PHOTOS Courtesy of Magugu House and Hayden Phipps, Courtesy of Goodman Gallery and Anthea Pokroy, Supplied

The iconic Cape Town hotel continues to champion the arts, with a trio of exhibitions unfolding across its grounds: The Foreign Familiar, Interior Weather and a sculpture showcase.

“Mount Nelson is a big part of Cape Town’s cultural story,” says the hotel’s General Manager, Patrick Fisher. “Through collaborations with institutions and artists shaping the continent’s creative landscape, we continue to open our spaces to meaningful dialogue and discovery.”

The Foreign Familiar at Magugu House Cape Town

Co-curated by Thebe Magugu and Julia Buchanan, the exhibition considers the afterlives of objects, images and systems introduced through colonial encounter.

The Foreign Familiar merges fashion with fine art. A collaborative sculpture between Magugu and Mary Sibande fuses Victorian silhouettes with Basotho-blanket textiles, while Sibande’s accompanying works on paper further explore themes of leisure, imagination and Black interiority. Meanwhile, works by Wim Botha destabilise the visual language of Western art history through fragmented sculptural forms. The exhibition extends into Magugu’s Mafeteng capsule collection, inspired by the Basotho blanket and its layered history of colonial exchange and cultural reclamation.

Interior Weather

This unique exhibition, presented in collaboration with Norval Foundation and curated by Carmen Joubert, unfolds throughout Mount Nelson’s communal spaces.

Interior Weather explores how colour and material can shape atmosphere and feeling within a space – in this case, the hotel’s corridors and lounges. Featured artists include Kate Gottgens, Dada Khanyisa, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga and Ephraim Ngatane, to name but a few.

Sculpture Garden

In collaboration with Goodman Gallery, Mount Nelson’s historic gardens play host to a year-long outdoor sculpture exhibition featuring works by internationally celebrated artists, including Yinka Shonibare, William Kentridge, Walter Oltmann and Ghada Amer.

Designed as a walk-through experience, the exhibition invites guests to encounter sculpture through discovery and quiet reflection throughout the property.

Take the art tour

Visitors to Mount Nelson are invited to experience the works first-hand through ARTROUTE’s complimentary weekly art tour, held every Thursday at 17:00. Led by an art-and-design specialist guide, the tour explores all three exhibitions, bringing the stories behind the works to life.

Exhibition dates & times

Interior Weather and Goodman Gallery’s sculpture exhibition will remain on view until February 2027.

Presented within the permanent gallery space at Magugu House Cape Town, The Foreign Familiar forms part of a quarterly exhibition programme that places contemporary art in conversation with Thebe Magugu’s latest collections. The Foreign Familiar is on show until 27 August 2026 and is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00–18:00.

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African artist Cassi Namoda’s work reflects her multinational upbringing, and examines the complexities of identity and social dynamics.

Painter and performance artist Cassi Namoda was born in Mozambique, and now splits her time between Los Angeles and New York. She was raised in Benin, Uganda, Haiti, her native

Mozambique and the US, so it’s not surprising that her work explores the intricacies of social dynamics and mixed cultural and racial identity. In April 2020, Goodman Gallery announced that Namoda had been newly signed to the gallery, and in late November unveiled her debut exhibition, “To Live Long Is To See Much”, under their representation. This also marked her first show on the African continent. The characters depicted in “To Live Long Is To See Much” bring together a blend of the artist’s personal experiences with broader fictional narratives, exploring themes such as the origin of life, the nature of time, history, symbolism and mysticism. An especially interesting ongoing theme in the artist’s past and present work is a depiction of conjoined twins, which reflects Cassi’s identity as a twin, but also signals duality. This duality is found in African spirituality’s perceptions of twins – they are revered in certain societies, but are seen as a negative omen in others. Meaning in Cassi’s work is intentionally and intricately woven to allow the viewer to create their own interpretation.

We asked her to tell us more about the origins of the  work on show in “To Live Long Is To See Much”.

Your artist statement, written by your research collaborator Wesley Hardin, narrates some of the artworks. Does each piece have an intricate story?

It will if we create one. I left the cinematic quality up to the viewer, so they can navigate and create some sort of story. Interpretation can be engaging; it always enhances the overall experience of the show if you fancy letting your imagination go. I like that!

“To Live Long Is To See Much” was created during lockdown, and during the protests for Black Lives Matter. What was it like to create at that time?

