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A4 Arts Foundation

A4 Arts Foundation A4 is a free to public not-for-profit laboratory for the arts of Southern Africa

Operating as usual

📚Cape Town, it’s time!In his exhibition on the South African photobook at A4 in 2022, Sean O’Toole referred to Ernest Co...
20/03/2023

📚Cape Town, it’s time!

In his exhibition on the South African photobook at A4 in 2022, Sean O’Toole referred to Ernest Cole’s ‘House of Bondage’ (1967) as “the impossible benchmark.”

Fifty- five years since, this reissue preserves Cole’s first person account and includes a chapter of previously unseen work, titled ‘Black Ingenuity’.

Join us on Thursday 5.30 for 6pm.

Please DM us to reserve your seat.

The evening will feature presentations by Cole’s nephew and director of the Cole family foundation, Leslie Matlaisane, together with Prof. Hlonipha Mokoena, Candice Jansen, and Sean O’Toole.

Books will be for sale
.a4

This coming Saturday 11 March, 6pm, at the Homecoming Centre in District Six, Salon Kewpie stages the Legacy Ball, hoste...
07/03/2023

This coming Saturday 11 March, 6pm, at the Homecoming Centre in District Six, Salon Kewpie stages the Legacy Ball, hosted by international House Mother Cheshire Vineyard.

We have some tickets to gift away, so DM us to let us know why you simply must be at the ball.

Dress glam.

This extraordinary project made possible through the tireless efforts of .ina.nutshell

18/02/2023

.match

Francis AlĂżs
Paradox of Praxis 5


Made in collaboration with Julien Devaux, Rafael Ortega, Alejandro Morales, and Félix Blume
Colour video with sound
7 min 49 sec

18/02/2023

Exhibition Match. Pull in: Grand Central, 8 Floor.

Maria Marshall
Playground, 2001
Colour video with sound
3 min 49 sec

Curated by and

.match

Tomorrow night! (Friday)6–10pmFree entry 💓Join us at A4 Arts Foundation to celebrate  Academy and Investec Cape Town Art...
16/02/2023

Tomorrow night! (Friday)
6–10pm
Free entry 💓
Join us at A4 Arts Foundation to celebrate Academy and Investec Cape Town Art Fair’s Gallery Night. P_ssy Party co-founders Phatstoki and Rosie Parade will be on the decks, alongside the academy’s participants and P_ssy Party Academy alumnus JADEGOTTAGETPAID.

The party is open from 6–10pm, Friday 17 February.
Entrance is free but please RSVP as space is limited.

A Johannesburg-based incubator for women and q***r DJs, P_ssy Party is making South African club culture a safer, more diverse space by sharing skills and resources through its events and workshops. From 4–18 February, P_ssy Party has been engaged in a three-week training programme with five successful applicants in A4's Reading Room.

This Friday!6–10pmJoin us at A4 Arts Foundation to celebrate  Academy and Investec Cape Town Art Fair’s Gallery Night. P...
16/02/2023

This Friday!
6–10pm
Join us at A4 Arts Foundation to celebrate Academy and Investec Cape Town Art Fair’s Gallery Night.

P_ssy Party co-founders Phatstoki and Rosie Parade will be on the decks, alongside the academy’s participants and P_ssy Party Academy alumnus JADEGOTTAGETPAID.

The party is open from 6–10pm, Friday 17 February.
Entrance is free but please RSVP as space is limited.

A Johannesburg-based incubator for women and q***r DJs, P_ssy Party is making South African club culture a safer, more diverse space by sharing skills and resources through its events and workshops. From 4–18 February, P_ssy Party has been engaged in a three-week training programme with five successful applicants in A4's Reading Room.

We’re making a radio for Art Fair! Follow the link to stream. 2–6pm, Thursday–Sunday On the occasion of this year’s Inve...
15/02/2023

We’re making a radio for Art Fair! Follow the link to stream.

2–6pm, Thursday–Sunday

On the occasion of this year’s Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Matthew Partridge debuts RAQ Radio – a hybrid streaming programme comprising talk shows, music, live performances, and on-the-ground reportage.

