The 11th edition of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair presented a constructed reality, inviting visitors to contemplate the fair not just as a space to stage exhibitions but also as a possible portal into a sense of community. At its most hopeful moments, an art fair becomes a gathering that delves into shared encounters around artistic practice, however obscured. In the worst of times, it becomes a soul-less vacuum in service of the market. This year, the atmosphere was bustling and generative. The fair stood out as an international event, with over 100 exhibitors and 30,000 visitors, firmly establishing itself as Africa’s largest and premium fair.
The Tunisian gallery A.Gorgi presented an exceptionally strong booth. The booth included works by four artists with different techniques and visual languages, brought together by a considered sensibility. Najah Zarbout’s work offered metaphors for human submission and disobedience through the materiality of paper – embossing, folding or tearing it. The work was playful and daring. It was meticulous, laborious, and affecting, highlighting states of in-betweenness – what the artist reflects on as rhizomatic rootings. These rootings are best encapsulated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s idea of rhizomes as methods of understand the complexities of identity and culture in a globalised world, reflecting on how roots carry culture and fixity while rhizomatic rootings suggest a more fluid, interconnected, and relational understanding.
Ymen Berhouma on the other hand witnesses alternate realities — the work is expressive and hovers at the edge of absurdity. The visceral feeling of ink and crayon on the paper is palpably seen through legless creatures, disembodied floating hands and snakes that move through the picture plane. Berhouma seems to embrace non-linearity leading to images that are gestural, intimate and poetic.
In his practice Mohamed Amine Hamouda experiments with materials through the use of natural pigments, vegetal dye on paper, Ärjoun with palm fibres, and Halfa and reed fibres to explore the botanical and maritime resources of Gabès, a city in Tunisia. His works provoke responses to social and environmental concerns in the region. A work of his that piqued my interest was a wonderful tapestry of reed fibres arranged in horizontal planes with fringes at the bottom. It displayed his mastery of unconventional mediums.
Among the standout participants was the Italian gallery P420, known for its focus on Conceptual and Minimal Art from the 60s and 70s. Their presentation, featuring works by Adelaide Cioni, displayed a solid personal language that is both evocative and deeply rooted in conceptualism expressed through form. Cioni’s wool-stitched works included stylised stars forming a grid on a rectangular blue plane as well as a singular white cloud hovering above a blue sky. Her work often involves patterns and geometry, particularly its intersections with painting, performance, music, and dance. She often relies on the repetition of simple forms and simple colours, producing meaning through reading and rereading.
A key theme of this year’s event was the dialogue between old and new, evident not only in the age diversity of artists but also in the use of mediums and technology. The GENERATIONS segment, curated by Amogelang Maledu and Natasha Becker, brought together artists like Esther Mahlangu and Bonolo Kavula, showcasing their different approaches to abstraction and geometry. Kavula’s work reflected a new direction through a new material – her punctured shweshwe fabric made way for punctured and painted wood panels. Mahlangu, of course, drew particular interest because of her travelling retrospective exhibition, “And Then I Knew I was Good at Painting ”, which opened at Iziko National Gallery to coincide with the fair. The GENERATIONS section also highlighted overlooked artists, such as those from Rorke’s Drift, an art and craft centre that supported women artists in weaving practices. This historical foundation added depth to the presentations, creating conversations that went beyond mere market transactions.
Sculpture had an interesting place in the fair. A group of artists exhibited as part of the project Art Formes, following the recent publication of the book, Clay Formes, which captured contemporary clay from South Africa. Interdisciplinary artist Belinda Blignaut presented tactile mud letters reflecting her experimentation with mud as a medium in her broader practice. The works were reminiscent of colour field paintings in the style of Mark Rothko and Frank Bowling.
Alongside sculpture painting re-emerged as a medium of choice. NomThunzi Mashalaba’s presentation, ‘Pretend you’re happy when you are blue, it isn’t very hard to do’ ‘ was a highlight of the segment SOLO. Curated by Sean O’Toole, the section considered painting today through the work of nine painters. Mashalaba’s paintings are strange – combining traditional mediums of acrylic and graphite with woven sculptural forms made from mixed fibre on stretchers and steel frames they could possibly be referred to as anti-painting paintings that reflect a practice rich in experimentation.
This year, the fair presented fertile ground for discourse. Its official talks program encompassed a range of topics from interdisciplinarity in creative fields to language and migration. One notable conversation was with the curator and artist collective MADEYOULOOK (Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho) set to represent South Africa at the 60th Venice Biennale under the theme “Quiet Ground”, offering insights into their upcoming project.
The fair offered a multiplicity, not just of viewing experiences, but also the cacophony and interplay between conversations, goals, ideals and methods. This is seen through the ability to walk through a historical presentation that showcases the best of South African modernist traditions (including Ephraim Ngatane, John Koenakeefe Mohl and Douglass Portway) a few feet away from young and emerging artists who gleaning from (and diverge from) traditional mediums such as Cinthia Mulanga, Amy Rusch or Adrian Fortuin.
Overall, the Investec Cape Town Art transcended mere aesthetics, engaging visitors in meaningful conversations about identity, culture, and the evolving nature of artistic expression.
An article written by Nkgopoleng Moloi