Wanted magazine: September issue 2021

09 / 2021

wanted

THE ART ISSUE A n d r e w Ts h a b a n g u , M a n Wa s h i n g C l o t h e s

ED’S LETTER

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EDITOR.

To be young, gifted, and vital text

Siphiwe Mpye

portrait

Manelisi Dabata

as about their missing faves.

It is by no means definitive; it could never be. Our original list emerged from within and, as we surveyed art professionals, knowledgeable friends, curators, collectors, and some of our art contributors, it ebbed and flowed with the debate that ensued. To help us along, we confined it to those born in the ’90s; a cruel blow to Wonder Buhle Mbambo, Kimathi Mafafo, Aviwe Plaatjie, and others whose accident of birth placed them on the wrong side of 1990. To help trim the list further, we left out less “traditional” artists — again, contentious, because on another day there would have been room for, among many, Karabo Poppy, Rendani Nemakhavhani, and Nkhensani Mkhari.

Those featured in last year’s issue, such as Puleng Mongale, Katlego Tlabela, and Zwelethu Machepa, are also missing; to accommodate our constraints, not because of lesser ability.

The upside of all of this is that with each new year we will be able to accommodate more. And there are already many learnings to be applied to Wanted 22: Young and Vital Artists, 2022, with — if our vaccination drive will allow — a vital party to mark the occasion. For now, enjoy the issue and the list. Look into the artists, talk about them and, most importantly, buy their work.

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Young people’s voices heave with a seismic force that, like their art, knows no other route but straight to the heart of the matter

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o be young, at least in theory, is to be blessed with the kind of fearlessness that is unencumbered by the calluses of lived experience.

To be vital, like good art, is to be unavoidable: not an option, but a necessity. In formulating Wanted 21: Young and Vital Artists — which we carry for the first time in this, our annual Art Issue — we looked to some of the very best young artists working and living (even partially) in South Africa, chosen as much for their technical ability and imagination as for their sociocultural import.

Youth, unfortunately, also tends to be burdened with being talked over, spoken on behalf of, or dismissed. Very often it is all of the above. It should be no mystery then that young people’s voices heave with a seismic force that, like their art, knows no other route but straight to the heart of the matter — whatever the matter, all matters. This is why young people matter; this is why their creations are vital.

Globally, there are formal and informal artist lists aplenty, often accompanied by the “emerging” qualifier. We deliberately avoided this, with all its problematic connotations — “Emerging from where, to

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whom?”, as one young art professional mused during a recent conversation — not least because, depending on whose lens is applied, artists could still be emerging 10 years after their first group show.

In last year’s issue, our colleague Zodwa KumaloValentine profiled six young trailblazers. This year we take it to 21, to mark the year we are in. In choosing only this number, out of scores of working young artists, we are also fully aware of the self-inflicted set-up here: lists like this one are inexorably contentious. For many, its strengths or shortcomings will be as much about who is on it,

P L U S

P L E N T Y

M O R E , V I S I T

The Nature of Women, Lulama “Wolf ” Mlamba

WA N T E D O N L I N E . C O . Z A

: Team EDITOR Siphiwe Mpye (mpyes@arena.africa) CREATIVE DIRECTOR Anna Lineveldt (lineveldta@arena.africa) MANAGING EDITOR Suzy Josephson 072 598 9282 (josephsons@arena.africa) JUNIOR DESIGNERS Carike de Jager

and Manelisi Dabata SUBEDITOR Iolandi Pool FASHION DIRECTOR Sharon Armstrong (armstrongs@arena.africa) FASHION EDITOR Sahil Harilal BEAUTY EDITOR Nokubonga Thusi (thusin@arena.africa) FASHION INTERN Nombuso Kumalo DÉCOR DIRECTOR Leana Schoeman (leanas@sundaytimes.co.za) GROUP MOTORING EDITOR Denis Droppa (droppad@arena.africa)

FINAL EYE Elizabeth Sleith DESIGN HUB ONLINE EDITOR Stephen Haw (haws@arena.africa) ACTING WANTED ONLINE EDITOR

Tshepo Tshabalala BUSINESS DAY EDITOR Lukanyo Mnyanda EDITOR-AT-LARGE: LIFESTYLE Aspasia Karras (karrasa@arena.africa) HEAD: ADVERTISING SALES EBEN GEWERS CEO Andrew Gill GENERAL MANAGER: LUXURY SALES Yvonne Shaff 082 903 5641 (shaffy@arena.africa) ACCOUNT MANAGER Johannesburg Tamara Nicholson 083 604 0949 (nicholsont@arena.africa) ACCOUNT MANAGER Western Cape Samantha Pienaar 082 889 0366 (pienaars@arena.africa) ACCOUNT MANAGER Durban Gina van de Wall 083 500 5325 (vdwallg@arena.africa)

The shape of fairs to come — how the art scene has adapted to the lockdown world

Corporate art collections tell stories of belonging, identity, and prestige

Legendary art galleries and studio collectives celebrate milestones

Introducing Wanted 21: Young and Vital, a list of talented artists born in the ’90s

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Photographer Andrew Tshabangu

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The Shot:

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Subscription enquiries: 086 052 5200 PRINTED by Paarl Media for Arena Holdings, Hill on Empire, 16 Empire Road (cnr Empire and Hillside roads), Parktown, Johannesburg, 2193

Carrying Firewood, Andrew Tshabangu, 2003

CEO Saki Zamxaka on a life viewed through the prism of art and music

WAT C H E S

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The Big Bang chronograph, launched in 2005, might get all of the attention but it was the company’s first watch in 1980 that established the brand as a house of innovation. That porthole-shaped gold piece featured the luxury watch industry’s first natural rubber strap.

The Classic Fusion collection reinterprets the elegance of that first watch and is relatively understated in the world of Hublot. The unique, paredback styling of this collection presents the perfect starting point or canvas for collaborations, which first began in 2017 with the skeletonised Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph Orlinski. It features a faceted titanium case designed

by French artist Richard Orlinski, mimicking the style of his iconic sculptures.

This relationship continues in two new 40mm Classic Fusion Orlinski editions for 2021, in monochrome “flashy blue” and “gloss black” ceramic.

Also part of the “Hublot Loves Art” programme, earlier this year Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami interpreted his familiar, smiling-flower emblem in black diamonds with a dynamic, 3D effect for the Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami All Black timepiece — see full review at wantedonline.co.za.

For 2021, Hublot also presents the 45mm Classic Fusion Chronograph Shepard Fairey in titanium as its second collaboration with the American artist.

Well timed, this sculpture for the wrist “symbolises the natural cycles of life and the unity between different cultures” through Fairey’s interpretation of a mandala. The painter, graphic designer,

Gary Cotterell is Wanted’s Editorat-Large.

COLUMN.

Hublot Classic

Quality time

Fusion Chronograph Shepard Fairey

Hublot fuses fine art with exquisite craftmanship

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he relationship between the worlds of art and luxury isn’t anything new, but it has become ubiquitous in recent years as contemporary artists are commissioned to bring fresh energy to heritage brands.

In the world of luxury watch brands, Hublot is a relative newcomer, yet has attracted attention worthy of its younger, rebel star status. At Hublot, a collaboration is a much deeper engagement than the mere customisation that is so often the norm. The artist is

given full autonomy to create; just short of redesigning the watch movement.

This bravado and daring is captured in the name of its most famous collection, the Big Bang, and expresses the art of bold design statements and revolutionary movements and materials synonymous with the manufacture.

Incidentally, it was Hublot that in 2009 became one of the very first companies to equip its timepieces with the WISeKey blockchain-based authentication system, something that is only now on everyone else’s agenda.

DJ, illustrator, street artist, skateboarder, and founder of OBEY Clothing is also said to be one of the most politically influential artists of his generation. His more recent work includes the famous Obama Hope poster from former president Barack Obama’s electoral campaign in 2008, and Liberté, égalité, fraternité, which he created as a symbol of hope for France after the 2015 terrorist attacks. His work is included in the permanent collections of, among others, the Smithsonian in Washington DC, MoMA in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Fairey’s mandala pattern is brushed and engraved on the titanium case, bezel and dial, which has been finely cut to expose the self-winding calibre HUB1155 chronograph movement with a power reserve of 42 hours. At the centre, the hands feature the artist’s signature “Star Gear” mark. The watch comes on a lined black rubber strap. Available as a limited edition of 50, at just under R500 000 each, this timepiece will also help to raise funds for Amnesty International.

Can a luxury watch bring enlightenment? I guess that’s not the point here, but for those who appreciate fine art and craftsmanship, it certainly presents much to muse over. Says Fairey: “I wanted to integrate the art of the mandala into the piece as, for me, this evokes the connection between the inner self and the outer world. A powerful concept to consider when looking at a watch and thinking about time.” A powerful consideration for all of us right here, right now. hublot.com

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MASTERPIECE The grand feu champlevé enamelling technique requires the skill of a highly trained artist, hours of delicate carving, and repeated firing to achieve the dial decoration. The timeless Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse features this rare

handcraft on the dial of the Haut Artisanat 18kt white gold piece. The dial plate is first hollowed out to form the cavities for the grand feu black enamel. The gold areas left in relief are then entirely hand-engraved with arabesques and volutes.

Beneath the dial beats the ultra-thin, self-winding calibre 240. POR, Patek Philippe boutique, 011 784 2595

COLOUR SWATCH Green in all its tints, tones, and shades is the dial colour du jour, echoing what’s in fashion while also offering an emotional connection to nature. Green is at its most expressive in an exotic jungle so exquisitely captured in The Dream (1910) by French artist Henri Rousseau. This work by the Post-Impressionist painter is among five selected from MoMA’s permanent collection in NYC and reimagined for the new Swatch x MoMA line-up. From R1 340, swatch. com/en-za

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THE ONLY WATCH Dynamic, uplifting colour is presented in the Zenith Defy Double Tourbillon by artist Felipe Pantone, a unique edition for the biennial Only Watch charity auction with a 46mm sapphire case, featuring an openwork dial to reveal its El Primero 9020 movement. The “Rainbow” PVD coating is present on bridges, hour markers, and watch hands. Estimated to fetch between R2.9million and R3.6-million.

Visit wantedonline.co.za for the full story.

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Karl Rogers

Gary Cotterell

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OBJET

STOCKIST INSTAGRAM.COM/THE.REVERENCY

A cup of reverence Taking inspiration from the humble calabash in this design (r)evolution

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he upcoming homewear range by The Reverency is inspired by an imagining of how the indigenous people of South Africa would have been impacted by the evolution of design in the modern world.

The calabash used to serve umqombothi (African beer) thus gives rise to the Cup of Reverence. Its finish is intentionally imperfect to give a handmade effect, and the lines are based on the black and white stripes on umbhaco (traditional attire).

Most of the range will primarily be decorative, with functionality secondary, allowing the products to reference sculpture.

Cups, R650 for a set of four, The Reverency

FA S H I O N

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Nokubonga Thusi

Fashioning a narrative with

ROMAN HANDT

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hat was your inspiration for the costumes created for the international production The West, and how did they help to convey the production’s narrative?

Narrative dictates costume, so there are defined guidelines to steer the design elements.

According to [director and choreographer] Constanza Macras, “The West sketches out an anthropological, performative study of Western civilisation and takes a humorous look at Western societies as a dream factory of artificial authenticity.” Colour, proportion, and texture can reveal a great deal of information

about a character to the audience and I aim to create work that plays a part in the storytelling.

How do you strike a balance between working with the vision of an artist and staying true to the Roman Handt aesthetic? Transparent communication is key, as is defining the general goal. We achieve the end result through experimentation and innovation.

I’m currently blessed to be able to select projects that align with my desired aesthetic, whereas it was difficult to do so when I was starting out.

What are the challenges in designing costumes for big stage productions, and what are the highlights? The big productions

are always in foreign locations, in my case, so travelling and working on location in an unfamiliar atelier can be demanding. Foreign languages can also contribute to the challenges but, fortunately, the nature of the work is primarily visual, so communication of an idea can take on any form. Lastly, managing the workload and time management can be tricky. The Berlin Volksbühne’s costume department is inspirational in every way. The level of technical expertise and execution of work blew me away. Its departments elevated my design style, so I’m very lucky.

A fair budget to produce a body of work is always a positive. We were a theatre-going family growing up and I myself dabbled in amateur theatre (acting) in my free time when I lived abroad. Being part of a theatre production makes me really happy and it’s a great escape from the fashion industry.

How does your creative process differ when designing costumes for the stage from when you are designing garments for the runway? The audience to whom the final product is revealed is my main consideration, and the two markets are completely different. The one mainly observes garments for entertainment value while the other invests money to own a garment.

When designing the garments in collaboration with Kieron Jina for Pause, why did you choose layering Basotho blankets as the main fabrication? As [gender activist and creative] Kgosi Motsoane says, “The piece interrogates — by way of choreography, imagery, and pointed text — the relationship between work, practice, identity, capitalistic labour, and innate ritual.” In order to minimise my carbon footprint, I try to use only resources around and close to the atelier in Fordsburg, Johannesburg. There is a blanket wholesaler within walking distance that stocks traditional and ritualistic blankets. Kieron decided on the order of the layering of the blanket garments in order to aid the storyline.

How does collaborating with other artists and creatives such as Carel Combrinck and Kieron Jina fuel your own creative spirit and even influence your own design style? Every creative personality brings their own signature to a collaboration. There is a definite transfer of skills, which results in experimentation, and the end result is always a surprise to me.

What’s next for Roman Handt? I’m working with photographer Justin Dingwall and exploring more storytelling, this time considering fashion and not costume as a point of reference. romanhandt.com

PHOTOGRAPHY ZIVANAI MATANGI, MANYATSA MONYAMANE AND SUPPLIED MODEL KIERON JINA

Couture becomes performance art as the South African fashion designer and textile scientist lends his creativity to the world of theatre

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aquatic freshness sets the tone for Armani Privé Cyprès Pantelleria, part of the Armani/Privé Les Eaux line. A harmonious juxtaposition of cypress and seafoam, it invigorates with morning sea breeze notes of mandarin, bergamot, cedrat, clary sage, cypress essence, amber woods, oakmoss accord, and vetiver. Armani Privé Cyprès Pantelleria EDT 100ml, R3 200, exclusive to Edgars

into the cobalt night

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200 LOUIS

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rom the brand that invented the “Art of Travel”, Louis Vuitton’s iconic trunk, created in the 1850s, gets a breath of new life for its bicentenary with a series of celebratory window displays

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featuring the artistic creations of 200 talents and visionaries.

Creatives such as BTS, NIGO®, and Alyssa Carson were given carte blanche to create, deconstruct, repurpose, or refashion the trunk

in any medium — even augmented reality. The Maison will also pledge €2-million to non-profit organisations to help young people discover the arts and unlock their creativity. louisvuitton.com

hat better nightcap for your skin than a slathering of Swiss caviar-enriched oil, courtesy of La Prairie? New to the Skin Caviar collection, the Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil is a masterclass in innovation with the discovery of caviar retinol. A potent ingredient exclusive to La Prairie, its caviar lipids and caviarderived retinol work together to fight visible signs of skin ageing.

