Southern Guild will exhibit for the first time at the 8th edition of the Investec CapeTown Art Fair (ICTAF), held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) from 14 to 16 February 2020. The Cape Town gallery will feature as a Special Project with a group of works that explore the interrelationship of art and design.Featured artistsinclude Dokter and Misses, AtangTshikare, Andile Dyalvane, ZiziphoPoswa, Stanislaw Trzebinski, Porky Hefer and Rich Mnisi.
Highlights include:
- New works by Zizipho Poswa, specially commissioned for ICTAF 2020. Zizipho’s large-scale ceramic sculptures were acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of ART (LACMA) in 2019.
- Two large-scale sculptures by Andile Dyalvane in black clay and wenge wood, titled Nkcokocha (Mountain Peak) and Idladla (Grain Silo), both standing at a metre and a half tall.
- Nwa-Mulamula’s Chaise by award-winning fashion designer Rich Mnisi, an upholstered leather chair inspired by the memory of his great-great-grandmother.
- A pair of nested bronze tables by Kenyan sculptor Stanislaw Trzebinski, titled ArcheoflavusTripartitus and ArcheoflavusPulchellus, whose organic shape and swirling patterns call to mind a coral reef.
- Infidelity, a metal cabinet by Johannesburg duo Dokter and Misses, whose splattered surface (applied with a paintball gun) acts as a foil to its sharp anglesand hulking form, reminiscent of an armoured vehicle.
Since it was founded in 2008 by Trevyn and Julian McGowan, Southern Guild has challenged the boundaries between art and design. This interrelationship has evolved naturally through inviting artists to reference design in producing different forms and encouraging creatives from the design field to produce one-off art objects, playing off functionality.
“No other gallery in South Africa or on the continent has provided the spatial or discursive conditions for this kind of art. Our dedication to this conceptual and formal dance between fields has manifested in a strong local and international curatorial programme that has shaped the world’s perceptions of African art, which historically has strong links to functional objects,” says Trevyn McGowan, co-founder of Southern Guild.