From 2pm to 6pm, Thursday to Sunday, RAQ will be broadcasting from A4's Studio. Expect: interviews, opinions, eclectic playlists, and practitioner-centred conversations. Featured practitioners include Sean O’Toole, Penny Siopis, Derek Gripper, Kamil Hassim, Keely Shinners, and Eric Dippenaar, among others.

The station’s acronym – which stands for Rarely Asked Questions – suggests an alternative method of enquiry in reflecting on the local arts ecology and its processes. The 2023 Investec Cape Town Art Fair marks the launch of RAQ, facilitated with the support of A4.



.shinners


Calling all women and q***r aspiring DJs! ✹ Apply for P_ssy Party’s Academy at A4 Arts Foundation – no prior experience ...
24/01/2023

Calling all women and q***r aspiring DJs! ✹

Apply for P_ssy Party’s Academy at A4 Arts Foundation – no prior experience necessary.

Successful applicants will receive several one-on-one training sessions culminating in a celebration at A4 for Cape Town Art Fair’s Gallery Night, 17 February, 6–10pm.

Click on the link in our bio to apply.

P_ssy Party is a Johannesburg-based incubator for women and q***r DJs. Through its events and DJ workshops, P_ssy Party is one of the forces pushing South African club culture towards safer, more caring practices. P_ssy Party will be in residence at A4 from the 4–18 February, offering learning sessions to five aspiring DJs.

Applications close Thursday 2 February.

In our previous exhibition, Customs, curator Sumayya Vally referenced a conversation with James Webb in which the artist...
13/12/2022

In our previous exhibition, Customs, curator Sumayya Vally referenced a conversation with James Webb in which the artist had spoken about the artwork, ‘Prayer’ (2000–) as being like a sun.

“Can a project be like a sun? I think so,” Sumayya said in regards to the experience of putting together Customs.

“The artwork ‘Prayer’ can be thought of like a sun because new artworks came out of it, as well as new friendships. Prayer has created connections and given life to other projects,” James said, speaking about Sumayya’s recollection of that conversation.

The Future Is Behind Us opens Saturday 17 December
10am–2pm

The exhibition marks the first time that 22 years of ‘Prayer’ across ten cities, will be played together.

With works by Kader Attia, Felix GonzĂĄlez-Torres, Mitchell Gilbert Messina, Santu Mofokeng, Kyle Morland, Asemahle Ntlonti, Cornelia Parker, Jo Ractliffe, Gian Maria Tosatti, Naama Tsabar, Kemang Wa Lehulere, James Webb, and Ian Wilson.

Images:
1) James Webb ‘Prayer’ and Asemahle Ntlonti ‘Emaphandleni’ (2022) rest together in anticipation of installation for The Future Is Behind Us
2) James Webb ‘Prayer’, installation view in A4 Gallery.

Images ©A4



Join us for the opening of The Future Is Behind Us Saturday 17 December 10am–2pmA4 is always free; no entry feeWith work...
12/12/2022

Join us for the opening of The Future Is Behind Us
Saturday 17 December
10am–2pm
A4 is always free; no entry fee

With works by Kader Attia; Felix González-Torres; James Webb; Cornelia Parker; Kemang Wa Lehulere; Jo Ractliffe; Gian Maria Tosatti; Santu Mofokeng; Naama Tsabar; and Asemahle Ntlonti, who is also included in a ‘Play for Artworks’ directed by Mitchell Gilbert Messina with Kyle Morland.

Images:
1) installation of Kader Attia, ‘Untitled (Ghardaïa)’ (2009) and Felix González-Torres, ‘Untitled (Orpheus Twice)’ (1991).
2) detail of Kader Attia, ‘Untitled (Ghardaïa)’ (2009).


.foundation

For the duration of Play-Play, the title of Francesco Nassimbeni’s residency at A4 Arts Foundation, Frankie is making an...
01/12/2022

For the duration of Play-Play, the title of Francesco Nassimbeni’s residency at A4 Arts Foundation, Frankie is making and doing and playing, and inviting friends and collaborators to make and do and play, too. On Frankie’s first day in the Reading Room, now transformed into his open studio, a poster appeared: ‘Your email did not find me well.’ An axiom for the digital age, or a thumb bitten against impersonal and distant messaging methods?

