ART AFRICA reported on the South African presentation of Lumières d’Afriques at Standard Bank Gallery in 2020. Organised through African Artists for Development, the touring exhibition assembled works by 54 artists, each associated with a different African country, around questions of light and access to energy. Contributions spanned photography, painting, textiles and sculpture, including works by Paa Joe, Athi-Patra Ruga and Nolan Oswald Dennis.
ART AFRICA reported in February 2020 that Esther Mahlangu had created an artwork for the dashboard display of a specially commissioned Rolls-Royce Phantom. The project adapted her Ndebele-inspired geometric painting to the car’s interior. According to the announcement, part of the sale proceeds would support her art school in Mpumalanga and a retrospective exhibition. These were stated plans, rather than independently verified disbursements.
ArtThrob’s preview of the 2020 Investec Cape Town Art Fair highlighted film screenings, public discussions and gallery events alongside the commercial booths. Its selections included work by Nnenna Okore, Bonolo Kavula, Sungi Mlengeya and Mawande Ka Zenzile. The guide connected material experimentation with broader conversations about Black women’s subjectivity, museums and sustainable art platforms, offering a record of the fair’s wider cultural programme.
ArtThrob·
Ibrahim Mahama at Art Basel in Switzerland on 20 June 2025. Mahama participated in the inaugural Stellenbosch Triennale in 2020.Bea Phi · CC BY-SA 4.0
ArtThrob announced the first Stellenbosch Triennale under the theme Tomorrow there will be more of us. Curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa and Bernard Akoi-Jackson, the non-commercial programme combined a major exhibition with On the Cusp, a presentation of younger African artists. Free admission and venues near underserved communities formed part of its stated commitment to access. The announced programme opened on 11 February 2020 and was scheduled through April.
ArtThrob reported that six projects had been selected from 123 entries for the inaugural Social Impact Arts Prize in 2020, launched by the Rupert Art Foundation and Rupert Museum. Finalists included The Long Table Project, Tears Become Rain and MIRAGE. The announcement outlined a museum presentation and planned installations in Graaff-Reinet, framing the award around creative projects intended to benefit the communities in which they were made.
ArtThrob’s February 2020 visual roundup presented selections from the 2019 graduate exhibitions at Cape Town Creative Academy and Stellenbosch University. The gallery-style article identified participating artists, including Chloe Etheridge, Hanna Noor Mahomed, Lizelle Kirsten and Ruhini Naik. It offered a route into emerging practices through photographs rather than extended criticism; readers can view the works and accompanying names on the original publication.
Following Santu Mofokeng’s death on 26 January 2020, ART AFRICA reflected on the South African photographer’s patient attention to everyday life, faith and community. The account traced his work with Afrapix and the University of the Witwatersrand’s Oral History Project, alongside photographs made in Bloemhof. It also discussed Stories, the substantial photobook publication that brought together decades of his archive.
ART AFRICA’s February 2020 announcement outlined a free Stellenbosch Triennale programme featuring artists from across Africa. It identified Khanyisile Mbongwa with the principal curatorial exhibition and Bernard Akoi-Jackson with On the Cusp, a platform for emerging practitioners. The announced programme combined exhibitions, performance and discussion under the theme Tomorrow there will be more of us, with venues distributed around the town.
A February 2020 ART AFRICA preview outlined Strauss & Co’s Cape Town contemporary auction, scheduled alongside the city’s art fair. The catalogue included work by Nicholas Hlobo, Athi-Patra Ruga and Simphiwe Ndzube, plus a collector’s group of works spanning several African countries. Photography and textile practices featured prominently. The article reported proposed lots and estimates; it did not establish final sale prices or results.
ART AFRICA previewed a February 2020 collaboration between Aspire and Paris-based auction house Piasa. The Cape Town sale was advertised with 198 lots by 139 artists from 27 countries across Africa and its diaspora, spanning modernism, contemporary art and photography. Works by Chéri Samba, Marlene Dumas, Uche Okeke and Rotimi Fani-Kayode appeared in the selection. The article presented auction estimates and expectations, rather than completed sale results.
