It’s rather redundant now to say that the art world is embracing the digital world like never before. When the world was forced into lockdown, albeit in varying degrees, auction houses, galleries, artists, curators, museums and institutions had no choice but to follow what everyone else was doing: Connecting online

“How are local galleries surviving this global crisis? I am afraid the majority—and not only the youngest ones—are already struggling,” said Merriem Berrada, artistic director of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Marrakech. “Galleries and institutions must have a strong digital program.” The key, at least for the time being, is to forge a dynamic online presence.

Museums in Europe and North America, which have hosted an unprecedented number of shows on contemporary African art in recent years, are all closed now due to Covid-19. The many art fairs dedicated to the subject that have sprung up all over the world in London, Marrakech, New York, Lagos, Paris, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Doula, have been postponed. Like the rest of the art world, the African art scene is grappling with a loss of physicality and an increasingly, however temporary, digital world.

An Online Surge

The New York edition of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, which hosts editions also in London and Marrakech, was supposed to take place in May, but has been postponed until 2021. What’s next up on the horizon is the fair’s London edition, due to take place on 8-11 October 2020. Still reeling from having to postpone the New York edition so suddenly, the fair scheduled for May has quickly been transferred to online. Showcasing 25 galleries from around the world, it will now be held exclusively on Artsy from 6-30 May, with VIP Previews on 4-5 May. “We will see how much the galleries are selling online and then understand what works and doesn’t work.” said Fair founder and director Touria El Glaoui from quarantine in the South of France. “All of my positive thoughts are for our fair in London in October.”

“The lesson to learn from this experience is that we might need to have a digital platform as an extension to the fair,” added El Glaoui. “We still have a lot of applications for our fair in October. For the galleries post-Coronavirus, the first thing they will want to do is get out there and sell in September and October—if they are able to do so physically.”

The scene has also catered to the development of comprehensive online platforms for African contemporary art. One, Artskop3437, which launched its Database and Collecting space in December 2019 and functions as space dedicated to fostering a better understanding of Art from Africa, is presently having discussions with new galleries wishing to join the collective project since the appearance of Covid-19.

“We are also working with museums to put their permanent collections online on Artskop3437, with institutions like MACAAL in Marrakech, for example, which has been a partner in the project since last December,” said co-founders Prince Malik and Jordan. The site works with leading galleries on the continent, including Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, SMAC gallery, Espace d’art contemporain 14°N 64°W and Sakhile and me, to name a few, partnering with such names to forge an extension of their physical space. “There is an urgent need to write, structure and archive African artistic creation though Art History and digital is an amazing tool,” continued the site’s co-founders. “While the fairs help galleries to sell art over 5,000 euros, Artskop helps them sell works for less than that figure with the direct online buying tool. We consider ourselves to be a tool for art education and the African art market.”

On an institutional level, major museums on the continent are moving their collections and exhibitions online just like their counterparts around the world. In Dakar, the Museum of Black Civilizations, which opened in December 2018, is now temporarily closed, but will film its exhibitions to show on national TV and online. “Everyone in Senegal will now be able to view the museum and its exhibitions, and hear experts,” said Oumy Diaw, a communications specialist based in Dakar. In this way, one could argue that African art history is now able to be viewed by a larger public than ever before—a positive outcome of the pandemic.

Meanwhile in Cape Town, the Zeitz MOCAA is offering 3D tours of the museum in partnership with Google Arts and Culture as well as upping their YouTube channel. In Marrakech, the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), which opened in February 2018, is creating a special online program, which will include content surrounding their current exhibition “Have You Seen A Horizon Lately?” alongside live interviews with artists, curators, comedians and other art-world figures. In terms of community development, MACAAL’s bootcamp, conducted over two weeks, offers slots to attendees needing help with pitching ideas, project application, or specific needs, like building a business model.

