What are the 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

A4 Arts Foundation

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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
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06/09/2023

To book, follow the link in bio, or scan the QR code.

06/09/2023

‘Not knowing is a good place to start’ –

Dor Guez and Josh Ginsburg talk within the framework made by ‘Double Stitch’ – the first work chosen by co-curators Sumayya Vally and Josh for the exhibition Customs.

The curators built Customs from the fabric that ‘Double Stitch’ (2022) spread across the foundation’s floors and walls.

Guez’s ‘Amid Imperial Grids’ saw ‘Double Stitch’ transposed and translated for the architecture of the Felix Nussbaum Haus Osnabrück.

31/08/2023

Come visit Busted Head
Saturday 10am–2pm

Busted Head, the title of Boytchie’s residency in Goods, explores the ability of objects to evoke both aggression and fragility.

Saturday’s presentation begins with a sculpture: an abstracted figure holding an axe and sitting in a chair.

In conversation with A4 curator Mitchell Gilbert Messina in preparation for Busted Head, Boytchie and Mitchell discussed the sculpture – “To me, the figure is not doing anything, it's just sitting on a chair. But it's perceived as ready to attack.” The adjectives they found to describe it: precarious, dangerous, broken. Imagining the sculpture walking, they could only picture it falling – or tripping, perhaps, over the stigmas of violence, connotations of aggression, and structures of toxic masculinity that Boytchie investigates. These investigations begin, more often, with drawing – “I always think back to scratching into a school desk or doodling on a textbook…making that begins unconsciously, and becomes more conscious.”

A number of moments – installations comprising the artist’s sculptures, paintings, notational works and sketches – will take place in the project space over a fortnight.

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.

20/08/2023

You’re invited!
Walkabout of You to Me, Me to You,
Wednesday, 23 August, 12 pm.

Before he returns to Mexico City, curator Francisco Berzunza will be walking about the exhibition.

Please join us for this opportunity to hear about the curator’s process.

Please DM us if you’ll be attending the walkabout.

A4 is always free/ no entry fee.

L–R
Iñaki Bonillas, ‘The Return to the Origin’, 2010/2023
Moshekwa Langa, ‘Index Drawing (you give me the creeps)’, 2004

Image credit: courtesy A4 Arts Foundation

bonillas

11/08/2023

Come join us tomorrow (Saturday)for the opening of You to Me, Me to You.

Walkabout with the curator at 12pm followed by a musical arrangement.

Pictured on the facade of A4:
James Webb, ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ (isiXhosa), 2017.

Kukho Ukukhanya Okungasoze Kuphele.

10/08/2023

Exhibition installation with artist-in-residence Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo and curator Francisco Berzunza.

You to Me, Me to You
opens Saturday.
10am–2pm

Walkabout with the curator at 12pm followed by a musical arrangement.

A4 is always free: no entry fee.

09/08/2023

Come visit us on Saturday as we celebrate the opening of You to Me, Me to You, curated by Francisco Berzunza.

10am–2pm

Walkabout with the curator at 12pm.

Musical performance of an arrangement by Philip Miller.

RAQ radio will be streaming live from A4 during the event, chatting with participating artists.

Iñaki Bonillas and Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo are both in residence at A4 in preparation for the exhibition.

Image: Bas Jan Ader, Bulletin 89, in search of the miraculous (songs for the north atlantic ), 1975, included in You to Me, Me to You, courtesy of a private collector in Mexico City.

A4 is always free: no entry fee.

We’re serving coffee.

31/07/2023

Please join us to celebrate the opening of You to Me, Me to You,
a love letter in the form of an exhibition, curated by Francisco Berzunza.

Saturday 12 August
10am–2pm

“Love can be the desire – and the frustration – of becoming one with another,” says Berzunza, addressing the perils of unrequited love. The political and social barriers against loving are multiple, and multiply. Are practitioners averse to dealing in love as a subject of discursive study? Art, averse to sentimentality, may fear touching the word itself – that ‘love’, glibly used, is loosed from any meaning.

To love, and to be loved, is to risk; love’s climb the highest and headiest we may know, with little prospect of accruing any perspective en route.

The exhibition marks a return for Berzunza from his home in Mexico, to South Africa. Having lived in Cape Town in 2014 and again in 2016, Berzunza became intimately connected to the city and its artistic practitioners. On his return to Mexico, he determined to begin a dialogue between artistic communities working from and around these two countries. His efforts produced the first iteration of Hacer Noche (Crossing Night) in Oaxaca, 2018, which asked after practices of death and commemoration.

