Perspectives on Africa
Live Virtual Auction, 17 February 2025
Perspectives on Africa
About the SessionStrauss & Co is pleased to present Perspectives on Africa, a sale that explores the complexity, beauty, and fluidity of perspectives through African art and works by artists with strong ties to the continent. The sale coalesces the rich and varied connections between Africa and its artistic expressions, presenting works that span figuration, landscape, and abstraction, inviting collectors to engage with powerful narratives emerging from Africa's evolving perspectives. The works reflect layered meanings, both as a method of representing depth and dimension as a way of framing our understanding of the world. Work by Contemporary artists reflects on the historical foundations of Modernist artists, exploring themes such as identity, belonging, urbanisation, and re-encounters with tradition, while the sale transitions to Modernist interpretations of Africa, exploring the complexity of colonial encounters, post-independence aspirations, and indigenous practices. Building on Strauss & Co’s commitment to developing a strong local photography market, the sale includes an artist focus on the work of social documentarian Paul Alberts, whose images captured poignant narratives of everyday life, particularly in Cape Town. These works sit alongside David Goldblatt and Zanele Muholi, whose visceral images explore themes of identity, social justice and the multifaceted realities of African life.
About this Item
signed, dated 17 and inscribed with the title
Provenance
Strauss & Co, Cape Town, 15 February 2020, lot 62.
Exhibited
Frieze London, Goodman Gallery Booth, 5 to 8 October 2017.
Notes
The present lot depicting the mining entrepreneur, Cape politician, and British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes forms part of a body of work concerned with the “deconstruction of white masculine power.”1
Subotzky’s portrait of Rhodes, his face strategically whitewashed, is based on an 1890s photo taken by a member of Russell & Sons, a London studio known for their studies of ‘distinguished persons’ and royals. Subotzky’s portrait was first exhibited at Frieze London in 2017, where it drew favourable mention in an article about global artists engaged with themes of decolonisation and racism.2
1. Mikhael Subotzky (2019) Interview with Hansolo Umberto Oberist, Self-published text accompanying exhibition Massive Nerve Corpus at
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.
2. Anny Shaw (2017) The Art Newspaper, Artists step up to the plate in statues debate, online, https:// www.theartnewspaper.com/news/artists-stepup-to-the-plate-in-statues-debate, accessed 22 January 2025.