they move in the world and in what ways they are made monolithic via broader archetypes and stereotypes, as well as how Black bodies in the ordinary everyday are subject to extraordinary surveillance and spectatorship. 

The grand size of the sculpture celebrates a familiar everyday form rarely monumentalized within a public setting. Simultaneously, the scale works to take up space, to occupy, to hold presence, to bear witness. In the artist’s words, “I want to interrogate [notions of] presence, movement, and freedom. Who do these spaces belong to? And what bodies are provided more or less autonomy to move with liberty through public [space]?” 

Thomas J Price: Witness

Oct 02, 2021 – Oct 01, 2022

Marcus Garvey Park

Harlem, New-York (USA)

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Although a number of the photographers have worked on assignment for major publications such as the New York Times, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Time, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see their artistic and personal work in their first museum exhibition. The photographers showcased in INWARD: Reflections on Interiority use a range of manual and digital image-making tools in their individual practices — for this exhibition, they have created the photographs using iPhone. The resulting images move beyond the endless scope of the constructed selfie to examine the intimate interactions and inner thoughts that make up their daily experiences as artists in a time of Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, and the 2020 U.S. election.

“The five artists featured in INWARD provide a thought-provoking window into their interior lives,” said curator Isolde Brielmaier. “The revealing new photographs explore intimate thoughts and personal relationships with great honesty, as the artists delve deep into the new reality and challenges of our contemporary lives at a time of global introspection.”

Exhibition Overview

Smartphones have often been used to generate images of public space and events in the broader outside world. iPhone has democratized image-making, and more recently, has been widely utilized as an impactful outward-facing tool to capture the human side of this particular moment of upheaval and turmoil. In INWARD, the artists reverse the focus to document their inner lives, and in the process show the full potential of iPhone in a fine art setting.

Revealing deep self-reflection, the work of Djeneba Aduayom explores her inner thoughts and subjectivity. As an introvert, she was at ease at home, sitting still, and being quiet in the company of herself during the pandemic. This quiet confidence can be seen in her self-portraits, in which she poses for the camera and directly gazes at the viewer. These images are punctuated by smaller, more abstract “studies” of objects and the human form of the artist’s own body.

Much of Arielle Bobb-Willis’s work is born out of her experience battling depression from an early age. She manipulates color, shape, form, and light, giving way to abstract images that reference ideas of the beautiful, the strange, isolation, and belonging. Influenced by painting, her use of bright colors speaks to the artist’s desire to claim power and joy in the face of confusion, sadness, and uncertainty.

Quil Lemons presents self-portraits from his series entitled Daydreams, 2021, which document his very personal journey, a process of self-exploration and self-validation: “As a Black queer man, there is no space for me, so I constantly carve one,” he states. He confidently defines his racial and gender identity in ways that allow for the intertwined, co-existence of both. His work visually articulates both self- assurance and the ongoing vulnerability with which he contends.

The work of Brad Ogbonna is comprised of a broad series of portraits of family, friends, and himself. In the style of some of the most important historical West African portrait photographers, such as Malick Sidibé, Meissa Gaye, Seydou Keïta and others, he has created, in collaboration with his friends and family members, a series of intimate portraits that underscore family history and relationships with a strong reference to the artist’s Nigerian culture as well as his late father. “I didn’t think much about the past until my Dad died,” said Ogbonna. “Shortly thereafter I inherited his first photo album filled with photos from his youth spent in Nigeria. At the time those images felt like a portal to the not-so-distant past and left me with many more questions than answers. I was enthralled by the mystery of it all.”

Isaac West is inspired by his girlfriend Naima in his series entitled Love, 2021. He focuses on the small ways in which human interactions, gestures, and expressions both encapsulate and demonstrate larger ideas about love, intimacy, and care. Through his strikingly bold colors and stark lines and use of light, as well as the strong articulation and centering of Blackness, he highlights everyday acts of kindness— grooming, eating, playing—in order to underscore these ideas.

INWARD: Reflections on Interiority 

Sept 24 – Jan 10, 2022

International Center of Photography

79 Essex Street, New York, NY 10002

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