We asked our writers to weigh in on the best they’ve seen in 2023. The results are in…
Ashraf Jamal
Favourite group show: Dan Flavin & Donald Judd, Doha
Favourite solo show: Mark Rothko @ Louis Vuitton Foundation
Favourite artist: Edouard Manet
Favourite artwork: Edouard Manet, La Dame aux eventails, 1873
Favourite space: Torups Nature Reserve, Sweden
Favourite publication: Donald Judd, Writings, David Zwirner Books
Quote of the year: “Testing for blood in the alcohol.”
What I’d love to see more of in 2024: Abstraction
What I’d love to see less of in 2024: Crapstraction
Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti
Favourite group show: Hands Become Voices for Our Planet by The Mapula Mapula Embroideries, which was at the Rupert Museum at the beginning of the year. As I highlighted in my review, they could have done better to foreground subaltern voices from the global south. However, their unique craft is not something we do not often encounter in commercial galleries. Through their storytelling approach, they get to address important quotidian matters.
Favourite solo show: Khanyi Mawhayi’s Midas Touch which was at Church Projects in October/November. Curated by Rory Tsapayi, the show reminded me to appreciate even the smallest of my achievements, something I usually overlook.
Favourite artist: I am not sure who to pick among Wezile Harmans, Ronald Muchatuta and Shepherd Ndudzo. All are exploring the theme of migration, a topic I am passionate about. As such, I closely follow their respective practices.
Favourite artwork: Yolo Mantiyane’s work titled Umgidi ka Phelo no Oyisa. With its media being cow dung and acrylic paints, the work is strong in terms of its material and the visible layers. The slaughtering of the cow in the painting references the male rights of passage ceremony (Umgidi) for two initiates, Phelo and Oyisa, and the cow dung in the backdrop is applied onto the canvas in a manner mimicking the way Nguni women apply it for flooring (Ukusinda). The latter serves as a primary feature in the artist’s paintings. The work featured in Yolo’s BFA final exhibition at Rhodes University.
Favourite space: The City of Cape Town Central Library’s art section. It has valuable art books and exhibition catalogues. I commend the librarians for securing the latest publications.
Favourite publication: Teju Cole’s Known and Strange Things published in 2016. I still go back to it every now and then.
Quote of the year: “Americans don’t like to hear this but I always tell them that America is another African country.” Koyo Kouoh.
What I’d love to see in 2024: I would like to see commercial galleries stepping up to take care of their staff in order to retain them. The staff turnovers in some of the galleries in Cape Town are shocking. There are spaces where you encounter a new face every month.
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: The tendency by some gallerists to speak over their artists during panel discussions. When an artist is speaking about their work at an art fair for example, let them say what they want to say without you jumping in to control the narrative. You actually end up misinforming the audience.
Ben Albertyn
Favourite group show: Fullhouse at blank. I wrote longform on why I thought Fullhouse was so great back in August and it still feels fresh in my mind. Under and FEDE knocked something loose.
Favourite solo show: Tough one, but I’m gonna go with Bella Knemeyer at Reservoir. Recency prejudice might be a thing, but the show helped organise some thoughts about the strains of abstraction and minimalism in Cape Town. I enjoy Knemeyer’s way of “obfuscating” her research and boiling it down to a single pigment. The content of the work is compressed into a secret.
Favourite artist: Kamyar Bineshtarigh. For his equanimous presence, his thrilling, graphic mark making, his sense of scale. We’re blessed to have him.
Favourite artwork: Clashes Licking by Catol Teixeira during Infecting the City 2023. Words fail.
Favourite space: Reservoir, although my spidey senses are telling me that 2024 is going to be the year of Vela Projects.
Favourite publication: The Object by Sean O’Toole. Turns out “ambiently conspiratorial political ennui,” per Keely Shinners’ description, is extremely my shit.
Quote of the year: “One can get used to anything (watching a film shot out of focus), suffer any humiliation (trying to make a film at all), and if it’s beautiful or crazy enough it works, not in spite of being pathetic but because of it.” A.S. Hamrah on Hong Sangsoo’s in water. I think about this every day.