It was like going to a temple or a place of prayer – a sanctuary for sanctity. It grounded me, and gave me purpose and perspective in my mission.

Your work focuses primarily on your birthplace, Mozambique, although you were brought up in several countries. As you continue to explore the country and its narratives, what are you discovering?

Mozambique is the root, but then it branches out. It’s not so much about identity – more so about the quality and state of curiosity and exploration. Culture influences me. Mysticism is a strong theme in this body of work, with dual spiritual references. 

Are there any specific life experiences that you drew inspiration from?

I think I have some sort of mystic spirit, but I’m also inspired by John Mbiti’s writings on African spirituality.

Tell us more about Tchaubo Land, which features in “To Live Long Is To See Much” as well as in your previous body of work, “You’ll Be Old Too One Day. Life Isn’t Always Young And Sweet”.

My Mozambican family is mainly Tchaubo, a form of Bantu. I think it’s a regionalism I’m exploring, together with the customs and cultures of that land, which have been examined through a colonial lens – and then taking ownership of that. This is a process of decolonisation; we all have to do this work. “To live long is to see much” is a Swahili proverb, which essentially means that with age comes experience. 

You show a range of experiences and emotions with diverse themes – were these woven together for the viewer “to see much”? What was your process of bringing them together?

The process comes through me. There’s really no rhyme or reason to it. It could have easily been another set of experiences, another range of scenes – but these, in particular, were honest to the moment, so I had to realise them. Honesty is a huge part of my work. I hope to never make anything contrived.

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US-based, Nigeria-born visual artist ruby onyinyechi amanze, who is represented locally by Goodman Gallery, creates large-scale mixed-media drawings on paper.

Here, VISI chats to her about creativity, collaborations and how dance, architecture and design influence her work.

What do you love about being creative?

Hmmm… this might seem odd, but I love how tiring it is. Tiring in the sense that it doesn’t end and you just have to keep going. You feed it and it asks for more. But that’s the joy! Kerry James Marshall said, ‘inspiration is generated by work’. I believe that. To be creative…to be an artist is a commitment. And there’s responsibility in it. Not necessarily to others, although they do factor in at some point, but to the craft itself. To being honest and staying curious. You can’t know all the answers and that’s exciting. It’s like you have this gift – the initial skill or love or desire – and it continues to grow the more you allow the unknown. I love the possibility of the future and how big it is. Some things have caps to them. Ceilings. But not creativity. You get to be a child forever. There’s a purity to it. And simultaneously you get to watch the developments grow into things you couldn’t have imagined. Then you do it all over again… and again… and again, until you die!

In what way do dance, architecture and design influence the worlds you create on paper?

Dance appears in two ways. I often reference dance/dancers in the forms themselves. The positions and interactions of the ada and audre [a leopard and an alien] are pulled from stills of dancers performing. I look for moments of tension, balance, an awkward beauty and intimacy. I want a feeling of movement in the work… I want the viewer to gaze in and out of the space. Dance is a portal for that. Secondly, I’m dancing and choreographing as I draw. I am negotiating relationships between objects to create a composition… a feeling… an essence of a place. I am concerned with beauty and timing, gesture and mark. I respond and initiate. While drawing, my body physically moves left, right, pivots, pauses. I crash some things and let others meet tenderly. I’m thinking of dance constantly.

Architecture. Constructing/ed spaces. Again, both as reference images – windows, doors, the suggestion of a floor meeting the wall – in the process of building a drawing and considering how one will inhabit the space.

Design. I’d love to be called a designer. That I’m designing drawings. It automatically removes some of the pressures of narrative – which I’m not interested in anymore. I’m not a storyteller (even though I am). I’m an organiser and a poet, which to me is design. I have seven elements to work with – the paper, windows/architecture, birds, ada (fka ada the Alien), audre (fka audre the Leopard), bikes and swimming pools. The configurations are endless and that’s where design comes into play.

Detail: Swimming Pools (Diver)

What do you enjoy most about working on paper?

So many things! I worked with fabric for a very long time and then seamlessly transitioned to paper in grad school. They feel like the same thing somehow – fabric and paper. Both absorb actions, they hold memories like skins. They’re strong and fragile all at once. They’re living and breathing.

In the moment of drawing, maybe I most enjoy the surface. I draw on a heavy-weight, cold pressed, machine-made, white, 100% cotton paper. In the past I’ve enjoyed somewhat of the opposite – light, translucent, handmade, textured and never white paper. Though I can’t imagine drawing on that now, I still love it.

