If Alice was an art lover, she might feel right at home exploring the sprawling 1.2ha home of the country’s youngest upstart on the block.
That’s because art fair Latitudes eschews the usual white gallery space for paintings, sculptures, mixed works and even digital works displayed in a wonderland of nooks and crannies, marbled halls and secret gardens in one of Joburg’s most magnificent properties.
Thursday evening marked the vernissage (read: private viewing before the public opening) of 2024’s edition of the visual fest, held for the second year at Shepstone Gardens perched on the Witwatersrand ridge in Mountain View.
Pass the wrought iron gates and up the stairs, I spot grand dame Peta Eggierth-Symes and husband Peter making their way in.
Onto meeting the two co-founders Roberta Coci and Lucy MacGarry, who, having originally launched the fair with two others just before the pandemic hit, introduced its new iteration as an art-fair-meander-meets-online portal in 2023.
“I’m still in my work clothes,” confesses Lucy when I suggest we take a pic, so we agree to catch up later.
Into the space below, the property’s Great Hall where contemporary galleries such as Kalashnikovv and First Floor Gallery Harare have set up.
At the Gallery Momo booth, I greet director Monna Mokoena (his son, Nchila, was helping out on the night) and creative director Odysseus Shirindza before stopping to take in the work of one of their artists, Vivian Kohler, who first piqued interest for the discarded cardboard boxes he used as his canvas.
“Across the spectrum, cardboard has a very different narrative for every echelon. For some people, cardboard is used to transport things and then thrown away while for others, they line walls with it to make their homes warm and other people physically live inside cardboard,” he explains.
Vivian’s latest work, When water runs deep, I, is a profound piece which includes a rendering of another everyday material, corrugated iron, and will set you back R230,000 (excluding VAT).
Around the corner, my face lights up when I recognise a blast from the past — Ursula Chikane, who was TV’s golden girl in the days of Top Billing.
Glad to hear that Brown Sugar’s soothing voice hasn’t strayed from the radio dial — she’s now queen of the lunchtime airwaves on Joburg’s newest station, Hot 102.7FM.
“At this stage of age in my life, still being on radio — that’s amazing,” laughs Ursh, who was there with her cousin Elouise Kelly, the country lead for Hong Kong-based over-the-top video streaming service Viu.
I spot art collector Banzi Malinga doing his rounds while back outside Tourvest’s Judi Nwokedi makes eating pasta from a takeaway container look chic in her Thebe Magugu ensemble, picked up at the designer’s newly opened Dunkeld HQ.
Down a circular flight of stairs nearby and into a cavernous space where Usurpa gallery is presenting digital works animated on LCD screens.
On two screens, the moving figure looks vaguely familiar, and I realise it is artist Nandipha Mntambo rendered as a mythical creature.
“This is based on a sculpture called Minotaurus, which I made in 2019. It’s a bronze work which centres around the Greek myth of the minotaur, the character which is half-man, half-bull, and the minotaur was caught in this labyrinth,” explains Nandipha about the digitised animated version of her sculpture, titled Labyrinth, which you can pick up for R120,000 (excluding VAT) with the 55-inch Samsung Frame TV included.
In the land of load-shedding (even when temporarily paused) anything that requires a power source isn’t my plug, so I head back outside.
A late arrival is William Gumede, the associate professor at Wits’ school of governance, who I hoped would help me decide where to put my “X” on Wednesday.
The political commentator offers sound advice, but I am still undecided, so I seek solace in another wing of the sprawling estate where Congolese-born singer, entrepreneur and philanthropist Tresor Riziki is eyeing a work by a striking young artist, Buqaqawuli Thamani Nobakada, at the stand for Anelisa Mangcu’s new Under The Aegis gallery.
So many to greet, from Nikiwe Bikitsha (who these days describes herself as a “policy wonk” and sits on various boards including Reuters, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and Deloitte Africa) to actress Nandi Madida (pretty in a dress from The Space).
Then there was Shekeshe “Shakes” Mokgosi of the Other Foundation and body positive model and architect Mutaleni ya Toivo, the twin daughter of late anti-apartheid activist and former Namibian minister Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, who was imprisoned in Robben Island with Madiba for 16 years.
By this stage, I am all peopled out when up comes not a White Rabbit but a glammed up Lucy who leads me through the crowds, past the Everard Read sculpture garden and up another flight of stairs to a house on the edge of the estate to meet her father, Chris Rayner.
Turns out that, for 40 plus years, Chris has been building this fairy-tale land featuring gothic and classic architectural flourishes and even a mini castle.
Now, a few years shy of turning 80, he shares that he has “put down my last stone” on Shepstone gardens.
Mind you, that might not mean that the Lewis Carroll of property is retiring.
“Now I am going to the South Coast ... with 12 builders,” he quipped.