What I’d love to see in 2024: More and better moving image art. I was really impressed by the programme Nina Barnett put together at Pool in Green Point recently. More of that please.
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: The archive.
Bongo Mei
Favourite group show: The Sculptures of Sydney Kumalo and Ezrom Legae at Strauss & Co. And anything curated by Dr Thembinkosi Goniwe .
Favourite solo show: Man of the Hour by Samson Mnisi
Favourite artist: Diane Victor
Favourite artwork: Diane Victor, Undertaker, 2014
Favourite space: Latitudes Center for the Arts
Favourite publication: ArtThrob and Daily Maverick Newspaper
Quote of the year: “An Independent Individual is An Independent Collective” by Ms Sel Anus.
What I’d love to see in 2024: A solo exhibition by Michael MacGarry
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: KITCH, art without conceptual depth.
Keely Shinners
Favourite group show: Toolbox curated by Luca Evans at Under Projects.
Favourite solo show: Sosa Joseph’s The Hushed History of Oblivion at Stevenson and Jeanne Gaigher’s Group Psyche at Reservoir.
Favourite artist: Zander Blom and Dominique Cheminais. Their dedication to a life of making is an endless font of inspiration for me. And their solos at Stevenson and THK respectively were fantastic.
Favourite artwork: Ibrahim Mahama, Parliament of Ghosts (2023). Warren Maroon’s Parliament (2023). Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus (1920) has been my phone background for some time and has offered me immense comfort as catastrophes continue to pile one on top of the other, to paraphrase Walter Benjamin.
Favourite space: I’ll choose something old and something new. I’ve been spending a lot of time volunteering at the Association of Visual Arts, and I am amazed by the collective effort that has kept this five-roomed non-profit gallery alive for more than fifty years. As for something new, I’m excited for Vela Projects, which just opened on the ground floor of the building where I live. Jonathan Goschen has a keen eye for talent and a zealous passion for art, the effects of which can be seen in Khanyi Mawhayi’s beautiful inaugural exhibition Black and White Paradise.
Favourite publication: I’ve been really enjoying Parapraxis.
Quote of the year: “Are we the meat, or are we the viewer?” Meg Martin.
What I’d love to see in 2024: More opportunities for writers who, all over the world, are being censored, laid off and underpaid as publications shutter or get swallowed up by conglomerates.
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: State funding for once-off projects that come and go, quickly forgotten. Rather invest in the basic operations of spaces that play an important role in the arts ecosystem.
Marie-Louise Rouget
Favourite group show: It’s been a year of solo shows in my orbit so nothing to report, I’m afraid!
Favourite solo show: Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home by Lebohang Kganye at FOAM Museum in Amsterdam. And although I did not get to see A Room Full of Urns in person, I’m hoping to catch future shows by Dominic Pretorius.
Favourite artist: I’ve been more preoccupied with themes this year than individual artists. Specifically, exploring the theme of death (the private and public aspects; individual and collective; spiritual and bureaucratic) in the visual arts. Dominic Pretorius’ symphony of grief and urns, Steven Cohen taking communion on his mother’s grave in Westpark Cemetery and Dr. Kathryn Smith‘s application of art and design principles to forensic investigations – they all have me hooked.
Favourite artwork: Same response as above.
Favourite space: The Prestwich Memorial in Cape Town – for its potential.
Favourite publication: I’ve just received a copy of Strange Cargo: Essays on Art by Ashraf Jamal and edited by Sven Christian. Can’t wait to tuck into it properly over the end of year break.
Quote of the year: “He thought of himself not as something heavy that left tracks behind it, but if anything, as a speck upon the surface of an earth too deeply asleep to notice the scratch of ant feet, the rasp of butterfly teeth, the tumbling of dust.” J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K.
What I’d love to see in 2024: I’m looking forward to seeing the Billy Monk inspired film (The Catacombs).
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: I’d love to see more invigorating collaborations between artists and heritage spaces across the country. So for 2024 – no more box ticking partnerships that leave the contemporary art scene and general public scratching their heads and underwhelmed.