You to Me, Me to You includes artworks from:
Bas Jan Ader
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Iñaki Bonillas
Dineo Seshee Bopape
Sophie Calle
Miguel Cinta Robles
Dexter Dalwood
Georgina Gratrix
Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo
Pieter Hugo
Graciela Iturbide
James Ivory
Moshekwa Langa
Thato Makatu
Philip Miller
Tina Modotti
Jo Ractliffe
Dayanita Singh
Slavs and Tatars
Pedro Slim
Kemang Wa Lehulere
James Webb

“Love,” in Berzunza’s telling, “may well be the act of sharing our loneliness with each other.”

RAQ radio will be broadcasting live from A4 Arts Foundation at the event.

bonillas
hugo.official

19/07/2023

Come visit on Saturday as we prepare to close Common, curated by Khanya Mashabela.

Walkabout with at 11am,
followed by Matthew Partridge’s RAQ radio at 12pm.
At 1pm, Nyauist will be interacting with a selection of vinyl from Kudzanai Chiurai’s ‘The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember’ (2017–) included in Common, during a special set taking place in the gallery among the works, and hosted by RAQ radio.

If you’re unable to attend in person, RAQ will be live streaming Matthew and Nyauist’s sets.
Follow the link in bio to stream, Saturday 22 July 12–2pm.

Downstairs .a4, there’s a book launch from the index collective: Paul Wallington’s ‘Out of Eden’ and ‘Two Toads & Other Poems’ by Emily Rae Smith Labuschagne.

A4 is always free; no entry fee.
We’re serving coffee.

14/06/2023

We’re hiring!
Download the PDF in our bio for details on the role and responsibilities, and for how to apply.

09/06/2023

Last year, we were fortunate to host this jam in Basel with these exceptional cats. The feedback we received from the audience was of the exhilarated and euphoric variety – stuff like, “This is the bloody best thing in Basel.”

Which is to say: we’re doing it again this year. The band is back together for this special performance, brought to you by A4.

Come spend Monday evening with us: immaculate vibes, no cover charge/ free entry, 7–10pm.

05/05/2023

Editor Keely Shinners has invited ArtThrob’s founder, Sue Williamson, together with former editors Sean O’Toole, and Matthew Blackman, to come together to celebrate that it’s been 25 years of ArtThrob, and there’s an extraordinary book of collected writings to prove it.

The ‘Eds’ will be sharing anecdotes and personal reflections on each’s time at the helm.

Books will be for sale.
Spier is kindly serving wine.

Hope to see you tomorrow! You’re welcome to DM us to reserve your seat.

Explore Common in our gallery from 10am–2pm, then come upstairs for the book launch.
Common is curated by Khanya Mashabela.
shinners

03/05/2023

Come visit us on Saturday for the opening of Common!
10am–2pm, then head upstairs for Artthrob’s book launch, 2 for 2.30pm.

26/04/2023

Installation is in progress!

We thank you for your patience as we close to public Thursday 27 May– Tuesday 2 May.

Images:
1) 22 years, 10 cities, participants and collaborators in James Webb’s Prayer’ (2000-) are swept into a pile as the vinyl text for the artwork is scraped off the wall after the exhibition The Future Is Behind Us.
2) Leg letters featuring Jean-Marie as she deinstalls vinyl text after the exhibition Customs.

📷 Kyle Morland

(Join us on Saturday 6 May for the opening of Common, curated by Khanya Mashabela.
10am–2pm in our gallery.

Then,

Head directly upstairs on 6 May at 2pm to celebrate the launch of ‘Artthrob: 25 years of Art Writing in South Africa’ edited by Keely Shinners.)

A4 is always free: no entry fee.

shinners

19/04/2023

We love how the installation of Felix Gonzales Torres “Untitled” (Orpheus, Twice) (1991) in the Future Is Behind Us creates two portals into which are pulled all the works in the room.

Reflected here is Kader Attia “Untitled (Ghardaia) (2009) and Jo Ractliffe, “N1: every 100 kilometres (1996/1999).

Seen on the opposite wall is Gian Maria Tosatti “5_I fondamenti della luce-archeologia (intonaco 7) (2015–2017) and the mirrors’ shadow – a doorway that leads to the audio-visual “Play for Artworks” made for the exhibition by Mitchell Gilbert Messina.

Both Tosatti and Messina’s works will find themselves, in turn, compelled to follow Orpheus, as you, the visitor, move around the room…as you, the visitor, find yourself in the mirror. A reflective glass stands beside you/ behind you, materialising a presence/ an absence.

