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 2013, numbered 1/1, inscribed with the medium, 'Wall Hanging - Made in Cape Town' and 'Assistants: Joseline Mare and Catherine Sekayi' on a fabric label on the reverse
Provenance
WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town.
Private Collection.
Exhibited
WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, Athi-Patra Ruga: The Future White Women of Azania Saga, 27 November 2013 to 1 January 2014.
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Women's Work: Crafting Stories, Subverting Narratives, 1 December 2016 to 30 April 2017.
Literature
Shakeelah Ismail (2021) ArtsHelp, Weaving a New World: Athi-Patra Ruga's Mythical Tapestries, online, https://www.artshelp.com/weaving-a-new-world-athi-patra-ruga/, accessed 19 January 2025.
Mary Corrigall, Frank Smigiel, Natasha Norman, and Missla Libsekal (2014) Athi-Patra Ruga: F.W.W.O.A Saga, Cape Town, WHATIFTHEWORLD, illustrated in colour, unpaginated, online, https://issuu.com/whatiftheworldgallery/docs/athi-patra_ruga?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=www.whatiftheworld.com, accessed 19 January 2025.
Notes
Tapestries, an ancient art form, have long symbolised status, once reserved for the wealthy or used by the Medieval church to communicate with the illiterate. Today, they remain a symbol of high status, inaccessible to many due to their intricacy.1
The present lot exemplifies the compelling defiance within Athi-Patra Ruga’s work. The tapestry, featuring vivid pinks, yellows, and blues, depicts an epic battle between Zulu warriors armed with traditional shields and balloon-covered aliens wielding futuristic ray guns. It combines color, texture, and character to entangle and reexamine memory, blending utopian fantasy with historical reality. Notably, the work defies the typical rectangular format, woven into an asymmetrical trapezoid, subverting the expectations surrounding the appearance of a traditional tapestry. Through this method of production, Ruga decolonises the narratives that continue to shape the lives of black, queer, and femme communities in post-apartheid South Africa.2
1Shakeelah Ismail (2021) ArtsHelp, Weaving a New World: Athi-Patra Ruga's Mythical Tapestries, online, https://www.artshelp.com/weaving-a-new-world-athi-patra-ruga/, accessed 26 January 2025.
2 Isabella Kuijers and Lloyd Pollak (2017) ArtThrob, Work, work, work: ‘Women’s Work’ at ISANG, online, https://artthrob.co.za/2016/12/21/work-work-work-womens-work-at-isang/, accessed 26 January 2025.
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