Guests descended on Keyes Art Mile in Rosebank on a cool Joburg night honouring an invitation to join the Editor in Chief of YourLuxury Africa, Ntokozo Maseko, the curator of the Stellenbosch Outdoor Photography Exhibition, Anelisa Mangcu and Private Clients by Old Mutual Wealth MD Jean Minnaar all in celebration of art and the powerful medium of photography.
The Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust (SOST) has brought contemporary art to a broad audience of locals and visitors by mounting free, annual public art exhibitions in the town since 2012. These outdoor exhibitions offer the public powerful experiences with art and the urban environment, as well as numerous educational opportunities ranging from school tours to academic workshops.
This year’s outdoor photography exhibition envisioned by curator and Cape Town based interdisciplinary art practitioner, Anelisa Mangcu, was organised with exhibition patrons, Private Clients by Old Mutual Wealth and explores the Masters of Photography who draw inspiration from the African continent. It encourages audiences to foster meaningful dialogue in investigating the archive by engaging with life sized renders of works by artists such as Berni Searle, Malick Sidibe, Roger Ballen among other iconic artists that have pushed boundaries within the medium of photography and created works that have stood the test of time. Through insightful presentations and a 360 degree 3D tour of the exhibition themed ‘Freedom, I dream up for myself and others’, Mangcu transported guests to Stellenbosch and back with a visual feast sharing the compelling works featured in this year’s exhibition.
Over Delaire Graff wines, Honor cogniac, hearty bowls of food in an intimate setting at the trendy Mesh Club in Rosebank’s gallery hub art loving guests also listened in on an enlightening conversation between the Editor in Chief, curator of the show exhibition and two powerful female voices in the form of photographic artist Ruth Motau and art collector/entrepreneur Karabo Morule.
Ruth Motau (b.1968) the Soweto born photographer, renowned for her intimate documentation of ordinary black South African life brought weight to the conversation. With a career that spans over thirty years ,as the first black woman to be employed by a newspaper in South Africa and also first black female to hold the position of photo editor at Mail and Guardian,The Sowetan and City Press, Seopedi took guests on a journey back to her days as a young, passionate and pioneering female mentored by greats such as David Goldblatt and Santu Mofokeng. Meanwhile Karabo Morule, the Founder of Capital Art, an art-tech start-up and collection management service that empowers collectors of modern and contemporary African art to see it as an asset class, added another crucial perspective to the conversation. As an avid collector herself whose career started as the second black African woman to qualify as an actuary in South Africa and went on to span years in the investment banking space including successful tenure at Old Mutural, Morule brought with her a wealth of input on art collecting, patronage and how photography is currently performing as an investment.
Overall the evening aimed to make guests intimately aware of the potentiality of art as an agent of transformation. “The appreciation of art in all forms is a global phenomenon and is as old as time itself. Beyond its emotional and aesthetic value, we believe that art is a real and tangible asset that appreciates over time,” concluded Minnaar.