Anyone can come and play.
The menu on Thursday evenings from 6–8pm may consist of balloon and torch play, paper lantern painting, exquisite co**se, making imagine cities out of cardboard among other activities.

Saturdays, Frankie is in studio 11am–2pm welcoming visitors and families to make use of the residency’s supplies and participate in making.

Until 20 December.
Come play-play.

All materials are provided.
Dress in a way that isn’t paint averse.
Thursday 6–8pm
Saturday 11–2pm



Open studio Friday 25 November 10–11amParallel Play v.2 closes tomorrow. Asemahle Ntlonti and Kyle Morland have been in ...
24/11/2022

Open studio
Friday 25 November
10–11am

Parallel Play v.2 closes tomorrow.
Asemahle Ntlonti and Kyle Morland have been in residence in our gallery.
Come visit with the artists tomorrow between 10 and 11am.

A4 is always free: no entry fee.

Images:
1) process work
2) grows his library of forms

Join curator Nkhensani Mkhari tomorrow at 11am for the final walkabout of Model. Visible in the foreground of the first ...
18/11/2022

Join curator Nkhensani Mkhari tomorrow at 11am for the final walkabout of Model.

Visible in the foreground of the first image is Tony Yanick ‘Make America Great Again (and again
and again)’ (2017).

To the whirring sound of a projector, a voice intones: “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.”

Background, L-R:
DB Amorin ‘remoting’ (2021/2022); Kyle Morland ‘Library of Forms’ (2021); Bhavisha Panchia ‘Imagine you’re in a museum: what do you hear?’ (2020); Bogosi Sekhukhuni ‘Dark Gravity’ (2018).
Second image shows wayfinder for the exhibition designed by and in the third image, Phumzile Khanyile ‘Plastic Crowns’ (2016–) is visible together with the aforementioned works.

Also at A4 tomorrow, Dominique Cheminais is in residence at Goods, and launching the second book in her ‘Many Shallows’ series at proto~ with a reading by the author at 12.30pm. Keely Shinners will be introducing Dom, and hosting the Q&A. Dom’s drawings are available .a4

Gabrielle Guy is launching an Advent Calendar .a4. Because Gabrielle is a book maker, these calendars take the form of books. On each page, Gabrielle has hidden something. The page must be torn to reveal its surprise.








Parallel Play v.2 commences in our gallery. Between exhibitions, it’s a time to measure, mend, test, archive, and make, ...
03/11/2022

Parallel Play v.2 commences in our gallery.
Between exhibitions, it’s a time to measure, mend, test, archive, and make, working in parallel with artist colleagues who are invited to create mobile studios on the gallery floor.

Pictured here is 1) sculpture unpacking, 2) with assistance from

A4 Arts Foundation’s Curatorial Connective (CX) 2022 is now accepting applications from emerging curators.*Successful ap...
26/10/2022

A4 Arts Foundation’s Curatorial Connective (CX) 2022 is now accepting applications from emerging curators.*

Successful applicants will have in common a demonstrable commitment to the arts and concerns of South Africa and the Global South regardless of where they are currently based, and the role of the curator (broadly defined but not excluding the traditional) in activating this work for the public.

CX 2022’s programme takes place in person, over seven days of conversations, seminars, and exchanges, at A4’s laboratory in Cape Town.

Dates: 11–18 December 2022.

Place: 23 Buitenkant Street, District Six, Cape Town.

Deadline for submission: Friday 4 November 2022.

CX 2022’s seminars in Cape Town will be led by A4 Arts Foundation’s 2021 Fellowship recipients Mark Godfrey and Kerryn Greenberg, together with Rudi Minto de Wijs.

CX 2022 explores five research topics:

How artists relate to technology;
Environmental justice;
Spirituality, ritual and myth;
Censorship and self-censorship;
Restitution.