Collaborative Efforts

South African blue-chip galleries like Goodman Gallery, which also has a new space in London on Cork Street, has opened its virtual doors across their locations in South Africa and the UK, offering an enhanced digital program filled with gallery exhibitions, weekly bespoke online viewing rooms, Instagram LIVE takeovers, and an online film festival. “Having served as a vital non-discriminatory space for artists during the apartheid years, Goodman Gallery will seek to draw inspiration from this profound legacy in this time of crisis,” said Goodman Gallery Director Liza Essers. “We will be re-thinking what role we can play to support and collaborate with our artists to affect social change and make a difference in this time.” The gallery has also launched a fundraising campaign selling limited-edition woven artist textiles in support of Witkoppen Health and Welfare Clinic in South Africa, a non-profit organization which services 1.3 million people across the most deprived communities in Johannesburg. The textiles are designed by gallery artists Ghada Amer & Reza Farkhondeh, Broomberg & Chanarin, Nolan Oswald Dennis, and Samson Kambalu.

Stevenson, which has spaces in Cape Town and Johannesburg, has similarly embraced the digital sphere. The gallery opened its show of work by South African painter Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi online and via Instagram for their Johannesburg space and in Cape Town they are currently exhibiting Udludlilali by Mawande Ka Zenzile. “For both these shows we’re pivoting our efforts online, working with filmmakers to give our audience the experience from home,” said the gallery’s press officer Sinazo Chiya. “Generally, we’re using the time to find other ways of making direct contact with the people in our ecosystem—we’re all in it together.”

Seeds of Hope

Against the odds of the present economic predicament and global pandemic, Sotheby’s sixth sale of Modern & Contemporary African Art (March 27-31), which had to convert quickly into its first online-only format after lockdown, was announced in the UK on March 23, realized $2,881,741 (estimate $3,587,000), featuring over 100 works from 58 artists across 21 countries.

The auction was led by Irma Stern’s Grape Packer from 1959, achieving $531,309 – well within-the pre-sale estimate $436,822-686,435. A painting by Nigerian master Ben Enwonwu, Sefi (1953) made $305,350 in its auction debut. Young star from DRC Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga’s Ko Bungisa Mbala Mibale 2 sold for $76,338 and his Ko Bungisa Mbala Mibale 3 made $53,436, proving is continued might on the market.

“The online platform has certainly allowed us to convert a live sale to online seamlessly,” said Hannah O’Leary, Head of Modern & Contemporary African Art at Sotheby’s.

“Interestingly, since the sale drew to a close, our collectors who usually prefer to bid in person or on the telephone have all agreed that bidding online was far easier than they ever imagined,” she added. “The most notable takeaway for me was the number of new buyers the online format brought: 35% of bidders in our sale were new to Sotheby’s, and almost 30% of bidders were under 40 years old. In fact, the auction saw almost 50% more bidders in comparison to the equivalent sale last year, and I am sure that accounts in part for the corresponding increase in turnover.”

While the debate is still on over whether online viewing rooms for art galleries result in good sales, the success of Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary African Art Sale means that auctions, even when forced to work remotely, can still be highly profitable.

On the more charitable side, Arthouse Contemporary in Lagos, Nigeria, hosted The Online Charity Auction in support of Covid-19 aid, which closed at midnight on April 15. “The money raised will provide food for under-served communities in Lagos State as well as support emerging local artists during these challenging times,” said founder Kavita Chellaram.

New online ventures such as the recently launched Art and About Africa shine more light through the windows of confinement. Launched on February 20, the site aims to connect all players on the continent working in African art. Given the present crisis, it has also initiated ART: ESSENTIAL NEED, Emergency Grants for artists living in Africa.“We wanted to create a virtual connection against the physical walls of isolation and at the same time raise funds to support artists on the African continent,” said co-founder Lidjia Khachatourian who also runs AKKA Project, a gallery with branches in Dubai and Venice, with her husband.

“We asked artists to create artworks on their present state of isolation for the creation of an eBook to be sold and available on a Crowdfunding platform alongside limited-edition prints and original works from guest artists,” she explained. The money collected in exchange for the eBook, prints and works of art will serve to form the Emergency Grants, and all participating artists will benefit equally from the money raised.

The seeds of hope will grow as the art scene further adapts to the new structure that is emerging, however temporary or long lasting it will be. Art and creativity, it seems, are needed more than ever—even in the midst of the present chaos—even if just to provide hope. As Khachatourian states, quoting the famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. “Beauty will save the world.”