The silky oil formula works with the skin’s natural circadian rhythms to rejuvenate, restore firmness, reduce the appearance of fine lines, and improve collagen synthesis. La Prairie Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil 20ml, R9 150 I N C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H WA N T E D

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It seems we’re not the only ones dreaming about an escape to a remote island these days — Giorgio Armani’s latest fragrance creation is inspired entirely by his long-standing love for the volcanic island of Pantelleria. The island’s

La Prairie Skin Caviar Nighttime Oil 20ml

REMOTE INSPIRATION

inally, you can cry if you want to — and not at the expense of your eyeliner or mascara — thanks to Chanel’s new Eyes Collection, which is a celebration of self-expression and makeup that can keep up. The collection, fronted by Belgian singer and artist Angèle, proves that tears and laugh lines are no match for these ultra-resistant and longwearing eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow formulas. With a choice of 14 shades (with seven new shades), the cult Le Stylo Yeux Waterproof can keep up with all the feels life throws at you due to its resistance to humidity, water, and sebum. Chanel Le Stylo Yeux Waterproof in Prune Intense, Bleu Métal, Gris Graphite, Rose Cuivré, R535 each; Chanel Les 4 Ombres in Douceur et Sérénité and Lumières et Vibrations, R1 130 each

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Andrew Tshabangu text

Siphiwe Mpye

Humanising the African experience from every angle

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he year is 2006, and veteran photographer Andrew Tshabangu is in Maputo, Mozambique attending the Indian Ocean Photographer’s Workshop, along with fellow lensfolk from the SADC region and the African Indian Ocean islands.

“I stumbled upon that image,” he says of his photograph Salt of the Earth, taken at a salt refinement site run by a small business. “It then informed the series I took at that workshop, focussing on salt.”

This series speaks to others, such as Water Is Ours, in his long-running food production theme.

They will intersect in Communion, an exhibition at Gallery MOMO next month.

“I will be looking at the spirituality of salt, water, alcohol, and bread, and exploring the rituals of food [salt and water]. Salt has a biblical meaning but is also problematic, with clear contradictions because of its association with lifestyle diseases.

I will be exploring all of that.”

We give space to Tshabangu’s work in anticipation of this exhibition, and in celebration of a body of work of over 30 years that humanises the African experience in all its facets — mobility, spirituality, ritual, city life, and the slow, profoundly rhythmic ways of rural life, represented on our cover (Man Washing Clothes) and on the contents page (Carrying Wood), from the 2003 Emakhaya series.

Top left to right: Man Washing Clothes; Carrying Firewood, both Emakhaya Series; Above: Salt of the Earth, Salt Series

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IMAGES ALL COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GALLERY MOMO (COPYRIGHT)

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P E E R S I N C O N V E R S AT I O N

PEERS IN CONVERSATION A veteran photographer and an acclaimed musician talk about making connections, the worth of Vasco da Gama’s friendship, and the state of waiting

ANDREW TSHABANGU AND

NEO MUYANGA

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eo Muyanga (NM): I was just thinking about you and your work.

I was looking at your pictures of the members of the kwaShembe congregation [Nazareth Baptist Church]. Those faces are so close, and I was thinking that’s difficult to do; how did you manage that?

Andrew Tshabangu (AT): I’m not a member of kwaShembe. But when I photograph, I always do my best to respect the people whom I’m photographing.

I knew I was photographing the pilgrimage; it takes three days, from the headquarters of kwaShembe up to the holy mountain. I have friends in Soweto who are members of Shembe, and the ones who took me to Inanda explained how it works.

I was in a way somehow part of the congregants, but at the same time I was detached from the whole process. It is important to know that you are not a member, but to do that with respect and dignity.

NM: I love those images because there is a dignity there. There is a sense of a true connection for me,

Andrew Tshabangu has had a variegated career behind the lens for over three decades, covering subjects as diverse as violence, religious ritual, and urban mobility.

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Carike de Jager

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there with the figures. You know there is direct eye contact, but also the body. I love how you’ve composed those pictures.

AT: An advantage I had was my friend in kwaShembe. I was advised by him to wear allwhite clothes, so I could blend in on the walk to the mountain and not look like an outsider.

That photo is part of the broader series that I have been working on, on spirituality. Not only in South Africa but also in other neighbouring countries — Kenya, Réunion Island, Mozambique. I am showing both indigenous and the so-called Western religions; the impact and interrelation between the two religions.

I started working with photography around the time of the so-called black-on-black violence in the townships. I was a freelance photographer working mainly for the New Nation newspaper, which

positioned itself as the people’s newspaper. We would go to hot spots, especially Thokoza, Khumalo Street, and then photograph all these violent images. Then we’d go to the newsroom and get accolades and pats on the shoulder. And then go back to the townships.

However, there were also these “normal” moments, quieter moments, moments that didn’t make it to the publications, the newspapers or television. I got interested in photographing those moments, starting with the township. This religious series comes from that idea; people were going to church, to shebeens, to parks, they did this and that.

That is how I got interested.

NM: That strikes a chord with a lot of the work I’ve been doing lately, which is thinking about chorus.

Chorus is the choir and chorus is also cacophony, the idea that we are the many. We have complaints, we

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Manelisi Dabata

Neo Muyanga is best known for his work as part of the acoustic duo Blk Sonshine, but has also spent several years researching, writing, and showcasing opera music across the world.

have tragedy, we have pains, and that voice comes across in protest and toyi-toyi. When you speak about those days in Thokoza, I feel them vividly.

I am from Mofolo South, and used to go to school in Dube — Nka Thuto Primary — just a few streets away from [playwright Gibson Kente], who used to give us workshops. He kind of jabbed me somehow with this love for music and theatricality, and the many voices articulating.

Dube village, for me, is very strongly felt. One area of contention during the violent time we speak about is, of course, the Nancefield hostel.

I remember I wasn’t here all of the time because I was living in Italy then, but I know that it was beginning to get hot just as I was about to leave in 1991. I remember the stories from family while I was overseas and about how scary it was to take the train.

AT: Yeah, I was also amazed with my positioning as a photographer; my role was to counter those violent images of the so-called black-on-black violence. Those were the images that the newsroom liked. But coming to your idea of chorus, I am amazed that, with the success you had with BLK Sonshine, here you are.

Chorus is not hip for most of us. Why chorus music?

NM: There would have been no BLK Sonshine had I not been a chorus kid in the hood, in township choirs, in school choirs. The choir, for me, was always a way of finding a sense of belonging. When I got to Italy, I did not speak the language and the first thing I did as a defence mechanism was to join the choir. Writing for choirs has always been how I think about placing the voice of the four-part harmony.

The colonial thing you’re talking about, the confluence and the contribution of our traditions, of how we make music, but also church music and work songs written in four-part harmony, soprano, alto, tenor, and bass — I learnt that confluence, that almostmusical violence, at school and it just continued.

When I needed to find a job, a gig, in Europe, I started busking. Back in South Africa, in 1994, I made friends with Masauko Chipembere, who’s like my brother now. He’s the guy who started BLK Sonshine with me. And BLK Sonshine comes from an acoustic mentality. Our intention was to make simple, direct acoustic music; we used acoustic guitars, no effects, and we used our voices, singing in harmony. The harmony we were making was informed by the fourpart harmony that we learnt at school. We were both choirboys at a certain point.

Many people thought BLK Sonshine wasn’t hip at the time either, because the rest of the world was doing kwaito then.

AT: I am surprised by your choices, actually. BLK Sonshine and chorus music are not hip music. Back to opera and chorus music, why didn’t you continue?

NM: Well, Masauko and I are still working on projects. We don’t always do them as BLK Sonshine but we think a lot together about music. For example, I’m working now with Msaki, who is of a younger generation but very involved with composition and craft from an acoustic point of view; telling stories about how our people have lived and the hopes and dreams we have for ourselves and our own.

You could see her as the young generation of what would have been BLK Sonshine. She is from the Eastern Cape, but she is working nationally now. I think she is one of the most significant voices today in songwriting.

I have been co-producing an album for the past

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three years. It’s starting to come out online, there’s a piece that is being released today [14 August], in fact, because it commemorates the Marikana killings.

She’s someone who is much like how we see ourselves, because we tell stories about now, about the joys and the tragedies we are living now, like your work.

The photographs, for me, are about telling stories of everyday life, but then in the middle of living our everyday lives we’ve got these epic confrontations with the system, with violence, with subjugation, with systemic marginalisation, which have continued for a long time.

The point is to tell the story from our perspective today, and try to find a thread connected to the origins of the story and ways of understanding power today.

AT: One of my current projects’ working title is “Waiting Room”, using the room as a metaphor, like the waiting room at a hospital, waiting for the doctor.

When you travel or are in transit, they put you in a sort of room, a lounge. However, this time, the idea of a waiting room is how people have been waiting for this or that, over and over. This project is looking at the state of our people now.

NM: You know what I hear in that? The only people who wait are the poor and the marginalised.

AT: And the people in queues are marginalised people as well.

NM: Those are the people who are constantly waiting in queues, who are expected to be there for hours, and then who are told at the end of the day, “Sorry, we won’t get to you. Come back tomorrow or next week.”

AT: Yeah, you hear the stories in hospitals and informal settlements and so forth. In general, Black people have been in a state of waiting since even before 1994. We make the mistake of thinking that our problems started in 1994, but we have been waiting since long before that.

NM: Bra Hugh [Masekela] used to say, “Vasco da Gama was no friend of mine.”

What form is your new project taking? Is it black and white again?

AT: Yeah, I think I’m too old to be starting with new technology.

NM: I need to ask you more about that, because what you think of as old technology is what the young hipsters are now using. Everybody is trying to do film again; you are now a guru.

AT: I don’t see myself as a guru; I was using the technology because of necessity, because of what has been available to me, and also because I’m a very slow person, you know, in understanding. It took me so long to understand this medium and it will take me too long to switch to other mediums.

NM: What camera are you using? I am interested in film cameras; I have a collection and am thinking about moving to negatives.

AT: If this were a private conversation, I would tell you which camera I’m using, but I won’t now because I don’t like being an ambassador or doing free adverts for these big companies, because they don’t plough back to us. But I still use the old cameras.

NM: In terms of format, are you 35mm?

AT: Yes, 35mm, but I also have a medium format.

For me it is not about the camera you use, it’s about what you capture. You capture with your heart and your mind before you can capture with any brand of camera. The content, the context, and the meaning are far more important than what brand is better.

NM: I don’t believe I’m good at that. I love imagery

P E E R S I N C O N V E R S AT I O N

ANDREW TSHABANGU AND

NEO MUYANGA because that is how I think about stories, especially for the stage, as I write operas and I try to imagine from a directing and cinematographic sense. I have to imagine tableaux and what my characters are doing, and therefore what they sound like when they are doing it.

I have always wondered, the work you make is portraiture of a certain kind, it’s not in the sense of a person sitting in a pose, but how do you think about composition? In the making of the composition, where are you? Are you finding a way to also reflect yourself? It has always been a mystery to me.

AT: There are moments when I see myself in particular projects, but others where I don’t necessarily. For example, when I talk about the waiting room, there are moments when I am a part of it and others when I am not, when I am a traveller or a stranger with a camera. There are instances when the work becomes personal or I see myself, but not in all the images.

Sometimes the projects are collective, maybe as Sowetans, as South Africans, as Africans or maybe all contributing to the idea, the project of humanity.

To the betterment of ourselves.

When I worked in Kenya and Réunion, I was working with young photographers and I couldn’t speak the language. We are all Africans, but it was clear my access was about my Blackness; other than that I was totally a stranger. It is not always that I am inside the stories; sometimes I am a stranger and sometimes I am within.

NM: I reflect on that when I’m putting stuff on stage.

Sometimes, to find resonance I think about this question, the one that the marketing departments always ask, “Who are you writing this for?” However, I am never writing this for anyone, except us, I am writing for myself and for us.

AT: I also ask that question — who are you photographing for and what are you taking [from this]?

Most of the time my work is shown in exhibitions, and what are people taking from them? First and foremost, I photograph for myself; I am not so arrogant as to think that I am taking pictures to change the world.

I probably thought that way when I was younger, but age and experience show you that it is an illusion.

When the work is out there, one does not have control over it, and people look differently; some people can be moved by certain pieces and others not.

NM: For me, I am speaking as a composer. You create an object that is taken on by society, by individuals in society. They do with it and think about it whatever they will, and you have no control over it. At what point do our works reflect society?

I see myself and my people in your work. It is often how we describe making work for the stage — the stories we tell and the work that we do really need to reflect the realities of the folks who are there.

That’s the only way to find resonance.

This is why I don’t understand the machines; the computer and the internet. If you don’t have shared

resonance in a shared airspace, a four-dimensional space with bodies and minds sharing and talking, there’s a limited extent to which you can have a sense of complicity, a sense of sharing something truly transformative.

For me, the only possibility of seeing yourself as the other is to inhabit the same three or four dimensions.

I am having so much trouble [with machines], I don’t like the internet.

AT: One of the things that made me move away from mainstream media was this idea of control: who controls the image and how do you want your images to be seen? People have started talking about this idea of copyright. I have always wanted control of what I do, since the early stages of my career.

When we met in Berlin, five or six years ago, I was surprised that you were working with a visual artist, Emeka Ogboh. We met at a gallery, Ifa. I want to understand the process — is it you completing their work, or are they complementing yours?

NM: In truth, it goes both ways. Emeka and I have been friends for a while and we share a love of Afrobeat and palm-wine music. He conceived this project — he wanted me to do sound work in Ethiopia and called to say, “Can we do it together?”, because he wanted to do it with choirs and I am the guy who works with choirs. So I convened a choir here, but then we installed it at the African Union pavilion, which was a proud moment for both of us. He works with archival material, he’s a sound artist himself, a DJ, but he works visually.

Visual work has always been interesting to me, and I have always painted. In terms of stage design, I make my own drawings for the stage. It’s through the process of making drawings that I can understand questions of back or front of the stage, hierarchy, power, voice, and ways of articulating dimensions of voice. The image, for me, is a way I think about scenes, scenography.

Visual storytelling becomes a strong element of how I make music for choirs, for operas. It is often a back and forth; I have friends who have invited me to work with them as visual artists, but in turn I have invited friends to work with me on musical projects.

Actually, I haven’t worked with a photographer…

AT: My hand is up!

NM: I would love to talk to you about making something. I love the work you’re doing. There’s an image where you photographed someone in a mirror, from inside a car. I have always been fascinated by mirrors; there is a visual illusion there, about which space I am in.

AT: That is from a series I did called City in Transition. I was looking at the transformation of Johannesburg, and the transition of public transportation between townships and the city and the suburbs.

This conversation has made it clear that at some point we should work together on a joint project. It would be nice for us to dream together, to be involved in a common project.

I am also looking forward to my vinyl, the BLK Sonshine 20th anniversary album.

NM: We are in the process of making that now, so as soon as I have a copy, I will give you one.

AT: I’m looking forward to that.

