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 and dated 2018
Provenance
Acquired from the artist by the current owner.
Notes
In lots 163, 182, and 183, Nandipha Mntambo continues her exploration of the tension between the organic and the constructed, the natural and the artificial. Using cattle hair meticulously threaded through sheets of Fabriano paper, these three works exemplify her distinct approach to materiality, inviting viewers to confront both the physical and metaphorical connotations of her chosen materials.
Cattle hair, a material often associated with the rural Southern African landscape, has become a signature medium for Mntambo. In these works, the hair’s natural texture, strength, and fragility are juxtaposed against the smooth, flat surface of paper, creating an evocative interplay between softness and rigidity, tradition, and contemporary innovation.
The works' titles—Opening I (lot 163), Opening II (lot 182), and Opening III (lot 183)—suggest processes of revelation, uncovering, or transition. In each piece, the hair threads puncture or interlace the paper in ways that seem to imply an opening, a moment of entry or emergence. Whether abstract or figurative, the act of threading signifies a process of construction and deconstruction, as the threads act as connectors between the materiality of the paper and the metaphysical space beyond it.
Mntambo’s use of cattle hair speaks to an ongoing dialogue with her heritage, bringing forth an intimate connection to the bodies and lives of animals, which are central to African pastoral cultures. The hair becomes a material symbol of life and death, existence and decay. The act of threading cattle hair through paper might evoke ideas of ritual, healing, and transformation—processes that are often hidden from view, but which are made visible through Mntambo’s careful handling of the material.
Stevenson (no date) Stevenson, Nandipha Mntambo, online, https://www.stevenson.info/artist/nandipha-mntambo/biography, accessed 20 January 2025.
Salome Kokoladze (2022) Nandipha Mntambo: Rethinking the Body, online, https://infrasonic.medium.com/nandipha-mntambo-23d30b936792, accessed 20 January 2025.
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