IN PICTURES | A mixed bag of all sorts

Fancy an eye-popping date with a controversial reality TV star at a podium launch for African spirituality?

Or how about getting up close with an artist displaying a work featuring a ghostly apparition?

Ah, yes, sometimes meeting people on the social whirl can feel like opening a packet of Liquorice Allsorts.

Take Tuesday morning when I found myself in a place with a dark past to hear about a music-meets-art fair which aims to shine light on those who walk with ancestors.

The Ubungoma festival launch was held at the Women’s Jail in the Constitution Hill precinct in Braamfontein, Joburg.

Now, let me be quite frank — I had no idea that ubungoma means “traditional healing” when I accepted the invite, nor did I know much about the provenance of woman behind this particular event.

But it was a slow week on the social circuit so I slipped on my suit and headed downtown.

Daytime events are always tricky to arrange so I wasn’t too fazed to spot event staff still setting up the orange Glenmorangie bar next to the red carpet as I arrived.

I declined the Chibuku cocktails being served because unless it’s mimosas over brunch, alcohol before noon isn’t my cup of tea.

Up comes PR guy Simphiwe Majola with a vision in red, who it turns out is the lady of the hour.

“This is Dr Maweni,” says Sim as he introduces me to the traditional healer.

Dr Maweni, also known as Gogo Maweni to viewers of Izangoma Zodumo, and also as Makgotso Lee-Anne Mokopo, points out we met before at another event.

I am taken by her bubbly exuberance before making my way inside the light-filled circular atrium with eerie prison bars where the official bits of the morning take place.

As I wait, I decide to Google our host, and I am intrigued to learn that the cute gogo had once had to release a statement to distance herself from “malicious accusations” after SK Khoza, the estranged father of her child, had a public breakdown earlier this year.

Our programme director is someone I am also not familiar with — Sabelo Ntombeningi Sithole, who tells us they’re “the face and brand ambassador” (for a brand I’ve never heard of), “and influencer” ... the list is endless ...

We also hear SA Music Awards nominee Mnqobi Yazo, one of the artists on the festival’s impressive line-up (others include Sjava, DJ Lamiez Holworthy and pop duo Blaq Diamond), who says “he heals people through his music”.

And all eyes are on Gogo Maweni, who reveals to the audience, which includes TV personality Somizi Mhlongo, that Ubungoma was the result of a two-year dream of hers.

“The festival is about having traditional, spiritual, cultural people together, embracing music, arts, fashion, crafts — and having a blast,” she says.

From a carnival with a spiritual bent and on to meeting an artist whose oil on canvas features barely-visible supernatural shapes.

“It is called Meeting in Limbo, because I am talking to ghosts,” explains Clive van den Berg.

Perhaps fittingly, we are in a transient space — the Keyes Art Mile Pop-Up exhibition space in the Trumpet building in the thriving suburb of Rosebank.

It's Thursday evening, the opening night of the exhibition which will run until September 4, around the same time the Goodman Gallery’s revamped building will open.

I chat to one of the gallery's senior curators, Neil Dundas, about renovating the landmark.

Neil tells me that when the renovations on the building on the corner of Jan Smuts Avenue and Bolton Road are done, art patrons will experience “a completely different format”.

“Much more open throughout, with a much bigger, higher volume rectangular space in the main gallery and three side display rooms,” he explains.

I also caught up with Clive’s other half, pianist and entertainer Rocco de Villiers, and Makgati Molebatsi of Latitudes, who says the art fair of which she is a co-founder “will continue online”.

Among the crowd taking in the works, which includes Misheck Masumvu’s colourful Hood Poison, David Goldblatt’s Bay Fall Fashion, Kudzanai Chiurai’s We Live in Silence XVIII and William Kentridge’s bronze sculpture, Branch, were businessman Isaac Shongwe, gallerist Francesco Mbele and newly published author Robin Sher.

The night also saw me catch up with one of the most feisty artists around, Lady Skollie, who was enthralled by a Walter Oltmann aluminium wire sculpture.

PS: If you’re keen on Clive’s work, Meeting in Limbo will set you back R350K, excluding tax.