Check Wanted Online for a video of the full conversation

DOWN TO BUSINESS text

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portrait

Lukanyo Mnyanda

Manelisi Dabata

Lukanyo Mnyanda is the editor of Business Day

J

ust when one thought it was safe to be optimistic again. It was a regular thing to hear someone complain that 2019 was the worst year thus far in their existence. Then came 2020 and the pandemic. So far, 2021, with its vicious second and third waves of Covid-19, has been giving it a run for its money. Just in one’s small social group, it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t lost a relative, friend, or colleague.

COLUMN.

Apocalypse now?

So you thought the worst was over…

I’ve heard people saying that the bad news has been so relentless that they’ve stopped checking their Facebook in fear of what might be revealed.

Writing a column that is supposed to be light-hearted for a magazine that is supposed to be about the nicer things in life has been quite a challenge.

At the time of writing it feels as though we are getting there.

South Africa has faced its biggest post-apartheid crisis with the violence that erupted after the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma. It’s still far from clear how this will end, but we can say with

a degree of confidence that so far the centre has held. It was especially heart-warming to see communities standing up to the looters.

Even on Covid we are turning the corner, although the tragic news flow of friends who have lost loved ones hasn’t abated.

It’s been officially spring for a few days, the weather is getting warmer, and more and more of us are getting vaccinated.

This is hopefully going to take us to a new phase where we can start talking about living with the virus and enjoy the good things in life, such as the amazing art and artists featured in this magazine.

Personally, I haven’t seen my elderly relatives since the pandemic broke out and I’m looking forward to being able to do so in the confidence of our all having had our Covid-19 jabs. One new threat is the proliferation of anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists, with the “misinformation pandemic” threatening progress.

Travelling is something that Wanted readers will have missed greatly, with South Africa having been closed off from much of the rest of the world.

Hopefully, we will be getting off many of these red lists and we’ll be able to welcome

tourists for what is usually a busy summer period. How much more fun would the Lions tour have been if we’d been able to rub the Springboks’ victory in the faces of thousands of visiting British and Irish fans?

But last month there came a report on climate change showing that humanity is on borrowed time, and the things that give us pleasure are part of the problem. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change generated apocalyptic headlines across the world and should make us all rethink our own behaviour.

How will we be able to justify going on a plane to visit faraway countries for holidays if that is a big factor contributing to the climate change that threatens the very existence of humanity?

I even had a friend whose partner enjoys brewing his own craft beer say that this hobby is also bad for the environment, requiring extra refrigeration. All the good things seem to be bad.

While complacency would be a catastrophic thing, we can at least take comfort in the fact that humans so far have proved to be resilient and innovative. A return to some normalcy after a brutal 18 months is something to look forward to.

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C CO O LL LL A A BB O O RR A ATT II O ON N

CREATING WEALTH AND BREAKING RECORDS

In just half a decade, Aspire has proven itself to be a disruptor and innovator, representing the future of the growing international market for African art

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stablished in 2016 with a vision of becoming an African art auction house rooted in the vibrancy of the continent, Aspire celebrates half a decade of excellence in business with its rich modern and contemporary heritage. Driven by a mission to build collections of value for a global client base and to create wealth and prosperity on the African continent, Aspire has proven its commitment by breaking records in the sale of contemporary and modern African art.

By acknowledging the value and significance of Africa’s cultural contribution to the world through art, it has a proven track record of selling both significant and critically engaged art that is positioned for value and historically representative of its time.

The focus is on quality, not quantity.

Its emphasis is on historical art that is culturally engaged. Aspire has an eye for works of inspirational luxury that speak not only to visual beauty but also to intellectual and emotional engagement.

Aspire provides a full suite of services spanning auctions, private sales, art advisory, and collections management, offering clients cuttingedge art market insight and world-class specialist knowledge. It recently added Percy Mabandu, Makgati Molebatsi, Sarah Sinisi, and Kholisa Thomas to join Ruarc Peffers, Emma Bedford, Jacqui Carney, and Marelize van Zyl — a diverse team of high-profile and experienced art specialists.

Recent auction performances have vindicated Aspire’s Africa-centred outlook. The company achieved the highest sell-through rate in both 2020 and 2021 for modern works, when compared to older auction houses doing business in the region. It has also seen better average values for modern works, while leading with the highest average value for contemporary art, compared to its competitors.

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These high-performance averages are typified by record sales for young contemporary female artists such as Mary Sibande, whose work A Terrible Beauty Is Born sold for a record R341 400 at Aspire’s 2020 Cape Town auction. A triptych by Turiya Magadlela titled Walking Spirits IV, V, and VI from her Inequalities series of 2018/19 sold for a record R356 782 (€20 325) in 2021 in Aspire’s Parisian sale. The same auction saw Godwin Champs Namuyimba’s Dreamers achieve a record — at the time — of R1 369 058 (€78 000), while Ayanda Mabulu’s Nontsundu reached another record of R404 242 (€23 035).

1. Nontsundu, Ayanda Mabulu 2. Dreamers, Godwin Champs Namuyimba 3. Large Seated Woman, Sydney Kumalo 4. Walking Spirits IV, V, and VI, Turiya Magadlela

These record-breaking achievements affirm Aspire’s position as a player in the global art market, and highlight the expertise of its team.

Evidence of Aspire’s commitment to the African continent is its decision to invest in high-end spaces where museum-level exhibitions can take place, growing its operations in both Johannesburg and Cape Town.

It has recently moved its Cape Town operations into new premises in the burgeoning art hub of De Waterkant.

The new offices and gallery are housed in a beautifully renovated former cloister from the late 1800s, combining old-world charm with contemporary

functionality and elegance. The redesigned cottage has been reimagined to suit the strategic needs of a growing, forward-looking African art auction house. The building’s spacious halls and generous proportions perfectly suit the presentation and display requirements of a world-class gallery space, to showcase artworks in the best possible context, and host live auctions and public events.

On 30 September Aspire will hold a live auction of modern and contemporary art in Cape Town. See its website for more information on how to get involved, register to bid, or submit consignments for valuation. www.aspireart.net

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Top to bottom Kholisa Thomas; Makgati Molebatsi; Percy Mabandu; Sarah Sinisi

A A RR TT FFA A II RR SS A AN ND D A AU UC C TT II O ON N SS

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Mary Corrigall

Taking the pulse of the art landscape as the world heads into a new season

1.

2.

WILL THE ART WORLD’S TEMPERATURE RISE THIS SUMMER?

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oth of South Africa’s art capitals used to have an art season. February would herald the first frenzy of the year with the Investec Cape Town Art Fair (ICTAF) propelling a bevy of museum shows, a gallery week, and some bountiful auctions. Then everyone would presumably keep themselves amused until September,

when the attention would shift to Joburg’s art scene.

FNB Art Joburg — formerly the Joburg Art Fair — was the lynchpin of this art season, although in 2019 Latitudes, the new kid on the block, and Underline, a rough-around-theedges fair for curators, diversified the art offerings at this time of year. After all, Joburg needed to up its game as Cape

Town’s February season was looking a bit meatier, with museums and art foundations and planes full of Italian collectors — flown in by Italian fair organiser Fiera Milano — giving it a truly international vibe.

However, Covid-19 and the resultant social distancing has put our art seasons in a holding pattern.

Art dealing, browsing, curating, and

even conversations have all gravitated online, causing a digital acceleration of the art world that some say was overdue.

Has everyone had the technological capability to make the transition, and how has this digitised turn impacted where, how, and what art we buy? Who has been left behind, and what will the art world look like when physical events resume?

ART FAIRS At first, online art fairs appeared to present an immediate solution to the Covid-19 conundrum, despite the fact that art fairs’ popularity was thought to be linked to people looking for an escape from screens and enjoying the chance to view objects that could only be appreciated in person.

More than a year later, online fatigue has set in. And since the vaccinated can attend events, some art fairs are going live again or adding small live events.

Fiera Milano, the producer of ICTAF, was initially adamant that it would not give in to the online art-fair trend, which Art Joburg, the Turbine Art Fair, and Latitudes had done. “Over the past five years or so we have worked really hard to create a personal approach to a physical fair,” says Sophie Lalonde, head of VIPs and partnerships at ICTAF. This may have served the ICTAF brand to some degree, as a number of virtual fairs have struggled with technological issues.

Art Joburg’s online edition in November 2020 was underwhelming, although the online programme was much more diverse in terms of both the number of galleries and the status of those that were able to participate.

It broadened the new model, which had been very South African-centric in its 2019 iteration.

A platform for curated solo features also widened the net in terms of the fair’s content, allowing for some discoveries.

Unfortunately, some of the digital innovations — such as viewing artworks via a 3D augmented-reality tool — made for a strange encounter with the artworks that didn’t necessarily enhance them or encourage buyers. “We only got one enquiry [from that fair],” says Ashleigh McLean, director of Whatiftheworld gallery in Cape Town.

This was highly disappointing, given that “the Joburg art fair was hands down usually our best in the year. Even compared to the other fairs in which we have participated, such as 1:54, we would always do well. I don’t think the lack of interest was to do with the quality of the artworks we offered,” she adds.

There were also mixed results for other galleries participating in Art Joburg’s online platform.

“Our 2020 online edition was our first foray into the online exhibition sphere at this scale. Overall, we aimed to connect collectors from all over the world to our gallerists on an easy-to-use platform.

In this respect, the power of the internet can’t be denied: we saw online visitors

3.

1. Gatekeeper III, Nkhensani Rihlampfu 2. Editioned work, Setlamorago Mashilo 3. Selfie, Buhle Nkalashe

from 50 different countries and over double the unique visitors compared to in-person fair attendance,” says Nicole Siegenthaler, manager at Art Joburg.

Whatiftheworld gallery has opted not to participate in the flurry of online fairs taking place not only in South Africa but also elsewhere in the world, with many European and US-based fairs having become virtual events.

To generate sales during lockdowns, Whatiftheworld and other galleries have instead concentrated on online marketing.

Revenue that would have been spent on art fairs have been redirected towards other, more established, online thirdparty portals such as Artsy.

“Our sales on Artsy quadrupled.

We weren’t making the same sales as we would at all the fairs, but we didn’t have the same crazy overheads either,” says McLean.

The team behind Latitudes has been keen to adapt to the market since the first fair in 2019, offering stands for those African galleries that depended on selling in Joburg but were excluded from the new, sleeker, and more elitist Art Joburg. In 2020 it made the brave move to transition from being an art fair to becoming an online third-party platform — much in

the style of Artsy — catering for the local market. It also offers more services, from packaging and shipping to allowing independent artists to use the platform.

“Live events have become secondary in terms of our focus. Doing an event has become so unpredictable in terms of restrictions that we are opting for smaller, more focused events,” says Roberta Coci, co-founder of Latitudes Online.

In line with this approach, it will be staging a collaborative event with London-based gallery Doyle Wham in October, to link up with activities taking place around the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair and Frieze London.

Coci and Lucy MacGarry (the other founder of Latitudes Online) do not envisage staging art fairs in future. They plan to launch a space where they can stage events in collaboration with the artists and galleries featured on their website.

Despite its seemingly stubborn resistance to gravitating online, ICTAF will launch a virtual platform powered

by Artshell (an art gallery app) in September that will be paired with miart, its “sister” art fair based in Milan.

The organisers seem to view the online platform as a brand-building exercise rather than a replacement for a live fair.

“We wanted to leverage Fiero Milanoowned fairs and the database of VIPs. In this way we can give more access to other galleries from outside South Africa and allow our galleries access to their VIPs,” says Lalonde.

In February, ICTAF will stage a physical art fair at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

“It is so needed to host another fair.

We feel the pressure to do so. People are finding their way around the digital world and that is now part of the art world, but we really want to host a physical fair,” says Lalonde.

The Turbine Art Fair (TAF) will also be striking out with a live event in September, albeit a smaller rendition of its annual fair. Founded by The Forum, an events company, it is more accustomed to dealing with live quantities and more adept at catering to them — TAF is renowned for the quality of its catering and the live jazz offering. As such, its online fair last year paled in comparison, as it would, and was marred by technological glitches on the virtual opening night. Nevertheless, it had far more visitors online than at live events: 10 500 visitors in 2019, compared to over 21 000 at the online edition.

Yet, while some galleries enjoyed good sales, others didn’t, according to Glynis Hyslop, founder and director of TAF. “I am relieved that Turbine has survived. Artists can’t wait to get their art into the physical world. Art fairs are a lifeline for artists,” says Karel Nel, artist and senior curator at Norval Foundation.

The upcoming edition of TAF will be “smaller in scale; people can move through it safely with a one-way flow through the building. Book and come through — we will keep the focus on younger and unknown artists, independent artists who don’t fit the new demography,” Nel adds.

Visitors to TAF will need to have been vaccinated, though there might be rapid testing available on site, according to Hyslop. TAF, like the ICTAF edition in February, will also have a virtual twin.

It has designed a new website and will partner with Artsy.

TAF and SculptX, an outdoor sculpture festival staged at Melrose Arch and Sandton City, organised by Melrose Gallery, might be the only major art events for Joburg this September. At the time of writing, FNB Art Joburg had not made any solid plans.

“In place of a physical fair we will have another online fair, as well as a series of small physical activations in Joburg later in the year,” says Siegenthaler.

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AUCTIONS

Turbine Art Fair

03.

Platform:

Platform:

Dates:

Dates:

Dates:

Online portal Galleries:

44

Independent artists:

56

Reasons to visit:

Rediscover the country’s established mid-career artists

Website:

latitudes.online

Hybrid

Online only, 15-19 September 2021 Hybrid, Cape Town International Convention Centre, 18-20 February 2022 Galleries:

33 (but likely to be more in February) Reasons to visit:

South Africa’s biggest fair; see art from Italy, France, Brazil, and other parts of Africa; strong international flavour

Website:

investeccapetownartfair.co.za

Hybrid

29 September to 3 October 2021, 10 Fricker Road Illovo Galleries:

18

Printing studios:

6

Collectives:

4

Reasons to visit:

Good food and music, discover a new or overlooked artist Website:

turbineartfair. co.za

FNB Art Joburg

Platform:

Hybrid No dates yet

Reasons to visit:

The best of the best of the South African art scene Website:

artjoburg.com

AUCTIONS

Investec Cape Town Art Fair

allows auction houses to experiment with different kinds of sales, such as ones dedicated to an artist. Strauss & Co held two such sales this year, focused on John Muafangejo (from the Orde Levinson collection) and JH Pierneef. The latter proved a white-glove sale — a sell-out.

“Online sales have allowed us to be more nimble; we can put a sale together in a few weeks. This would not have been possible in the past. We still handle the works in the flesh, but we don’t have to hire a venue and the e-catalogue means we have more lead time,” says Meredith.

In terms of contemporary works, from January 2020 to June 2021 works

by Marlene Dumas — October 1973 and Score, both offered by Aspire — fetched the highest sums, at R7-million and R3-million respectively. In the same period, two Irma Stern paintings that went under the hammer at Strauss & Co saw the highest-priced sales for modern works. Her Still Life with Lilies (1947) fetched R14.7-million and Zanzibar Arab (1939) R11.3-million, both at a sale in May last year. In April this year Strauss’

04.