*Application to the CX 2022 is open to emerging curators. ‘Emerging’ is a broad category that we at A4 use to refer to an early-career curator who may or may not have formal training or qualifications. We recognise that curators play a myriad of roles – and must wear multiple hats – in arts ecologies that are less well-resourced. We will prioritise applicants that make work happen, activate local ecologies, engage artistic communities and commit to both conservation and innovation: caring for artists and artworks while working in maverick and curious ways.

A warm thank you to all who attended the openings of Model in the Reading Room and Funhouse in Goods, and to those who p...
18/10/2022

A warm thank you to all who attended the openings of Model in the Reading Room and Funhouse in Goods, and to those who participated in Saturday’s chess tournament at proto~ for the launch Brett Seiler’s chessboard. Congratulations to the winner who was awarded the coveted ‘Top Cock’ trophy, courtesy of the artist 🏆

Pictured: (1) The chess trophies briefly join A4's about wall in anticipation of the prize-giving; (2) Photographs from Phumzile Khanyile’s ‘Plastic Crowns’ series (2016–) in Model; (3) Visitors engage with Guy Simpson’s ‘Eeyore’ (2022), a colour-by-numbers work included in Funhouse; (4) The final match of the tournament sees Rowan play against Claude. All images © for A4 Arts Foundation.

.a4

15/10/2022

Let the games begin! ♟

.a4

A Mend offering – assembled on the last day of Customs by an anonymous visitor – makes a bid for permanence. Glued to th...
10/10/2022

A Mend offering – assembled on the last day of Customs by an anonymous visitor – makes a bid for permanence. Glued to the table, is it a farewell gift or a quiet protest against endings?

Customs is now closed. We disassemble Yoko Ono’s ‘Mend Piece’ (1966/2018) until some future time. Our thanks to all who participated in Mend (‘with wisdom’, ‘with love’, ‘with your whole heart’, as Yoko Ono’s poetic instructions entreat) as contributors to the public performance and sculptural artwork, to the artists who participated in Customs, and Sumayya Vally, who curated the exhibition together with Josh Ginsburg.

Our Gallery now lies fallow until Summer, but there is still plenty to come see at A4. This Saturday, 15 October, Nkhensani Mkhari curates Model in the Reading Room, Funhouse considers artworks as games in Goods, and Brett Selier together with proto~ our store launches his chess set. All between 10–2 on Saturday.

.projects

Last chance to visit Customs curated by Sumayy Vally and Josh Ginsburg.“As we began to gather artworks [for this exhibit...
03/10/2022

Last chance to visit Customs curated by Sumayy Vally and Josh Ginsburg.

“As we began to gather artworks [for this exhibition], we were pursuing a shared interest in practices that recognise ‘inarticulable’ knowledge. I say inarticulable, not because they are not being articulated, but because their articulations counter dominant bodies of knowledge and categorisation. They offer other entry points to engage, and hold other systems and logics embedded within them.” – Sumayya Vally

Our foundation is always free to visit. Opening hours are:
Monday–Friday 10am–5.30pm
Saturday 10am–2pm
The exhibition closes this Saturday 8 October at 2pm.

Pictured: (1) Moshekwa Langa, ‘What is a home without a mother’ (2008); (2) Kapwani Kiwanga, ‘Vumbi’ (2012); and (3) George Hallett, ‘Peter Clarke’s Tongue’ (1979) with Peter Clarke, ‘Anxiety’ (1969) on the far wall; seen throughout is Dor Guez, ‘Double Stitch’ (2022).

Come visit Saturday 11–2 in Goods.Hanna Noor Mahomed maps the social geography of Cape Town’s artistic landscape by coll...
08/09/2022

Come visit
Saturday 11–2 in Goods.

Hanna Noor Mahomed maps the social geography of Cape Town’s artistic landscape by collaging, drawing, painting, and pasting monotypes over the wall installation that marked the beginning of Social.

Informed by Noor Mahomed’s experiences as a young artist and woman of colour, Disruption is a playful-but-serious critique of Cape Town’s art ecosystem’s “perceived bubble of exclusivity,” according to curator Khanya Mashabela. “Art worlds mirror and respond to the sociological imbalances of their broader contexts.”