ART AFRICA previewed Delicate/Tendency/Response, a 2020 solo exhibition by DuduBloom More following her Cassirer Welz Award. Presented by the Bag Factory at Kalashnikovv Gallery in Johannesburg, the new work used thread, wool, paper, inks and other materials to consider traumatic memory and the ways it can be triggered. The artist framed the exhibition around questions of awareness, response and healing.
ART AFRICA previewed the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition Working Together, devoted to Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop. Drawing on photographs, archives and oral histories, it explored how the New York collective built opportunities for Black photographers through shared criticism, exhibitions and publishing. The 2020 presentation brought together more than 180 photographs by fifteen early members, alongside work to make Draper’s archive available digitally.
ART AFRICA·
Abdoulaye Konaté, one of the artists named in the 2020 Ségou’ Art–Festival sur le Niger programme, photographed on 5 February 2020.KAG1LP2MDIAKITE · CC BY-SA 4.0
ART AFRICA’s preview of the sixteenth Ségou’ Art–Festival sur le Niger described a Malian programme focused on migration, identity and social cohesion. Contemporary exhibitions and artist-led masterclasses sat alongside music, traditional cultural events and a symposium. Artists including Abdoulaye Konaté, Amahiguéré Dolo and Cheick Diallo were named in a programme intended to connect emerging visual artists, established practitioners and wider audiences.
ART AFRICA·
Abdoulaye Konaté, photographed on 5 February 2020. Contextual artist portrait, not the Zeitz MOCAA installation. Photo: KAG1LP2MDIAKITE, CC BY-SA 4.0.KAG1LP2MDIAKITE · CC BY-SA 4.0
ART AFRICA announced a monumental Abdoulaye Konaté textile installation for Zeitz MOCAA’s atrium in February 2020. The work honours Malian historian Youssouf Tata Cissé and French anthropologist Germaine Dieterlen, drawing on knowledge systems associated with Mali. Made with woven and dyed cloth, its large composition connects commemoration and material practice. The museum planned to unveil it on 12 February 2020 for a year-long presentation.
In January 2020, ArtReview reported Yinka Shonibare’s plans for the Guest Artists Space Foundation, with residency sites in Lagos and Ijebu, Ogun State. Building on his London-based Guest Projects initiative, the proposal aimed to foster exchange between artists in Nigeria and international participants. Plans included studios, accommodation and a gallery in Lagos, alongside a rural site on a farm. The article described an intended programme, rather than confirming that either residency had opened.
Martin Herbert’s January 2020 ArtReview preview included substantial discussion of Kehinde Wiley’s engagement with European portrait traditions and Black representation. It also noted Ellen Gallagher’s Afrofuturist paintings within the announced Dhaka Art Summit programme. Read as an archival preview rather than current recommendations, the article records how these practices appeared within an international exhibition calendar at the beginning of 2020.
Tajudeen Sowole previews Segun Aiyesan’s Dymentiona at Thought Pyramid Art Centre in Lagos, a 2019 exhibition bringing together 35 paintings, sculptures and hybrid works. The Port Harcourt-based artist uses textured surfaces and figurative and abstract compositions to explore human relationships with nature, inner life and survival. The report situates these works within his continuing experiments with canvas and records the exhibition’s scheduled closing date of 8 December 2019.
In April 2019, ART AFRICA previewed Ghana Freedom, the country’s first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim within a space designed by David Adjaye, the announced exhibition would bring together El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama, Felicia Abban, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, John Akomfrah and Selasi Awusi Sosu. Its planned installations, portraits and moving-image works addressed Ghanaian independence and its legacies across generations and diasporic experiences.
London’s October Gallery presented new work by El Anatsui from 4 February to 2 April 2016, following his Venice Biennale lifetime-achievement award the previous year. The exhibition continued his exploration of large sculptures assembled from discarded aluminium bottle tops. C&’s advance listing and the gallery’s archive place the show within a practice shaped by decades of sculpture and teaching in Nigeria.
Adrian Piper received the best-artist Golden Lion at the 2015 Venice Biennale for The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1–3. C& reported the award during Okwui Enwezor’s exhibition All the World’s Futures. The Biennale’s official record confirms the winning work and identifies the ceremony as 9 May 2015; the project placed questions of trust and personal responsibility within a participatory conceptual artwork.