Hannah O’Leary, director: African modern and contemporary art at Sotheby’s, London.

Nevertheless, not having a live audience for an auction has proven to be an adjustment. “They tend to be big social events. Our auctioneer [director Ruarc Peffers] misses having an audience in front of him. It’s always good to read the room; you can see who is interested, zoom in on that client, and push the bid up,” says Van Zyl. For this reason (and because bidders and observers feed off the drama of a live auction), hybrid auctions with a livestreaming element depicting the auctioneer tend to generate higher revenues. More important or valued lots also tend to be placed in these kinds of sales.

“The auction world has always been linked to glitz and glamour, and the excitement in a room. That is part of the magic of the auction. It is a blessing we can create it with a livestream,” says Susie Goodman, executive director at Strauss & Co. The turn to online auctioneering also

Platform:

All year

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Storm Clouds near Prince Albert, Erik Laubscher, 1999, in upcoming Strauss & Co auction for R300 000 - R400 000

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Latitudes

01.

ART FAIRS

While there are questions about the value and future of art fairs during Covid-19, the secondary market — auction houses — seems to be flourishing.

The two most prominent art auction houses in South Africa, Strauss & Co and Aspire Art Auctions, were already conducting online sales before the pandemic, and thus were well positioned to transition to virtual art trading.

“It was quite seamless,” says Marelize van Zyl, senior art specialist at Aspire Art Auctions. “We had the platforms in place and the world was already moving away from print, so we were also distributing e-catalogues. Many clients preferred that because they could view the works on their phone.”

According to Alastair Meredith, senior art specialist at Strauss & Co, “The real silver lining of the pandemic in the past year was that it forced the majority over the hump of buying and bidding online. It was the only option and people could see how much fun it was. We won’t look back; I think a lot of people will continue to bid online.”

Other auction houses selling art as well as furniture and antiques, such as Russell Kaplan, weren’t using online sales for lower-priced art, as had become the norm for online sales. The digital turn has proven to be a turning point for these smaller auction houses, and there has been a collective sigh of relief that higherpriced works, such as those by Irma Stern, are also finding buyers online.

“People are ready to buy. Many of these pieces only come up once in a lifetime, so people move. The African art market is relatively undervalued, and there are still opportunities to be had. We’re seeing confidence in those artists who are familiar to people,” says

highest-priced sales were a Pierneef (Baobabs, 1952) and an Anton van Wouw sculpture (Slegte Nuus, 1907), with both fetching over R5-million (including buyers’ premiums). The most recent talking point is the R4-million ($300 000) commanded by a work by Cinga Samson (Two Piece 1, 2018) at a Phillips auction in New York this June.

Given the ease with which auction houses have segued into the digital art-trading realm and the interest in contemporary works, both Strauss & Co and Aspire have offered more contemporary lots in the 2020/2021 sales.

There has also been a marked increase in the number of works offered at auction that come straight from gallery storerooms and/or artist studios. In this way, some auction houses — Strauss & Co’s staff say they don’t ascribe to this, outside of charity sales — are functioning less as a secondary market for art and more as a primary one.

“Before Covid, the primary and secondary markets were removed from each other, but they have been coming together. The gallery sector was hit hard because of the art fairs’ shutting down, and the auction houses have kept them trading,” says Van Zyl. Auction houses are thus almost becoming the new art fairs — until the latter once again become a space to discover art and connect with new buyers. For now, however, the action in both realms will have a strong digital aspect. We have officially entered the era of “hybrid” art sales, which may mean that this summer you can “attend” an art fair or bid on an artwork while lying by the pool with a cocktail. Which is not an unattractive outcome.

Mary Corrigall is an art journalist, consultant and researcher at Corrigall & Co. corrigall.org

Aspire Live auction in Cape Town, 30 September 2021 Live auction in Johannesburg, 9 November 2021 Timed online auction, 7-14 December 2021 Strauss & Co Impression/ Expression, 14 September 2021 Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation Charity Auction, 22 September 2021 Live virtual, Cape Town, 11-12 October 2021 Live virtual, Johannesburg, 8-9 November 2021

Sotheby’s (London) Timed online auction, African modern & contemporary, 14-20 October 2021 Bonhams (London) Live, African modern & contemporary, 6 October 2021 Bonhams (Paris) Live, African modern & contemporary, 13 November 2021 Artcurial (Paris) Live, African modern & contemporary, 16 November 2021

THINKING OF BUYING? African Art from the continent, on the continent VIRTUAL LIVE AUCTION Cape Town | 19 February 2022

THINKING OF SELLING? Strauss & Co is currently accepting consignments of Contemporary Art for its February 2022 marquee sale.

CONSIGNMENTS CLOSE End of October 2021

CONTACT US +27 21 683 6560 | ct@straussart.co.za www.straussart.co.za Wim Botha, Prism 24 [Ecstatic], with glass installation, R 350 000 - 550 000 (To be sold on 11 October 2021 in Cape Town)

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Corporate art collections tell stories of identity, prestige, and belonging

CORPORATE ART COLLECTIONS

hen David Rockefeller formulated the first-ever corporate art purchasing programme — for Chase Manhattan Bank in 1959 — he launched a practice that major banks and law firms in particular would follow. Rockefeller was astute to the facts that banks produce intangible services, and that societies are mostly remembered by their arts. He understood that an art collection could best tell the story of the company.

Art in the workplace is public.

It speaks about prestige. It sends the message that the collecting entity possesses connoisseurship. There is much coolness in spotting talent early, and collecting art that has investment potential demonstrates foresight. While corporates rarely collect for investment purposes, should artworks in their collection appreciate, it becomes a mark of good decision-making.

Contemporary art also serves as a metaphor for innovation and creativity.

It communicates the company’s identity and acts as a differentiator in an increasingly competitive business environment. Sasol’s collection was started in the early ’80s. According to curator Cate Terblanche, “Art and innovation go hand in hand. Artists are thinkers and creators. This resonates with Sasol’s values and corporate culture.”

Her counterpart at Sanlam, Stefan Hundt, points out that “most people who are aware of Sanlam usually remember or mention the art collection as a distinctive element that puts the company on another par to its peers”.

The Sanlam collection was begun in 1965 and improving the company’s public image was one motivation for it.

Today, most art collections tend to reflect the identity of the firm.

Dimension Data is a great example. I was personally involved with assembling the art collection for the innovation hub it launched in London after the company was sold to Japanese telecoms giant NTT. The collection was exclusively focused on works by 21st-century South African abstract artists, which former chairperson Jeremy Ord chose as a way to broadcast Dimension Data’s “South Africanness”.

But a corporate art collection goes well beyond image and brand building.

It represents a social use of art as well.

The MTN art collection was established post-apartheid in 1998. Collection manager Niel Nortjé explains that, unlike other decades-old South African corporate collections, MTN’s could be started from a fresh slate.

“Based on the understanding that art plays an important role in driving social cohesion, fostering nation building, and educating the youth on cultural and heritage development,” Nortjé continues,

A

Absa

Sanlam

Sasol

MTN

•Approximately 16 000 artworks •Works by early South African masters •Decorative works bought for the branch network •More recent works by major Black South African artists and younger artists from across the continent

•2 235 pieces •Founded in 1965 •Artworks by major South African artists dating from the mid-1840s to the present

•Over 2 000 works •Established in 1982 •Examples of most of South Africa’s most iconic visual artists •Showcases emerging artists through the Sasol New Signatures competition

•Approximately 1 400 pieces •Traditional, modernist, postmodernist, and contemporary works in various mediums by artists from South Africa, the rest of Africa, and its diaspora •Nearly 60% handmade prints, which initially formed the basis of the collection

CULT text

Alexia Walker

1. Cape Town (South Africa) Variation, Hasan and Husain Essop, Standard Bank Collection

2. De(Part), Emma Willemse, Nando’s SA Collection

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Standard Bank •Approximately 1 200 works •Artworks by 250 South African artists, ranging from studies of fauna and flora to pieces that explore the forces that have shaped the country’s colonial, apartheid, and

post-apartheid past •Rich archive that demonstrates the depth, complexity, and diversity of South African art

In Hundt’s opinion, corporate art collections and their raison d’être are generally misunderstood. “Any large corporation is an evolving organism that functions on a technical, logical basis but is driven by the human emotions that drive commitment and engagement and, finally, success,” he says. This is an important point, and staff wellness alone should justify a business’ art expenditure.

Art then becomes part of the company’s ethos. Collections like these are often associated with other art programmes that further consolidate the company’s cultural commitment.

Deutsche Bank has one of the largest corporate art collections globally, and it is all about engagement. The collection was started in 1979 and now close to 60 000 objects are displayed in its offices the world over.

In addition, the bank runs the annual Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year — won

by South African Kemang Wa Lehulere in 2017 — and owns the Berlin venue PalaisPopulaire, where it can showcase part of its collection.

South Africa also counts a few allrounders whose art remit is key to their identity. Absa owns one of the largest corporate collections in Africa, which

Bowmans

Nando’s

•Approximately 250 artworks •Artworks by African contemporary artists •Begun 11 years ago under the auspices of former chairperson Robert Legh

•Over 22 000 artworks •Artworks by contemporary Southern African artists, reflecting their experience of contemporary South Africa •Collection was started in 2002 and is displayed in Nando’s restaurants in 21 countries

predates its formation in 1991. Each of the four banks that amalgamated to form Absa had developed their respective art portfolios independently. Curator Dr Paul Bayliss points out that “over the past few years, there has been a greater focus on building a more representative collection reflective of the bank’s presence across the continent”.

“This is also reflected through the Absa L’Atelier art competition, which has broadened its reach to invite artists from all the countries across Africa where Absa has a presence to participate,” Bayliss adds.

As for Sasol, “art forms an integral part of its daily life, from a dedicated gallery space for exhibitions, to the art hanging in communal working spaces and meeting rooms, to the sponsorship of the Sasol New Signatures art competition,” explains Terblanche. The collection is all about staff engagement and mental wellbeing in the workplace.

Sanlam and Standard Bank also own gallery spaces where they can show artworks in their collection, among other exhibition programmes. Standard Bank was one of the first corporates to begin collecting in the late 1960s, and has been running the Standard Bank Young Artist Awards since 1981.

Of course, corporate art collecting addresses internal space considerations and embellishes blank walls too, but there’s generally a much bigger purpose to Hollard a company’s collecting.

•Approximately It may be to communicate 3 500 works and enhance its corporate •Includes artworks image, improve the work

by South African environment, support the masters such as Stanley Pinker and art community, or simply JH Pierneef portray a corporate theme.

•Collection started It is seldom done as a when Hollard took financial investment. occupancy of Villa With businesses moving Arcadia in Parktown in 2004 out of office blocks in the •Largely a wake of the pandemic, it will contemporary be interesting to watch how collection of South corporate collecting evolves.

African art There are early signs it may continue unabated and only shift in format.

Absa has already taken to hosting all of its activities on its newly launched virtual platform, the Absa Art Hot Spot, while Sasol’s Terblanche is noting a greater interest in art generally, which she ascribes to the need we all have to “slip away” from the harshness of reality.

Alexia Walker is an independent art advisor walkerart.co.za

TURAL 3. Portraits, Conrad Botes in collaboration with Qaqambile Bead Studio, Hollard Collection

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“the mandate of MTN’s art collection would be to provide educational support and resource development for the South African arts and culture sectors.”

That said, we’ve come a long way from the form of patronage historically associated with the Medici family and the Renaissance. Collecting companies want to support artists and preserve culture, but they also choose to collect art to enhance the workplace and create a stimulating environment.

In this way, art becomes a form of internal communication. It touches the lives of the company’s employees.

As a reflection of this, art budgets, which traditionally could be traced back to Corporate Social Responsibility, are increasingly coming out of Human Resources.

This is precisely how Hundt positions the Sanlam collection. “The company provides a work environment, which is animated by a diversity of individuals with long and short histories of association. The art collection contributes to this environment in many ways beyond the decorative. It harnesses individuals’ perception and encourages diversity in outlook where it is exhibited.”

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021 is a milestone year in South Africa’s art history. It’s never been a great country for supporting the fine arts in any official capacity, and its history has been too fractured and fractious for art to help create a coherent national identity, or to innovate and extend cultural boundaries in consistent and challenging ways.

Instead, as in many other walks of South African life, an interesting thing has happened, especially in recent decades.

Turning away from official versions of public arts and culture, the people, once again, have been doing it for themselves.

Several of South Africa’s most prominent private art galleries and studio organisations celebrate significant birthdays this year, demonstrating that there is a discerning and consistent audience for fine art in a country that has been hard done by in terms of a public culture of galleries and museums.

The fine art private sector has in many ways become the archive of the country’s visual culture — often balancing the need to make money with the responsibility of providing South Africa with a cultural memory of itself, and a vibrant means to imagine possible futures.

Among those heading for the year’s big art birthday party is one of the most recognisable gallery names in the country, the Goodman Gallery, which turns 55 and mounted a significant exhibition, Lasting Influences, in June and July to mark the occasion. The gallery’s history straddles the last decades of apartheid-style repression and the first decades of the South African fine-art industry’s more cosmopolitan participation in world markets.

Another well-known gallery, turning 20 next year and so “born free”, has quite a different story to tell, as one of the longest-lived wholly Black-owned galleries in the country. Gallery MOMO has carved a niche in a field where white privilege is taken more for granted than most, and having access to networks is a key business strategy.

Elsewhere, one of the best-known print studios in the country turns 30.

The Artists’ Press in White River has had collaborations with a roll call of the country’s finest artists for as long as it has existed, and has been self-sustaining from day one.

Two artists’ studio organisations celebrate the same milestone. The Artist Proof Studio (APS) in Joburg has always combined grassroots arts education with the production of quality fine art and artists, overcoming the tragic loss of its co-founder, artist Nhlanhla Xaba, in the fire that also destroyed its original studio buildings. The Bag Factory marked its anniversary with a commemorative exhibition. This landmark artists’ studio

THE BIG ART BIRTHDAY BASH

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Five iconic SA galleries and studio collectives mark major milestones in 2021 01.

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James Sey

1. John Coltrane, Sam Nhlengethwa, Artists’ Press

complex was co-founded by the hugely influential David Koloane, and has provided studio space to and facilitated the careers of dozens of the country’s best contemporary artists.

The Goodman Gallery opened its doors in 1966, founded and directed by the legendary Linda Givon. It quickly established itself as a home for edgy contemporary art in the decades of the

mid- to late-twentieth century that were marked by deep cultural conservatism and draconian censorship. The platform that the Goodman was able to give Black artists from the 1960s to the 1990s, in defiance of apartheid laws, is one example of the commercial gallery’s role as a facilitator and custodian of art history and visual culture in the country, in the absence of viable public institutions.

Givon’s judgement was usually sound, and over the years her championing of particular artists such as Walter Battiss, William Kentridge, Ezrom Legae, and many others saw the gallery’s commercial and artistic reputation grow. The extent and artistic depth of the gallery’s historical roster — as captured by long-time senior curator Neil Dundas in the Lasting Influences exhibition — is evidence of its

central place in South African art history, with works by most of the central figures in contemporary South African art on show, including Battiss, Sydney Kumalo, Legae, Judith Mason, and contemporary doyen Kentridge. As Dundas recounts, more than art happened — artists Kagiso Mautloa and Bongi Dhlomo showed Combination, a combined screen print they had done together, which in turn sowed the seed of a budding romance that has become a long-term marriage.