* Profile photo of this article is a work by the artist Nengi Omuku, Funke I, 2019. Oil on Sanyan. 91.4 x 61 cm. 36 x 24 in. Courtesy the artist and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery

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This year Cassi Namoda was named one of the ‘Rising Arts Stars of 2020’ by Elephant Magazine and was commissioned to paint a cover for the January issue of Vogue Italia. Cassi Namoda has been included in exhibitions at Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, New York; Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, New York; CFHILL, Stockholm; Library Street Collective, Detroit. Her work is held in the collection of Pérez Art Museum, Miami.

Goodman Gallery holds the reputation as a pre-eminent art gallery on the African continent, platforming art that confronts entrenched power structures and champions social change. The gallery opened recently a permanent space in London in the historic Cork Street which brought exhibitions by Francis Bacon and Joan Miró to London for the first time. The gallery, located for many years in Johannesburg and Cape Town, has been pivotal in shaping contemporary South African art, bringing David Goldblatt, William Kentridge, David Koloane, Sam Nhlengethwa and Sue Williamson to the world’s attention for the first time during the apartheid era. Goodman Gallery’s expansion to London furthers this mission to confront dominant historical narratives and to contribute to contemporary art discourse and social repair.

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Goodman Gallery is holding a charity fundraising sale to support the Witkoppen Clinic in Johannesburg

In South Africa, with an already overwhelmed public health care system, vast numbers of lives are at risk from COVID-19. At this unprecedented time, Goodman Gallery is asking for your help in raising funds for their charity partner Witkoppen Health and Welfare Clinic, a non-profit organisation which services 1.3 million people across the most deprived communities in Johannesburg. To support the clinic, Goodman Gallery is selling a series of limited edition covers, designed by artists from the gallery, which 100% of profits will go directly to Witkoppen Clinic to enable them to engineer new programmes to cope in this moment of great need.

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

For the past twenty years, Broomberg & Chanarin have engaged in a forensic and paranoid interrogation of the medium of photography in search of its source code; the cultural, emotional, political and financial currency of photographs. This work is a reference to their 2018 solo exhibition Bandage the knife not the wound, in which the artists reflected on their precarious sense of place and belonging to their homeland (South Africa), to photography and to each other by turning to the handful of images that remain meaningful to them.

Nolan Oswald Dennis

Nolan Oswald Dennis is an interdisciplinary artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. His practice explores what he calls ‘a black consciousness of space’ : the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonisation.

His work questions the politics of space and time through a system-specific, rather than site-specific approach. He is concerned with the hidden structures that pre-determine the limits of our social and political imagination. Through a language of diagrams, drawings and models he explores a hidden landscape of systematic and structural conditions that organise our political sub-terrain. This sub-space is framed by systems which transverse multiple realms (technical, spiritual economic, psychological, etc) and therefore Dennis’ work can be seen as an attempt to stitch these, sometimes opposed, sometimes complimentary, systems together. To read technological systems alongside spiritual systems, to combine political fictions with science fiction.

Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh

Ghada Amer has received widespread attention for her thickly embroidered canvases that feature fragmented erotic imagery sourced from pornographic magazines. Originally produced to inspire lust, in Amer’s hands the pornographic images are transformed into meditations on the private nature of ecstasy. “I liked the idea of representing women through the medium of thread because it is so identified with femininity,” she once said. “I wanted to ‘paint’ a woman with embroidery, too.” Otherwise known as a painter and sculptor, Amer has dedicated her career to a highly personal exploration of femininity in various contexts. Her 2008 mid-career survey at the Brooklyn Museum included paintings, sculpture, illustration, performances, and installation pieces that explored the mysteries of love, war, and violence.

Samson Kambalu

Samson Kambalu is an artist and writer working in a variety of media, including site-specific installation, video, performance and literature. His work is autobiographical and approaches art as an arena for critical thought and sovereign activities. Born in Malawi, Kambalu’s work fuses aspects of the Nyau gift-giving culture of the Chewa, the anti-reification theories of the Situationist movement and the Protestant tradition of inquiry, criticism and dissent. He has been featured in major exhibitions and projects worldwide, including the Dakar Biennale (2014, 2016), Tokyo International Art Festival (2009) and the Liverpool Biennial (2004, 2016). He was included in All the World’s Futures, Venice Biennale 2015, curated by Okwui Enwezor.

The blankets are made each in an edition of 50 and sold for £500 GBP. We are so grateful for your support, every sale will go directly to saving lives in South Africa. Thank You.