Working with, through, and upon Goods, Noor Mahomed expands upon the ever-shifting function of the space by using it as an artist residency and visual microcosm of the city.

(Presented in the previous iteration of Goods and curated by Khanya Mashabela, Social is a growing archive of graphic material submitted by practitioners through an open call. Social’s posters, flyers and photographs record independent artist initiatives in Cape Town.)

About Goods

Goods is a project space for work in process and thinking aloud. Creative practitioners are invited to rapid prototype exhibition-making through offerings that are shared with visitors. The location’s transitory nature as a thoroughfare is reflected in Goods’ fast-paced, open-ended, multi-disciplinary programming. The small scale of the physical space encourages a light-footed navigation of curatorial and artistic practice in its many forms.

Coordinated by

Entrance to A4 is always free.

Gentle reminder to submit material evidence (be these flyers, posters, photographs) of your independent, practitioner le...
30/08/2022

Gentle reminder to submit material evidence (be these flyers, posters, photographs) of your independent, practitioner led projects. Khanya Mashabela is building a digital archive of the independent arts ecology, to become a public resource, for Social.

Images are installation shots of a first staging of Social towards the building of an archive, in Goods, on 6 August.

🗳Submission form on our web and link in bio.

You are invited to celebrate the launch of ‘Panya Routes: Independent art spaces in Africa’, with UCT’s African Centre f...
10/08/2022

You are invited to celebrate the launch of ‘Panya Routes: Independent art spaces in Africa’, with UCT’s African Centre for Cities.

The author, Kim Gurney, will be in conversation with Neo Muyanga.

Tomorrow, Thursday 11 August | 5:30pm for 6pm.

As Gurney puts forward in her book, ‘Panya Routes’, published by Motto Books, is about the do-it-yourself, do-it-together working principles of independent art spaces on the continent. Such spaces are built for purpose not profit and act as urban indicators in fast-changing cities of flux. Art is embedded into everyday life; it’s not only for saying things but also for doing things.

Beer and snacks kindly provided by

Please DM us to let us know you’ll be attending, or email [email protected]
The book will be for sale via snapscan and card.





.museum



It’s a National school holiday tomorrow!Our team have been working hard so we’re following the example set by the kids. ...
07/08/2022

It’s a National school holiday tomorrow!

Our team have been working hard so we’re following the example set by the kids. A4 will be closed tomorrow, together with the public holiday on Tuesday that follows.

A4 reopens on Wednesday.

Enjoy the break!

Image: Binelde Hyrcan’s ‘Cambeck’ (2011).

05/08/2022

Tomorrow: Saturday! 11–2

Join us for Social, an ongoing project curated by with coordinating.

“Alongside Cape Town’s more formalised network of commercial galleries and institutions, is a dynamic history of artist-initiated projects. Collaborative processes create independent spaces, exhibitions, events, and publications which are often momentary, but which have the potential to bloom into long-lasting, generative relationships.
Social is an invitation to gather and to contribute to a visual archive of posters, physical and digital flyers, installation photographs, exhibition texts, and zines made in support of artist initiatives.”

Link in bio to submit to the digital archive.

Georgia Munnik at .a4 ~, working with distillations of blue carbon paper for tinting rose petals, lichen, kelp lace, leaf trace and locust wings, and with the colour of yearning (where the artist designates blue ink as the excess of western taxonomic hierarchies for naming the world in order to know it better).

.booch kombucha

Animation:

A new round of repairs begins.đŸ«¶đŸ’™Customs reopens August 19Goods is open this Saturday 11–2 for Social, kicking off an ope...
04/08/2022

A new round of repairs begins.
đŸ«¶đŸ’™

Customs reopens August 19

Goods is open this Saturday
11–2
for Social, kicking off an open call for material that records independent, practitioner-led exhibitions and projects in Cape Town.

Georgia Munnik is in proto~ our museum store on
Saturday 11–2 with ‘A book written for the viruses in your body’, light-box sculpture, ‘Outside Organs’ Tees and limited edition Hartford Carriers.