I’ve learned a lot about the medium and I do think of it as such – a medium – and not just as an arbitrary surface. It’s as much a part of the drawing as the drawing itself. They work together… we all work together. I guess I’ve spent a lot of time on the page now! Laying on it, sitting on it… we’ve become quite intimate. I love the way it feels in my hands and in conversation with a pencil or with ink. I enjoy the vibrancy that’s possible, but also the subtlety. I can hide secrets in it and then there are things that happen that I can’t escape.

Paper feels like a wizard. A wise and old trickster that is both gentle and ruthless.

Pas de Deux

What do you feel is your greatest achievement to date?

So, I read this and immediately clenched my teeth… I have no idea! I try not to think in those terms. I’m as ambitious as the next person and as an athlete, quite competitive (with myself). But I stay rooted in the fact that I have to just do the work – that’s my forever job. To show up and be honest. How that’s measured beyond the studio can, of course, feel amazing, but on the other hand, it doesn’t matter – I’ll still do what I need to/have to do, regardless. There are many things or places I’m yet to reach. I can see and feel them and that, for the moment, feels like enough. The visualisation of it, can be quite satisfying! I think for now, I’ll just say, I’m here. I can be counted. I have integrity. And I’m not going to leave. That’s an accomplishment.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be, and why?

Ooooh, there are so many brilliant minds I’d love to create with. Through written words, Akwaeke Emezi. I’d love to be a back-up dancer for singer and musician EL Tsid. Or to sing a song with Terence Nance. Choreograph and dance with Mor Mendel or Emilee Lord. Co-chef with __________ (?). I have an ongoing relationship with Wura-Natasha Ogunji. She’s my art wife and our paths will continue to intersect.

Maybe the question was visual art centered, but when I think of collaboration I think of all the creative outlets. Things I don’t generally have access to in my drawing-based studio practice. I’m connected to all of the artists above and to these various other worlds of expression. I just want to visit their worlds. Be challenged. Expand… and then come right back to the drawings. Magical things happen when artists come together ‘cause we see things differently, but there can be lovely parallels across forms.

Do you have any exciting projects coming up that you can share?

I’m working on a commissioned piece for the Collezione Maramotti in Italy. They showcase artists at pivotal points in their career… encouraging them to create a work that ‘takes risk’. I have time to think and to push the work. It’s a privilege to have support in that way – both for what you’ve already done and for what the work can become. There’s room there, which is a little scary, as well exciting. Plus, it’s not a gallery so certain boundaries are gone. I’ll be making a multi-layered drawing that’s approximately nine-metres wide. I’m interested in building up the surface so the paper has weight to it. I get to experiment and play!

To see more of Ruby’s work, visit goodman-gallery.com and follow ruby on Instagram to keep up to date with her latest projects.

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Maputo-born, US-based painter and performance artist Cassi Namoda, who has exhibited across the globe, from solo shows in Los Angeles and Miami to group exhibitions in New York, Stockholm, Detroit and Bucharest, will be hosting a solo show for the first time on the African continent later this year.

Image credit: Greta Van Der Star, courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery

Goodman Gallery, which now represents Cassi, describes her work as “fleeting snapshots within much larger narratives,” similar to film stills. It’s “an ode to cinematic/narrative principles,” she says. “This dovetails within my practice.”

Embracing her ancestral lineage is integral to her work, and her pieces explore a broad range of subjects, from racial and cultural identity to moments of daily life in post-colonial Mozambique.

Ritual Prayer in Ibo Island, 2019.

Cassi believes her artistic style is “constantly expanding”, putting her love of creating down to the art of storytelling, together with a feeling of catharsis, freedom, amusement and joy. She also highlights the painting process and the assembly of concepts as the most enjoyable aspects of an exciting recent project where she was chosen as one of eight artists to paint the cover for the January 2020 photograph-less issue of Vogue Italia, a move the magazine made to highlight the importance of sustainability in the fashion industry.

Cassi’s solo exhibition, which will feature a new body of paintings, will be held at Goodman Gallery in Cape Town later this year.

For more information and to keep up to date, visit goodman-gallery.com, follow Goodman Gallery on Instagram and Cassi on Instagram.

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Goodman Gallery, in collaboration with Something Good Studio, has created a series of ethically produced, limited-edition blankets in aid of Witkoppen Health and Welfare Clinic.