Please note: Due to the current state of quarantine, delivery will be delayed until South African shipping channels are reopened. Witkoppen Clinic, however, has urgent needs right now and your support would be invaluable at this time. 

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An abstract woman painted in black sits on top of a red goat. She wears a delicate lace top while on her head are stitched together leather straps that hang down like hair. The work, entitled The Journey (2020) by DRC-born Cape Town-based artist Patrick Bongoy, becomes more interesting when we see that she is depicted with the same hooves as the goat. It was displayed on the wall of Ebony/Curated, a gallery with branches in Franschhoek and Cape Town, during the eighth edition of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair. The work, made with hessian, acrylic and rubber inner tubes, portrays the artist’s signature whimsical world that explores themes of migration, alienation and loss of one’s homeland. Also a fashion designer, Bongoy’s work speaks directly to today’s global state of environmental crisis. “My work speaks in response to the global reality of literal and figurative environmental pollution,” he says. Hard to miss after his startling sculpture of a figure at this year’s inaugural Stellenbosch Triennale of a man made in disused rubber hunched over as if trying to free himself from the confines of a pieces of fabric. The piece, which sold in the range of $6,000 and $10,000, was indicative of a strong presence of socio-political work at the fair, challenging present and past ideas of identity and historical narratives as the African continent jets into a new future.

The eighth edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair returned to its home at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, with a new mission to endow the fair with a stronger African focus. “This is an international art fair where we bring in galleries from Europe and the US but we tried this year to focus more on galleries from the African continent,” said fair director Laura Vicenti. 

Out of the fair’s 107 exhibitors this year, 49 galleries were from the African continent and 58 were international, underlining a greater emphasis on the local. In previous years European blue-chip galleries such as Perrotin and Galerie Templon participated. Such names were replaced this year with new galleries from North Africa and the Middle East, including Lawrie Shabibi from Dubai, Galerie Veronique Rieffel from Ivory Coast and Tunisian Yosr Ben Ammar Gallery and AGORGI, among others. In addition, leading museums and institutions from around the world were present, including A4 Arts Foundation, ANO Institute of Contemporary Arts, FOLIO by Alserkal Arts Foundation, Fondazione Merz, Friends der Pinakothek der Moderne, Iziko South African National Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, The Norval Foundation, Palais de Lomé, Skissernas Museum – Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art, Tate Modern African Acquisitions Committee, WEDGE Curatorial Projects, Yerevan Biennial Art Foundation and Zeitz MOCAA.

Yet the challenging socio-economic landscape did provide cause for concern for many participants as well as the fair’s management. How does one host a contemporary art fair in a country where the local currency continues to plunge? 

“The economic landscape of South Africa is challenging,” said Vicenti. “Local collectors are very supportive but it is true that they are facing an economic crisis in South Africa so I tried to balance the situation by having international collectors from all over the world. The number of international collectors increased this year. In comparison to last year there is no comparison. But I am trying hard to have more collectors from Africa.” 

Local dealers were divided, however, on whether the buying power was coming from South Africa or abroad. “Of course we are happy when people from elsewhere come to South Africa to buy art—but the most exciting thing about this year’s Cape Town Art Fair was that the vast majority of our sales were to South Africans,” said Joost Bosland, a director at Stevenson. “It is amazing to see local support for our artists grow year on year.”

South African powerhouse galleries Stevenson, Blank Projects, SMAC Gallery and Goodman Gallery all reported swift sales on the first day of the fair. At the booth of Stevenson was an all-star group showing of emerging and established artists from the continent, including Meleko Mokgosi, Robin Rhode, Zanele Muholi, Neo Matloga and Paulo Nazareth and Simphiwe Ndzube. The gallery reported swift sales in the range of $2,000 and $75,000 and the works, like that of Bongoy’s, once again married the otherworldly and magical realm of dreams with the references to the often harsh reality of the present. 

Several of the fair’s biggest sales took place at Goodman Gallery’s booth, which confirmed approximately 25 sales in total on the opening day ranging from $2,000 to $500,000. The booth showed a line-up of some of their biggest names, including Ghada Amer, Yinka Shonibare…“We had a great diversity in terms of the spend and also the collectors that acquired the works,” said the gallery’s Anthony Dawson. “This is thanks hugely to Fiera Milano, the organizers of the fair who have cultivated a great program and collector base that is not only diversifying audiences to contemporary African art but bringing new brand new collectors into the country.”

