CONNECT THROUGH ART FROM

Book Review ASHRAF JAMAL: STRANGE CARGO

“He has written with equal intensity about artists old and young, dead or alive, famous or relatively unknown, black or white, trending or not.”

Written primarily between 2019 and 2021, and set to be published by Skira in January 2022. It can be regarded as the twin of Jamal’s previous book, In the World: Essays on Contemporary South African Art (2017), which Afonso Dias Ramos described as ‘unlike any publication on the topic . . . a masterclass in arts criticism.’ In this, Strange Cargo is no different. Both form part of a single venture to celebrate and entrench the rich complexity of South African artists in a global imaginary. The artists that Jamal chooses to reflect upon refuse to fit into a predictive algorithm. He has written with equal intensity about artists old and young, dead or alive, famous or relatively unknown, black or white, trending or not. Love and empa-thy—his indifference to difference—is hisengine room, and much like the artists featured, Jamal does not only write for the moment we are in, but for a readership to come. A painful, beautiful, and incisive portrait of what was, what is, and what might come. Ashraf Jamal makes the tension between artistic practice, history, and society palpable in this series of searing essays, capturing the spirit and essence of the South African landscape of contemporary art.’—Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA and Founding Director of RAW Material Company.

Available in March 2022 from good bookshops near you

Pre-orders: to: no.ism.no.skism@gmail.com by 10 January 2022 to secure your copy at a discounted rate of R900 (while stocks last).

CONNECT THROUGH ART FROM AFRICA AND THE WORLD

Investec Cape Town Art Fair takes place from 18 - 20 February 2022 at Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).

After two years of physical events cancelled globally, Cape Town will once again welcome the art world to connect for an in-person event for the ninth edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair.

During the unprecedented times brought on by the pandemic, viewing rooms became the new Art Fairs and white cube galleries navigated their way off floor plans and on online platforms. Investec Cape Town Art Fair joined forces with Artshell (a customized web and app platform) and launched a digital event in 2021 and will deliver 2022’s hybrid physical and digital edition of Africa’s largest Art Fair showcasing international artists and those from the African Diaspora.

For Art Times Summer Edition cultural historian PETRA MASON spoke to Investec Cape Town Art Fair Director, Laura Vincenti and guest-curators Nkule Mabaso, Luigi Fassi and João Ferreira about what to look forward to for the hybrid physical and digital event happening next year.

Laura Vincenti, Director of Investec Cape Town Art Fair

What role do you think Investec Cape Town Art Fair plays in the art ecosystem?

Laura Vincenti: Investec Cape Town Art Fair is the largest Art Fair on the African continent, providing a platform for connection and interaction between artists, exhibitors, curators, museums, cultural institutions, collectors and art appreciators. It creates an opportunity for engagement that welcomes meaningful dialogue, education and farreaching interaction around contemporary art from Africa.

The Fair facilitates space for the art network to evolve, lending support to the visibility and celebratory exchange of art.

It is a cultural teaser for local institutions to collaborate on exchanges and a unique opportunity to connect through art with the world under one roof in a very short time.

What do we have to look forward to in the new section ALT

Laura Vincenti: ALT debuts in 2022 and is dedicated to projects that reflect the many ways in which the art world had to adapt in response to the global shift from physical to virtual.

Young, non-traditional exhibitors have the opportunity to showcase their artists in a nonconventional way, though in the conventional setting of an Art Fair, opening a dialogue on representation and physical versus virtual connection.

ALT features installation-based works and innovative booth formats with a fresh vibe.

What can we expect/ are there new approaches to MAIN and SOLO?

Laura Vincenti: In this upcoming year SOLO will explore how artists have reacted to intimacy and introspection caused by the pandemic, as well as the effect that exchange and collaboration have on artistic practice as a whole.

SOLO is an extension of Investec Cape Town Art Fair’s project, Insight-out, launched in 2020 - a playful Q&A addressed to artists during isolation highlighting their everyday lives. In its fourth iteration, SOLO will feature

Botho Project Space, [Main], Cinthia Sifa Mulanga, Shades of Ambition, 2021, Mixed Media on Canvas, 80cm x 120 cm

work from artists including Luyanda Zindela (South Africa) of SMAC Gallery in South Africa, Thebe Phetogo (Botswana) of Guns and Rain in South Africa, Brett Seiler (Zimbabwe) of Everard Read in South Africa, Osvaldo Ferreira (Angola) of THIS IS NOT A WHITE CUBE in Angola, Duduzile (DuduBloom) More (South Africa) of Berman Contemporary (South Africa), Johannes Phokela (South Africa) of Eclectica Contemporary (South Africa).

More than ever our MAIN section will see collaboration between different exhibitors and artists, a platform to be seen as an opportunity to commit on new projects that go beyond the geographical and cultural barriers. A more meaningful way to connect and/or reconnect people through art.

Has your role changed because of Covid-19 and the move to online viewing and collecting?