Over the past 12 years, Goodman Gallery, in collaboration with the artists it represents, has raised over £1.2m towards charity initiatives in South Africa. Its latest release, a collection of woven blankets, forms part of its three-year partnership with Witkoppen Health and Welfare Clinic: a facility that provides first-rate medical and welfare services to under-serviced populations in Johannesburg.

Handmade by Something Good Studio in South Africa and designed by the likes of Reza Farkhondeh & Ghada Amer, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Nolan Oswald Dennis and Samson Kambalu, these striking blankets each form part of an edition of 50 units available for sale at R9 640 each (£500).

To place your order, contact Kitsi Sebati and see more designs from Something Good Studio at somethinggoodstudio.com.

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Ruins Decorated, a series of striking installations by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE, is currently being exhibited at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, until 6 October 2018.

The exhibition is his second solo show in Africa, having not exhibited on the continent for 15 years.

Born in London in 1962, Yinka moved to Lagos, Nigeria at age three. He then relocated back to London to study Fine Art. In 2004, he was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize.

The exhibition consists of sculpture, staged photographs, paintings, installation and film, all of which explore powerful narratives around the struggle for African independence and the rise and fall of western empires.

Detail from Post-Colonial Globe Man. Fibreglass sculpture, hand-painted with Batik pattern.

Portrayed in four parts, each section dissects these themes. “What I do is create a kind of mongrel,” he explains. “In reality, most people’s cultures have evolved out of this mongelisation, but people don’t acknowledge that.”

The exhibition runs until 6 October 2018 at Goodman Gallery, 163 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, Joburg. The gallery is open Tuesday to Friday from 9:30am to 5:30pm and on Saturdays from 9:30am to 4pm.

See more of Yinka’s work at yinkashonibarembe.com.

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From a bright high school in Los Angeles to locally made leaf-inspired plates and collaboration between Yswara and Ardmore, these are the top VISI picks of the week series – week 236.

1. Animo Los Angeles High School by BROOKS + SCARPA

“The bright yellow facade of this high school in Los Angeles immediately caught my eye this week,” says Online Editor Lindi Brownell Meiring. “Half of the campus was destroyed in a fire in 2014, so architecture firm BROOKS + SCARPA designed this replacement, which allows for a flexible, safe teaching environment, with the addition of 11 new classrooms, two science laboratories and a public courtyard area.”

Image credit: Tara Wujcik via Archdaily.com

2. Ardmore X Yswara For Orange Babies

“Design brand Ardmore has teamed up with well-known local tea producer Yswara to create the umSisi Collectors’ Tea canister in support of the Orange Babies charity,” says Managing Editor Samantha Charles. “UmSisi refers to the African Lucky Bean tree, which is believed to have both medicinal and magical properties. You can find out more about this collectors’ edition here.”

Image credit: ardmore.co.za

3. Yinka Shonibare’s Wind Sculpture Coming to Norval

“The gravity-defying Wind Sculpture (SG) II by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare has been acquired by the Norval Foundation in Cape Town,” says Content Producer Mary Garner. “Pictured below in New York City is Wind Sculpture (SG). The new sculpture will be unveiled in February 2019.”

Image credit: goodman-gallery.com

4. Janet Lightbody’s Gratitude Leaf Plates

“Cape Town-based artist Janet Lightbody has launched a new plate inspired by nature,” says Assistant Editor Tracy Greenwood. “Made of charcoal clay and wax-resistant glaze, the plate comes with two seed pods that function as stands.” What better way to use these gratitude leaf plates than with complementary cups and bowls from Madu Ibu Ceramics.

Image credit: janetlightbody.com

5. The Eat Out App Is Here!

“Eat Out, South Africa’s largest restaurant directory has just launched a brand-new app that lets you browse and review restaurants across the country, as well as book a table at your favourite local spot,” says Editor-in-Chief Sumien Brink. “You can download it for free via the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.”

Image credit: eatout.co.za

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Johannesburg-based artist Nolan Oswald Dennis’s latest exhibition, titled Furthermore, recently finished its run at Cape Town’s Goodman Gallery.

Engaging the re-emergence of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid conversation across society, Dennis looks at specific objects, infrastructures and texts to explore new ways of mapping this critical moment.

We caught up with the artist, whose work goes across “drawings, painting and installation, space, time and memory,” to chat motivation behind his work and what it’s like to be a young working artist in South Africa right now.

