A Recap of the Past Curators of Investec Cape Town Art Fair

The curated sections of Investec Cape Town Art Fair are a much anticipated part of the fair's weekend. Going back to 2016, the fair has welcomed extraordinary curators to showcase artist from across the globe. As we look forward to the 12th edition (and the 3 curated sections, Tomorrows/Today, SOLO and GENERATIONS), let's reflect on the past sections and their curators that have created wonderful and inspiring exhibitions for the past 8 years.

 

 

 

Mariella Franzoni is a Contemporary Art Specialist, Curator, and Consultant with a Ph.D. in Art History, focusing on curating and the art market. Based in Spain, Italy, and South Africa, she has 15 years of experience on the international contemporary art scene. Her career includes academic research, curatorial practice, and advisory roles. Mariella is the Guest Curator for the Tomorrows/Today program at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and serves as the Local Collectors Liaison for The Cultivist. She also founded the collector-focused initiative "mariella & the good art advice."

 

Throughout her career, Mariella has collaborated with international art galleries, festivals, museums, private collectors, and art businesses. In 2019, she published her doctoral thesis, "The Economy of the Curatorial and the Fields of the Contemporary Art World," which explores the curatorial economy and the contemporary African art market.

 

Mariella has curated Tomorrows/Today for the past 2 years and will be the section's curator for 2025.

 

 

Natasha Becker was born in South Africa and has spent the last sixteen years living and working between New York and Cape Town. An expert in contemporary African and African American art, she has curated a number of exhibitions in collaboration with artists, curators, collectors, galleries, museums, and foundations internationally. She recently co-curated two exhibitions, “Perilous Bodies,” and “Radical Love,” at the distinguished Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice to inaugurate their new art gallery in New York (2019). Her past experience includes curating exhibitions at the Goodman Gallery (South Africa), convening public programmes in global art history at the Clark Art Institute, and launching an international video art festival (both Massachusetts, USA). Natasha is one of the co-founders of two collaborative curatorial platforms, ASSEMBLY ROOM (New York) and THE UNDERLINE SHOW (Johannesburg) and was appointed inaugural curator of African art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in December 2020.

 

 

Amogelang Maledu is an award-winning art practitioner working between independent curating, research and sessional lecturing. Her research interests include Black (sonic) popular cultures and curatorial practices. She is a committee member of UCT’s Works of Art Committee, responsible for the institution’s art acquisitions and curation. She also co-founded a curatorial collective, Re-curators, with Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose and Thembakazi Matroshe.

 

 

Sean O’Toole, born in Pretoria in 1968, is a journalist and writer currently based in Cape Town. He served as the editor of Art South Africa, a quarterly magazine that focuses on contemporary South African and African art, and now contributes a weekly photography column for the Sunday Times and a biweekly art column for the Financial Mail. His journalism has been published in a variety of outlets, including BBC Focus on Africa, Colors, Creative Review, Eye, frieze, GEO, ID, and Kyoto Journal. O’Toole was also the editor of artthrob.co.za and guest-edited a 2002 edition of Design Indaba magazine.

 

His writing has been featured in numerous books, such as Ghetto (2004) by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Joburg Circa Now (2004) by Terry Kurgan and Jo Ractliffe, and My Dad (2006), a collection of essays on fatherhood. He also contributed to These Are a Few of Our Favourite Things (2007), a retrospective on the design agency Disturbance, and The Ceramic Art of Robert Hodgins (2007), profiling the renowned painter Robert Hodgins.

 

O'Toole has also curated the SOLO section for the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in 2023 and 2024.

 

 

 

Raised in Cape Town by a Portuguese father and an English/South African mother, this seasoned art dealer, curator, and advisor brings a unique perspective shaped by a privileged upbringing during the volatile resistance against apartheid. His family roots trace back to Madeira in the early 1900s, and he matriculated at Wynberg Boys High before pursuing Marine Engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

 

In 1998, he opened Cape Town's first contemporary art gallery, representing award-winning artists and participating in art fairs locally and abroad. After two decades, he transitioned from gallery ownership to focus on curation and art advisory, particularly in connoisseurship and collector motivation. His discreet placement of significant artworks in collections and his extensive experience in the primary and secondary markets have earned him international recognition.