Laura Vincenti: There is a transformation happening in the art world. The first Investec Cape Town Art Fair Digital Event gave us the opportunity to support and showcase South African artists, whilst continuing to connect with international exhibitors, partners, visitors, media and creatives. While we still firmly believe that a digital event cannot replace the transformative nature of an in-person art experience, the digital event has provided benefits to the overall experience of viewing and collecting art. Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2022 is a hybrid event intersecting the physical and the digital spaces of the art world, and offers a multi-faceted opportunity for all participants of the fair.

Luigi Fassi and Nkule Mabaso are the cocurators of TOMORROWS/TODAY section at the Fair.

What do we have to look forward to / is there a new approach for TOMORROWS/ TODAY in 2022?

Luigi Fassi: As a post pandemic edition (and not even fully post pandemic, since we’re all still coping with its consequences), we decided to focus more in 2022 on African practices and galleries based in South Africa and in the continent, to create a stronger statement on what the scene is offering. We’ve decided not to build the section by predetermining thematic or narrative topics and there are no privileged conceptual models to define its nature. The visitors will for sure come across different painting practices and this mirrors the

Everard Read, [Main}, Daniel Naude, Study For Portrait 1, Homing Pigeon, 2016, C-PRINT, ED OF 7, 100 X 125cm

strength of this medium in the current moment. In general the architecture of TOMORROWS/ TODAY 2022 is given by the emerging force of the projects presented, which all bear witness to a critical and uncompromising urgency with regard to artistic work, capable of raising questions and reflections on the current changes underway in the global scenario.

What are some of the interesting aspects of curating between Africa and Europe?

Luigi Fassi: It’s a wonderful privilege. I have been working in Europe and in the US and the chance to get to know the African art scene is hugely enriching. I only wish I could have spent more research time in Africa in the last two years, however, the global situation didn’t allow for that. I have been lucky to keep working with Nkule Mabaso, in our capacity as co-curators of the section. We started working together in 2019 for TOMORROWS/TODAY 2020 and from the very beginning of our cooperation we created a mutual trust that has helped us a lot sharing ideas and overcoming constraints in a smoother way. I think it’s because we have been both curious to get to know each other and learn from one another. This established our professional partnership and helped us during lockdown doing our research.

What are the burning curatorial issues to focus on in global art right now and why?

Luigi Fassi: Identity politics, as well as the debate on history and the way we are supposed to evaluate it from a contemporary perspective. Artists can offer an incredible contribution to such debates. I personally strive for art that makes us think in slow terms, nurturing our need of criticality and at the same time offering us a space for emotion and inspiration.

Nkule Mabaso: Global art is a contested framework. But curating responds to the times so I would venture to say is that together with the zeitgeist the pressing concerns are around new imaginaries that move from surveillance capitalism, speak beyond catastrophe and engagement methods that are inclusive and anti-racist… some where there lies the enact of shared concerns through the curatorial…

What role do you think Investec Cape Town Art Fair plays in the art ecosystem?

Nkule Mabaso: Investec Cape Town Art Fair is important for the local scene and a public moment of presentation and meeting, facilitating different conversation and because it happens so early in the year it sets the

Laura Vincenti, Investec Cape Town Art Fair Director Luigi Fassi João Ferreira

scene and pace of the art scene for the given year! It gives the highlight and sets a kind of momentum that is very generative and stimulating. In the wider sense because it’s not only internally focused on South Africa and brings in exhibitioners form the rest of the continent and other geographies, it’s seminal moment of convening that extends beyond the commercial and generates relationships that last past the moments of the fair.

João Ferreira is the curator of the PAST/ MODERN section, focused on curated work by modern masters offered with discerning collectors in mind.

What are the burning curatorial issues to focus on in global art right now and why?

João Ferreira: Feminine expression to empower and reconcile. Post ‘Black Lives Matter’ discourse and the appropriation of contemporary culture, identification with public monuments and the return of Historical artefacts that were stolen during colonialism.

What do we have to look forward to for PAST/MODERN?

João Ferreira: Quality, modern masters sold by specialist dealers with a curatorial focus on connoisseurship and collector motivation.

Has your role changed because of Covid-19 and the move to online viewing and collecting?

João Ferreira: I am old school, I like to close a deal over coffee with the collector and the painting.

It has been exciting to modify my business model with the use of online platforms and media.

“We cannot wait to welcome old and new friends and partners to Investec Cape Town Art Fair in 2022 and provide a platform to connect, re-connect and interact with one another. Nothing to me is as rewarding as to exchange opinions, emotions and ideas being in a physical art environment and nurturing the natural human needs of learning and sharing,’’ concludes Vincenti.

The ninth edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair will take place from Friday 18 to Sunday 20 February 2022 at the CTICC and via the online platform Artshell. Tickets can be purchased via the Webticket link on www. investeccapetownartfair.co.za

For more information, updates, Covid-19 protocols1 and how to register log onto the website and follow Investec Cape Town Art Fair on Twitter @ICTAF, Instagram @investeccapetownartfair and Facebook @ICTArtFair. Use the hashtag #ICTAF.