CTICC, Cape Town
15.02.2019 – 17.02.2019
Ah mid-February. That time of year when young Capetonian’s fancy turns to… Art! It’s time once again for the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, and this year’s installment (complete with new art prizes, a killer array of solo booth projects and a curatorial focus on digital new media) promises to be one of the most memorable ones yet.
We’re looking forward to all of it, but top of our list of must-see’s are:
Ihosvanny Cisneros at MOVART
Flat geometric planes of colour can be a powerful element in painting, encompassing a sense of design, precision and a simplification of the symbolic field to the absolutely necessary. Ihosvanny’s oil paintings veer between the abstract and the representational, speaking to urbanisation and the complexity of the modern city. The planes of colour he uses break the city down to lines and angles, but reveal the unique spaces of an Angolan city. Look for him at the ‘Tomorrows/Today’ section.
Tabita Rezaire, Sugar Walls Teardom, 2016. Gynaecological chair, mechanical arm, HD video, 21″30′
Tabita Rezaire at Goodman Gallery
Tabita Rezaire has a unique and distinctive voice when it comes to colliding Internet power politics with more holistic interests (in addition to being an artist, Rezaire is an intersectional preacher, health practitioner, tech-politics researcher and Kemetic/Kundalini Yoga teacher). She has a knack for producing striking installation pieces which stick with you long after the fact – take her 2016 gynaecological chair video installation Sugar Walls Teardom for instance – which makes her an ideal fit for the art fair context. Parsing ideas of identity, sexuality, and spirituality through the framework of decoloniality and technology, Rezaire is a fantastic addition to the 2019 SOLO section’s new media focus.
Kyu Sang Lee at Eclectica Contemporary
Black and white, fibre-paper photographic prints have an incredible hypnotic quality, both intensely material and hypnotically representational. Kyu Sang Lee’s work mixes this quality with a sense of formal composition, experimentation and a dash of Modernism. We love seeing his prints in person, up close, as surprisingly for photography this is the best way to experience his work. This Solo Booth will be worth the visit.
Zyma Amien at Art First
A past winner of both the Sasol New Signatures competition and PPC Re-image Concrete competition in 2012, Zyma Amien is one of those artists who quietly gets on with it, racking up a substantial number of accolades in the process. Amien’s frequently haunting work skirts the line between printmaking, drawing, installation, and digital video, primarily engaging with fraught socio-political issues of the garment and textile industries in Cape Town. Definitely an artist to look out for at ICTAF 2019.
Troy Makaza, The Opaque looking glass, Part 1, 2018.
Silicone infused with paint, 249cm x 280cm
Troy Makaza at First Floor Gallery
We first saw Troy Makaza’s work last year at another fair, where his single work hung across from our booth, and we couldn’t stop looking. Made up of squishy lines of commercial silicon woven into mats of colour. The slime-like texture works in opposition to a woven surface, that gives way in places to eddies and holes. The works pull against their own materiality suggesting a fragility and ruinous quality at odds with the permanent, sticky nature of plastics. We’re looking forward to seeing a whole booth of his work
Billy Monk in the Past/Modern section
Billy Monk’s reputation has grown in spite of the tiny size of his extant archive. Shooting at an underground club in 60s Cape Town, his work is iconic, boozy and subversive. There’s a gritty realism, the charm of the candid and a veering around racial and sexual lines. Monk died before he became well-known, adding a further tragic tinge to the work. It will be well worth catching a rare exhibition of his work.
Medina Dugger, Aja Nloso in Torlowei from the series ‘CHROMA: an Ode to J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere’ (2017) Fiber Pigment Print on Dibond.
Medina Dugger at Art Twenty One
It’s easy to see why Magnum Photography Award-winning artist Medina Dugger’s Chroma portraits have become firm favorites in the initial promotional run for ICTAF 2019. Bold, visually striking, and tapping directly into key issues of the moment (the politics of hair), Dugger’s works are certainly distinctive. The Chroma series is an homage to the late Nigerian photographer J.D. Ojeikere’s acclaimed Hairstyles series, retaining the framing but shifting the celebration of Nigerian hair culture from black & white into full vibrant colour.
Art in the Digital Age at the Talks Programme
Discussions, lectures and conversations enrich the experience of a fair. This year’s programme hosts a plethora of experts, pundits and artists from all over the world, covering topics from collecting to the growth of creative hubs. We’re particularly looking forward to the talk on Art in the Digital Age, in part because this feels more and more relevant as new technology is facilitating new ideas and approaches. But also in part because the director of TMRW, Ann Roberts, will be talking. We’ve featured TMRW, and their virtual reality workshop, multiple times on this site, and their work is consistently amazing. The local representative of Artsy will also be speaking, and considering that Artsy has single-handedly changed the digital presence of galleries across the world, it will be a fascinating mix.
The Full Art Tourist Experience (Walkabouts and Gallery Night)
Preparing oneself to navigate the overwhelming amount of great art presented by an art fair can be harrowing stuff. Luckily ICTAF has enlisted the services of expert cultural commentators to guide you through it and tell you what’s what. This year’s stellar guides include Nkule Mabaso, Olga Speakes and Andrew Lamprecht. Walkabouts run daily at 1pm and 3pm. If that wasn’t enough, in a stroke of ingenuity, this year’s Gallery Night makes use of a City Sightseeing Double Decker bus for an unforgettable night of ‘chauffeured gallery hopping’ through the cream of the CBD and Woodstock gallery crop. Taking place on Friday, 15 February from 6pm to 9pm, participants jump on at the CTICC. For art lovers of all constitutions, this is an experience not to be missed.
Kemang Wa Lehulere,Unknown Poem, 2018. Aquatint on Zerkall 250gsm, 50.5 × 66 cm
The ArtThrob Booth (M3)
We’ll be at the fair again this year, and we’re thrilled. Don’t miss our booth where we will be launching Portfolio Six, a collection of prints by William Kentridge, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Zanele Muholi, Dan Halter, Pieter Hugo and Siemon Allen. We’re really proud of this one, so stop by for a look. You can also view the booth via Artsy here.
The Investec Cape Town Art Fair takes place at the CTICC, Convention Square, 1 Lower Long Street, Cape Town, 8001
Dates: 15 – 17 February 2018
Opening times: 11am – 7pm
Tickets: General Pre-sale Tickets can be purchased here.
Phase 3 Door Tickets: R180 (Adult), R130 (Student), R130 (Child 6-18), R130 (Pensioner), R380 (Weekend Pass)
For more information, please visit: www.investeccapetownartfair.co.za