 

With over 30 years of experience, he has played a significant role in building artists' careers and nurturing relationships with leading collectors, institutions, curators, and writers. His approach is driven by a deep commitment to empowering and reconciling through art.

 

He has curated the Past/Modern section of the Investec Cape Town Art Fair and offers mentorship to artists, lectures on the conditions of success for artists, and guides collectors in the joy of art collecting with passion. His work continues to influence the contemporary art landscape, bringing an informed and discerning perspective to every aspect of his practice.

 

 

 

 

Nkule Mabaso is an artist and curator who graduated with a Fine Arts degree from the University of Cape Town in 2011 and received a Masters in Curating from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) in 2014. She is currently PhD Researcher, University of Gothenburg, HDK- Valand (Academy of Art and Design), Sweden. Previously she was the Curator at the Michaelis Galleries at the University of Cape Town. Recent notable projects include the curation of the South Africa Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2019, Venice together with Nomusa Makhubu under the title “The stronger we become". Mabaso’s practice is collaborative and research interests centre around theorising and articulating nuanced aesthetic questions from the black female vantage point.

 

 

Luigi Fassi is the artistic director of MAN-Contemporary Art Museum in Nuoro, Italy. From 2012 to 2017 he held a position as visual art curator of the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria where he curated several exhibitions and public art projects. From 2009 to 2012 he was the director of Ar/ge kunst Kunstverein in Bolzano, Italy, A Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum ISP (2008-09), he has organized exhibitions for venues including Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden, GAM Torino, Italy; Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy; Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland; Pori Art Museum, Finland; ISCP, New York City; Prague Biennale, Czech Republic. From 2010 to 2016, Fassi organized the Present Future section at Artissima, Turin, Italy. In 2016 he has been a fellow of the Artis Research Trip Program in Tel Aviv and curator of the XVI Quadriennale in Rome, Italy. Currently he is a Committee Member of Alserkal Avenue Residency Programme, Dubai, United Arab Emirates and ART-O-RAMA International Art Fair in Marseille, France. Author of extensive essays for Artforum, Flash Art, and Domus, Fassi is a regular contributor to Mousse Magazine and Camera Austria. He has been commissioned different texts for catalogues and books for Alfredo Jaar, Danh Vo, Roman Ondak, João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, Diango Hernandéz, Tobias Putrih, and others.

 

 

umelo Mosaka is a Johannesburg-born and New York City-based independent curator. He is the Mellon Project Director and Curator in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, New York. Mosaka has worked within and outside museums exploring global transnational artistic practices especially from Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. He is the Resident Curator at Opa-locka Community Development Corporation in Miami, FL, and an advisor to Prospect.6, New Orleans, LA.

 

As an independent curator, Mosaka has curated numerous exhibitions including: Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Sculpture from Africa, Opa-loka, FL (2022); YAKHAL INKOMO, Javett Art Center, South Africa (2022); Usha Seejarim, A Solo Exhibition, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2020); Turning Tide, Mémorial ACTe Museum, Guadeloupe (2017); Andrew Lyght: Full Circle, Dorsky Art Museum, New York (2016); Poetic Relations, Perez Art Museum, Miami (2015); and Otherwise Black at the 1st edition of International Biennale of Contemporary Art (BIAC), Martinique (2014). Mosaka also served as Curator of Contemporary Art at the Krannert Art Museum (KAM) in Champaign, IL, where he curated several exhibitions including: Blind Field (2013), OPENSTUDIO (2011), The Kangarok Epic (2011), iona rozeal brown (2011), MAKEBA! (2011), Baggage Allowance (2010), The Bikeriders: Danny Lyon (2010), Lida Abdul (2010), and On Screen: Global Intimacy (2009), among others; and as Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, NY, where he curated Infinite Islands: Contemporary Caribbean Art (2007), Passing/Posing: Kehinde Wiley (2004) and co-curated Open House: Working in Brooklyn (2004). He also worked for the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina where he co-curated the exhibition Listening Across Cultures (2001) and Evoking History (2002).

Prior to joining KAM, Mosaka also organized several international exhibitions including Otherwise Black (2014) for the 1st edition International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Martinique (BIAC).

