FNB Art Joburg kicks off

The benchmark South African art fair — FNB Art Joburg — opened on Friday September 8 and runs all weekend. With its mix of local and international galleries, print studios, an indoor sculpture park, talks programme and more , the art fair celebrates its 16th edition this year at its usual spacious exhibition venue in Sandton.

As the fair has grown and matured, the programming around it has truly turned September into Joburg’s Art Month, with significant events at JAG, Maboneng and at artists’ studios around the city. While some might argue there is too much going on, this seems curmudgeonly when the myriad events and spaces being activated by art across the city at the very least lift the city’s spirits from the neglect, dilapidation and danger that seems to be its current lot.

The two weeks running up to Friday’s official opening of the fair have seen the announcement of the 2023 FNB Art Joburg Art prize-winner as photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa. This coincided with the launch of the solo show by last year’s winner, Dada Khanyisa. Significantly Khanyisa has chosen JAG as the venue, responding to the artist’s childhood memories of living in Joburg when the venerable and neglected old institution was still a city centrepiece.

A similar spirit of rejuvenation was the choice of the BMW Art Generation programme at Arts on Main in Maboneng. Once the undisputed go-to precinct for cutting edge arts and culture in the city, the character of the area has changed. But William Kentridge’s studio complex and long-running arts incubator The Centre for the Less Good Idea remains intact and hosted the central programming for the Art Generation project. The initiative, emerging out of the collaboration between FNB Art Joburg and the BMW Young Collectors’ Co., focused on internationalising the local art fair circuit from a critical point of view, and as such was based around a talks programme.The programme includes Swiss curator and director at the Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist; Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas; global head of BMW Group cultural engagement Thomas Girst; Princeton-based Nigerian artist and historian Chika Okeke-Agulu; American collector and radiologist Dr Joy Simmons, and Kentridge himself. Undoubted highlights of the event were Kentridge’s conversation with Obrist, ranging widely over his creative practice, and his performance lecture with many of the cast, previewing his upcoming multimedia production The Great Yes, The Great No. This fascinating sneak peek offered insights not only into the creative process, but the fascinating subject matter of various architects of Negritude, such as Cesaire and Senghor, and proponents of black culture in the time of the avant-gardes, including the bewitching Josephine Baker on a boat heading to Martinique.

The Open City component of the Joburg art month experience sees most of the city’s artists’ studio complexes, such as August House, Ellis House and Victoria Yards, open their doors for a weekend of guided tours and insights into artistic practice away from the glitz and glamour of thefair itself.

But FNB Art Joburg remains the centrepiece of all this activity. And if the VIP preview of the fair is anything to go by, it’s going to be a wild ride! As has been the case for a couple of years, the fair is divided into six sections:

• Gallery HUB, containing the country’s main established galleries. Look out for great selections at Goodman, SMAC, Stevenson and Everard Read. Smart art money will be looking at art fair specialists blank projects and Kalashnikovv.
• Gallery LAB includes smaller and more experimental galleries and project spaces.
• The MAX section is essentially a sculpture park inside the Sandton Convention Centre.
• ETC provides exhibition space for print houses and specialist art publishers.
• The AUX programme, sponsored by iTOO Artinsure, presents talks, lectures and book signings. Look out for intergenerational talks by veteran artist and activist Sue Williamson and exciting emerging talent Lebohang Kganye.
• The ORG section provides space for art and educational institutions to foreground their work.

The fair will welcome VIP guests Michèle Sandoz and Dr Joy Simmons to the Sandton Convention Centre. The Head of Art Initiative at the Foundation for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Sandoz is based in Switzerland and has a long-term relationship with the arts across regions, with a focus on community building through philanthropic projects that work through contemporary art to drive social change. An American art collector and philanthropist, Simmons has supported the work of artists of African descent and more broadly, of artists whose work is informed and inspired by Black culture. Making their way to Johannesburg with the sole purpose of being at the fair, their presence positions the agenda of the fair differently, and continues the international engagement launched by the BMW Art Generation programme.

An insider tip: a big highlight of the VIP preview was the resurrection of a 1990s installation by SA conceptualist Kendell Geers, involving free kicks of a football covered in the mask of a range of devil politicians. Exhibition Match is restaging the performance at the fair, and will make its debut on Johannesburg soil on Sunday September 10 at the Discovery Soccer Park in Sandton. This artistic project and social initiative was founded by curators Alexander Richards and Phokeng Setai in 2021, and seeks to build ‘collaboration, collective participation and play in the context of the art-world through the cultural vehicles of football and artistic production’. Check out the installation and come watch the free football tournament on Sunday as various art-world figures don the boots and show off their football skills.

Visit artjoburg.com/ for tickets and weekend programme.