What drew you to art?

I was drawn to art-making as an outlet for the things I couldn’t explore in my architectural training. It is the place I can pull all my interests and concerns into and emerge with a meaningful position. Art-making has the potential to hold contradictions.

What are some of the themes that your work focuses on?

An Africa-orientated critical engagement with time and space – social placement, memory and speculation. How to value the way the world looks from this place, and how to see and to share. My work tries to dive deep into the ways we recall our past and construct our future.

You also speak a lot to where we are (going) as a nation. With regards to South Africa, what role do you think art can play in our current socio-political discourse?

I think our always fractured political landscape is finally asserting its complexity and contradictions into South African daily life. Things are burning, but they always were. As a nation we’ve been uncomfortably existing in a half truth, which is now falling apart around us. I guess artists have the duty to go into the complex and dangerous places that some parts of society would rather bury and ignore. Artists have to be brave.

You’ve spoken about your latest exhibition, Furthermore, as a series of proposition for living in a state of “long transition”. Please expand on this.

I think our elders presented their work as done, that they had struggled, liberated this country and negotiated our freedom, that our time was about using our freedom, to live in a new South Africa. But they were being too hopeful or naive or trying to protect us maybe. I think we have to reengineer all the things we inherited (this is the proposition), and we have to live through an act of constant self-creation.

What do you hope to achieve with your work?

I think my work is located in the conversations, research and reflections that inform my view of the state of things in the world. The objects, drawings and artworks that emerge from this process are like memory aides, or analytical tools that help me to work through some of the issues that emerge from this reflection. The artwork is the excess of a thought-work. The work is helpful if it allows for deeper engagement with the world from the specific position of young Africa.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am on a Prohelvetia studio residency in Basel, Switzerland until September and then I start a two-year interdisciplinary masters program at MIT in the US. More generally I am working on collapsing the ‘South’ part of South Africa.

Who are some of your favourite artists?

My NTU family. Tabita Rezaire and Bogosi Sekhukhuni, FAKA, CUSS group, Mbali Khoza and Petite Noir.

Lastly, when you are not busy working, what do you do to wind down?

I try to cycle every day, at least 10km.

View more of Nolan’s work at nolanoswalddennis.withtank.com.

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If it were up to us, these dinner plates would only come out for the most extraordinary dinner guests and we’d certainly never stick one in the microwave to warm up a slice of pizza!

You could own a set of 12 dinner plates and 12 side plates that feature iconic imagery from artists Lisa Brice, Kudzanai Chiurai, David Goldblatt, Moshekwa Langa, Sam Nhlengethwa, William Kentridge, Mikhael Subotzky, Patrick Waterhouse, Hank Willis Thomas, Jeremy Wafer, Kendell Geers, Alfredo Jaar and Brett Murray. The artwork is applied by hand and fired onto Churchill crockery, which is microwave- and dishwasher-safe.

The range is a collaboration between the Goodman Gallery and Orange Babies, an NGO that focuses on the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission and the care of orphaned and vulnerable children. “Since its inception 15 years ago in the Netherlands, Orange Babies’ fund-raising activities have revolved around art, design and fashion. We were delighted when the Goodman Gallery approached us with the idea, and we’re overwhelmed by their generosity and that of the artists,” says director Dr Adrienne Feldner-Busztin.

The range is limited to 250 sets, so if you want one, best order it from Orange Babies or the Goodman Gallery now. Production time is normally between 8 and 10 weeks, but a small stock is readily available. All proceeds from the project go towards supporting Orange Babies’ initiatives in South Africa.

Plates currently retail at R20 000 for a set of 12 dinner plates (28,5 cm diameter) and 12 side plates (22 cm diameter).

For more information about Orange Babies email info@orangebabies.org.za.

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Visitors to the Design Indaba Expo will also be able to view a presentation on the new book The Soho Chronicles: 10 Films By William Kentridge, written by the artist’s brother Matthew Kentridge.

The presentation will take place on 28 February at 3pm at the Events Arena, followed by a book signing.

The book focuses on William Kentridge’s 10 Drawings for Projection (1989- 2011), and will be launched at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town. The series of films will be presented at The Labia Theatre on the 28 February at 10am.

For launch reservations, email heather@goodman-gallery.com.

The Soho Chronicles: 10 Films by William Kentridge will be available at Design Indaba at the Book.exChange area on the Expo floor, as well as in selected international museums and bookstores.

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