Joburg Art Fair

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Joburg Art Fair is a contemporary art fair held annually in Johannesburg, South Africa. The first show took place from 13 to 16 March 2008.^[1]

The event, which was the first of its kind in Africa, included 22 galleries from Africa, Europe and North America, showing work by contemporary, predominantly African, artists. ^[2]

The first Joburg Art Fair was held in the Sandton Convention Centre and covered a total area of 5000 square metres. The fair represented the single largest collection of African and South African contemporary art for sale thus far.^[3] The fair included notable African artists including Zwelethu Mthethwa, William Kentridge, Guy Tillim, David Goldblatt, Peter Hugo, Minnette Vári and Moshekwa Langa.^[1]

Participating Galleries included:^[4]

• Johannesburg, South Africa: Goodman-galery, Everard Read-gallery, David Krut, Warren Siebrits, Art on Paper, Rooke-galery, Gallery Momo, Art Extra.
• Cape Town and Stellenbosch South Africa: Joao Ferreira-gallery, Michael Stevenson, SMAC, Whatiftheworld, Bell Roberts.
• Cairo, Egypt: Townhouse-gallery
• Rabat, Morocco: L’Appartement 22
• Addis Abeba, Ethiopia: ASNI -gallery
• Strasbourg, France: Gallery Ames d’Afrique
• New York, USA: Jack Shainman, Perry Rubenstein
• London, United Kingdom: October Gallery

The fair included a show curated by Simon Njami from artists throughout Africa who are not represented by galleries on the fair. Njami had previously acted as chief curator of the Africa Remix exhibition and the Africa pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale.

The Joburg Art Fair which is sponsored by First National Bank aims to address the gap between prices attained by living African artists behind those from developed countries and Asian emerging markets. FNB's aim is to bring contemporary art to a broader, upper-income local market, including black business people with new-found wealth.^[5]

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