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“AN ENDLESS NIGHT” OF CONTEMPORARY ART AT THE MOUNT NELSON HOTEL WITH INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR

belmond.com

Investec

Cape Town Art Fair and the Mount Nelson Hotel, A Belmond Hotel, have announced their second exhibition partnership at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, which will be open to the public from Wednesday 24 May until Monday 28 August.

This is part of an ongoing partnership that celebrated its beginning a week prior to the 10th edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair, in February. The inaugural exhibition was curated by Amogelang Maledu, titled Today, I wish to talk to your dreams. With its exploration of visions and nightmares, the exhibition made salient observations about the historical moment.

The second exhibition will once again celebrate the synergy between these landmark spaces. Both are intrinsic to Cape Town’s cultural calendar - the iconic Pink Lady, as the Mount Nelson Hotel is affectionately known due to her signature pink exterior, at the heart of the city and the art fair, providing an ongoing showcase for the country’s creative achievements - bringing history, heritage, and thoughtprovoking artwork into one shared moment.

Titled An Endless Night, the new exhibition is curated by Curator Anelisa Mangcu. Referencing the everyday, Mangcu’s perspective hones in on the pressures of ordinary existence: “We fill up our time with tasks, purpose, duty and creating memories, in hopes of taking our subjective existence seriously with intrinsic value. This way, we create value by affirming time and living it, and not simply obsessing over its passing.

“Time is our scarcest resource. It is completely non-renewable. The artists in this exhibition are encouraged to explore the passage of time that allows questions to unfold, characters to be drawn and findings to be resolved.”

The art pieces to be exhibited make up an extraordinary collection, whose juxtapositions will comment on geographic, gender and historical specificities of time. These include sculptor and conceptualist Mary Sibande, photographer and multimedia stylist Trevor Stuurman, social realist painter Mongezi Gum, multidisciplinary artist Kimathi Mafafo as well as other significant artists to be announced.

Laura Vincenti, Director of Investec Cape Town Art Fair, concurs, “Our partnership with the Mount Nelson Hotel is now well underway, and in. The exhibition ‘An Endless Night’ is open to the Mount Nelson Hotel guests and the public from Wednesday 24 May to Monday 28 August. The exhibition will be displayed in different areas of the hotel, its second extraordinary moment. We are thrilled, as the art fair, to see how an idea can become an integral part of the local culture in such a short space of time. Commitment to new ideas takes drive, skill and admiration for creativity, which is what we all bring to this project. We wish the incumbent curator Anelisa Mangcu well with her exhibition, knowing that through this event she is broadening horizons, and understanding, for the participating artists, and for the city itself.”

Mount Nelson Hotel General Manager Tiago Sarmento explains “Arts and culture are inherent to Belmond’s DNA as we have a long-standing history of nurturing passionate relationships with arts communities around the world. Thus, this feels like a natural partnership, not only because of the fair’s impeccable reputation in the art world, but also due to its well-respected relationships with established and emergent artists on the continent.”

For more information:

For more information on Mount Nelson, A Belmond Hotel, Cape Town please contact:

● Gabrielle Palmer Bolton phone: +27 82 890 7249; e-mail: gabrielle.palmer@belmond.com

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