FNB Art Joburg
02.09 - 04.09.2022
The upcoming FNB Art Joburg will be my first real art fair in Joburg. Last year’s Open City was, I think, a little bit depressing with all the venues social-distancing across the city. Now, FNB Art Joburg is back under one roof at the Sandton Convention Centre, and under some new direction – Kim Kandan as gallery liaison, Ntokoso Maseko as head of content. It looks like it’s shaping up to be a good one. Here’s what I’m looking forward to:
HUB
This is the main section of the fair with all the usual names. Smac is showing new works by Jody Paulsen: these delicate, frayed portraits of fiancé and friends seem to me a welcome departure from his felt work, a turn from the outrageous and oversaturated to the tender and benign. Whatiftheworld has some new oil portraits by Athi Patra Ruga to showcase, while Everard Read is set to have a very painterly booth of its own, exhibiting Teresa Firmino, Lady Skollie and Blessing Ngobeni.
Stevenson will be showing another one of Zander Blom’s delightfully eye-scratching Monochrome Paintings along with, so I’m told, work by his wife, Dominique Cheminais, who recently picked up a brush after a ten-year hiatus from painting. Whether or not the world is ready to be exposed to the creepy characters that haunt Dom’s mind remains to be seen, but I think the ample praise for Simphiwe Ndzube’s creatures and chimaeras gives some indication that the art world right now is game for what’s weird.
Sabelo Mlangeni, Invisible Woman I, 2006. Courtesy of the artist and blank projects.
I look forward to see with my own eyes Sabelo Mlangeni’s haunting, heartbreaking black and white photographs of night shift street cleaners – produced in 2006, just after he graduated from Market Photo Workshop – after reading this gorgeous review by Sipho Mdand in the ArtThrob archive. This is an initiative spearheaded by blank projects, who will also be exhibiting some of Kyle Morland’s elegant aluminium specimens.
Lately, I’ve been gunning to work with Turiya Magadlela and Nolan Oswald Dennis – their works have such substance, such depth, I could write and write and never fully unravel their meaning – so I’m excited to see their presentations from Kalashnikovv and Goodman, respectively. Other artists to look out for include, in my opinion: Callan Grecia (Smac), Raymond Fuyana (Guns & Rain), Zenande Mtati (Eclectica), Nelsa Guambe (Afriart) and Sedireng Mothibatsela (Rele Gallery).
Zenande Mtati, Ubuso, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Eclectica.
MAX
Zanele Muholi, Muholi IV, 2022. © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of Stevenson and Yancey Richardson. Photo by Mario Todeschini.
A new addition to the lineup, the MAX section is intended for large-scale installation works. I look forward to seeing what artists I love do when they have room to stretch their legs: Sepideh Mehraban is sure to deliver another sublime mixed media work on carpet, so too will Usha Seerjarim with her iron plated scales. It will also be an interesting platform to experience artists I haven’t encountered before, such as Anne Zanele Mutema (First Floor Gallery Harare) and Charlene Komuntale (Afriart). Zanele Muholi is planning to show a giant bronze sculpture cast in their image, measuring more than two-metres tall. Hopefully, it does what Muholi does best: cut through the hype, the fuss and the bullshit, piercing the viewer with their glare.
LAB
This section is known as “an incubation space for safe experimentation” which, from what I gathered from my interview with co-curators Kim Kandan and Esi Aida Hayfron-Benjamin, is a smart way of saying that it’s a lot cheaper than the main section of the fair. Don’t get me wrong: cheaper doesn’t mean worse, it means less pressure, more room to play, and more incentive for galleries from the continent and the diaspora to come visit us in Gauteng. I’m especially excited to see Nkhensani Mkhari’s soft, transient ink and acrylic works on handmade paper (Church Projects, Cape Town), Epheas Maposa’s Francis-Bacon-remixed paintings (Village Unhu, Harare), and Moratiwa Molema’s sensitively-rendered plaster of paris bust (Ora Loapi, Gaborone).
Nkhensani Mkhari, Impossible Questions, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
ETC.
ETC. – for “prints, publications and ecosystem supporting entities” – will undoubtedly be the highlight of the fair, given that ArtThrob has a booth in this section. In celebration of our 25th anniversary, we’ll be exhibiting highlights from our editions programme, from A(shley Walters) to Z(ander Blom), along with some choice articles from the archive. We’ll have good neighbours in master printers Artists Proof Studios, David Krut Projects and South Atlantic Press, as well as comrades in art publishing Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI), iwalewabooks and Verso.
AUX
Over the course of the fair, there will be various talks and public programming. I’ll be moderating a panel called ArtThrob: History of Art Writing in Southern Africa on Friday, 2 September at 1pm. Lately, I’ve been up to my ears in art criticism – I’m reading through ArtThrob’s archive, from 1997 to now, trying to pull together an edited anthology of articles – and I’m fascinated by the questions that come up time and time again. Who is an art critic? Where are the art critics? What is an art critic, nogal? What makes criticism good? Do critics reinforce power imbalances in the industry? How can critics subvert them? I’ll be asking these questions and more to fellow critics and colleagues Nkgopoleng Moloi, Thulile Gamedze and Mario Pissarra. I’ll also definitely be attending the Writing South African art history, a perspective from Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI) on Saturday and the talk with Lindiwe Mngxitama and Jamal Nxedlana of Bubblegum Club on Sunday.
Jamal Nxedlana, Model 1, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