Goodman continues to innovate and move with the times. Now under the directorship of Liza Essers, it has internationalised, with a gallery presence in the UK and the US, and has been at the forefront of a new Global South art collective under the banner SOUTH SOUTH, which incorporates galleries and collectors from markets outside the dominant Western ones, organising and exhibiting programmes together online.

Another long-term feature of the gallery landscape in contemporary South African art is Gallery MOMO. Owner Monna Mokoena attributes its longevity to his continuing quest to nurture and support artists. “The ultimate reward for this commitment,” he says, “is the enormous intellectual contribution and critical observation of our society by our artists, which stimulates our imagination.”

Among many highlights, Gallery MOMO was the host and organiser of the first permanent South African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011, and has been in the vanguard of embracing and exhibiting contemporary African art from the rest of the continent and the diaspora — something the rest of the post-apartheid South African art establishment was tardy in doing.

Mokoena is justifiably proud of the legacy of his gallery. “We have had the opportunity to represent artists such as Mary Sibande, Santu Mofokeng, Ayana V Jackson, Andrew Tshabangu, Pamela Sunstrum, Blessing Ngobeni, Johannes Phokela, and Joël Mpah Dooh, to name but a few. And it is an honour for us to be part of reviving and repositioning the legacies of legendary artists such as Malangatana Valente Ngwenya, Roger Botembe, and Jackson Hlungwani.

Looking forward, I’m also excited by new ideas being explored by artists like Vivien Kohler and Kimathi Donkor.” Pressed for moments or images that stand out for him so far, Mokoena picks Santu Mofokeng’s photograph Eyes Wide Shut. “It is such a captivating image. Even though the subject’s eyes are shut to the world, the mystery of the emotions draws you in.”

Three legendary names in the field — printmaking studio The Artists’ Press in White River, and educational and artists’ studio organisations Artist Proof Studio in

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2. Irises, Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, William Kentridge, Artists’ Press 3. Combination, Kagiso Mautloa and Bongi Dhlomo, Goodman Gallery

“It’s an honour for us to be part of reviving and repositioning the legacies of legendary artists” Joburg and the Bag Factory in Fordsburg — turn 30 this year. That they all started in 1991 tells us something about the heady optimism of those early days at the end of apartheid, when the bonds felt like they were finally being loosened.

These organisations share some history, naturally enough. The Artists’ Press started life with a studio space at the Bag Factory in 1991, before relocating to Mpumalanga in 2003. Under the co-

directorship of (married couple) master printer Mark Attwood and marketing director Tamar Mason, the studio has expanded from lithography to letterpress, mono, and relief printing, and collaborates on bespoke projects not only with local artists but also with international printers and artists.

Attwood and Mason are proud of the fact that they run the oldest printmaking studio in the country, and have only ever received external funding for two projects — The Ultimate Safari, an artists’ book with Nadine Gordimer, and a suite of prints done by the !Xun and Khwe Art Project in 1994.

Mason recalls the early days: “When we opened our doors at the Bag Factory in 1991, being able to share studio space with people like Durant Sihlali, Ezrom Legae, and David Koloane was a privilege. We planted the indigenous trees on the

pavement that now provide shade and bird habitat in the street, which is a good way to keep the studio present in Mahlathini Street. From those days we are also grateful to be able to continue collaborating with Sam Nhlengethwa, the artist with whom we have worked the most and just about the longest. We have 172 editions completed so far with Sam, with a new series busy being worked on at the moment.”

This sense of continuity and harmony is sadly not shared by one of the longestrunning educational artists’ studio spaces in the country, APS. This year also marks the founding of APS’s new dedicated space in Houghton, its first since the fire that destroyed the original Newtown studio in 2003 and took the life of co-founder Xaba.

When APS was founded by Xaba and artist and lecturer Kim Berman, the Joburg art world featured only a handful of stalwart Black artists, figures such as Koloane and Nhlengethwa. Today, APS alumni are a driving force: “It’s inspirational,” says marketing director Nathi Simelane. “When students arrive here they want to follow the journey already travelled by people like Nelson Makamo and Phillemon Hlungwani, and in many ways just by making it to the studio they’ve already gone far along the path. The studio has become its own selfreinforcing creative ecosystem, and we try to nurture and cultivate that as much as possible.” New alumni ensuring the future is bright for APS include Lebohang Motaung, Jan Tshikhuthula, Zwelethu Machepha, and Lindo Zwane.

The legendary Joburg studio by artists, for artists, the Bag Factory, celebrated its 30th anniversary with an exhibition at the University of Johannesburg. Founded in 1991 by Koloane, British philanthropist Robert Loder, and arts administrator Sandra Burnett, with support from artists such as Kagiso Patrick Mautloa, Nhlengethwa, and many others, the Bag Factory remains an inclusive and interactive studio space for a crossgenerational community of visual artists.

The exhibition showed the extent of the Bag Factory’s influence and reach, with works by previous studio artists, award recipients, and visiting artists who had participated in its internationally renowned artist-in-residence programme.

The role of studios in the South African art ecosystem is demonstrated by its list of alumni, which includes Nhlengethwa, Mautloa, Ngobeni, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi, Penny Siopis, Tracey Rose, Thenjiwe Nkosi, and Lady Skollie.

The anniversary is a double cause for celebration for the studio complex, since it has this year become the owner of the building where it has been based since 1991, leaving the Bag Factory’s future in its own hands.

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ART

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Banele Khoza b.1994

visual art In 2017 Khoza won the prestigious Gerard Sekoto Award and with it a threemonth residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. He was also named one of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans.

The diversity and relative freedom of South Africa has allowed the Eswatiniborn artist to tackle gender norms and experience through his work, which mirrors his life. Khoza’s visual language explores expressions of masculinity through both romance and vulnerability, allowing a complex examination.

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Introducing

WANTED 21: YOUNG AND VITAL

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ARTISTS text

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Declan Gibbon

A list of talented artists born in the ’90s and producing, in South Africa, work of profound thoughtfulness and import 01. Banele Khoza, Living in My Head, 2021

02. Jake Michael Singer, Gyre Breeze, 2020

03. Bonolo Kavula, Dineo, 2021

04. Chris Soal, As Below so Above, 2021

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04.

03.

02.

Bonolo Illinois Kavula

Chris Soal

Giggs Kgole

multi-disciplinary

mixed media

mixed media /sculpture

multi-disciplinary

b.1991

Singer apprenticed with photographer Aïda Muluneh in the 2018 Kampala Biennale. In 2012 he assisted William Kentridge with his exhibition The Refusal of Time. He was recognised by the Eduardo Villa Foundation Grant in both 2016 and 2017, and in 2020 he launched the Emergence Art Prize with THK Gallery. He has been invited to residencies in Johannes-burg (2014) and Amsterdam (2017).

Singer’s artwork is concerned with the materiality and transformation of objects. Emergent techniques are used to create transcendent sculptures, while multiple elements are incorporated to create a single whole, moving from chaos to harmony.

b. 1992

Kavula received the 2014 Katrine Harries Print Cabinet Award at UCT, and was a finalist in Sasol’s New Signatures (2014). She challenges the conventions of printmaking, and is an advocate of simplicity and minimalism. Her work is experimental and influenced by the Cubist, Dadaist, and Expressionist movements of 1960s conceptual art. Her usage of banal objects to create artworks speaks to her personal connection to her work as well as her experimental side.

b. 1994

Soal was awarded the overall PPC Imaginarium Awards prize in 2018. He has been given residencies by the South African Foundation for Contemporary Art, the RAW Material Company, and Montoro12 Contemporary Art, and is the youngest artist to collaborate with Dior on designing two handbags for the fifth edition of the Lady Dior “art bag”.

Soal is concerned with the materiality of ubiquitous objects — toothpicks and bottle caps, in particular — that are essentially engineered to become debris.

By using them as his key materials, he provides a structural reflection on urban life and ecological crisis. Through an abstract, minimalist language, Soal challenges societal assumptions, value chains, and history.

b. 1997

Kgole was mentored by William Kentridge and made the Sasol New Signatures Top 100 at 19. He was awarded a 2019 arts residency in France

by Undiscovered Canvas and named one of Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans. He is currently studying at the John Cabot University in Italy, where he was awarded a full scholarship.

His work exposes the interplay between rural and urban environments and the identities of their respective inhabitants. These vivid experiences are expressed in a style that is typified by the use of anaglyphs — two composite photographic images that are overlaid, creating an immersive viewing experience.

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BANELE KHOZA IMAGES BY BERNARD BRAND; JAKE MICHEAL SINGER COURTESY OF THK GALLERY; BONOLO KAVULA COURTESY OF SMAC GALLERY; CHRIS SOAL IMAGE COURTESY OF WHATIFTHEWORLD, PHOTOGRAPHED BY MATTHEW BRADLEY AND SUPPLIED

Jake Michael Singer

05. Giggs Kgole, Toro ya Kgole, 2021

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ART

Kyu Sang Lee

Sthenjwa Luthuli

Malebona Maphutse

Lerato Lodi

photography

woodcut prints

mixed media

mixed media

b.1993

Sang Lee received the Simon Gerson Prize (2016) for his graduating body of work and the Cecil Skotnes Award for Most Promising Artist at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town (2014). After graduating in 2016, he won the Celeste Prize for Photography & Digital Graphics (2017) and is currently photographerin-residence at the Orms Cape Town School of Photography.

Working in predominantly black and white, he draws on his diverse experiences of the world, reflecting on traditional notions of religion and belief, which are juxtaposed with the transitional space of identity, architecture, and environment. Dogma is spurned yet its iconography and influence are celebrated.

b. 1991

Luthuli was runner-up in the Sasol New Signatures Art Competition in 2017 and participated in the Velobala mentorship programme hosted by the African Art Centre at the Durban University of Technology.

He carves intricate and fluid patterns onto woodblocks, allowing the final print to become a meditative reflection on the “unknown space”. The shape of the circle is emphasised, to contrast with the square and promote boundless and gentle movement. Often his works evoke his Zulu identity, tying his headless figures to rituals and culture.

b. 1996

b. 1994

Maphutse was awarded the Bag Factory Young Female Artist Residency in 2018.

She investigates the politics of space through the historical, physiological, and meta-physical environments of bodies. Contextualising religious syncretism in Johannesburg and South Africa, the colonial frameworks of Christianity, and the demonisation of indigenous beliefs are explored through their crossovers and parallels.

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Lodi is currently finishing her MTech (Fine Arts) at the Tshwane University of Technology.

She unpacks the polarising ideas of spirituality and religion within an African context. Her work functions as a personal journey in negotiating the stigma often associated with both indigenous spirituality and the political history of Christianity.

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06. Kyu Sang Lee, Cry When Flowers

Fall in the Morning, 2017

07. Sthenjwa Luthuli, Spirit Liberation

(Ukukhululwa Komoya), 2020

08. Malebona Maphutse, Battle

Armor II, 2019

09. Lerato Lodi, The Gathering II, 2021

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Zandile Tshabalala

Lunga Ntila

Lulama “Wolf” Mlambo

Talia Ramkilawan

visual art

photography / collage

visual art

embroidery / mixed media

MALEBONA MAPHUTSE IMAGES BY DAVID LEWIS-BROWNE; TALIA RAMKILAWAN AND STHENJWA LUTHULI COURTESY OF WHATIFTHEWORLD; SIMPHIWE NDZUBE IMAGE BY NEGINE JASMINE SEKANDARI; AND SUPPLIED

b.1999

Tshabalala’s figurative works rewrite the narratives of Black women in history.

Dark-skinned figures appropriate the exclusive Post-Impressionism paintings, allowing both respect and inclusion for previously marginalised identities.

Her experience of being a Black woman — through her perspective, positioning, and representation — is explored, challenged, and celebrated.

b. 1995

b. 1993

In 2019 Ntila held her debut solo show Ukuzilanda at BKhz. She was also spotlighted at Design Indaba and collaborated with fashion label Artclub and Friends.

She uses deconstruction to address themes of identity, bias, and societal narratives. Her experimental and original perspective is expressed in a simultaneously delicate and distorted representation of her subjects, framing and understanding the ideologies that govern identity and society.

Mlambo conceptualises her artwork through mixed media collages, situating it at the intersection of NeoExpressionism and African art. The contemporary mind is used as a tool to dissect the pre-colonial and postindependence African experience via methods lifted from traditional art and vernacular architecture. She prides herself on translating experience through time and space to science and technique, discovering the world’s contradictions in the process.

b. 1996

Ramkilawan studied at Michaelis School of Fine Art, majoring in sculpture, and had a solo exhibition at Smith, Cape Town in 2020.

Her experience of her South Asian identity, culture, and trauma is visualised through her adept usage of mixed media. Trauma is unpacked via complex juxtapositions, with the process becoming a kind of meditative healing. “Indian, yet not Indian enough, a daughter, a friend, queer, brown, tired yet with so much more to give.”

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10. Zandile Tshabalala, Study of a

Nude (Self), 2021

11. Talia Ramkilawan, Oh, I’m Definitely

a Dessert Person, 2021

12. Lunga Ntila, Place for U, 2021

13. Lulama Wolf Mlambo, Hloho Ho Dima

Di Palesa, 2020

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ART

Simphiwe Ndzube

Daniel Malan

Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose

Lwando Dlamini

multi-disciplinary

mixed media

multi-disciplinary

visual art

b.1990

b. 1991

Ndzube had residencies at Dalton Warehouse in Los Angeles (2018) and Greatmore Artist Residency Studios in Cape Town (2016). He is the recipient of the Culture Creators “Innovators & Leaders” Award in Art (2019), the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts (2016), the Michaelis Prize (2015), the Simon Gerson Prize (2015), and the Cecil Skotnes Scholarship (2013) at UCT. He amalgamates objects, media, and surfaces to form an interplay, creating a mythological perspective on Black identity and experience. Using the themes of history and magic realism, his work explores the boundaries of society, embracing contradictory realities and the diversity of perception while rewriting dialogues and rewiring prejudices.

b. 1994

Malan was awarded a design internship with Kim Jones at Louis Vuitton Menswear in 2016.

He interprets the world around him through his art. A global outlook has made him experiment and express how the internet contracts both time and place. “I love having the ability to document that I was present in time.

I think artists often strive to accomplish this, and it is one of the ways art can be appreciated. It’s a joy to document the present world.”

Nyawose is a member of UCT’s Works of Art Committee, which is responsible for the curation and acquisition of the university’s art collection, and the 2019 recipient of the Andrew Mellon Graduate Internship at Iziko South African National Gallery. He is a Creative Knowledge Resources Postgraduate Fellow (2019-2020) and Institute of Creative Arts Fellow (2020).

