RMB Latitudes Art Fair Captures Joburg’s Creative Spirit

- By Mary Corrigall

Southern Guild booth, RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025, photo by Anthea Pokroy

Due to the rambling layout of Shepstone Gardens with various buildings, some of which serve no apparent purpose other than to stand as monuments to ancient architecture and mythical stories, there is always a hidden surprise waiting to be discovered at every edition of the RMB Latitudes Art Fair.  A double-volume almost free-standing tower to the right of the Latitudes Centre of the Arts is where you expect to encounter something unconventional, un-art fair-like.  It is a challenging space to present art so it lends itself to an unconventional installation. Last year, it was home to architect Kate Otten's Threads, an installation that debuted at the Venice Biennale of Architecture.

RMB Latitudes Art Fair Gardens 2025, photo by Anthea Pokroy

With associations to royalty this year it proved a fitting location for Mary Sibande's  "A Queen Never Dies" a new sculptural installation work, featuring her seminal character Sophie suspended in the tower. As is always the case she is adorned in a grand outfit that propels her to greater heights, imagined spaces.  This time it was created by a queen in the fashion realm, Palesa Mokubong, known for her bold silhouettes and distinctive textile patterns.  The title was apt; royal figures live on in effigies intended to immortalise them, and their place in history, and their status can never be refuted or undone. 

In a way, the same can be said of Sibande, who via the figure evoking her grandmother will also remain a celebrated figure of the SA art world. The fact that her latest Sophie work occupied the most coveted space for grand artistic statements at this art fair surely proves this idea.

It could also be argued that the RMB Latitudes Art Fair, which celebrates art, creativity, and, in the case of Sibande and Mokubong, the blending of design and art businesses, advancing relationships between designers and artists, also makes a case for Joburg as the indefatigable 'Queen'. 

Mary Sibande's 'A Queen Never Dies', RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025, photo by Anthea Pokroy

Whatever bad press this city battles, events such as this serve as a reminder that this city is bursting with art, creativity and innovation.

The RMB Latitudes Art Fair, located just streets away from some of Joburg’s most glaring examples of urban decay, serves as a bold reminder that life continues and even flourishes, despite challenges. The satisfying mix of art, design, fashion, and wine all consumed in a seemingly bucolic setting over five days restores this notion.

The fact that tickets sold out days, perhaps even a week, before the grand iron gates opened to this annual art fair suggests that Johannesburg residents are eager to immerse themselves in the visual delights available. Many are willing to take an Uber or be dropped off in a Lexus provided by the park-and-ride service. People queue up for this journey of discovery past the gurgling water features and along the overgrown stone paths that link all the art and creativity on display at this event.

As with the city’s most famous artist, William Kentridge, many local artists' connection to the city spills into their art. The most obvious example was the work of Terence Maluleke at Southern Guild, whose booth occupied the prime spot of the Latitudes Art Centre. The Joburg skyline formed the backdrop for paintings inflected with warm tones of yellow orange and even green, in work showing a subject revelling in one of the city's best parks - Emmarentia. However, it was a large painting of Hadedas on plastic yellow garden chairs that was the most evocative nod to the artist's hometown.

This is the first time Southern Guild has participated in this art fair.

Terence Maluleke, HAAAA!, 2025, presented by Southern Guild

For Cape Town-based galleries this art fair presents either the opportunity to showcase Cape Town-based artists making waves in their city to Joburgers or to connect and forge relationships with artists from Joburg. Although the Cape Town art ecosystem has grown rapidly, most artists in South Africa are located in Joburg. For those who have chosen to semi-grate, Joburg still has a hold on them.

Take Guy Simpson, whose childhood home near Shepstone Gardens, formed the inspiration for a solo presentation, titled Running Parallel, with Untitled Art, which fetched the Lexus Best Stand Award. Given the banality of the subject matter - peeling walls, nails, blinds and skirting boards - this may have been unexpected, however, collectively, the paintings on this stand and how they were hung made for a compelling visual journey. Nostalgia runs so deep and keeps so many spiritually connected to Joburg regardless of the urban decay that chips at its facade.

