Sculpting new ground in Cape Town

Sculpting new ground in Cape Town

By Percy Mabandu

At the 3^rd Cape Town Art fair in the mother city, a sculpture titled The Prisoner, by the late struggle-era artist, Dumile Feni was sold to a black businessman who opted to remain anonymous. The price? A whopping R6 million, which is a new record. The work was sold by Jozi Gallery MOMO on behalf of the late artist’s estate. Art dealer, Monna Mokoena, who runs the only ivy league black owned gallery in the country said the sale ‘marked an slow emergence of new art buyers in the market’.  Historically, the sale of work at this price level has been the exclusive preserve of big institutions, businesses and wealthy old white men.

The sale of the nude sculpture of a black male figure coincides with the launch, at the Cape Town Art Fair, of the Black Collectors Forum.  It’s an organisation aimed at helping aspirant black art collectors to enter the game.

As far as high price sales go, the sale of Dumile Feni’s sculpture breaks a record set in 2013 by Jane Alexander for the highest price fetched for a sculpture. The figure, Untitled, which forms part of her famous installation The Butcher Boys, sold for R5.5 million at a Strauss & Co auction in Jozi.

The previous record was held by internationally acclaimed William Kentridge, whose drawing The Film sold for R2.2?million at a Jozi auction in 2011. One of Kentridge’s notable works, a procession of 25 small bronze ­sculptures, set an auction record of $1.5?million for the artist best known for his animated film works. In fact, only one South African work by a living artist has sold for more than R3.7?million on auction anywhere in the world – again Kentridge, whose Preparing the Flute sold for more than R5?million in New York two years ago.

The two were entering a space previously commanded by Emma Stern and Gerard Sekoto as highly sought after modern South African artists. In 2012 Stern’s work titled Arab Priest and framed by an elaborately carved Zanzibari wooden frame, went under the hammer for a whooping R17.2?million at Strauss & Co Fine Art Auctioneers. This marked the second-highest price achieved for a Stern painting sold at auction in South Africa. This was double the presale estimate of R7?million to R9?million.

Her painting titled The Malay Bride was auctioned for £1.2?million (R20?million) in London last month. In March 2011, one of her paintings sold for R34?million in London.

Sekoto is pre-eminent modernist painter who left South Africa in 1947 for Paris, France, where he stayed until his death in 1993. He remains the officially recognised best-performing black South African artist in auction sales. In 2006, another of his paintings, a self-portrait and probably Sekoto’s most famous work, sold for a record £117?600 (R1.9?billion at the current exchange rate) at Bonhams auctioneers in London. This was seven times the initial estimate of up to £18?000 and smashed the previous world-auction record price for a Sekoto painting of £31?000.

As the year is only just started, we can only anticipate where the trend will go. This especially since the global interest in both African and South African art seems on an up surge.