The Investec Cape Town Art Fair will celebrate its 10th anniversary in February 2023 with an exhibition that examines the notion of time and promises to immerse itself in the concepts surrounding the past, present and future.
The three-day art exhibition takes place every year at the Cape Town Convention Center with local and international curators taking part in creating themes for various installation areas.
Established in 2013, what started as a relaxed event for the local public became an international fair with the attendance of the Italian events company Fiera Milano in 2016. Since then, the event has opened its doors to exhibitors, visitors, collectors of art, art journalists and galleries.
With the Italian company on board in 2016, one of the notable exhibition areas, Tomorrows/Today, was co-curated by the founder of the Azu Nwagbogu African Artists Foundation, whose aim was to give young artists a platform to demonstrate their Working in front of an international audience, while bringing a more contemporary and youthful touch to the fair, it allowed artists the opportunity to present themselves through their art. “It’s important not to lose art at an art fair,” says Nwagbogu.
Some of the artists who have exhibited include the Zimbabwean-born Mathias Chirombo, whose work reflects spirituality through the use of dreams. his piece Trip feeds the idea of spirituality, alluded to through the use of blue, with a game of creating forms and shadows that give the illusion of being connected with the sky, the sea and the ancestral land.
The fifth edition of the art fair in 2017 welcomed more than 75 exhibitors from London, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Lagos, Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Harare, Nairobi, Accra and Dubai, represented by various art galleries worldwide. A new section, at the time titled Unframed, was introduced to showcase ambitious large-scale contemporary artworks that were designed by South African artists Mary Sibande, Liza Grobler, Katharien de Villiers and Michael Linders. The pieces were selected with the intention of being interactive and stimulating dialogue and “presenting a diverse sample of contemporary art” by including works of art from some 20 international galleries.
At the sixth edition in 2018, one of the most prominent exhibition areas was the Solo section, curated by Johannesburg-based Nontobeko Ntombela. This was the debut year for the section, uniquely designed to give women artists a space to use art to provide a variety of viewpoints on the socio-political issues women face in society, while demonstrating and casting light on the contribution they make to art. Some of the featured artists included South African artist Buhlebezwe Siwani, American artist Renee Cox and photographer Lola Keyezua from Angola.
In 2019, the art fair commissioned award-winning South African artist Karyn Wiggil to create 52 miniature drawings that fit into a small red dot, where visitors are presented with a magnifying glass to examine the pieces more closely. The title of the exhibition There is an art in buying art intended to convey intriguing reasons why people invest in art. Wiggill is a specialist in miniature art drawings with this 52-piece collection that includes images of an eye, an art gallery and a house, to name a few, bringing a unique element to the art fair.
Before the coronavirus was reported in South Africa in March 2020, the eighth edition of the fair took place in February with approximately 22,000 visitors and 107 exhibitors with 49 local and 58 international galleries. More than 400 artists participated in the event with attendees from Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. The Tomorrows/Today section, curated by artist and curator Nkule Mabaso and Artissima Italy Director Luigi Fassi, highlighted emerging artists in the art world. The exhibition was attended by Amanda Mushate, from Zimbabwe, known for creating abstract art, as well as the Ivorian-born French artist, Francois-Xavier Gbre.
With the ongoing lockdowns due to the pandemic, the 2021 Investec Cape Town Art Fair did not take place; however, a digital event was organized in September of that year, in association with the Milan-based Miart International Modern and Contemporary Art Fair. The event highlighted the infusion of art and technology, as most events globally moved to online platforms to encourage support for the arts, one of the sectors most negatively affected during the pandemic.
The return of the in-person exhibition took place earlier this year in February with more than 98 local and international exhibitors from 20 countries and 17 first-time participants. The Solo exhibition space looked at “how artists have reacted to the intimacy and introspection brought about by the pandemic, as well as the effect that sharing and collaboration have on artistic practice as a whole.” Some artists whose work was included in this section included South African artist and sculptor Johannes Phokela, Zimbabwean-born artist Brett Charles Seiler, who resides in Cape Town, and Botswana-born Thebe Phetogo, who does a mixture of sculpture, painting and facilities. .
Known for being the largest contemporary art fair in Africa, this event will take place at the Cape Town Convention Center from February 17-19. It will include pieces from 99 exhibitors with an expected 23,000 visitors. The exhibits are divided into eight sections including the main area, Mornings/Today: In and Out of Time, Solo: Pencil of Time, Editions, Past/Modern, Alt, Connect, and Magazines and Publications, each uniquely curated.