“Cape Town is a stronghold for a lot of German citizens who have holiday homes here and they often come to the fair,” continued Dawson. “In addition, through the Italian organizers many Italian collectors were also in attendance but there seems to be strong focus of people from Western Europe coming more and more to Cape Town. We also had collectors from Angola and Nigeria as well. Overall, I’d say the majority of collectors were European.”

Taking place concurrently were two auctions for contemporary and modern art in Cape Town: The Aspire x Piasa Auction, which took place on 14 February and Strauss & Co’s Contemporary Art sale, which took place the day after. The former told of the first time a South African auction house had teamed up with a European equivalent to host a sale of African art on the continent. “Both auction houses made a big effort to bring French collectors to Cape Town which also added to a new audience in the city at the fair,” added Dawson. “With Piasa’s francophone influence we also so collectors arrive from West Africa that the South African audience has never been exposed to.”

The fair was also the place to forge long-term business relationships. First-time participant Galerie Veronique Rieffel from Cote d’Ivoire who showed a series of haunting works by Swiss-French photographer Manuel Braun of an Ivorian dancer in Egypt said she sold works largely to European collectors passing through Cape Town in the range of €3,500 and €6,000. “I forged excellent relationship with local collectors which deserve to be deepened,” said Rieffel. “I have formed a very beautiful partnership with a gallery in Cape Town, South gallery, and we have agreed to continue to show Braun’s work with them in situ.”

The recent edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair testifies that a buoyant market for African contemporary art in South Africa can be achieved even during the most economically challenging of times—but through a concerted effort of local and international collectors, galleries and artists. 

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“Local cultural institutions have adopted the month of February as the visual arts month, transforming Cape Town into a cultural hub”

The 8th edition of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (ICTAF) returns to the Cape Town Convention centre between 14th – 16th February.  As the largest contemporary art fair on the African continent, the ICTAF coalesces 107 exhibitors and amasses over 16 000 visitors. 

The fair is accompanied by a curated talks programme which brings together leading experts on a range of topics. Curator of the talks programme, Tumelo Mosaka elaborates, ‘The Talks program is very special for me as it is the space where dialogue about issues important in the art world can be engaged by various experts from within and outside the country. It offers an opportunity to introduce the public to some of the issues while also reflecting on others that might have been topical.’ He adds, ‘I’ve always approached the talks as a discursive platform aimed at broader dialogue about the state the arts field. For this year, we will explore arts philanthropy in Africa especially in light of all the new museums cropping up in Africa. Also the question of the role of museums has become a topical issue given issues around reparation and repatriation. Of course hearing from artists is always a treat, getting a glimpse into artists process as well as exploring the challenges of non-profit sector. So we have a lot to discuss that is important.’

For the first time this year, the fair will include a film programme; ART.DOC. Staged at Cape Town’s oldest cinema, The Labia Theatre, ART.DOC will showcase a selection of films including; Billy Monk – Shot in the dark (directed by Craig Cameron-Mackintosh), Sue Williamson, It’s a pleasure to meet you (directed by Sue Williamson) and Imagining Simon Stone (directed by Michaela Limberis). 

Running concurrently with the fair is a series of exciting exhibitions across the city; Materiality (group show) and This song is for… (Gabrielle Goliath) at the Iziko South African National Gallery, without a clear discernible image: Kevin Beasley at A4 Arts Foundation, stukkinne stories and The Royal House of Allure at blank projects, Carrie Mae Weems II Over Time at the Goodman Gallery as well as a Blue is the warmest colour at Bkhz studios’ pop-up exhibition space. 

As with many fairs across the world, the Cape Town Art Fair’s organising logic is centred around commercial interests; presenting an opportunity for established and emerging artists to attract new audiences and gain access to markets. Over and above this, it has the potential to initiate new and interesting conversations or to bring forth ideas and discourse into the general consciousness. A key example of this is the (re)emergence, contemplations and complications of notions of modernity and modernism(s). As part of its presentation, Stevenson Gallery will present Ernst Mancoba’s ink and watercolour work; Drawing. This inclusion of Mancoba feels very pertinent and salient because of course, Mancoba’s practice is instructive in explorations of modernity. Stevenson will also present Mawande Ka Zenzile, pre-empting his upcoming solo; Udludlilali, which will open on the 12th of March. 