Come visit!
Serving kombucha from .booch


.a4

📌Notification Customs will be temporarily closed from today, 3 August and will reopen onFriday 19 August. The exhibition...
03/08/2022

📌Notification

Customs will be temporarily closed from today,
3 August and will reopen on
Friday 19 August.

The exhibition will be extended beyond 24 September, updated closing date to follow soon.

Unfortunately, our building has to undergo some emergency waterproofing repairs that are beyond our control.

The good news!Our Library, Reading Room together with Yoko Ono’s ‘Mend Piece’ (1966/2018) as well as Goods and proto~ remain open.

Come visit us this Saturday for Social in Goods and Georgia Munnik in proto~, 11–2.

Images:
All installations views of Customs, curated by Sumayya Vally and Josh Ginsburg.

Artworks L–R
1) Dor Guez
‘Samira’ (2020); Kapwani Kiwanga
‘Ground’ (2012); Steve McQueen
‘Remember Me’ (2016);

and seen on floor and walls throughout Customs: Dor Guez, ‘Double Stitch’ (2022).
2) Binelde Hyrcan
‘Cambeck’ (2011)
3) Moshekwa Langa, ‘What is a home without a mother’ (2008)

29/07/2022

“I started walking from Lisbon to Paris. This was the only time in my entire life where I was completely alone. The street was mine. The world was mine. We were lost. Everyone around the world was lost, with this disease. I knew that I must record this moment, that it was very important – what I was seeing.”

is in residence at A4, here participating in a ‘harvest live’ session, exploring the books he made while walking alone from Lisbon to Paris, an epic journey in European winter that took the artist three months to complete, while around him the world was shut-and-locked down due to Covid restrictions put in place at the time.

Please join us! This Saturday at 11am, Sumayya Vally and Josh Ginsburg will be taking a walk-about Customs, sharing stor...
14/07/2022

Please join us! This Saturday at 11am, Sumayya Vally and Josh Ginsburg will be taking a walk-about Customs, sharing stories and anecdotes about this co-created exhibition.

Saturday 16 July 2022 at 11am.

DM us to let us know if you’ll be joining the curators for the walkabout.

What else is happening this
Saturday 16 July at A4?

In Goods, and are sharing the remastered ‘Lunar Maria Chorus’.

is launching bananas in proto~ the store at A4 with .

Yoko ono’s ‘Mend Piece’ (1966/2018) is open for making in our Reading Room.

Saturday 16 July hours: 11–2.

Entrance to A4 is free.

These images of Customs opening event:
đŸ“·
©Jonx Pillemer and A4 Arts Foundation.

Address

23 Buitenkant Street
Cape Town
7925

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10:00 - 17:30
Wednesday 10:00 - 17:30
Thursday 10:00 - 17:30
Friday 10:00 - 17:30
Saturday 10:00 - 14:00

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Comments

Parallel Play v.2 commences in our gallery.
Between exhibitions, it’s a time to measure, mend, test, archive, and make, working in parallel with artist colleagues who are invited to create mobile studios on the gallery floor.

Pictured here is 1) sculpture unpacking, 2) with assistance from
A4 Arts Foundation’s Curatorial Connective (CX) 2022 is now accepting applications from emerging curators.*

Successful applicants will have in common a demonstrable commitment to the arts and concerns of South Africa and the Global South regardless of where they are currently based, and the role of the curator (broadly defined but not excluding the traditional) in activating this work for the public.

CX 2022’s programme takes place in person, over seven days of conversations, seminars, and exchanges, at A4’s laboratory in Cape Town.

Dates: 11–18 December 2022.

Place: 23 Buitenkant Street, District Six, Cape Town.

Deadline for submission: Friday 4 November 2022.

CX 2022’s seminars in Cape Town will be led by A4 Arts Foundation’s 2021 Fellowship recipients Mark Godfrey and Kerryn Greenberg, together with Rudi Minto de Wijs.

CX 2022 explores five research topics:

How artists relate to technology;
Environmental justice;
Spirituality, ritual and myth;
Censorship and self-censorship;
Restitution.

