BMW and FNB Art Joburg's Business of Art in Cape Town
Compiled by Manelisi Manellie
The BMW Young Collectors Company was established in 2020 as an initiative with FNB Art Joburg, a 100% black owned business, to showcase art from across the world and the African continent. This is to create an art collectors’ base in South Africa by providing access for young professionals to the art world with the aim of inspiring change and champion diversity through learning and experience.
After
registering to be a part of the BMW Young Collectors Company, an impressively
crafted synopsis was personally delivered in which, Mandla Sibeko (FNB Art
Joburg Founding Director), writes, “through an exciting series of key events,
its aim is to build an empowered community that will go on to shape the art
eco-system of this country”. This was
followed by an invite to the Franschoek Gallery Hop, as part of the Cape Town
leg of this thrilling series which prompted great enthusiasm for an incredible experience
to be acquainted with the remarkable work from our own backyard.
The
meeting place was at the BMW Cape Town Auto City on Saturday, 19 November 2022.
It is here where guests were welcomed to an appetising breakfast buffet and a
brief moment of introduction before a chauffeur-driven experience in the latest
BMW M4. All through a glorious, sunny
Cape Town morning, the experience began with a tour of the Leeu Estates art
gallery, Everard Read. Upon entering this flawlessly landscaped location,
guests were greeted to Boschendal MCC Brut Rosé and the
exceptional work of artists such as Angus Taylor, Alexander Savvas and Tom
Cullberg. Subsequent items on the
programme included a walkthrough at Ebony/Curated, an exhibition tour of Boschendal
Norval Art Gallery’s Private Collection and to round off event proceedings, a gallery
walkabout and sundowners at Ellerman House in Bantry Bay.
During
lunch at the Boschendal Farm Estate, a heightened frequency in a vibrant
exchange of topical conversation and laughter was savoured. This was amongst an
eclectic group of excellent black professionals who shared ideas, anecdotes and
the depiction of the black experience across all spaces. In a discussion at Ebony/Curated
with Trish Coetzee about the expectation of media and institutions to the art
world, her response was direct and resonant, “The need for more representation
and diversity”.
Fortunately,
the Franschoek Gallery Hop managed to generate extraordinary models of black talent
in the art world. Among them were Nandipha Mntambo, a name that will be
difficult to forget once making the acquaintance of the penetrating work of
this astoundingly talented artist. Having discovered Mntambo at Everard Read in
the Michael Stevenson book, Nandipha
Mntambo: The Encounter, the artwork produced by this provocative artist emits
an immersion of beauty and intricacy that is impossible to pinpoint in just one
piece. Nandipha Mntambo is clearly an artistic force and one to experience in its
entirety, offering an extraordinarily creative
and vivid perspective in fundamental structures of nature, history, society and
the world.
An
additional manifestation of the series’ campaign for great talent and representation
in the art world was from an incredible artist hailing from the Cape Flats. Warren
Maroon ingeniously discharged grit and transparency in the Everard Read
exhibited, Beasts Bounding Through Time.
Maroon’s offering which is expressed by means of a wood, glass, rug and
stainless steel production, identifies a universal state of distress in a
distorted comfort. The piece presented a triggering confrontation of familiarity
in terror, taking the observer where many fear to tread. The work of Warren
Maroon inspired enormous curiosity of the depth and leaps that will be taken
in the future of this remarkable talent.
It
is through their art that Mntambo and Maroon adeptly address the social circumstances
plaguing South Africa. This signifies the value of artistic storytelling as an illustration
of underrepresented experiences which corroborates with the change that FNB Art
Joburg strives for. Evidently, it can be remarked that the successful achievement
of this feasible endeavour has the potential to inspire a societal convention of
personal development instituted by the expression, demonstration and observation
of art.
Undertaking
this feat will require increased attention in contextualizing the meaning of
art in society, as it is considerably recognizable that the existence of media
coverage in the art world has dwindled in recent times. Assistant Curator for
the Norval Foundation, Candice Thikeson substantiated this by stating that
further media engagement, particularly written reports covering art, would be of
great support to artists and the industry.
Having
media attention of this nature potentially contributes value in moderating the low
level of accessibility to art for many, especially for the previously
disadvantaged. Owing to various factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, contentious
politics and barefaced economic inequality, a noticeable level of fatigue to a
point of despondency has defiantly plagued society. This state of affairs creates
an opportunity for the media to act as a custodian of a much needed revival of South
African nationhood by way of significant endorsement of South African and
African art for our society and to the global art world.
The
astute partnership of FNB Art Joburg and the BMW Young Collectors Company has brilliantly identified a largely underserved
and undervalued medium by taking advantage of the rich diversity and
talent that the country has to offer. The opportunity that this initiative affords
Cape Town in particular is insurmountable, as access to a gathering of this
nature and value is seemingly discouraged and therefore few and far
between. It is through such efforts that Africa’s identity and future is affirmed in a historically Eurocentric
space that has long been called to be diversified.
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