Another artist to look out for is Francois-Xavier Gbré (France), who is represented by Cecile Fakhoury Gallery. Gbré’s work is an exploration and revisitation of histories through the landscape where the past is understood as “foreign and unfinished”. Gbré is one of ten artists selected as part of the Tomorrows/Today special segment alongside; Danica Lundy (Canada), Amanda Mushate (Zimbabwe), Andy Robert (Haiti), Fathi Hassan (Egypt), Ernesto Shikhani (Mozambique), Nnenna Okore (Australia), Gregory Olympio (Togo), Bonolo Kavula (South Africa) and Isabelle Grobler (South Africa).  Tomorrows/Today is a curated segment of the fair, which acknowledges emerging artists —those who have previously gone unrecognised and those who are at the early stages of their careers. This year, it is curated by Nkule Mabaso (Curator, Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town) and Luigi Fassi (Artistic Director, MAN-Contemporary Art Museum, Nuoro, Italy).

Thandiwe Msebenzi is also exhibiting with SMITH. Msebenzi explains the concept behind her work; “Egwaveni is a game I played as a child with my friends, we would sing “egwaveni” and touch or gesture towards our vagina, which we referred to as the “gwava”. This is a game we played freely and openly on the streets. It became interesting when we played it around men, it intimidated them and in turn there was a strength we gained in that as young girls. The work is part of a bigger body of work that looks at the intersectonality of gender binaries, told through memories, experiences, and childhood games.”

Once again the city will vibrate and reverberate with art and art-related events during the long fair weekend.

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In 2019 Sunstrum held a mid-career survey at the Contemporary Art Centre in Cincinnati Ohio, which is accompanied by her first monograph to be published by Radius Books. In addition, Sunstrum held solo exhibitions last year at Kunsthaus Zürich, The Nest in The Hague and at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, among others. In August Sunstrum will hold her first solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg.

Goodman Gallery holds the reputation as a pre-eminent art gallery on the African continent, platforming art that confronts entrenched power structures and champions social change. The gallery opened recently a permanent space in London in the historic Cork Street which brought exhibitions by Francis Bacon and Joan Miró to London for the first time. The gallery, located for many years in Johannesburg and Cape Town, has been pivotal in shaping contemporary South African art, bringing David Goldblatt, William Kentridge, David Koloane, Sam Nhlengethwa and Sue Williamson to the world’s attention for the first time during the apartheid era. Goodman Gallery’s expansion to London furthers this mission to confront dominant historical narratives and to contribute to contemporary art discourse and social repair.

For more information about Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, please visit The Database here.

Goodman Gallery London

Tuesday-Friday: 10h00-18h00

Saturday: 11h00-16h00

26 cork street, London W1S 3ND

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1-54 has carefully selected 20 leading galleries from 10 countries (Belgium, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and the United Kingdom) to exhibit at the third edition of the fair in Marrakech. The fair will showcase the work of more than 65 artists, both emerging and established, working in a wide variety of mediums and from a range of geographical locations comprising 20 countries.

1-54 Marrakech will be accompanied by 1-54 Forum, the fair’s extensive talks and events programme, which will include artist talks and panel discussions with international curators, artists and cultural producers, to be held at La Mamounia, ESAV and Le 18 in parallel to the fair. For the 2020 Marrakech edition, 1-54 Forum will be curated for the first time by independent art space, The Showroom, London. The project will be led by The Showroom’s curatorial team and takes its methodology from the organisation’s programme of engagement with its local north-west London community, Communal Knowledge. Entitled On focus: Communal Knowledge at Large, 1-54 Forum will explore the potential of that methodology to be translated to other contexts. Nurtured by the insightful contributions of local and international agents, 1-54 Forum will become a platform to interrogate multiple practices of socially engaged art, leading to the production of a new roadmap of organisational and institutional collective methodologies originated by this encounter between artists, activists, institutions and community organisers.

