It was a butt-ugly day today. Cloudy, intermittent downpours, low clouds and it didn’t get any warmer than 56 degrees. Table Mountain was closed, socked in with clouds. Reminded us of Wellington in New Zealand. But…. they do need the rain here.
We thought it was an excellent day to visit the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art, which is a 10-minute walk from our place, on the V&A Waterfront (Victoria & Albert) so took off around 10 a.m. and dodged rain showers.
The Zeitz MOCAA was superb. It is a public, not-for-profit museum that collects, preserves, researches and exhibits 21st-century art from Africa and its Diaspora. It also hosts international exhibitions, develops and supports educational and enrichment programs. The building also houses centers for art education, performing arts, photography and the moving image (film). It also has a costume institute and a curatorial training program. It is the largest contemporary art museum in Africa, and it opened in September of 2017. It is a “platform for Africans to tell their own stories.”
The building itself is a work of art. It is in a converted grain silo overlooking the Atlantic on the V&A waterfront, an area that was regenerated 30 years ago for retail, real estate and tourism on the remnants of two dilapidated 19th-century harbor basins (Victoria & Albert). The silos themselves were built over coal sheds that once supplied steamships, which, in turn, according to theGuardian, were funded by capital from slave compensation after abolition (the owners were compensated, not the slaves).
The £28m museum’s architect was Thomas Heatherwick, an Englishman, and its patron is German Jochen Zeitz, former CEO of Puma) and the executive director is South African (all three are white men). The museum has been hailed as Africa’s answer to the Tate Modern in London.
And it is spectacular. The original architecture of cement silos is there, but in the atrium the silos have been cut away in graceful, huge arcs, forming a cathedral-like interior. The elevator, built into the shafts, are visible, running up in two of the silos.
There are 100 galleries spread over nine floors with a boutique hotel at the top, and its focus of 21st-century work from Africa and the diaspora is centered around the private collection of Zeitz.
You can read about how Zeitz built the world’s biggest museum of African art at this site: https://robbreport.com/shelter/art-collectibles/jochen-zeitz-built-world-biggest-museum-african-art-eg17-2727999/
The atrium features a flying dragon by South African artist Nicholas Hlobo, and it is totally awesome. The permanent collection featured several artists (you can read about the artists at this site: https://zeitzmocaa.museum/art-artists/
One of my favorites was Jody Paulsen’s “Here to Stay” and William Kentridge’s 15-minute film that was projected on six panels in a diorama entitled “More Sweetly Play the Dance.” Glenn Ligon’s work was interesting as was Cyrus Kabiru’s masks. And there two pieces by Chris Ofili, an artist who became controversial in 1999 when his painting The Holy Virgin of Mary was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. The mixed-media painting depicts a black Madonna decorated with elephant manure, and it drew the ire of then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The museum, which is supported by public funding, later sued Giuliani after he threatened to freeze its budget allocation. I often showed the work to students in my Mass Media Law class when we discuss freedom of speech and freedom of expression since Giuliani, as mayor, represented the government and what he attempted to do was censor Ofili’s work.
The piece sold at Christie’s in London in 2015 for $4.6 million. The selling price was a record for Ofili, whose previous auction record was 1.9 million pounds.
We spent at least four hours in the museum, punctuated with a lunch on the top floor that looked over the harbor and back to Table Mountain.
Then we wandered the waterfront. It’s pretty much like any other waterfront we’ve visited, and it’s a tourist trap. Since we can’t purchase anything until after we do the 18-day safari, we were safe.
At 6:30 p.m., we trundled down the street a bit to Gold Restaurant and participated in another touristy thing but the food was worth it. It was all African food from around the continent. We started with the most delicious tomato soup I’ve ever eaten from Zanzibar with Nigerian corn pot bread, followed by some street foods including a South African fish cake, a Moroccan lamb phyllo cigar, an Ethiopian iab, a Zambian Kondolo ball and a Kenyan Irio Patty.
The main course included Congo chicken, Zanzibar vegetable pilau, Namibian venison pot, Tanzanian mchica w’Nazi and Nigerian corn and beans. The most delicious was the Tanzanian mchica w/nazi, which was spinach, ground nuts and coconut milk.
Then we finished with Cape Malay boeber, a milk pudding to die for, and a Cape Malay Karamonk biscuit.
Throughout the evening, performers sang and danced. Oh, we got there early and participated in a drumming lesson on a djembe.
The side view of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (MOCAA)
Beth had to try out this thing that spins like a top. They were around the front entrance to the museum.
This is the atrium of the museum with the flying dragon by South African artist Nicholas Hlobo. It was very cathedral like.
This is a piece titled "Here to Stay" by Jody Paulsen, 2015. Blow it up and look at it closely.
This is part of the six-panel diorama that featured a film by William Kentridge. This is the beginning, in which Africans move through the panels, followed by the colonial band, below. The film depicted colonization, the AIDS crisis and the indomitable African culture that survived it all.
This is Blue Steps (Fall From Grace) by Chris Ofili, 2011.
This is "The Jetty" by Julien Sinzogan, 2010. Look at it carefully.
This is looking out one of the windows on the top floor of the museum.
This is Lion's Head and Signal Hill.
Yep, that's Table Mountain. It was closed today because of "averse" weather. :)
This is the Old Clock Tower, an icon of of the old Cape Town harbor. It was the original Port Captain's Office built in 1882. The pointed Gothic windows surrounds the structure with a clock, imported from Edinburgh, as its main feature. The red walls are the same color as they were in the 1800s, having been carefully. matched to scraping of the original paint.
The evening concluded with supper and entertainment at the Gold Restaurant (photo by Beth).
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