*Application to the CX 2022 is open to emerging curators. ‘Emerging’ is a broad category that we at A4 use to refer to an early-career curator who may or may not have formal training or qualifications. We recognise that curators play a myriad of roles – and must wear multiple hats – in arts ecologies that are less well-resourced. We will prioritise applicants that make work happen, activate local ecologies, engage artistic communities and commit to both conservation and innovation: caring for artists and artworks while working in maverick and curious ways.
A warm thank you to all who attended the openings of Model in the Reading Room and Funhouse in Goods, and to those who participated in Saturday’s chess tournament at proto~ for the launch Brett Seiler’s chessboard. Congratulations to the winner who was awarded the coveted ‘Top Cock’ trophy, courtesy of the artist 🏆

Pictured: (1) The chess trophies briefly join A4's about wall in anticipation of the prize-giving; (2) Photographs from Phumzile Khanyile’s ‘Plastic Crowns’ series (2016–) in Model; (3) Visitors engage with Guy Simpson’s ‘Eeyore’ (2022), a colour-by-numbers work included in Funhouse; (4) The final match of the tournament sees Rowan play against Claude. All images © for A4 Arts Foundation.

.a4
Let the games begin! ♟

.a4
A Mend offering – assembled on the last day of Customs by an anonymous visitor – makes a bid for permanence. Glued to the table, is it a farewell gift or a quiet protest against endings?

Customs is now closed. We disassemble Yoko Ono’s ‘Mend Piece’ (1966/2018) until some future time. Our thanks to all who participated in Mend (‘with wisdom’, ‘with love’, ‘with your whole heart’, as Yoko Ono’s poetic instructions entreat) as contributors to the public performance and sculptural artwork, to the artists who participated in Customs, and Sumayya Vally, who curated the exhibition together with Josh Ginsburg.

Our Gallery now lies fallow until Summer, but there is still plenty to come see at A4. This Saturday, 15 October, Nkhensani Mkhari curates Model in the Reading Room, Funhouse considers artworks as games in Goods, and Brett Selier together with proto~ our store launches his chess set. All between 10–2 on Saturday.

.projects
Last chance to visit Customs curated by Sumayy Vally and Josh Ginsburg.

“As we began to gather artworks [for this exhibition], we were pursuing a shared interest in practices that recognise ‘inarticulable’ knowledge. I say inarticulable, not because they are not being articulated, but because their articulations counter dominant bodies of knowledge and categorisation. They offer other entry points to engage, and hold other systems and logics embedded within them.” – Sumayya Vally

Our foundation is always free to visit. Opening hours are:
Monday–Friday 10am–5.30pm
Saturday 10am–2pm
The exhibition closes this Saturday 8 October at 2pm.

Pictured: (1) Moshekwa Langa, ‘What is a home without a mother’ (2008); (2) Kapwani Kiwanga, ‘Vumbi’ (2012); and (3) George Hallett, ‘Peter Clarke’s Tongue’ (1979) with Peter Clarke, ‘Anxiety’ (1969) on the far wall; seen throughout is Dor Guez, ‘Double Stitch’ (2022).

Come visit
Saturday 11–2 in Goods.

Hanna Noor Mahomed maps the social geography of Cape Town’s artistic landscape by collaging, drawing, painting, and pasting monotypes over the wall installation that marked the beginning of Social.

Informed by Noor Mahomed’s experiences as a young artist and woman of colour, Disruption is a playful-but-serious critique of Cape Town’s art ecosystem’s “perceived bubble of exclusivity,” according to curator Khanya Mashabela. “Art worlds mirror and respond to the sociological imbalances of their broader contexts.”

Working with, through, and upon Goods, Noor Mahomed expands upon the ever-shifting function of the space by using it as an artist residency and visual microcosm of the city.

(Presented in the previous iteration of Goods and curated by Khanya Mashabela, Social is a growing archive of graphic material submitted by practitioners through an open call. Social’s posters, flyers and photographs record independent artist initiatives in Cape Town.)

