A WALK

WHAT HAS DRIVEN THE LAYOUT, FORMAT AND SELECTION OF PROJECTS WITHIN THE ALT SECTION AT THE FAIR THIS YEAR?

The overarching theme of the fair is ‘Time’, so we have looked at how time has been defined in the artist’s practice, and how this has impacted our ways of looking at art. ALT represents a new way of showcasing art in installation-style booths or ‘antibooths’, and the selection was driven by how the galleries and artists translated the concept of time into their installations.

FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE FAIR, ART MOMENTUM IS HOSTING ‘SPEED DATING’ (A CLOSED EVENT, BY INVITATION ONLY). CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THIS?

It’s a quirky way of creating job opportunities and giving those invited a chance to network. Taking its cue from traditional speed dating, art speed dating allows each participant to interact one-on-one for a few minutes. When the buzzer sounds, we switch things up! This event provides invitees with exposure to a wide variety of professionals in a short amount of time and ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to exchange information. It’s a fun, fast-paced way to let others know who you are, what you do and what you hope to do in the future.

FOR VISITORS WHO ARE COLLECTORS OF CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE, WHICH GALLERIES WILL BE SHOWCASING THESE AT THE FAIR?

Eigen + Art, Galleria Six and Southern Guild.

IS IT EASY TO FIND MY WAY AROUND THE FAIR?

I’m an architect, so my expertise is to work with space. At the entrance, a floor vinyl will show you the way using different colours. The floorplan is user-friendly, with a simple grid and signage on the floor and walls to identify the different sections, and fascia on the side walls of each gallery. Each section is represented by a different colour on each fascia.

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ARE THERE ANY NEW SOUTH AFRICAN GALLERIES THAT HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR THIS YEAR’S FAIR?

Eleven galleries have been selected and are spread around the different sections. 131 A Gallery, Asisebenze Art Atelier, BKhz, Bubblegum Gallery, CHURCH Projects, Gallery De Move On, iBi Art, Nel, RESERVOIR, Riaan Bolt Antiques and Thomarts Gallery.

YOUR GO-TO GUIDE ON WHAT NOT TO MISS AT THIS MONTH’S INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR

WORDS MATTHEW MCCLURE yourluxury.africa yourluxury.africa

WHICH NEW INTERNATIONAL GALLERIES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE FAIR THIS YEAR?

Eighteen galleries from Istanbul to New York have been included in this year’s fair. These are Anna Laudel, Atelier le Grand Village, C24 Gallery, ERA Gallery, Galerie Atiss Dakar, Galleria Six, Gallerie Eric Dupont, Gallery 1957, LAB36+Senda, Madragoa, Michela Rizzo, OH Gallery, Ora Loapi, P420, Primo Marella Gallery, Reiners Contemporary Art, Shazar Gallery and Strouk Gallery. We hope to widen representation from around the world and offer a broader choice to collectors and visitors, but also from a curatorial point of view, they represent artists whose works fit into the curatorial statement and respond well to market demand.

CAN YOU NAME THREE NEW PANELISTS AT THIS YEAR’S TALKS PROGRAMME?

WHAT WILL THEY BE DISCUSSING?

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING A VISITOR TO THE FAIR WILL SEE WHEN THEY WALK IN?

You’ll see the section Tomorrows/Today, this year made very colourful, and highlighting 10 artists from around the world who will be the leading names of the future by forecasting relevant practices and ideas.

Wanjiru Koinange, co-founder of Book Bunk in Nairobi, will be in conversation with Paul Ninson, founder of the Dikan Centre in Accra. They’ll be discussing arts and cultural infrastructure, the relationship between space and architecture, and what it means to ‘contain’ art. You don’t want to miss the artist conversation between Binta Diaw, an Italian-Senegalese artist, Francesco Jodice and Natasha Becker, the curator of TT. This will centre on social and political issues in artistic practice.

DON’T MISS THE OTHER EXCITING EXHIBITIONS, AUCTIONS AND SHOWS PLANNED FOR THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY IN CAPE TOWN

Artist Walkabout With Teresa Kutala Firmino

EVERARD READ CAPE TOWN, V&A WATERFRONT

Everard Read’s Cape Town Gallery on the Waterfront presents a walkabout of Teresa Kutala Firmino’s Owners of the Earth II: Beyond Victims, Villains & Vixen. The artist herself will be present on Saturday 18 February at 11:00 to shed light on her exploration of “the space between trauma and fantasy” in her new body of work.

12:0016:00

GROUP SHOW 16 ON LEROTHOLI

16 LEROTHOLI AVE, LANGA, CAPE TOWN

16 on Lerotholi is collaborating with Everard Read to present Natural Habitat, a group show featuring the work of 10 artists (Blessing Ngobeni, Nandipha Mntambo and Phillemon Hlungwani among them), and the deep, meaningful connection of these creative practitioners to the landscape of Langa Township.

Solo Show Misheck Masamvu

ART AUCTION STRAUSS & CO

1 OAKDALE ROAD, NEWLANDS, CAPE TOWN yourluxury.africa

Leading fine art auction house Strauss & Co will present an auction of PanAfrican modernist and contemporary fine art on 28 February at 19:00, under the title Curatorial Voices: Modern and Contemporary Art from Africa. Strauss & Co has invited five curators from across the continent to select art for this pioneering sale, including Dana Endundo Ferreira (founder and CEO of Pavilion54 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Heba Elkayal (an independent curator and art historian from Egypt) and Valerie Kabov (director of the First Floor Gallery Harare in Zimbabwe).

AS YOU STROLL THROUGH THE ICTAF over the third weekend of February, you’ll notice smaller, separate booths attached to some of the main galleries. These are South African art writer, critic and curator Sean O’Toole’s contributions to this year’s art fair. It’s an exhibition of 10 artists from each of the five main sections of the fair (Main, ALT, Past/Modern, Editions and Tomorrows/Today) working within the disciplines of painting, photography and drawing, under the title SOLO: Time’s Labyrinth.

Sean has been an instantly recognisable feature of the South African cultural landscape for a number of years and was approached by ICTAF director, Laura Vincenti, to curate a show that responded to the fair’s overall theme of ‘Time’. His initial concept for the intervention involved focusing exclusively on artworks that incorporated photography and/or drawing, so he approached existing fair exhibitors and galleries that might be interested in participating. However, the feedback he received pushed his concept in a different direction. “Dealers will tell you this is the hardest work to sell in South Africa, so it didn’t unleash a deluge of applications,” says Sean.

Happily, this unexpected outcome resulted in a fascinating exhibition. “I’ve had to think about what curating means. It’s staging a story, an argument, and asking a question through a set of objects that are placed in relation to one another. What I like about this is the density and that you’re able to see more than one work by an artist.”

The SOLO booths create an environment where you’ll be able to understand and appreciate the development of work from each artist – something that might be missing from larger gallery spaces where the emphasis is on putting up as many saleable pieces from different artists as possible. At its most elemental, Sean says that SOLO is about the joy of looking. “I think often in the art world, you tend to get caught up in the politics and forget about the basic pleasure.”

What this project offers is not only a delightful insight into the minds and practices of some local and international contemporary artists, but also a deep reflection on how we define and depict drawing and photography as creative disciplines, and how these methodologies relate to time. For these reasons alone, you should certainly set time aside to visit the SOLO: Time’s Labyrinth booths.

SEAN O’TOOLE HAS CURATED A SELECTION OF EXCEPTIONAL CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS FOR THIS YEAR’S SOLO PROJECT AT THE INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR WORDS MATTHEW MCCLURE