Mpumi Mayisa
Favourite group show: Gabriel Massan & Collaborators, Third World: The Bottom Dimension at the Serpentine North Gallery in London.
Favourite solo show: Bonolo Kavula’s Soft Landing at Smac.
Favourite artist: Thato Toeba.
Favourite artwork: Cow Mash, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, ka mmotsa, 2023.
Favourite space: I’ve enjoyed experiencing the ways in which the gallery space can lend itself to the work expressing itself beyond the canvas at BKhz.
Favourite publication: Contemporary And.
Quote of the year: “I see healing as a form of institutional critique.” Grace Ndiritu
What I’d love to see in 2024: More projects that give art making and process space to be public and communal. Visual artists Mary Sibande and Lawrence Lemaoana ventured into a project called Occupying the Gallery at Keyes Art Mile from August to early September. The selected printmakers were openly in process while engaging with other artists, writers,
photographers and cultural practitioners (who could also work from there because, space and Wifi). There was something special about seeing artists assembled in the gallery, relishing an overlap between the private and communal while working. So yes, more of this.
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: Careless incorporations of sacred African spiritual practices into the gallery space.
Nkgopoleng Moloi
Favourite group show: ODDKIN, a Masters Group Exhibition at Michaelis with Guy Moshayov, Ayesha Price, Diana Vives and Elize Vossgatter (curated by Tao Boerstra and Sihle Sogaula). It was well-executed and very impressive. I also really liked Modern Masters V at Ebony Curated. It helped me think about weirdness and ugliness as valid propositions for sensual experience.
Favourite solo show: Kemang wa Lehulere’s Bring Back Lost Love was compelling.
Favourite artist: Nano Le Face’s drawings are weird and captivating. I also regularly think about Ruth Asawa.
Favourite artwork: Morris Hirshfield’s Girl with Pigeons from 1942. I spend a lot of time thinking about Robert Morris’ Box with the Sound of Its Own Making from 1961.
Favourite space: The internet. So many good shows and interesting and challenging ideas come to me through spaces I don’t have physical access to.
Favourite publication: This year marked the 40th anniversary of Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. It feels relevant once again to think about the anti, the post-modern that was never quite post as well as the interactions between art and theory. I’ll be rereading this for the rest of the year.
Quote of the year: “Thus the poet is a tragic figure. The poem is always a record of failure.” Ben Lerner, The Hatred of Poetry. I feel the same way about writing and art.
What I’d love to see in 2024: Worlds are ending. Artists should do whatever they want.
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: People should do whatever they feel inspired to do.
Tatenda Magaisa
Favourite group show: Soil Conversations at Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Favourite solo show: The Weight of a Kiss by Motlhoki Nono.
Favourite artist: Not one but, Alma Thomas, Portia Zvavahera, Mary Sibande, Pebofatso Mokoena, Duri Baek, Nyakallo Maleke, Eugénie Touzé, Andile Buka.
Favourite artwork: Mankebe Seakgoe’s I had a dream…then there was fire and Londiwe Mtshali’s Paths to home.
Favourite space: LL Editions. Stevenson Johannesburg’s scenic windows. Underneath JAG’s round skylights. edition_verso. Smac Gallery Johannesburg’s loft balcony. Them internets (the memescape).
Favourite publication: Living Archives Podcast: Intergenerational Conversations Between Artists, by the Stuart Hall Foundation and the International Curators Forum. Hosted by Jessica Taylor.
Quote of the year: “Remember kids: it’s not an inspirational story, it’s a systemic failure that’s being talked about through the lens of an individual good.” Imani Barbarin on that platform formerly known as Twitter.
What I’d love to see in 2024: Artist fees. Ethical dealings. Enforceable contracts, not handshakes. Value for SA’s labour laws. More substantial art writing and publishing. Resonant and longer running exhibitions.
What I’d love to see retired in 2024: Instagram-esque curated identity aesthetics. Advert centred, I endorse this space, this person reviews. That thing with brown skin reduced to flesh thing.