1-54 will also present a wide programme of bespoke events in partnership with Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain Al Madeen (MACAAL), Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, Montresso* Art Foundation, Le 18, Comptoir des Mines Galerie and Institut Français, amongst others.

> Une aventure poétique, the first retrospective exhibition by Jacques Azéma at musée Yves Saint Laurent marrakech
> HAVE YOU SEEN A HORIZON LATELY?, a group exhibition curated by Marie-Ann Yemsi at Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL)
> IN-DISCIPLINE #3 at Montresso* Art Foundation
> Comptoir des Mines Galerie presenting two solo exhibitions by Mohamed Arejdal and Fatiha Zemmouri in their art space in the heart of Gueliz
> Hamdoullah ça va! a group show with Mohamed Bourouissa and four young artists, presented by Sonia Perrin at DaDa
> Alter Ego Uprisings at Dar Moulay Ali, Maison de la France à Marrakech, a group show with works by artists Amina Benbouchta, Deborah Benzaquen, Soumiya Jalal, Seloua Ejjennane, curated by Elisa Ganivet

Galleries participating at 1-54 Marrakech 2020

• Afikaris
• AFRONOVA GALLERY
• Eclectica Contemporary
• galerie 127
• Galerie Cécile Fakhoury
• Galerie Nathalie Obadia
• Goodman Gallery
• GVCC
• Katharina Maria Raab
• L’Atelier 21
• Loft Art Gallery
• LouiSimone Guirandou
• Gallery MAGNIN-A
• Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art
• Nil Gallery
• Primo Marella Gallery
• So Art Gallery
• UBUNTU art gallery
• VOICE gallery
• WHATIFTHEWORLD

1-54 Marrakech is located at La Mamounia:

La Mamounia Palace
Avenue Bab Jdid
Marrakech 40040
Morocco

20 – 21 February: by invitation only

Saturday 22 February
11:00 – 19:00

Sunday 23 February
11:00 – 18:00

1-54 Marrakech is free and open to all

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During the course of 2019, we lost a visionary; Ntate David Koloane. Koloane passed away at the age of eighty-one. At the time of his passing, three institutions were in the process of presenting different expressions of a major retrospective; A Resilient Visionary: Poetic Expressions of David Koloane at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town and Standard Bank Art Gallery in Johannesburg as well as David Koloane: Chronicles of a Resilient Visionary at the Wits Art Museum (curated by Dr Thembinkosi Goniwe).

The exhibitions set forth Koloane’s long career and give account to his contributions to visual arts in South Africa and internationally. His contributions are not only limited to his role as an artist; he was a writer, activist, teacher, curator, mentor and pioneer. Among his many legacies, he leaves behind the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios⁠—a non-profit contemporary visual art organisation founded in 1991 to provide studio space, host residencies and organise outreach projects alongside regular exhibitions. Throughout the years, the Bag Factory has functioned as a critical resource for many Black artists who might not have had the opportunity to participate, practice and succeed within their respective fields. Bag Factory’s alumni include artists who have gone on to create sustainable careers such as Sam Nhlengethwa, Kagiso Patrick Mautloa, Tracey Rose, Gabi Ngcobo, Lady Skollie, Blessing Ngobeni and Bronwyn Katz.

For a very long time, I have struggled with David Koloane’s work. I have always found it beautiful but in a manner that is difficult to put into words. I could not hold onto the typical tropes of beauty as harmony, unity and closure because Koloane’s work is opaque and presents unpredictability, imbalance, complexity, disorder, multiplicity, energy and openness….and these are the things that make it interesting. This struggle with discord and the disproportionate—flat planes of colour that collapse line, dimension and space—is really a struggle with the irrational, a struggle with acceptance of the chaotic. 

Koloane’s paintings, drawings and prints use chaos as a spine along which meaning is created. He blended colour and produced complex imagery that can be heard as much as it is seen. We don’t only see imaginative expressions of the human condition and the difficult conditions of life in the city, we hear these stories through the echo and reverberation of line, depth and texture—this is sound reasoned through images. 

If we think about Koloane’s work through the lens of disharmony and discord, we begin to make sense of compositional elements that initially seem opaque; paths and boundaries created by pencil or brush run through points to create hurried outlines that shape the image of the city—traffic, tall buildings, ladies of the night, musicians, card players and bothersome pigeons than make up the cityscape. 

