FNB Art Joburg at Sandton Convention Centre
04 September 2023

A historic city that played an integral role in the formation of our country’s new dispensation, it has grown into a megacity and the wealthiest province in South Africa. A thriving metropolitan known for its resilient, innovative and seeking population, Johannesburg has cemented its place as the cultural and economic capital of the African continent. Home to a diverse 5 million inhabitants, around 40% of which are young people between the ages of 15 and 34 years old, the city is the cultural hub of the country. Home to leaders of the liberation movement and two Nobel Prize Winners - Nelson Mandla and Desmond Tutu - spaces in the city incubated great stars of South Africa.

Post 1994 the city shaped South Africa’s music, fashion and art scenes, creating its biggest local TV industry and putting icons of entertainment such as Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and Sipho Hot Stix Mabuse on a global stage. The pinnacle of entrepreneurship, agency, criticality and expression, the city calls out to the curious and like-minded, offering them a forever home.

A city centred around its cultural offering, here gallery hopping, getting dressed to discourse over brunch, catching a mid-week live performance, or ending the day with dinner and a show does not make for an occasion. It’s central to our lifestyle. The pinnacle of entrepreneurship, agency, criticality and expression, the city continuously calls out to the curious and like-minded, offering them a forever home.

Playing host to the longest running contemporary art fair on the African continent - FNB Art Joburg - which has come to lead the artistic discourse in the city; artists, curators and policy makers all feed off the city’s grit, desperation, tenacity and irreverent energy of Johannesburg.

FNB Art Joburg

From 8 - 10 September 2023, FNB Art Joburg returns to Sandton Convention Centre to bring you the best in contemporary African art from the continent and diaspora’s leading institutions, galleries and associated artists.

A world-class platform and Johannesburg mainstay for the last 16 years, FNB Art Joburg plays an instrumental role in developing and sustaining a commercial economy that centres African and diasporic practitioners. Taking on a hybrid approach where curatorial and commercial interventions meet, the boutique fair is divided into six specialised sections: gallery HUB, gallery LAB, MAX, ETC, AUX, and ORG sections. Together, the six sections maximise the exhibition space to create an ideal art viewing environment.

gallery HUB: Spotlighting the best in contemporary African and diaspora art, the fair’s central section reflects the fair’s quality rather than quantity focused fair.

gallery LAB: Looking to the future of contemporary African art, the gallery LAB incubation looks to develop emerging galleries and hybrid art spaces by presenting and testing new ideas and business models aimed at transforming the contemporary African art landscape.

MAX: This section houses installations or works that would present a challenge if presented in the conventionally sized gallery booth.
ETC: Giving fair goers the opportunity to engage with master print and publishing houses, the ETC section offers an abundance of books, prints, catalogues and zines.

ORG: Whether museums, universities or private institutions, the section is a hands-on approach to examine seminal art institutions and bodies that were established for the good of the public.

AUX: Spanning talks, screenings, public lectures and audio essays, the AUX section, brings industry leaders to the public to explore a plethora of topics impacting the contemporary art world.

Spanning South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria, Ghana, Brazil, Zimbabwe and the diaspora, this year’s fair brings existing and new players into the visual conversation into the future of contemporary art for the Global South.

“FNB Art Joburg’s mandate is to sustainably support and grow the contemporary African art offering that is shown on African soil. As the continent’s leading fair, we are thrilled to continue seeing this through,” says Mandla Sibeko, Managing Director of FNB Art Joburg.

Open City

Beyond the three-day fair, FNB Art Joburg remains committed to the city’s cultural landscape through Open City. A city-wide initiative, Open City fulfills FNB Art Joburg’s quest for economic stimulation, inclusivity, and better access for all by encouraging Johannesburg’s visitors and residents to immerse themselves in the capital's rich and layered cultural offerings until it becomes a part of their everyday life.

Activating the city with art, music, performance, food and fashion, every day of the week for 16+ days, Open City also gives independent and emerging cultural practitioners the opportunity to reach a wider audience of culture consumers. Surrounding the fair with art + culture, Open City will take over Johannesburg as the continent’s culture capital from 31 August - 19 September 2023.

The BMW Art Generation
Proudly supported by FNB

An Art & Culture, weekend-long immersion, The BMW Art Generation brings celebrated and established artists, curators and academics into the same room as an emerging generation of future greats for a conference of global creative thought on African soil. Featuring field leaders, the weekend’s conversations will span themes including artistic practices relevant to our ecosystem, collection as cultural ownership, as well curation as a tool to recreate narratives.

To ensure extensive public access, The BMW Art Generation will give the public access to a section of curated open studios, performance art, live music performances as well as food, coffee, wine, design and fashion stalls demonstrating Johannesburg’s reach as the continent’s cultural capital.

Located in central Johannesburg, The BMW Art Generation will be hosted at the Centre for the Less Good Idea. A space William Kentridge conceptualised to pursue incidental discoveries made in the process of producing working, The Centre prioritises process as a resource. Extending this premise to The BMW Art Generation, we aim to explore the unforeseeable future of contemporary African art by allowing discourse and discovery through conversations that usually take place in abstract of our continent.

Looking to bring leading artists from Africa and the diaspora to explore contemporary African art within the realm of black intellectual tradition, the weekend presents multiple opportunities to create a thought experiment that inserts an African narrative where art meets history and place. Foregrounding an ethos that fosters a new generation in the contemporary African art ecosystem, The BMW Art Generation looks to ensure the transference of knowledge from one generation to another.