A Tale of Two Cities: Cape Town and Johannesburg at the Vanguard of Africa’s Art Boom

Drawing from the Film Other Faces (protesters), 2011, William Kentridge, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 

In 1995 South Africa had at last closed the book on an ugly chapter in its history: Apartheid.  

The country was beginning to thrive under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, who believed that it was integral to unite black and white South Africans. That year, South Africa became the first country to host a Rugby World Cup independently, and sport was just the kind of thing Mandela was looking for to bring together his people. The Springboks threw everything they had into the tournament, leading South Africa to its first-ever victory. Sport has been at the centre of South Africa’s cultural diplomacy ever since.  

While rugby and cricket have remained the main sporting channels of unity between black and white South Africans, this unity thinly veils the institutionalised inequality that continues to run rampant in South African society.  If sport has been a tool of unity in South Africa, art has been a tool of resistance. Almost three decades later, South Africa continues to live in the long shadow of Apartheid. It remains plagued with racial inequality, corruption and poverty. Art has become a means of political outcry; a protest against the silence about, or denial of racism, sexism and homophobia in South African public discourse. The country is the home of artists such as Zanele Muholi, William Kentridge and Canice Breitz, all of whom have directly explored South Africa’s socio-political issues in their work while making waves in the contemporary art world. South Africa’s artists, the growing success of its galleries, and a new museum have thrown South Africa’s art industry into the limelight, thus increasing its role as a tool of cultural diplomacy, particularly within Africa.  

Propelled by its wealth, its tourism sector, the strength of its local and international markets, and by its artists, South Africa’s art industry is today, at the vanguard of Africa’s much-discussed Art Boom.    

Zanele Muholi Vile, Gothenburg, Sweden 2016 Image, Museum of Modern Art, New York 

South Africa’s art industry benefits from three key demographics: local buyers, its wealthy diaspora, and its thriving tourism sector. While other African art markets continue to emerge, South Africa’s art market is firmly established; however, like the rest of the continent, it is benefitting from a growing interest in African art. Furthermore, the sector’s growth has not been confined to the market but has help (and is arguably driven) by its museum sector.  

While Africa’s art market has flourished, the continent is yet to produce a clear art centre, although it is generally agreed that Cape Town and Johannesburg are both strong contesters for the title. The country boasts several world-class museums, Johannesburg is home to Johannesburg Art Gallery (lovingly dubbed JAG) while the South African National Gallery is in Cape Town. However, it is the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (MOCAA) that has put South Africa on the art world’s (somewhat distorted) global map. 

Zeitz MOCAA was the world’s first major contemporary museum dedicated entirely to exhibiting African art. It is Africa’s largest contemporary art museum and the first of its size to have opened on the continent in over 100 years. Despite only having been established in 2017, the museum’s significance to Africa’s emerging art market is already tangible. It was just six months after the museum had opened when South Africa’s leading auction house, Strauss & Co held their first-ever Contemporary African Art auction in what has now become an annual event. 

Zeitz MOCAA was built in a repurposed grain silo in a formally depleted industrial area with views overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The museum, therefore, bears all the hallmarks of an urban regeneration project, and as such many have drawn comparisons with similar projects, calling it ‘Africa’s Tate Modern.’ Indeed, Cape Town’s economy has enjoyed the benefit of increased tourism, particularly to the Victoria & Albert Waterfront which is home to Zeitz MOCAA. According to Cape Town Tourism’s annual report, the newly redeveloped waterfront area is now one of South Africa’s busiest destinations and Cape Town’s top tourist attraction drawing up to 24 million visitors per year. Furthermore, according to some reports, while South Africa has seen an overall decline in tourism, Cape Town has experienced just the opposite, remaining Africa’s second most visited city, second only to Johannesburg.  

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art External view, source: Zeitz MOCAA

Art Joburg, along with Cape Town Art Fair is one South Africa’s most significant commercial art fairs, drawing visitors from all over the globe. In 2018, the struggling Joburg Art Fair, which was suffering under the weight of its own size at the expense of local galleries, was purchased by its former director and businessman Malanda Sibeko. Under Sibeko’s leadership, the fair has been revitalised: renamed Art Joburg and significantly downsized with galleries invited to participate on an invitation-only basis. The fair organisers have increased their focus on local buyers, galleries and artists which Sibeko says represent most of the fair’s market. Sibeko sees Johannesburg becoming a more important art centre not for tourists but for artists. Indeed, by downsizing, the fair stimulated the creation of new smaller satellite events for artists and mid-sized galleries, with Johannesburg hosting the inaugural Latitudes Art Fair in 2019. Latitudes brought together “a curated selection of galleries, independent platforms, studios and artists from the African continent.” 

New commercial activities occurring in South Africa indicate that the country’s art market is continuing to grow. While it is likely that the economic fallout from Covid-19 will affect this growth, Africa’s art market as a whole is showing all signs of weathering the storm. Sotheby’s Contemporary African Art auction- which was due to be held in Bond St London but was moved online at short notice- yielded good results, with a sales total of £2.3 million and a number of auction records. Meanwhile, like the rest of the art world, South Africa’s major art fairs and galleries have shifted online.   

The country’s number one commercial gallery Goodman Gallery is currently ranked 21 out of the 28,090 galleries on ArtFacts’ radar. The gallery has spaces in Johannesburg, Cape Town and now London, having expanded in late 2019. It ranks astonishingly high for a gallery that until recently had no space in the established the art centres of the United States or Europe and one that emerged from a country that is geographically isolated from much of the art-buying world. The prominence of both this gallery and that of its main competitor Stevenson Gallery, attests to the power of South Africa’s art market. Indeed, South African galleries often appear at major international art fairs, where they are usually the only galleries from Africa and are often among the only galleries from the Southern Hemisphere. 

The cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg are both actively engaged in South Africa’s art industry. While Cape Town’s unique beauty attracts swarms of tourists, Johannesburg’s wealth and reputation as one of Africa’s major economic hubs sees visitors in their millions flock to the city. Together they share almost all of South Africa’s art sector activity and have become two of Africa’s most prominent art centres.  

While it is not yet clear whether it will be Johannesburg or Cape Town which emerges as Africa’s cultural centre, I say: watch this space.

 Katie Lynch,

Contributor, MADE IN BED