GENERATIONS | Curatorial statement by co-curators, Natasha Becker & Amogelang Maledu

GENERATIONS is a brand-new section of the fair that introduces a dialogical way of looking at artworks of selected artists. The section prioritises idiosyncrasy by instigating cross-generational conversations among 10 unlikely artists as a way to think through the jumps and continuums of past-present-futures in contemporary artmaking.

 

 

Functionally, GENERATIONS (for some without the context of South African popular culture) denotatively refers to people born and living at about the same time and are related to people that existed at an earlier point in time. This may immediately resonate with expectations of dichotomous ways of seeing young artists vis-à-vis older generation artists.

 

While for us as South Africa-born curators, GENERATIONS connotatively and unironically becomes a metaphor that entangles itself with what was one of the country’s most loved soap operas of the same name – signaling too an unintentional confluence. In this way, the section similarly functions in such gestural and explorative innuendos: some familial, some unlikely. It encourages visitors to engage a relational way of seeing artists’ individual practices vis-à-vis their intersecting dialogues in mediums and material cultures, as well as common conceptual preoccupations.

 

 

Even though the section includes younger and older artists, it does not necessarily follow such a linear progression of time because history is unreliable, and our current world is upside down. Instead, GENERATIONS encourages entanglements and tangents. Through these confluences, we hope this inaugural section stimulates plural meanings and discursive engagements of thinking about time in circularity.

 

The section will feature the following artists:

 

Barry Salzman (Is Art) in conversation with Emme Pretorius (Is Art)

 

Kimathi Mafafo (EBONY/CURATED) in conversation with Ayobami Ogungbe (Role Gallery)

Lulu Mhlana (Jonathan Carver Moore) in conversation with Sedireng Mothibatsela (Ora Loapi)

Rorke's Drift: Ellina Xaba, Philda Majozi, Dorothy Sibiya, Gordan Mbatha, Ephraim Ziqubu, Elizabeth Mbatha (Riaan Bolt Antiques) in conversation with Terence Maluleke (Southern Guild)

 

Bonolo Kavula (SMAC Gallery) in conversation with Esther Mahlangu (The Melrose Gallery)