adminNkosilesisa Ncube, Sunday Life Reporter
A SOUTH Africa-based art fair is calling for the submission of artworks from local artists and galleries as a way of encouraging African artists to communicate the continental stories to the world.
The fair, an Art Africa initiative which is developed by internationally acclaimed curators aims to give African artists a unique opportunity to exhibit their work.
The fair is also a platform by Africans, for Africans to communicate African stories, leaving behind every stereotype created about Africans. It is an opportunity for African artists to share their representations of Africa with the rest of the world.
“The Art Africa Fair 2017 invites artists and gallerists to propose work that challenges parochial perceptions surrounding Africa and provokes alternative artistic visions of the continent as defined by individual, lived experiences. Rather than trying to locate something specific to the continent, our curatorial framework depends on engaging a multiplicity of subjective curatorial and artistic narratives that tell their own story,” reads a statement issued by Art Africa.
The call is particularly for artists who address political, environmental and socio-cultural issues through their work and all such artists are encouraged to hand in their submissions before 10 January 2017.
“The open call for submission goes to all artists, photographers, designers, galleries, collectives, groups, and institutions who are contributing to making a meaningful social, political, and environmental impact through their work. Artists working in any medium are invited to propose work for the exhibition. Galleries are invited to propose artists or a series of artworks from various artists that fit or challenge the curatorial framework of the fair,” said the statement.
Selected artists will be showcased in a museum-styled exhibition, alongside other artists and projects whose work functions in dialogue with their own. Here artists will have the opportunity to showcase their work in a fully-curated environment and will be provided access to an international network of gallerists, curators, and collectors.
The exhibition will be held at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa between 24 February and 5 March 2017.
The Art Africa Fair 2017 is an international, meaningful, rapidly developing collaborative environment that offers a propensity to explore and act in relation to functional goals, framed by the individual to convey the visible, simultaneous change in contemporary art.
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Bongani Ndlovu