Through a de-colonial framework, Nyawose develops research about Africa and the diaspora’s cultural production. Recently, his eBhish exhibition investigated the invisibility of Black leisure in public places and mainstream discourse, contributing to a contemporary photographic archive of Black life.

b. 1992

Dlamini took part in the RMB talent-unlocked programme, received the 2018 David Koloane Award from the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, and attended the Artists’ Career Boot Camp.

He deals with physiological and psychological trauma in a period of global reckoning with police violence and gender-based violence. Faceless, violated impasto bodies contradict the seemingly joyful mood of his paintings.

Rather than taking refuge in a blasé stance or denying their trauma, these figures are instead reconciling and gaining strength.

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14. Simphiwe Ndzube

15. Daniel Malan, Seoul Pool I

16. Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose, Untitled 4

(January 1st, 2020), 2021

17. Lwando Dlamini, Liso Yolanda

Dlamini, 2020

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Alice Mann

Cinthia Sifa Mulanga

Dada Khanyisa

visual art

photography

mixed media

multi-disciplinary

LUVUYO EQUIANO NYAWOSE IMAGE BY ALEXANDER KILIAN COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND BLANK PROJECTS; ALICE MANN COURTESY OF AFRONOVA GALLERY; DADA KHANYISA COURTESY OF STEVENSON CAPE TOWN/ JOHANNESBURG/ AMSTERDAM; AND SUPPLIED

18.

Luyanda Zindela b.1991

Zindela is the winner of the Absa L’Atelier Merit Award in 2014 and the runner-up in the 2019 Sasol New Signatures, as well as a fellow of the Ampersand Foundation’s artist-inresidency programme in New York in 2015.

Social commentary plays a key role in his work. He centres his pieces around navigating the world and his lived experiences. The expression of these issues and intricacies are an essential aspect of his craft.

b. 1991

b. 1997

Mann is a winner of the LensCulture Emerging Photographer prize (2018), and the PHMuseum Women’s New Generation prize (2018). She also took first place at the prestigious Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize (2018) and received the Grand Prix at the 34th edition of the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography (2019).

Her intimate photographic portraits are often undertaken over an extended period of time, allowing for engaged collaboration and a nuanced representation to empower her subjects.

In 2019 Mulanga was awarded first place for a work created for a tribute exhibition to Louis Khela Maqhubela and Douglas Portway, presented by Artist Proof Studio and Strauss & Co at the Turbine Art Fair.

She is finishing her third year at Artist Proof Studio, where she is combining intaglio and silk-screening techniques in her unpacking of African and female identity. Her current work engages with the politics of beauty and the domestic space within an Afropolitan context.

b. 1991

Khanyisa won the Simon Gerson Prize in 2016. As a merit winner at the SA Taxi Art Foundation Awards in 2015, their work featured on 10 taxis traversing the roads of South Africa.

They participated in a Fountainhead Residency in Miami in 2018.

Through their multi-disciplinary work they share things that “make me feel good”, such as social progress, nonsexual intimacy, the normalisation of gender fluidity, and communication.

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18. Luyanda Zindela, “Mah, what did you honestly see in

ubaba? What were his redeeming qualities? Did he have redeeming qualities?” - “Luyanda. Mntanam” - leans back - “Ubab’ wakho.

Wayemuhle”. (Luyanda. My child. Your father. Was attractive). “And?” - “Wayemude.” (He was tall), 2020

19. Alice Mann, Drummies, 2019

20. Cinthia Sifa Mulanga, Self-sureness, 2021

21. Dada Khanyisa, Better than Groin Area

Massages, 2019

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Get your adrenaline pumping on the 50km mountain bike trail or jog on the 45km promenade.

Play a round of golf on our Nicklaus design championship course nestled in our 2000 acres of indigenous parkland. This piece of paradise has 24/7 security to provide peace of mind while you enjoy all the amenities you could ever wish for.

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Brian McKechnie

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YOUR OWN BIT OF THE CAPE

Digital nomads are increasingly beguiled by unparalleled views and a world-class cultural scene

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CLIFTON MODERN The contemporary property is tucked away just above the breakers in captivating Clifton, which is probably South Africa’s most coveted stretch of real estate. This home takes full advantage of its views, with large, frameless window-walls maximising vistas over the Atlantic Ocean. Open truss ceilings with clerestory glazing offer vignettes of Lion’s Head. Split over two levels, the home has ample living space, ocean-facing terraces, and an inviting lap pool.

ape Town has long been a locale favoured by global and local holidaymakers, well-heeled South African families, international investors, and “swallows” escaping the winter in the northern hemisphere. The peninsula boasts a temperate climate, excellent restaurants, pristine beaches, well-run municipalities, unbeatable natural scenery, and the world-famous Table Mountain. If that isn’t enough to entice you to “semigrate”, the city also has a burgeoning cultural scene, including the South African National Gallery, Zeitz Mocaa, and Norval Foundation. The Big 7 Travel website lists Cape Town as one of the 50 best cities in the world for remote working in 2021, with “an incredibly connected expat and digital nomad scene from all corners of the globe”. If you’re keen on having a Cape Town address and budget isn’t an issue, stick to the picturesque Atlantic Seaboard, central City Bowl, and the genteel southern suburbs hugging the lower slopes of Table Mountain. Here is a selection of Cape beauties to get you started.

https://bit.ly/3m7wk5N

AINSTY WALK, CONSTANTIA This glorious Cape Dutch Revival, built in 1937, offers the best of old Cape Town — tastefully updated for modern family living. Light-filled reception spaces open onto a terraced garden, complete with covered entertainment areas and an elegant, dark-navy swimming pool. The home retains beautiful period features, including sash windows, timber panelling, herringbone parquet, and Cape Dutch gables. The property’s elevated position affords an uninterrupted prospect of Constantiaberg and Table Mountain National Park.

1. Belle Ombre, Constantia 2. Rugby Road, Oranjezicht 3. Ainsty Walk, Constantia 4. Clifton Modern 5. Ilkley Crescent, Sea Point

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ILKLEY CRESCENT, SEA POINT A perfect pied-à-terre created by fashionistas Malcolm Kluk and Christiaan Gabriel du Toit, this lock-up-and-go is centrally located in Sea Point.

It has excellent indoor/outdoor flow and a private swimming pool, with views over the Atlantic Ocean and up to Signal Hill. Brutalist design cues, including exposed concrete, natural stone, terrazzo, and mosaic detailing, create a carefully sculpted work of art that doubles as the ultimate city living space. https://bit.ly/3g7EtDj

BELLE OMBRE, CONSTANTIA This understated home with a decidedly mid-century design aesthetic stretches over a single level, ideal for laid-back family living. All bedrooms have direct access to the garden and sweeping mountain views, while the airy living areas provide ample space for entertaining in a modern, gallery-like setting.

Sliding doors open out to a big covered terrace and swimming pool, perfect for lazy weekends and relaxed summer afternoons.

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RUGBY ROAD, ORANJEZICHT Designed as a series of interconnected pavilions, this unique Oranjezicht property blends seamlessly with its surroundings, touching the earth lightly at the foot of Table Mountain. Glass windowwalls enhance the connection between the home’s interior and the indigenous forest landscape outside, while gently undulating concrete roofs echo the folds of the surrounding mountains.

Who wouldn’t want to float in the natural swimming pool, enveloped by unspoilt forest, perfectly at one with the Mother City’s natural beauty?

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Push the boundaries of creativity, art, and technology with these gadgets 01.

MODULAR SPEAKERS

Beosound Shape Having a great audio setup at home is a must, but most truly impressive audio setups have ugly wires or stand out (in the wrong way) and don’t fit in with your decor. This is where the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Shape comes in.

Bang & Olufsen is a company that to my mind is synonymous with design-orientated electronics that fuse the best of art and technology, and the Beosound Shape is no exception.

A wall-mounted

modular speaker system, the Beosound Shape can grow and evolve according to your needs. Starting with as few as six tiles, the Beosound Shape is flexible in configuration, covers, colours, and even sound performance. Depending on your needs you can rearrange the tiles — or add new ones — to boost acoustic-dampening properties or sound performance, and if you want more sound, simply add more tiles.

Thanks to patented

technology called “band on the wall”, you don’t need to be seated or standing directly in front of the speakers to experience an unparalleled listening experience.

Beosound Shape is part of Bang & Olufsen’s home speaker collection, can seamlessly connect into one multi-room audio system, and is compatible with Chromecast, Apple AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth.

From R79 999, bangolufsen.com

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The Lego Art World Map is a new take on the classic wall map.

It is the largest Lego set to date, with a total of 11 695 pieces, 40 canvas wall decor plates, a brick-built frame, two hanging elements and a tile tool. It measures over 65cm high and 104cm wide, and is a new way to show your love of travel or cartography.

Use the included inspiration to create a map, customise the

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Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G is the company’s latest iteration of the popular productivityfocused foldable phone. Featuring a new matte design, the Z Fold 3 5G is a refined, elegant smartphone with standout features. Not only is it water resistant with an IPX8 rating, it also boasts Samsung’s new Armor Aluminium frame and Gorilla Glass Victus, which is 50% stronger than Gorilla Glass 6.

Refining the specifications and design of its predecessor, the Z Fold 3 5G has a 6.2-inch outer display and 7.6-inch main display — each with a 120Hz display. It also has eco-square technology to make the display 29% brighter, an underdisplay camera (UDC) on the main display, and a triple camera setup on the back covered with “Super Clear Glass” with Gorilla Glass with DX. The foldable also features Dolby Atmos and stereo speakers, is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888, and is now S-Pen compatible.

If you’re into drawing or even just signing documents on the go, then you’re going to want to get either the S Pen Pro or the S Pen Fold Edition.

This is a phone that is more than the sum of its parts. With the inclusion of the S Pen, it’s moving beyond being a mere smartphone and becoming a truly powerful canvas to help you create and realise your potential no matter where you are.

Pre-order 1 September, from R37 999, samsung.com/za

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oceans with bathymetric mapping-inspired styling, track your travels with Lego’s take on push pins, or focus in on one of three parts of the world to highlight your home country. Making it even more interactive is an included QR code that brings you a custom soundtrack to listen to while you build.

The Lego Art World Map is the perfect immersive, low-tech building experience to help you relax and reminisce about past trips, or plan new travel adventures. R4 999, greatyellowbrick.co.za

The Frame I remember standing in an exhibition space next to the Louvre in Paris in 2017, surrounded by the world’s tech media. Having just witnessed Samsung unveil The Frame TV, I was baffled by how this impressive piece of technology made me look at a commonplace item in such a different light, trying to determine which artworks were paintings and which were TVs. Fast forward to 2021 and Samsung’s The Frame is still the industry leader when it comes to seamlessly integrating your TV — and other electronics — into your home and making them more like works of art. A range of bezel frames, which click together magnetically, are available to make sure your TV enhances the decor of any room. When not in use, The Frame — which can be mounted on a wall, or perched on a stand — creates over 1-billion shades of 100% accurate colour on its 4K QLED display to show realistic-looking artwork when your TV is in Art Mode. The on-device Art Store gives you access to over 1 400 works of art from around the world, or you can send your own images to the TV. When you’re not in the room, Art Mode turns off thanks to the use of motion-sensing technology.

The Frame is also Apple AirPlay 2 and Samsung SmartThings compatible, works with Bixby, Alexa and Google Assistant, has SpaceFit Sound technology, and a whole lot more.

From R26 999, shop.samsung.com/za

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Denis Droppa

Lexus NX front and back

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hen Lexus first unveiled its spindle grille, it set heads turning — some of them hastily in the other direction.

The flamboyant and controversial new nose was certainly not universally liked, but that was exactly the point for a brand that had until then penned car designs that resolutely failed to either offend or excite.

“From now on I don’t want to create nice designs, I want to create impressive designs, ones that remain in minds, with the spindle grille as a symbol heralding the change,” said Lexus president Tokuo Fukuichi at the preview of the

NX premium midsize SUV in 2014.

“Lexus has created cars that nobody really dislikes. They’re liked by everybody, but they’re not really loved. They don’t remain impressed in people’s hearts and minds, and that’s the main point I want to change, in part by giving new characteristics to the front face.”

The spindle grille has become the design language of all Lexus models and remains the focal point of the new, second-generation Lexus NX that was globally unveiled in June and is headed for South Africa early next year.

This time Lexus hasn’t sought to shock us, and the second-generation

SUV takes an evolutionary styling approach. The origami-inspired body angles have been slightly softened and the spindle grille has been deepened with a three-dimensional design. The “Nike slash” daytime running lights are now integrated into the headlights, and a new elongated light bar stretches across the tailgate into L-shaped lights.

The first-generation NX (which stands for “nimble crossover”) was launched in 2015 as Lexus’ entrylevel crossover, a mantle that has subsequently been taken on by the smaller UX. As the brand’s secondsmallest SUV the NX plays in the same premium midsize league as the

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Less shock, better infotainment interface for an all-new Lexus NX

An e-latch system combines with a blind-spot monitor to prevent doors being opened when cyclists are approaching

Lexus NX Safe Exit Assist

BMW X3, Mercedes-Benz GLC, Volvo XC60, and Audi Q5.

It has become a core model for Toyota’s luxury brand with the firstgeneration NX selling around 1-million units in more than 90 countries, and was the top-selling Lexus in South Africa last year.

Changes under the skin of the new car include new powertrains, updated technology, and a revamped interior.

The car ditches the finicky infotainment interface that was controlled by a laptop-type touchpad next to the gearstick, opting instead for a conventional touchscreen system with a high-resolution screen.

Other highlights of the revamped interior are a premium 10-speaker sound system, including a subwoofer, and 64 mood-lighting colours. To ensure the quietness befitting a Lexus, sound insulation’s been improved to reduce wind noise.

On the powertrain front, a new 2.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine makes its debut, with outputs of 205kW and 430Nm — up from the 175kW and 350Nm of the current 2.0-litre petrol turbo.

There is a 2.5-litre normally aspirated petrol engine too, as well as a choice of two hybrid models that pair the 2.5 engine with electric motors.

The NX350h is a regular hybrid that uses the petrol engine to recharge the electric motor, while the NX450h+ is a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) that can be charged at home.

The PHEV and 2.4 turbo models have all-wheel drive while the 2.5-litre and hybrid variants offer a choice of AWD or front-wheel drive.

As part of an extensive suite of safety features, the new NX introduces an e-latch system that combines with a blind-spot monitor to prevent doors being opened when cars or cyclists are approaching from behind. The car also has an optional remote-parking function controlled by the digital key.

A lower centre of gravity improves the SUV’s driving dynamics, and the F Sport version has adaptive variable suspension for the best mix of ride comfort and handling. The F Sport also wears low-profile 20-inch wheels, which means off-roading is off the menu.

All engine derivatives except for the PHEV are destined for South Africa, and the exact specifications and model grades will be announced at launch.

