Pierre Lombart and the SAFFCA Foundation – Cultural exchange through artists exchange

St. Émilion, Johannesburg. What usually comes to mind when thinking of African art? Carved masks, paintings in intense colours or simply something exotic? For a start, the typical African art and craft markets or stands at the side of the road met my expectations influenced by my European background. But what a surprise I got when I visited a gallery of contemporary art. I was embarrassed to immediately discover that I had followed a clichéd path. “African art”? Far from it! Here, the field of contemporary art showed completely new impulses. All in all, works that got under the skin and showed references that have since held my fascination ...

Stevenson Gallery – Why African contemporary art is getting off to a flying start on the international art market …

The Stevenson Gallery was established in 2003 in Woodstock, a district of Cape Town, that is increasingly becoming the location of the creative scene. From the start, it concentrated exclusively on contemporary African art. While this may perhaps give us a weary smile, it is worth a special mentioning in view of the development of the art market there. As a result of Apartheid and its oppressive policies – despite coming to an end in 1994 - there were still no education opportunities or possibilities for grants for young artists on the entire continent at the time of the founding of the gallery. The more talented continued to go to Europe or the USA, and the more or less negligible local art market continued to focus on the established art of the 20th century. Andrew da Conceicao told me why it was precisely this situation that motivated Michael Stevenson and Andrew da Conceicao to establish a gallery of contemporary art and how they succeeded in growing it to the size it is today ...

Bad Paper – Design meets Art (Part II)

Cape Town. Originally, it should have just been a special artist's book which Rodan Kane Hart had wanted to create jointly with Ben Johnson and launch on the occasion of his participation at the Venice Biennale 2017 in the bookshops there. But then, this book resulted in an idea to be born. The idea of establishing an innovative young publishing company for art editions .... Bad Paper.

A 4 Foundation – An innovative art lab

Cape Town. There are academies, galleries, museums, art exhibitions, festivals ... and now also a laboratory to experiment with art. At the initiative of the collector Wendy Fisher and her curator Josh Ginsburg, an innovative institute, the A4 Foundation, came into being in 2017, right in the middle of Cape Town. Here, space – literally and figuratively - was created for the passionate experimentation with art, new forms of art funding and communication of art and, particularly, for trying things out. Today, in our conversation with Josh Ginsburg, we hear some more about it ...

Southern Guild Gallery – Design meets Arts (Part I)

Cape Town. In close proximity to the Zeitz MOCAA Museum is the Southern Guild Gallery. Unusual furniture, accessories looking like sculptures, picturesque tapestries, individual lights and artistic statues are arranged to make the space appear like a museum. This gallery, which was established by Trevyn and Julian McGowan, represents artist-designers ...