FNB Art Joburg
06-08.09.24
Sandton Convention
Centre, Johannesburg,
South Africa​

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BMW Young Collectors Co.

Praxis in Practice

an educational journey

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One of the ambitions BMW Young Collectors Co. has is to forge a sound future for culture by encouraging young collectors to actively engage with the creative economy. Socio-educational, this involves blending social encounters with educational opportunities. With this in mind, here’s what members can expect for the year ahead.

“As the director of FNB Art Joburg, the first African art fair to go out in the market, we noticed that the buyers market in South Africa was getting older and historically, due to apartheid quite a lot of black people weren’t involved in collecting art,” says Mandla Sibeko who partnered with BMW, a leading global design brand, to establish a generation of young art collectors who will not only collect but protect tomorrow’s contemporary African art.

“So part of my vision was to find a solution to this challenge. That’s why we have the BMW Young Collectors Co. I think this next generation is gearing themself up to take their engagement with the gallery system to the point of buying,” adds Sibeko. Through BMW Young Collectors Co. we look to facilitate commitment to culture by connecting imminent collectors with seasoned collectors, gallerists, curators, artists and academics. This is in addition to a newsletter with educational outcomes.

You can learn more about what’s still to come from both content and event based educational outcomes below.

Meet the Curator + the Collector

The educational outcome: At the University of Pretoria, members will listen in on how Ngcobo manages and promotes contemporary art through Javett Arts Centre’s curated collection. A museum quality collection, Emile Stipp has works from artists like Zanele Muholi, David Goldblatt, Nicholas Hlobo, Dineo Seshee Bopape, donna Kukama, Kudzanai Chiurai and Emeka Ogboh. Over and above paintings, sculpture and photography, one of the things separating Stipp’s collecting sensibilities from those of many, is his keen interest in new media. Through the encounter, you will have the opportunity to learn from Stipp’s interest in new media in addition to witnessing what private patronage, outside of museums and corporations, can look like.

The Collector: Advisor to the Tate Modern, board member of Aspire Art and holder of the largest collection of video based artwork, renowned South African collector Emile Stipp will invite members to his home in Pretoria for a tour of his collection.

The Curator: Gabi Ngcobo is a South African curator, artist, educator and the current Curatorial Director at the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP). Ngcobo is recognised for her multi-layered de-colonial approach to the curatorial and her collaborative experiments in reconfiguring and transforming normative understandings of historical positions.

Meet the Collector + Meet the Artist

The educational outcome: A day of conversations between artists WonderBuhle, Sphephelo Mnguni and collector Ndabo Langa, this event will offer members insight into Durban as a hub of creative excellence. Hosted at The Chairman, a precinct and restaurant owned by Langa, the day will also foreground art in a context outside of the home.

The Collector: An architect, restaurateur and BMW Young Collector’s Co. ambassador, Ndabo Langa is the founder of DGIT Architects in Durban. A patron of the arts, Langa is well versed in both the plight and prowess of artists based and practicing in Durban.

The Artists: Referring to his studio as a lab, WonderBuhle is an artist whose practice centres around experimenting with painting methodologies. Seasoned with ancestral worship, thanksgiving, petitions and supplications, WonderBuhle’s works can be read as pictorial prayers to the spiritual beings guiding him from a thematic point of view. Opposed to retaliation as protest, WonderBuhle looks to his practice to resolve the murky waters of identity as a young person in postcolonial Africa.

Meet the Artist

The educational outcome: Visit Nandipha Mthambo’s studio located in her Johannesburg home. With a look into the development of her current practice the day will educate members about the integral aspect that is understanding the influence that developing and maintaining a studio practice has on an artist’s outcome.

The Artist: Through a multidisciplinary practice, Nandipha Mntambo investigates the human condition and its parallels to nature. Working in sculpture, photography, video and mixed media works, Mntambo illustrates humanity coming to terms with being both the perpetrator and the victim. Almost two decades in, the practice has developed, expanded, relinquished and rebranded.

Meet the Gallerist

The educational outcome: As a part of the BMW Young Collectors Co. experience, members will have the chance to learn about collecting and conserving the work of African Masters. In art history, Older Masters were established, celebrated painters of skill working during the 16th and 17th century. Historically reserved for European painters, the assertion of African Masters writes prolific African artists into this history.

The Gallerist: A curator, collector and gallerist, Monna Mokoena established Gallery MOMO in 2003, a long-standing black-owned gallery. In 2022, this vision’s expansion brought about MOMO Outskirts. A farm-styled contemporary gallery and event space, MOMO Outskirts is located just outside Johannesburg in the picturesque Cradle Valley. Focused on non-commercial programming, the MOMO Outskirts experience is kept fairly exclusive.

BMW Art Generation

The location: The Centre is a physical and immaterial space to pursue incidental discoveries made in the process of producing work. Often, you start with a good idea, It might seem crystal clear at first, but when you take it off the proverbial drawing board, cracks and fissures emerge in its surface, and they cannot be ignored. It is in following the secondary ideas, those less good ideas coined to address the first idea’s cracks, that the Centre nurtures, arguing that in the act of playing with an idea, you can recognise those things you didn’t know in advance but knew somewhere inside of you.

The Centre is a space to follow impulses, connections and revelations. It’s a physical space for artists to come together over two seasons every year and for curators to bring together combinations of text, performance, image and dance. The Centre believes an ensemble sees the world differently to how one individual does. It is a safe space for failure, for projects to be tried and discarded because they do not work. It’s a space for short form work which doesn’t have a natural home in a theatre or gallery.

The education outcome: This is a weekend long event immersing BMW Young Collectors members and the public in the contemporary African culture scene. Through a conference of discourse and discursive essays between established artists, curators and academics (from across the globe) in conversation with BMW YCC ambassadors, conversations will focus on artistic practices relevant to our ecosystem, the practice of collection as cultural ownership as well as curation as a re-creation of narrative.

In addition to discourse, the weekend will include access to open studios, performance art, live music as well as a boutique market with stalls dedicated to food, coffee, wine , South African design and fashion. Hosted at William Kentridge’s Centre for the Less Good Idea, BMW Art Generation will transform the Centre into a focused and weekend long praxis in practice. 

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Ruth Ige. Don't hide your glory, 2022.
Acrylic on canvas. 122 x 122cm. (© Copyright 2022, STEVENSON. All rights reserved)

Friday, 8th September

Collection tour of Anglo American

Location
144 Oxford Rd, Rosebank

Date
8 September 2023
11am

Event details

The Anglo American art and object collection is a combination of art collected over several decades through four different companies: Anglo American, de Beers Group, Anglo American Platinum and Kumba Iron Ore.

The collection comprises of 3600 works, with around 1000 pieces in the collection on display at the newly commissioned Rosebank offices. Although vast, the collection experienced an acquisition hiatus from the early 2000s until 2021 creating a significant gap in the collection’s representation of contemporary art. The collection now has a dedicated curator, Megan Scott, tasked with its cataloguing and digitisation, opening an exciting new chapter which will see the gradual procurement of significant works that reflect our contemporary South African and African art world.

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