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Dispatches on all things cool, covetable, and conversation-wor thy

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Contemporar y Japanese street food at Hyde Park Corner

Saki Zamxaka, CEO of the Gauteng Enterprise Propellor

Michele Magwood on books and Sarah B u i t e n d a ch o n t r ave l

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Rich Mnisi debuts his solo furniture exhibition

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The Christopher brothers bring a local twist to the best of Japanese street food

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yde Park Corner’s latest addition is set to ignite an indulgence of contemporary Japanese street food as Viron and Alexis Christopher (at the helm of Willoughby & Co. in its heyday) return to the centre with their new concept, KōL. It’s a casual yet elevated Japanese dining experience unlike anything Joburg has seen before. The name, based on the kanji symbols for charcoal, references the fire at the heart of this ambitious undertaking.

When it came to bringing their

De Hoop Nature Reserve An ethereal beauty characterises William Stephens’ little patch of South Africa, nestled at the foot of the Overberg. Whether it’s Cape vultures swooping just above your head on a viewing deck perched high on Potberg Mountain, or the shoreline down at Koppie Alleen beach that is almost primordial in its perfection, the De Hoop Collection grips your soul and doesn’t let go.

The Dassie Suite, set on the edge of the vlei, is quintessentially Cape Dutch. Expect deep windowsills, sash windows and a woodburning fireplace. Let Lizo take you on a leisurely cruise and share his knowledge on the 260 local bird species with you, or take a marine walk down on the beach.

The stars of the show, of course, are the southern right whales. We packed a picnic basket and spent hours on the dunes watching them play, so book during whale season (July to December) if you can.

Insider tip: Ask about the oyster shell embedded in the plaster above the dormer window of the old manor house. dehoopcollection.com

vision to life, the brothers entrusted the job to award-winning interior architect Tristan du Plessis of StudioA. He transformed the lower-level mall space into a visual spectacular, using natural wood, leathered granite, marble, and aged brass to great effect, along with an eye-catching living wall.

Inspired by the deep tradition of Japanese cuisine, the focus of KōL will be on street-food-style cooking, with particular attention paid to the “KōL trilogy” of sushi, robata (grill), and mixology. “The ‘one soup, three

Grootbos Private Nature Reserve The story of Grootbos goes back to 1991, when Michael Lutzeyer convinced his father to buy a piece of land overlooking the scenic Walker Bay near Gansbaai.

Those in the know will already be familiar with the Grootbos experience: unparalleled luxury equally matched with community outreach and conservation work that has been acknowledged internationally.

In April Grootbos was recognised as one of National Geographic’s Unique Lodges of the World, based on the dynamic model of eco-tourism that Lutzeyer and his team have pioneered. On any given day, the Grootbos Foundation is a hive of activity, with botanists, biologists, ecologists, and horticulturalists busy cataloguing and studying the unique flora and fauna found only here in the Cape Floral Kingdom.

Not to be missed is the Klipgat cave walk in the nearby Walker Bay Nature Reserve, where research is being undertaken on these majestic rock formations, aiming to prove they were home to our hominid ancestors for much longer than the more famous Cradle of Humankind. It’s this profound awareness of the connection between tourism, community, and environment that sets Grootbos apart from the crowd.

Insider tip: Don’t leave without a jar of Grootbos honey, sourced directly from hives out in the fynbos. grootbos.com

sides’ (ichiju-issai) philosophy forms the basis of our menu: it’s designed as a sharing experience, mimicking Japanese izakaya (street taverns) with our own ‘izakhaya’, bringing it closer to home as an amalgam of local ingredients and culture,” says Viron.

Chef Katsuhiko Miyamoto will be heading up the kitchen, and brings with him more than three decades of culinary experience. Patrons can expect both traditional and contemporary takes on Japanese street food and sushi.

KōL lights its fires later this spring.

Ballots Heights Nature Reserve To step through the front door of Sally and Henry Paine’s villa, perched on the edge of a cliff in Ballots Heights Nature Reserve, is to be set adrift on the Indian Ocean. Here, the elements are the heroes: the sea mist drifting through the open glass doors on the veranda, the electric blue of the water that sparkles as whales and dolphins frolic in the waves below you, and the kaleidoscopic colours of the fynbos clinging to the rocky slopes surrounding the house.

Sally works with environmentalists and botanists to ensure that the magic of this small fynbos biome is preserved and managed responsibly, despite the development of holiday homes on the reserve. The Bee’s Knees villa is the Paines’ response to their shared passion for this little piece of heaven. “It’s the kind of place where the houses have to make as minimum an impact as they can. We wanted to create an easy relationship between the inside and outside of the house,” Henry tells me, speaking to the ethos of his design aesthetic.

Expect a bottle of wine awaiting your arrival to soothe the pains of your journey.

And, as the weather here can turn in an instant, the window seat by the wood-burning stove is the place to be on rainy, windy nights as you snuggle in with a good glass of red and a book. On fine days, the winding trails that thread their way through the fynbos (in full flower while we were there) down to the bay below are highly recommended.

Insider tip: To ensure you truly disconnect, there is no wifi at the villa, so pack plenty of books, bottles, and good old-fashioned board games to keep yourself occupied. luxurycaperetreat.com

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THE HOT SEAT | KŌL I Z A K H AYA

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The label:

Pink Valley Wines The artist:

Walter Battiss The winemakers:

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he Scottish novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that “wine is bottled poetry”.

While the quote has gone on to adorn everything from scatter cushions to needlepoint and the occasional coaster, it had me thinking: if the wine is the poetry, then what of the label?

I decided to explore the relationship between wine and art. Along the way, I found three South African wines featuring the works of local artists: the first a collaboration between artist and winemaker, the second a homage to a South African great, and the last incorporating the work of a painter and musicians.

The label:

Lionel Smit Wines The artist:

Tamboerskloof John Spicer Syrah 2015

The winemaker:

Jeanne Gaigher

Lionel Smit

The artist:

Acclaimed artist Lionel Smit met Bernhard Bredell, the Scions of Sinai winemaker, in 2011. “This collaboration happened so naturally, just like his wine,” says Smit. “I thought we were just having fun, but then Series #1 ended up with amazing remarks from international wine critics.”

Naturally, Bredell handles the winemaking endeavours while Smit does the packaging. He notes that it is a true collaboration, with constant consulting — usually over a glass or three.

The wine: The idea is to release two wines each year.

Currently, the white wines (series #1, #3, and #5) are grenache blanc (with #5 including the addition of chenin blanc), while the reds (#2, #4, and #6) are syrah-led blends with the inclusion of cinsault.

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The label:

The jewel in the crown of the Kleinood farm has to be the parcel of grapes that goes into their flagship wine, the John Spicer Syrah. As has been the case since 2009, every release of the wine is accompanied by a wine bottle wrapper commissioned by a different artist.

For the current release (2015 vintage) the team approached artist Jeanne Gaigher. She drew inspiration from the farm, finally settling on the frogs in and around its dam and river as the theme.

This was the start of a creative endeavour unlike any Kleinood has done before, and a project perfectly suited to celebrating the farm’s 21st anniversary.

“If we could taste and smell the farm in a bottle of wine and see an imagined portrayal of Kleinood fauna through art, why, then, could we not hear what the farm sounds like? So The Kleinood Nocturne was born,” the Kleinood team explains.

The piece was created by critically acclaimed jazz pianist Kyle Shepherd in collaboration with sound artist Rob Brinkworth. The idea was to capture and interpret through music the sounds of the journey from sunset to sunrise on Kleinood farm. It’s a complete sensory experience, and can be streamed on www.kleinood.com.

The design for the Pink Valley labels was inspired by the unique nature of their rosé. The estate’s dedication to singularity and purpose, as well as a passion for this often-overlooked style of wine, led to their making and expressing a single specialist rosé wine — a South African first.

Thus it was important that the label embodied the creative spirit and flair of the wine itself.

“Our distinct philosophy to winemaking is enriched by our love of art. The work of South African painter Walter Battiss serves as our inspiration, with each label depicting its own unique personality,” says sales and marketing manager Mark Lester.

The team’s passion for the craft of fine winemaking was paired with the concept of using a distinctive South African artist’s work as inspiration for the design. Battiss, renowned for his free-spirited and playful silkscreen images rooted in magical fantasy, was the perfect fit. Designers Eduard du Plessis, of the Walter Battiss Company, and Monty Filter, of brandtree, chose The Inventor — Walking Feathers. The four different “walking feathers” are each depicted on separate labels, while the shipper carton and gift tube show the complete artwork.

“In essence, the wine labels are part of the complete artwork, as they all feature individual elements to create the entire artwork, in the same manner as the different complex tasting notes create the complete rosé,” says Lester.

The wine: The Pink Valley rosé is a blend of grenache (80%), sangiovese (10%), shiraz (5%), and cinsault (5%).

A blush, pale onionskin with an almost pearlescent sheen, the wine is both complex and quaffable — showing a range of tropical and melon fruits and a touch of citrus, accompanied by a zingy acidity, luscious mouthfeel, and long-lingering finish.

The wine: The Tamboerskloof John Spicer Syrah 2015 is impressively multifaceted and intense, with the palate showing layers of aromatic spices and hints of fynbos mingling with ripe red and black fruits, confected berry, tobacco, charcuterie, and the signature Syrah note of white pepper supported by silky tannins, a balancing fresh acidity, and a powerful finish.

Left Clockwise: Lionel Smit Series #1 Grenache Blanc 2017; Lionel Smit Series #4 Syrah 2018; Lionel Smit Series #6 Syrah Cinsault 2019; Lionel Smit Series #5 Chenin Blanc Grenache Blanc 2019 Right: Pink Valley Rosé 2019

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THE RICH DUALITY

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esigner Rich Mnisi, known for his eponymous fashion label, is showcasing his first solo furniture exhibition, titled Nyoka, at Southern Guild in Cape Town from 23 September to 11 November 2021. The exhibition is a follow-up to his 2018 furniture debut Nwa-Mulamula and his second showcase Alkebulan, which were both part of group shows at Southern Guild. Nyoka is a play on the duality of beauty and fear epitomised by the image of the snake, and draws on his family history as well as African mythology.

Your furniture debut was in 2018 — how did that come about and what inspired you to follow up with a full collection and exhibition? I was asked to be part of a group show at Southern Guild called Extra Ordinary.

Nwa-Mulamula’s Chaise and Nwa-Mulamula’s Tears are organic-shaped pieces that are an extension of my Nwa-Mulamula fashion collection — a homage to the memory of my late great-

OF BEAUTY AND FEAR grandmother, an ever-present guardian whose teachings have lived on in my family through storytelling, generation after generation. The following year my second collection of seating, Alkebulan, was featured in Communion, a second group show with the gallery. It’s been a natural progression from that point, and an exciting new journey being able to express myself through a new medium. I’m grateful to Southern Guild for guiding me and helping to bring my vision to life.

Your upcoming exhibition, titled Nyoka, draws on African mythology and beauty distilled from darkness. Snakes are revered in ancient cultures, representing wisdom, rebirth, and transformation. Would you say that these themes are also considered in your collection? Nyoka draws on my family history as well as African mythology, and plays with the duality of fear and beauty — epitomised by the image of the snake. This is what inspired the show’s

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title: Nyoka, which means “snake” in Xitsonga. For me, whether designing clothes or furniture, the process is an intuitive one. I worked closely with Southern Guild to realise my vision for these pieces and collaborated with several artisan groups as well.

Your debut furniture’s theme, Nwa-Mulamula, corresponded with your fashion collection then, and this current furniture collection’s theme does the same. Is this intentional and is it an ongoing strategy of your work? As mentioned, it’s been a natural progression for me.

I feel as a designer you’re always going to have a certain visual vocabulary, aesthetic, and philosophy that’s going to come through your work, whether it’s fashion, furniture design, or painting. Fluidity and form, for example, are two things that always inform my work, so yes, it’s intentional in the sense that these influences are elements to which I’m naturally drawn: they’re an extension of me.

Nyoka also represents the duality of beauty and fear. Normally, fear is an emotion most gravitate away from — how were you able to create even beyond this symbolism? To live is to embrace this duality. To accept that joy and tragedy, light and darkness, dreams and nightmares are connected, orbiting, and defining each other, you must face the fear head-on and work through it to truly appreciate the beauty on the other side. Basically, you can’t have one without the other, as they exist side by side.

What would you say is your key design philosophy across fashion and furniture? Fluidity in all forms. This doesn’t only mean in terms of movement and flow, but also signifies the breaking down of boundaries. I create for everyone, beyond gender, race, and geographical lines. For me fluidity represents inclusivity, a tenet I hold very close to my heart.

How does this furniture collection reflect you and your family history? Nyoka, just like my most recent fashion collection, Ku Huhama, finds its origins in a dream my mother had. This started with a nightmare. My mother dreamt of a snake on her back. When she turned to look at it, she saw an intense green creature, frightening and fluid, dangerous and beautiful. My journey started here and led me to Congo’s Bushongo mythology and its creator god, Bumba, the god of vomit. There was nothing, and then there was Bumba, shaping first the sun and moon, and then the rest of the natural world from that acidic pain and discomfort. Unlike most of our world’s origin stories, this one proposes that the beauty and life of our world could be purged instead of birthed. The essence of a snake echoes throughout the collection, be it in terms of form, flow, or symbolism.

What has your growth process been like since your furniture debut, and then creating this collection? My design process has become looser and much freer. I can say it’s certainly been a very liberating experience.

As a luxury designer, what do you think is the current evolution in the luxury sector since the pandemic, if there’s been an evolution at all?

Manufacturing and logistical complexities, a drastic drop in sales and a decline in footfall this past year have pushed luxury brands to increase prices in an attempt to recoup some of the losses due to Covid-19 restrictions on a global scale. We have seen, however, that luxury consumption is slowly starting to recover. With limited travel allowed by international consumers, local luxury consumption is also being boosted.

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Light and darkness snake through this fashion icon’s solo furniture exhibition

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Wade Bales is a well-known wine négociant and merchant.

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With just 126 bottles having been produced, this limitededition single malt Scotch whisky is as golden in colour as it is in character.

From a single cask, the nose is fruity and floral with a hint of fresh pastries, candied citrus, and nutmeg.

The palate is lively and everchanging with herbaceous notes and liquorice leading to a long, spicy, and perfectly dry finish. R8 800 per bottle.

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PLATINUM FOR CONSTANTIA GLEN’S FIVE onstantia Glen

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TOP OF THE PODIUM

Fancy a medal winner in your wine glass? Look no further...

WIDOW JANE BOURBON

T HE ULT I MAT E GL E NL IV E T, 25 YE AR S IN THE MA KI NG

W HIT E GOL D F OR S TA R KCONDÉ F IE L D B L E ND

his 2020 Estate White has not only won the South African Trophy for Best White Blend at the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show but was also specifically named in the Decanter Awards — scoring a gold award and 95 points, as well as high praise from acclaimed international wine critic Jancis Robinson.

Farmed organically from a single vineyard, chenin blanc, roussanne, verdelho, and viognier grapes are all picked at the same time and pressed and fermented together as a true “field blend” before being barrel fermented in mostly older, neutral oak. With its natural acidity and layers of floral aromas and smoke, look out for richer swathes of peach cream and tropical fruit on the palate. Pair with almost anything!

