The sun is something we often take for granted, yet as South Africans its presence is written into our psyche. It shapes our weather, agriculture, daily rituals and cultural memory. A cold winter morning softens after only a few minutes under its warmth, while our Decembers are marked not by snow or “white Christmases” but by shorts, flip-flops and the familiar pull of the coast. The sun is part of how we live, how we gather and how we understand ourselves.
It feels fitting then that Veuve Clicquot has brought its global photographic exhibition, Emotions of the Sun, to Cape Town, a city whose light has long influenced artists, designers and photographers. After showing in New York and Milan, the exhibition found its South African home at Youngblood Gallery on Bree Street, its graffitied façade transformed by a wash of Veuve Clicquot’s signature pale yellow.
Inside, forty distinct interpretations of the sun line the walls, each one captured by one of eight photographers from the legendary Magnum Photos agency: Steve McCurry, Cristina de Middel, Trent Parke, Alex Webb, Nanna Heitmann, Olivia Arthur, Newsha Tavakolian and South Africa’s own Lindokuhle Sobekwa. The brand’s guiding principle, its long-standing “solaire spirit”, informed the brief: explore the sun emotionally, culturally or symbolically. The rest was left open.
“It was a very easy topic, the sun,” photographer Cristina de Middel reflected. “The challenge came precisely from that. You take it for granted. Where do you start?”
The answers are remarkably varied. For American photographer Steve McCurry, the sun is a distant force moving across monumental landscapes, particularly in his images taken around Mount Fuji. Californian-born Alex Webb, known for his colour-driven street photography, captures fleeting life in Oaxaca, Mexico, moments painted in saturated yellows and deep, warm shadows.
Cristina de Middel, who began her career in contemporary art before working in photojournalism, travelled to Lençóis Maranhenses in Brazil. With a bright yellow balloon echoing the sun’s form over sand and horsehide, she interrupts the expected, crafting images that invite curiosity and introspection. “I understood photography as a language,” she explained. “This project made me acknowledge how much light, and the sun, has shaped my way of seeing.”
For Iranian photographer Newsha Tavakolian, the sun became a metaphor. She decided to remain in Iran while the country was experiencing its largest women’s movement since 1979. While reading a philosophical dialogue about the concept of paradis, a garden within oneself, she found her theme. “If you are like Iranians,” she recalled, “maybe you should have the garden within you. One that nobody can touch. That’s why I chose the inner light. Because when you speak up, it’s light. It’s sun.”
“Being part of this collective of Magnum photographers has been humbling and transformative,” Sobekwa noted. “To have my work exhibited alongside such diverse global perspectives has given me visibility on a new stage. More importantly, it’s reminded me how emotion and light connect us all, wherever we are in the world.”
South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa drew from memory and place, returning to locations from his childhood that he has always associated with sunlight. “I look at the sun moving in that space and respond intuitively,” he said at the launch. “I’ve always said that I try to dance with the sun rather than chase it.” His images capture quiet, intimate moments: a body warming on a stoep, fruit picked glowing in afternoon light, and reminders of the way sunlight shapes everyday living.
“Being part of this collective of Magnum photographers has been humbling and transformative,” Sobekwa added. “It’s reminded me how emotion and light connect us all, wherever we are in the world.”
Beyond the images, the exhibition expands into an immersive sensory experience. The “Sun on Your Plate Café”, curated by local culinary expert Seth Shezi, serves dishes inspired by the brand’s ability to “bottle the sun”. Vibrant yellows, golds and soft oranges mirror the warmth of the artworks, each plate designed to accompany a glass of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label handed to guests on arrival. Visitors can also explore a gifting boutique offering limited-edition accessories, champagne and prints, an extension of the exhibition’s invitation to continue basking in the sun’s emotional resonance long after leaving the gallery.
In a city defined by its own golden light, Emotions of the Sun feels less like a conventional exhibition and more like a reminder that warmth, memory and meaning all radiate from the same source. Here, the sun becomes a universal language: a single thread connecting stories from Cape Town to Tehran, Mexico to Japan. It’s a language worth learning. And for readers wondering whether it’s worth making the trip, it is.
Emotions of the Sun runs at Youngblood Gallery in Cape Town until December 21. The exhibition is open Monday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm. Tickets are R200 via Howler and include a glass of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label and access to the exhibition, the café and the gifting space.