Orpheus, ascending from the underworld, sees the Sun and in delight, turns to look behind him at Euridice. Forbidden to look back, by Hades, Orpheus is unable to retrieve his love. Euridice disappears.

The Future Is Behind Us closes today at 5.30pm. Thank you to these works, their artists, and to you, for visiting us.
foundation

22/03/2023

In preparation for the exhibition Tell It to the Mountains at A4, photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa spoke about his first encounter with Ernest Cole’s ‘House of Bondage.’ Sobekwa was seventeen years old. He paged through the book late into the night by the light of a single candle. The photographs in the book cast stories in the shadows and spoke to the teenager of his destiny. He recounts that experience as a revelation; a first knowing of what he must become.

During the time Sobekwa spent at A4 in preparation for that exhibition, Sean O’Toole began his own research residency at our lab.
“What is the South African photo book?” O’Toole asked, unpacking his library of South African photo books. The following year, the browsable exhibition Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook! curated by O’Toole opened with Cole’s ‘House of Bondage’ centred on one of two dividing walls in the gallery. Throughout the course of the exhibition, in conversations with visitors, O’Toole referred to Cole as “the impossible benchmark.”

We’re looking forward to welcoming Lindokuhle and Sean back to A4 for this occasion, together with Prof. Hlonipha Mokoena and Leslie Matlaisane.

Thank you to Paul Weinberg, the Photography Legacy Project, Aperture, Olamuk, Jonathan Ball Publishers and Three Peaks Wine.
sobekwa

If you haven’t already RSVP’d for tomorrow night, please DM us to reserve your seat.

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

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 Alÿs
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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 González-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

Address

Gardens

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

Website

http://www.a4arts.org/

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Videos

Exhibition installation with artist-in-residence Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo and curator Francisco Berzunza. You to Me, Me to You opens Saturday. 10am–2pm Walkabout with the curator at 12pm followed by a musical arrangement. A4 is always free: no entry fee. @berzufran @thembinkosih15

@exhibition.match Francis Alÿs 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

Exhibition Match. Pull in: Grand Central, 8 Floor. Maria Marshall Playground, 2001 Colour video with sound 3 min 49 sec Curated by @alexrichards88 and @mongakobo_e_bohale @exhibition.match

Let the games begin! ♟ @proto.a4 @brettseiler

“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.” @bineldehyrcan 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.

Curated by Sumayya Vally and Josh Ginsburg, Customs opens tomorrow. 11–2 The exhibition takes its cue from a series of photographs by Sumayya Vally in Saudi Arabia in 2021. The images record a number of roadside mosques of varying architectural structure or opacity – a brick-and-mortar housing, a circle of stones, an overhanging branch and natural rock formation – that create ceremonial space. These infrastructures for gathering hold within them invitations to participate in their making and upkeep. The exhibition is underpinned by a new work from Dor Guez. Double Stitch (2022) is an interpretation of a floor-plan of a church and mosque transposed on A4’s gallery. Built one into the other in Guez’s ancestral home of Lydda, the religious sites share between them a wall and multiple tellings of a story. The map is tugged askew at the corners in an imperfect fit inside the gallery. Within and out the boundaries of this map, Customs wonders after practices of collective maintenance, both static and dynamic. What is it that invites us to use, and to be of use? Dor Guez, Yoko Ono, Steve McQueen, Kapwani Kiwanga, Igshaan Adams, Frida Orupabo, Ezrom Legae, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Nairy Baghramian, Binelde Hyrcan, Peter Clarke, Willem Boshoff, Moshekwa Langa, and George Hallett. Video by the best @classicmitch who animates the works in Customs. 🔥 @sumi_v @_counterspace @joshualeeginsburg @classicmitch @dorguez @yokoono @kapwanikiwanga @igshaan.adams @bineldehyrcan @nairybaghramian @data_body @nemiepeba

‘One day I’ll show you my library’, Sean O’Toole promised us in October 2020. This was the title of Sean’s first presentation to our team, delivered while pursuing a curatorial Course of Enquiry at A4. When the gallery stood fallow between shows, Sean brought books, photocopies of books, masking tape and balls of yarn and began prototyping an exhibition that considers the South African photobook (“Is there such a thing, a species, as the South African photobook?” Sean asked us that first day). Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook! closes at 2pm this coming Saturday, 21 May. Sean will take a last walkabout of the show in the gallery at 12pm. Please message us to attend. Thanks @seanwotoole for keeping a promise. It’s been the best of times. Video: @classicmitch animates the process of making the exhibition, two and a half years distilled into 35 seconds. Yes!