Reviving the lost art of marrying the finest whiskeys, Widow Jane’s 10-Year-Old is a bourbon that’s as intense as it is inspired. Handassembled in Brooklyn using the richest and rarest straight bourbons, this limited-edition bourbon is non-chill filtered and proofed with limestone mineral water from the legendary Rosendale Mines of New York. The end result: aromas of freshly roasted nuts combine with vanilla and charred oak, leading to a palate of orange, maple, and almond. As it’s fetched almost as many gold awards as Michael Phelps, you’ll have to be almost as fast as him to get your hands on one of only 213 bottles produced.

R1 495 per bottle.

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MAU R ITIAN TRAD ITI O NAL R U M , A N YO N E ?

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s part of its Rare Casks Series, Navigate World Whisky selected and blended together two Penny Blue single casks (one sherry, one cognac).

Often described as the whisky drinker’s rum, Penny Blue’s exclusive rums are released without a dosage of sugar, leading to a naturally drier finish. In this case, expect a voluptuous and intense nose of ripe banana, allspice, dried orange zest, and baked apple.

Ginger, vanilla, dark chocolate, and coffee bean flavours find their way onto the palate, where they linger. With only 213 bottles produced, each one retails for R1 895.

wine estate’s flagship red did incredibly well at the most recent Decanter World Wine Awards in London, bringing home a platinum award and a whopping 97 points rating.

Crafted from all five Bordeaux red grape varieties thriving in Constantia Glen’s micro-climate, and then matured in French oak for 18 months, expect a rich, textured wine with excellent freshness and depth.

B

oschendal’s Brut Rosé was awarded gold at one of the most notable wine competitions in the world, Mundus Vini’s 28th Grand International Wine Award.

In fact, the Franschhoek winery emerged from the event with more than one top award, garnering golds for its Boschendal Nicolas 2017 and Boschendal 1685 Shiraz 2018 as well.

With its delicate pale-pink colour and red-fruit aromas, it’s the brut rosé that you really want to pop open at your next celebration, though.

A premium Cap Classique, pinotage, pinot noir, and chardonnay grapes are carefully blended then bottled.

An additional 12 months on the lees allow for even more complexity, depth, and succulent fruit to complement its brisk sparkle and strawberry and cherry flavours.

ROSÉ GOLD FOR 06.

BOSCHENDAL

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Michele Magwood is a contributing books editor at the Sunday Times

READ ALERT.

A plaza of memories

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n a scrappy street in Pageview there is an old, blue, doublestorey house. It fronts onto 14th Street and stands isolated in what was once a teeming avenue of traders in Johannesburg’s equivalent of District Six. The building houses the Fietas Museum, which displays the history of the suburb and records how, like District Six and Sophiatown, it was bulldozed to make way for white housing.

The traders were relocated in the mid-70s to the so-called “Oriental Plaza” in nearby Fordsburg. What was a lively mixture of “Malays, Indians, Chinese, Coloureds, Africans, Jews, Lebanese and Afrikaners” became a homogenised group of Indian traders in a brutal shopping mall.

These traders were forced to specialise: no more general stores bursting with everything from saucepans to sequins; the stores had to narrow down their offerings.

Razina Theba’s parents started a curio shop and did a brisk trade selling Zulu love letters to tourists. She was raised as a “Plaza baby”, blithely toddling from shop to shop where everyone knew her. “For fun I would sometimes wear an African mask and walk round the shop nonchalantly when customers walked in, until my mum realised how unsettling this was for the customers and made me stop.”

Her memoir of growing up in Fordsburg, A Home on Vorster Street ( Jonathan Ball Publishers), is a richly absorbing and at times drily funny gathering of stories about her sprawling family and their neighbours.

Razina Theba’s absorbing memoir breathes life into the ghosts of Fordsburg

There was the time her father dragged 75 clan members to a family wedding in Maputo because it was, simply, the right thing to do. They hired what had been Samora Machel’s presidential train to take them there, only to find a corrupt official had pocketed the fee and sent a few rusted, bullet-riddled carriages reeking of sewage and driven by a man with no idea of how to get to Maputo.

Throw in a tide of bluebottles and 73 cases of food poisoning (she and her mother don’t eat prawns) — and it’s no wonder the journey is a favourite family story.

The Theba family — it is a Gujarati name, not Zulu, she explains — lived in a complex called The Yard, a cluster of interleading flats with a row of toilets outside at the back. There was little money to spare. Her grandmother treated ailments with home remedies: hot castor oil in an inflamed ear and broken bones set with wood from a tomato box.

A wet cough could be cured by wearing a red flannel vest that would warm the chest and clear the lungs. Some ailments lasted long into adulthood — “These are the nuances of poverty.”

There were ghosts and djinns and dementia, and vile Aunt Farida, squasher of Christmas beetles, who flew into such a screeching rage about her son marrying a mixed-race woman that a firefighter had to carry her out of the house, naked as the day she was born.

Theba doesn’t skim over the patriarchy of the society. Aunt Khatija’s family was excommunicated from the Kanamia community when she divorced her

husband (she objected to the pit latrines of the marital village in Lichtenburg).

They, and she, were grudgingly reaccepted when, against bitter but determined odds, Khatija became a doctor and returned to Fietas, taking special care of the women in the area.

There are many doctors and professionals in this story. In one heart-breaking chapter a cousin at Wits Medical School is lost to severe mental illness. “Can a family suffer a death without anybody dying?” she asks. Then there is the activist Salim Vally, now a distinguished professor at UJ, once hunted through The Yard by the Security Branch. Theba herself is an attorney now.

She mixes warm and affectionate details of celebrations, customs, and food (the advent of the wavy vegetable cutter was a game changer) with more difficult, angry stories that reflect the appalling oppression and segregation that is still so very recent in South Africa’s history.

The cousins sent to stay with relatives in The Yard because there were no high schools for Indians where they lived; the vicious teachers who got away with murder, themselves brutalised by the system and teaching the inferior “House of Delegates” curriculum; the humiliation Theba suffered at Wits where she was sniggeringly ridiculed for her pronunciation of the wholly unknown name “Champs-Élysées”.

There’s also a slyly funny passage where she tells how the new Plaza attracted whites who came for the bargains and the “driehoek koelie-koek”.

In response the vendors made bloated, huge, oily samoosas to sell to them.

“No self-respecting Indian would consume that heavy triangle masquerading as a samoosa in their own home.

I suspect the green bullet chillies were not sliced very finely either. Karma has a name. It was a samoosa purchased at the Oriental Plaza in the 1980s.”

Left: Fietas Museum

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Saki Zamxaka The Gauteng Enterprise Propellor’s CEO on viewing life through the prism of art

03. What tech couldn’t you live without? My phone.

It’s practically everything to me — it’s a computer, I play music on it, I take photos and edit them with it, it keeps me in touch with people. It’s convenient.

04. What do you love about the brand? I have an iPhone, but am not a fan of any particular brand. It meets my needs, I can back up my data, it’s just functional.

05. What is the single most sentimental object to you?

My art collection. I would want it to be the biggest gift I give to the generations after me. It will never be sold, but could be monetised. I hope later generations will benefit from it in perpetuity.

06. Your drink of choice?

Wine. I started drinking alcohol a bit late in life, in 2003 — whisky and wine.

I’ve migrated to mainly wine since. There is so much variety and depth in wine, it’s a never-ending journey.

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07. Your favourite place to eat out? I have a few friends who own restaurants — Desmond Mabuza and James Diack, for example, with Signature and Coobs respectively.

08. The item in your wardrobe that signifies your individual sense of style? Sneakers. They are a symbol of fun, flexibility, and confidence. You can wear sneakers with a suit or jeans.

I am actively trying to dispel the idea that executives should dress in a certain way.

I think a dress code is part of taking sides in life, who you represent, and which culture you want to promote.

09. The last thing you bought and loved? Veja sneakers.

10. A watch brand that you love? I don’t own one, but Patek Philippe is a firm favourite. Investment pieces that are made beautifully.

11. The last places you travelled to that captured

your heart? Silicon Valley and Lesotho. I like the inspiration of Silicon Valley, what they have done in democratising media and tech. My partner was born in Lesotho, so I’m a bit biased.

12. What books are on your bedside table? African literature, history and finance.

The Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed and Soros on Soros

by George Soros, for example.

I’ve been rereading The Peasants’ Revolt by Govan Mbeki. Zakes Mda, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Ayi Kwei Armah are also firm favourites.

13. What are you listening to? Zim Ngqawana has consistently been on my mostplayed list. Miriam Makeba as well. Vinyl, CD, and digital.

14. What’s your next musthave? I can never have too much art, so more works of contemporary African art.

I think buying African art not only promotes our culture but also supports an often

underappreciated market.

15. The best gift you’ve been given recently?

I have had the biggest fortune this year of being gifted works by three artists: Nkosinathi Quwe, Sylvester Falata, and Pitika Ntuli.

Incredible works of art from a master (Ntuli) and two established artists.

16. A gift that you’ve recently bought for someone? Jordan sneakers, for my partner.

17. What places inspire and rejuvenate you?

Johannesburg and New York. I love big-city energy.

18. Something that’s recently caught your attention? Senegal and Kenya (actually, most of East Africa). Botswana has a business culture that’s vibrant. They have the positivity I wish we had in South Africa.

19. What have you added to your wardrobe recently? Paraboot shoes.

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1. Walaza, Sylvester Falata 2. Miriam Makeba album 3. Growth, Sylvester Falata 4. Untitled Creative Block, Nkosinathi Quwe 5. Veja sneakers 6. Elephant Tree 1, Pitika Ntuli 7. The Peasants’ Revolt by Govan Mbeki 8. Ingqungquthela Ebomvu, Nkosinathi Quwe

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Q+A.

01. The one indulgence you would never forgo?

The arts. Listening to music or watching it live, photography, art galleries, and talking to artists. I pick up a camera, take a walk and just document what I see. The arts always fill me up spiritually, and they always challenge my perspective about everything.

02. Essential grooming products? Vitamin E oil, Cetaphil, Vaseline petroleum jelly, and Johnson & Johnson’s facial wipes, nothing harsh.

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Sarah Buitendach

The number of storeys at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. It is the largest museum of contemporary African art in the world.

The amount in pounds for which Ben Enwonwu’s Tutu was sold at auction at Bonhams. It had a presale estimate of £300 000.

His bronze Atlas sold for £378 000, setting a new record for a sculpture in its first appearance at auction.

The percentage of total gallery sales made online by established galleries, up from 5% in 2019. This percentage ranges up to 65% for emerging galleries.

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Declan Gibbon

The price in rands people are willing to pay for a pair of Karabo Poppy’s Nike Air Force 1 Low By You sneakers on the secondary market. The collection was released in 2019 for R2 299.95 and quickly sold out. After appearing on NBA star LeBron James they soon reached cult status.

The number of elephants and mules it took to cart away the historical objects from Emperor Tewodros’ Ethiopian capital, Maqdala, in a raid by the British in 1868.

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15 and 200

1.2m

90-95

The size of the permanent collection of African art and material culture housed in the British Museum’s Sainsbury African Galleries. It is the largest such collection in the world. Only 600 objects are on display.

The percentage of Africa’s heritage held outside the continent, according to a 2018 report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron.

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90 000 200 000

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The number of artefacts France looted from Africa. Musée du Quai Branly holds over twothirds of them.

across the city. From Waterloo Station I’d zigzagged past South Africa House, through Covent Garden, up Carnaby Street, to Marylebone and Bloomsbury. It was exciting to be wandering the streets, glimpsing buildings I love — but nothing prepared me for the London I came across.

Roller doors were bolted, humans were scarce, theatres dark, pavements empty, cafes only offering outdoor seating. And even then no one was using them. So many shops had not survived the pandemic and were boarded up or barren.

Oxford Street was a tatty mess before Covid, and now it sported an added layer of abandonment.

It was dismaying to witness this new landscape, and crystalised my

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uring my stint in London earlier in the year, and in one of the brief instants of what the English call summer, I took myself off to the galleries.

For context, this was long before their momentous “Freedom Day”, which has subsequently had Brits careering about the island in strappy frocks and without masks, or dashing off to Greece like they’re in a scene from Mamma Mia. Rather, my dose of culture took place in the week when all public institutions reopened following the UK’s third wave. For months the country’s galleries, theatres, and museums had been sealed tight.

In fact, just prior to my gallery excursion I’d spent a day walking

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The art will save us

the mass of mums with toddlers in prams, pensioners, groups of mates, and solo visitors, I’d specifically booked to see Fly in League With the Night, the survey dedicated to the Londoner. Yiadom-Boakye is the first Black female artist to have a major exhibition at the gallery and, patently, none of us was going to miss it.

For a couple of pounds I was up close with her painterly imaginings of intimate moments, performers, the coolest man ever conjured (with an equally cool cat on his shoulder), and many faces staring directly out at us. Their melancholy, defiance, or amusement captured entirely with a few strokes of oil.

The colour, the style, the subject matter — I was mesmerised. Imagine having Yiadom-Boakye’s talent and vision? No wonder the 80 or so works in the exhibition were on loan from some of the world’s most important collectors and collections.

Imagine having one of these jewels in your home. Would you ever be able to tear yourself away?

Tragically, I had to settle for a couple of postcards instead.

They’re now on my fridge, so whenever I open it, I’m reminded of an artist I adore. Her work lifts my spirits daily.

That one exhibition saved London for me and is proof that, even when things are dire and hopeless, you can find beauty, magic, and genius — and their powers have no bounds.

The age of Chris Soal, the youngest artist yet to collaborate with Dior on its Lady Dior range, and the youngest artist to have a sculpture at Nirox Sculpture Park.

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ECLECTIBLES.

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Sarah Buitendach is contributing editor to the Financial Mail.

sense that nowhere had escaped the tsunami of the coronavirus – not even this global economic hub. It really wasn’t the mental picture I wished to have imprinted on my brain of a place I love.

Thank god then for my sojourn to Tate Britain.

Visiting this 124-year-old gallery in Millbank is always a good idea.

This time, though, my walking through its portico and into those grand, marble-lined vestibules had restorative powers. It was a creative corrective for my tainted perceptions of a city and humankind.

Firstly, there were people. Oh, the people! Masked and queuing quietly, they had come out in their numbers for their allocated time slot to enter the gallery. I could see that, like me, they were anxious about being in an indoor public space with crowds, but nothing was going to keep them from their fix of Bacon, Sargent, and Rossetti. They’d come to commune silently with Millais’ Ophelia or be submerged in a Hockney.

The smell of espresso flooded out of the café and the museum stores were doing a swift trade in Shonibare wax-print totes and art primers for toddlers. There was a restrained but palpably jubilant energy. Hell, no one was even letting Heather Phillipson’s unsettling hell-zone of a multimedia instillation in the central gallery space get them down.

And then I entered the rooms dedicated to Lynette YiadomBoakye’s figurative paintings. Like

The amount in ethereum that Norman O’Flynn’s GIF Da Bomb fetched.

WORLDART in Cape Town was the first art gallery in South Africa to go to market with an NFT artwork.

The percentage of global art market value that the African art market represents in its entirety, according to the European Fine Art Foundation.

This is despite African artists being responsible for more than 20% of the work offered in global auction houses.

NANDIPHA MNTAMBO Agoodjie 7 October – 6 November 2021