 

 

Nontobeko Ntombela is a curator based in Johannesburg. She currently works at the Wits School of Arts developing the postgraduate programs in curatorial and exhibition practices. She previously worked as the curator of the contemporary collection at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (2010–12) and the Durban Institute of Technology Art Gallery (2006–10). Her curatorial projects include A Fragile Archive at Johannesburg Art Gallery (2012); MTN New Contemporaries (2010) for which she was guest curator; Layers at the Goodman Gallery project space, Johannesburg (2010); Modern Fabrics at the Bag Factory, Johannesburg (2008); From Here to There at the Association of Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town (2007), as part of the CAPE 07 fringe. Ntombela has participated in international programs including the Bilateral Exchange Project between Germany and South Africa (2007); Close Connections (Africa Reflected) Curator's Workshop in Amsterdam (2009); Break the Silence Scotland (2002–3). She has also presented papers in local and international conferences including Impact (2001) as well as the Kirckurdbright International Festival (2007). Ntombela has served on the National Executive Committee of Visual Arts Network of South Africa Committee (VANSA) since 2006. Ntombela has also previously served on the Arts for Human Rights Trust Board, KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts KZNSA, the African Art Centre and the Art and Culture and Tourism Department Cultural Board.

 

 

 

Ruth Simbao is a Professor in the Fine Art Department at Rhodes University, South Africa, and teaches Art History and Visual Culture. Her research interests include contemporary art with a particular focus on Africa, the geopolitics of art and society, geopolitics in relation to biennialisation, ‘strategic southernness’ and the Global South, theories of ‘place’, contra-flow diasporas, cosmopolitanism and cosmolocalism, redefinitions of ‘the local’, the power of small spaces and modest gestures, artists’ responses to xenophobia, China-Africa relations and the arts, contemporary cultural festivals and globalisation, performance theory and live art, the performance of heritage in Zambia, and site-situational art.

 

Simbao received her PhD from Harvard University’s Department of History of Art and Architecture in 2008, and was an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) postdoctoral fellow as part of the Humanities in Africa programme in 2010. In 2002 she received a Harvard University Teaching Award as a Teaching Fellow, and was the recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award at Rhodes University in 2009.

 

She has received a number of research and travel grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Getty Foundation, the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, the College Art Association, the American Social Science Research Council, the Jennifer Oppenheimer Foundation, Norton, the Canada Council of the Arts, Harvard University (History of Art and Architecture, African and African-American Studies, Film Studies and the Graduate Student Council), the National Research Foundation (South Africa), the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, the National Arts Council, Rhodes University, and the Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council.

 

In recent years Simbao founded the following research initiatives, projects and networks: Visual and Performing Arts of Africa (ViPAA) (2011 to present), Residencies for Artists and Writers (RAW) (2014 to present), and Art & Culture: Writers in Africa (ACWA) (2015).

 

She has published in various journals including African Arts, Art South Africa, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, JACANA: Journal of African Culture and New Approaches, Third Text, Kronos: Southern African Histories, Parachute, Mix, Lola, De Arte, Image & Text, Social Dynamics and the International Journal of African Historical Studies.

 

Recent curatorial projects include SLIP: Mbali Khoza and Igshaan Adams, the performance art programme BLIND SPOT at the National Arts Festival, and Making Way: Contemporary Art from South Africa and China at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg.

 

 

Azu Nwagbogu is an internationally acclaimed curator, interested in evolving new models of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. In his practice, the exhibition becomes an experimental site for reflection, civic engagement, ecology and repatriation – both tangible and symbolic. Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. He also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the publisher of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas. In 2021, Nwagbogu was awarded “Curator of Year 2021” by the Royal Photographic Society, UK, and also listed amongst the hundred most influential people in the art world by ArtReview. In 2021, Nwagbogu launched the project “Dig Where You Stand (DWYS) - From Coast to Coast” which offers a new model for institutional building and engagement, with questions of decolonization, restitution and repatriation, the exhibition took place in Ibrahim’s Mahama’s culture hub SCCA in Tamale, Ghana. Most recently in 2023, Nwagbogu was appointed “Explorer at Large” by National Geographic Society to serve as an ambassador for the Organization and receive support to continue his storytelling work across Africa and globally, a

title bestowed on a select few global change makers. Nwagbogu’s primary interest is in reinventing the idea of the museum and its role as a civic space for engagement for society at large.