In order to appreciate Koloane’s work, I had to learn to look in a new way —I had to focus on detail while also opening myself up to expressions beyond ordinary understandings of beauty. I had to open myself up to the entire field of the irrational. The irrational as a visual language that is ardent, vivid and evocative. Koloane’s visual language taught me about the possibility of seeing the disharmonious as beautiful. 

May your soul rest in peace Ntate David Nthubu Koloane. 

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In We Live in Silence, Chiurai dissects the film through similitude, recreating scenes intercut with visual references from popular culture and art historical sources to stage alternative colonial histories and futures that reject this notion that African migrants are to think, speak and understand language like their colonisers. In this series the female plays a central role in recent struggle histories – recasting the lead character as a woman in the black liberation narrative to challenge the gender bias inherent to such narratives, which tend to pit a black male as the victim of colonisation and, hence, the liberator of the post-colony.

As with previous work, Chiurai collaborated with an award-winning production team: photographer Jurie Potgieter, art director Dylan Lloyd, stylist Bee Diamondhead, set designer Johann Krynauw, director of photography Adam Benton, sound producer João Orecchia, performance director Lindiwe Matshikiza and Botshelo Motuba who plays the main character throughout the photographic series.

Kudzanai Chiurai is an internationally acclaimed artist born in Zimbabwe in 1981. He was the first black student to graduate with a BA Fine Art from the University of Pretoria. Born one year after Zimbabwe’s emergence from white-ruled Rhodesia, Chiurai’s early work focused on the political, economic and social strife in his homeland. The artist has held numerous solo exhibitions with Goodman Gallery, accompanied by publications co-edited by the artist alongside leading African creatives, such as Mbali Soga and Lodi Matsetela.

Chiurai has participated in major exhibitions at institutions such as SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, USA, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His work has been acquired by MoMA, Pigozzi Collection, Walther Collection, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Zeitz MoCAA and Iziko SANG. In 2013, his film Iyeza was one of the few African films to be included in the New Frontier shorts programme at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2012, Chiurai’s Conflict Resolution series was included in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel and he was awarded the FNB Artist of the Year Prize.

Thursday 3 October

6 Cork Street, London, W1S 3ND


6:30 pm 

In Conversation: Kudzanai Chiurai and Carrie Mae Weems 

The discussion will explore key themes in We Live in Silence, encompassing cultural identities and the consequences of entrenched power structures, which are pertinent to the work of both artists.

Followed by

7:00 pm (duration 35 minutes)

UK premiere of We Live in Silence

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Over Time present several bodies of work, which look at these themes in relation to how the past comes to bear on the present. In this regard, Weems reflects on history in order to engage with the present and question where we might be going.

In a recent review of her retrospective, the New York Times, Holland Cotter, critic art, wrote, “Ms. Weems is what she has always been, a superb image maker and a moral force, focused and irrepressible.”

Weems has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and international museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frist Center for Visual Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Prospect.3 New Orleans, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, Spain. Weems has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships including the prestigious Prix de Roma, The National Endowment of the Arts, the Alpert, the Anonymous was a Woman and the Tiffany Awards. In 2012, Weems was presented with one of the first US Department of State’s Medals of Arts in recognition for her commitment to the State Department’s Art in Embassies program.

In 2013, Weems received the MacArthur “Genius” grant as well as the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, she received the BET Honors Visual Artist award, the Lucie Award for Fine Art photography and was one of 4 artists honored at the Guggenheim’s International Gala.

She is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, NY and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery since 2008.

Over Time will be accompanied by an installation of Kudzanai Chiurai’s extensive collection of vinyl records, which include a selection of Zimbabwean Chimurenga and South African anti-apartheid struggle music, as well as rare recordings of speeches by Ian Smith, Kwame Nkrumah, Mobutu Sese Seko, Dr Martin Luther King and a dramatic re-enactment of the trial of Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale.

Over Time
Carrie Mae Weems II
Goodman Gallery
Johannesburg

07 September – 05 October 2019
Tuesday – Friday : 09H30-17H30

SATURDAY: 9H30-16H00<
163 Jan Smuts Ave., Parkwood Johannesburg

p. +27 (0)11 788 1113
jhb@goodman-gallery.com
www.goodman-gallery.com

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