2018/19 exhibition programme

Norval Foundation, a new centre for art in Cape Town, South Africa, opened on April 28, 2018 with a series of exhibitions, performances and a major new commission. Re/discovery and Memory featured surveys of Sydney Kumalo and Ezrom Legae alongside work by Edoardo Villa from 1958-68. Pulling at Threads considered the role of craft in the practices of contemporary artists, where technique is both process and subject. notes on spectrality, sorcery and the spirit brought together works by South African artists from the Homestead Art Collection and Bruce Campbell Smith Collection, from the 1950s to 1980s, representing different forms of black spirituality. This was the first exhibition in our Focus series, looking at private and public collections. As part of our annual Atrium Commission, and in partnership with the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust, Serge Alain Nitegeka was invited to create a monumental new installation Structural Response III (2018). US, THEM & I was a series of performances exploring place-making, identity and the political, taking place over our opening weekend.

Norval Foundation is pleased to announce our 2018-2019 exhibition programme. Exhibitions will include complementary programming, such as talks, guided tours, educational workshops and private views.

Historical Glitch
July 7, 14 and 28, 2018

Historical Glitch is a series of performance-based interventions taking place in Norval Foundation’s galleries over the month of July 2018. Within the context of South Africa’s violent history of colonialism and Apartheid, Historical Glitch brings together queer musicians, performers, poets and vogue artists, who use body, language, sound and touch to explore the complex relationship between amnesia and remembrance and create emancipatory practices. Curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa.

Helen Sebidi
September 8, 2018–January 24, 2019

Featuring drawings and paintings from a career spanning five decades, this exhibition will look at Helen Sebidi’s (born South Africa, 1943) continued dedication to issues of non-western mythologies, ancestry and traditional African value systems. Through the relationship between dreams and ancestry, Sebidi references the politicisation of landscape, and its relationship to growth and issues of creation. Curated by Portia Malatjie.

Prism: Wim Botha
September 29, 2018–January 28, 2019

Wim Botha (born South Africa, 1974) has developed a singular visual language through the interpretation and questioning of icons from the natural world, including African fauna, European regalia, architectural motifs and works of art historical significance. This exhibition will bring together key works in Botha’s career, including commune: suspension of disbelief (2001) and Prism 13 (Dead Pietà) (2015), alongside a new major and immersive installation. Curated by Owen Martin.

On the Mines: David Goldblatt
February 13–August 25, 2019

David Goldblatt’s (born South Africa, 1930) photographic series On the Mines, exhibited as a complete set for the first time, documents the communities and landscape associated with the gold mines of Gauteng, South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. This exhibition will be accompanied by texts written by Nobel Laureate, Nadine Gordimer, which sensitively responds to Goldblatt’s photographs. Curated by Karel Nel.

Ibrahim Mahama
February 13–August 18, 2019

Ibrahim Mahama’s (born Ghana, 1971) practice, predominantly focused on installation and architectural interventions, questions Africa’s role in the global exchange of commodities and the way labour is valued. This is suggested by the materials Mahama employs, such as hessian sacks that bear traces of cocoa production and used shoe shine kits. Norval Foundation has invited Mahama to create a site sensitive work. Curated by Owen Martin.

Sculpture Garden: Yinka Shonibare
February 13, 2019 – ongoing

Following its acquisition by the Homestead Art Collection, Norval Foundation will unveil Yinka Shonibare’s (born United Kingdom, 1962) Wind Sculpture (SG) III (2018) as part of the permanent display in our Sculpture Garden on February 13, 2019. Shonibare’s practice considers how colonial and postcolonial representations and identities function within complex historical and contemporary networks, particularly in the relationship between Africa and Europe.