Untitled's Booth featuring Guy Simpson's solo presentation 'Running Parallel' at RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025, photo by Anthea Pokroy

Despite having a Joburg gallery Stevenson also made their first appearance with a modest but well-considered booth. They presented a mix of well-known names such as Serge Alain Nitegeka to more  ‘affordable’ works by younger artists, such as a series of small portraits by Lebogang Mogul Mabusela, whose work was initially offered on the Latitudes Online portal a few years ago.

The well-publicised drop in value at auction for so-called black portraiture as reported in a contentious feature in the New York Magazine, doesn't hold water at this art fair. This 'genre' remains robust locally. This is for the simple fact that this 'market' is not intended to feed American, European or Asian speculative art buyers but addresses a fundamental drive for African artists to depict themselves and their communities and appeal to new art collectors.

As such portraits by Kamohelo Blessing Rooi flew off the walls of EBONY/CURATED's booth. Indeed they were highly desirable, particularly the larger-scaled works that were hung on Saturday with subjects resplendent in outfits by Wanda Lephoto. This was another satisfying art and fashion collaboration at this fair.

At the grassroots level - best explored at the Manor House, at the RMB Talent Unlocked and Asisibenze Art Atelier booths - the compulsion to paint portraits of black subjects remains essential for artists, even as a starting point.

It is not a racially exclusive pursuit if you consider how quickly Kevin Collins 'pottery portraits' of quirky white caricatures found buyers.

Kevin Collins booth surrounded by guests, photo by Anthea Pokroy

It is perhaps a stretch to classify the paintings at the BKhz booth by Thando Salman as portraits. For some time this gallery, founded by artist Banele Khoza, championed artists who embraced this traditional genre. Salman pushed the boat out so to speak in the works for the fair,  in a curious series of paintings of male subjects in onesies embarking on a secret journey in nature. Were they in search of their manhood? Certainly, those who refused to submit - notably a man dressed in a suit - came to a bitter end. It brought male initiation ceremonies to mind.

Nostalgia and familiarity perhaps compelled many to Strauss & Co's booth on the mezzanine level at the Latitudes Centre for the Arts to spy another art queen - the 'Lady from the Orient’ (1955) by Vladimir Tretchikoff.  Whatever your feelings may be for this kind of 'orientalism kitsch' curiosity will get the better of you. It may well have been the most expensive work on display at this fair with a price tag of up to R7 million, though when the bidding took off on Tuesday, 27 May, it fetched an astonishing R31-million (including buyers premiums).

Lady from the Orient’ (1955) by Vladimir Tretchikoff, at RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2025, photo by Anthea Pokroy

More tightly curated displays of historical works that stood out at this year's fair were from the former auctioneer Ruarc Peffers of Peffers Fine Art with his interest in art history channelled through two booths which were both rewarding for visitors.  In collaboration with curator and founder of RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Lucy MacGarry, a clear visual conversation was established between special drawings by sculptor Sydney Kumalo and sculptures by Amalie Von Maltitz, a talented South African female sculptor who has been overlooked despite her obvious skill. Von Malitz should be a familiar name to us all.

RMB Latitudes’ Special Project, ESSAY, focusing on the drawings and sculptures of two prolific South African artists, Sydney Kumalo and Amalie von Maltitz

In the Centre Court Peffers Fine Art presented archival photographs by some seminal photographers - Alf Kumalo to Ernest Cole - images of musicians from the 1950s. These moody black and white images captured the vitality and energy of the likes of Hugh Masekela to Dolly Rathebe while performing. A very young Masekela jumping in the air stood out as did one of Gideon Nxumalo leaning into a piano tinkling on a few keys with his eyes closed. This image encapsulated an artist lost in his art.

Peffers Fine Art Booth, RMB Latitudes 2025, photo by Anthea Pokroy

With art dotted in every nook and cranny of the sprawling Shepstone Gardens during this fair, visitors could easily get lost in discovering art. Importantly, the 1950s photographic archive brought to mind another era in Joburg, a heyday of creativity in art, music and fashion that also allowed its denizens to rise above the miasma of bad politics that threatened the spirit of this city's creative community.