About Goods

Goods is a project space for work in process and thinking aloud. Creative practitioners are invited to rapid prototype exhibition-making through offerings that are shared with visitors. The location’s transitory nature as a thoroughfare is reflected in Goods’ fast-paced, open-ended, multi-disciplinary programming. The small scale of the physical space encourages a light-footed navigation of curatorial and artistic practice in its many forms.

Coordinated by

Entrance to A4 is always free.

Gentle reminder to submit material evidence (be these flyers, posters, photographs) of your independent, practitioner led projects. Khanya Mashabela is building a digital archive of the independent arts ecology, to become a public resource, for Social.

Images are installation shots of a first staging of Social towards the building of an archive, in Goods, on 6 August.

🗳Submission form on our web and link in bio.
You are invited to celebrate the launch of ‘Panya Routes: Independent art spaces in Africa’, with UCT’s African Centre for Cities.

The author, Kim Gurney, will be in conversation with Neo Muyanga.

Tomorrow, Thursday 11 August | 5:30pm for 6pm.

As Gurney puts forward in her book, ‘Panya Routes’, published by Motto Books, is about the do-it-yourself, do-it-together working principles of independent art spaces on the continent. Such spaces are built for purpose not profit and act as urban indicators in fast-changing cities of flux. Art is embedded into everyday life; it’s not only for saying things but also for doing things.

Beer and snacks kindly provided by

Please DM us to let us know you’ll be attending, or email [email protected]
The book will be for sale via snapscan and card.





.museum



It’s a National school holiday tomorrow!

Our team have been working hard so we’re following the example set by the kids. A4 will be closed tomorrow, together with the public holiday on Tuesday that follows.

A4 reopens on Wednesday.

Enjoy the break!

Image: Binelde Hyrcan’s ‘Cambeck’ (2011).
Tomorrow: Saturday! 11–2

Join us for Social, an ongoing project curated by with coordinating.

“Alongside Cape Town’s more formalised network of commercial galleries and institutions, is a dynamic history of artist-initiated projects. Collaborative processes create independent spaces, exhibitions, events, and publications which are often momentary, but which have the potential to bloom into long-lasting, generative relationships.
Social is an invitation to gather and to contribute to a visual archive of posters, physical and digital flyers, installation photographs, exhibition texts, and zines made in support of artist initiatives.”

Link in bio to submit to the digital archive.

Georgia Munnik at .a4 ~, working with distillations of blue carbon paper for tinting rose petals, lichen, kelp lace, leaf trace and locust wings, and with the colour of yearning (where the artist designates blue ink as the excess of western taxonomic hierarchies for naming the world in order to know it better).

.booch kombucha

Animation:
A new round of repairs begins.
đŸ«¶đŸ’™

Customs reopens August 19

Goods is open this Saturday
11–2
for Social, kicking off an open call for material that records independent, practitioner-led exhibitions and projects in Cape Town.

Georgia Munnik is in proto~ our museum store on
Saturday 11–2 with ‘A book written for the viruses in your body’, light-box sculpture, ‘Outside Organs’ Tees and limited edition Hartford Carriers.

Come visit!
Serving kombucha from .booch


.a4

📌Notification

Customs will be temporarily closed from today,
3 August and will reopen on
Friday 19 August.

The exhibition will be extended beyond 24 September, updated closing date to follow soon.

Unfortunately, our building has to undergo some emergency waterproofing repairs that are beyond our control.

The good news!Our Library, Reading Room together with Yoko Ono’s ‘Mend Piece’ (1966/2018) as well as Goods and proto~ remain open.

Come visit us this Saturday for Social in Goods and Georgia Munnik in proto~, 11–2.

Images:
All installations views of Customs, curated by Sumayya Vally and Josh Ginsburg.

Artworks L–R
1) Dor Guez
‘Samira’ (2020); Kapwani Kiwanga
‘Ground’ (2012); Steve McQueen
‘Remember Me’ (2016);

and seen on floor and walls throughout Customs: Dor Guez, ‘Double Stitch’ (2022).
2) Binelde Hyrcan
‘Cambeck’ (2011)
3) Moshekwa Langa, ‘What is a home without a mother’ (2008)

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