PIXELS ON EXHIBITION
SA’s art fairs, galleries and artists’ studios have accelerated their existing online platforms. Cultural historian Petra Mason takes a look at how art and technology have collided online
RMB TAF: August 28 to September 3
RMB Turbine Art Fair turned eight this year and relocated online for this edition following the move last year from its physical space in the original Turbine Hall in central Johannesburg to 10 Fricker Rd in Illovo. This year the fair boasted a lineup of loyal supporting galleries, each with dedicated viewing rooms that showed established and new talent. Goodman Gallery participated for the first time, along with regulars Guns & Rain, Kalishnikovv, David Krut Projects and others. turbineartfair.co.za
Latitudes Art Fair: Year round
Latitudes Art Fair made its online presence felt early, offering a daily artist showcase to draw online traffic ahead of what would have been it’s second physical edition this September. Promising the return of a physical edition in Johannesburg for September 2021 to accompany its online profile, the all-woman team ambitiously set out to “change the way art is bought and sold” with a year-round digital platform bringing together galleries, print studios, not-for-profit organisations, curators and independent artists to sell their art, including Stephens Tapestry Studio, EBONY/Curated, Zimbabwe’s First Floor Gallery, The Artists’ Press and Warren Editions, to name a few. latitudesartfair.com
FNB Art Joburg: November 6 to 18
FNB Art Joburg founder Mandla Sibeko confirmed this year’s online edition of the fair, promising “augmented and virtual reality exhibition experiences alongside a more traditional web platform”. FNB Art Joburg was once Joburg Art Fair, known as Africa’s first art fair, and now remembered (in part) for its see-and-be-seen VIP opening nights where bubbles flowed and celebrities, artists, collectors, taste-makers and hangerson showed up and showed off. Now that the parties are over, it’s all business for the online edition.
Investec Cape Town Art Fair: February 19 to 21 2021
Investec Cape Town Art Fair plans to continue with a physical fair in 2021 having just made it under the wire for its eighth edition this year in February, right before Covid cancellations hit. From Constantia to Woodstock during that summery month there were exhibition openings, panels and the actual fair to see and to be seen at. This event is surely now to be remembered by many as the last dance. As any seasoned art fairgoer knows, those were the days you RSVPed to everything, and showed up to what you could — the comforting chaos that was once the way the art world did things.
Brick and mortar galleries
New kid on the block in the Cape, Nel on Long, cashed in on the last of the Cape Town art week foot traffic in February with a busload of collectors, including some big shots from Tate London.
Afronova’s Henri Vergon died earlier this year, but Afronova continues to operate as a platform for “contemporary African expressions” with co-founder Emilie Demon at the helm, representing the likes of Lawrence Lemaoana, whose sardonic fabric text-based works bear witness to the times, and they travel well.
Kalishnikovv cleaned up its digital presence with a global strategy including switching from co.za to .com and expanding its artist lineup. The physical space is still holding it down in Braamfontein while its online YouTube offerings in the “Wreck Room” gather a wider audience globally.
The gallery’s July relaunch includes the “Collectors incubator” and “Artifacts” — both falling under “conceptual, ecommerce development and implementation” as artist and co-owner MJ Turpin tells me.
The Goodman Gallery put together an online programme (headed up by Ann Roberts) including virtual viewing rooms and a series of Instagram live sessions with its stable of artists. It is also participating internationally on Frieze and Art Basel’s online art fair platforms, on RMB Turbine Art Fair’s platform and on Art Joburg Online this month.
EBONY/Curated has kept all three physical spaces and its full staff. Having seen the digital writing on the wall early on, the gallery has been nurturing new collectors in this space while encouraging engagement by photographing art in situ to help collectors visualise what it would be like to live with certain pieces.
First Floor Zimbabwe launched its own online viewing room while also keeping the gallery open, offering artworks via Latitudes Online, Art Joburg and collaborating with the publication Art Africa’s “virtual spotlight” exhibitions featuring a project called 3 x 3 — three works by three artists, showcasing three sculptors for the month of August. It is also pulling together the “Emerging Painting Invitational” — a pan-African painting prize that’s going online this year. The winners will be selected by three women artists of African origin.
But what of artful chance encounters, like the social scenes at galleries on balmy Saturday afternoons that drew the creative crowds of the Northern Suburbs together, and where they’d collide with Sebokeng youngsters? Chance collaborative encounters will be rare and on a screen under lockdown. We can only hope that the online presence of these creative spaces has similar serendipity to that of the live gallery spaces.