Mother City fair will be a crucible of old and new
Convergence and in some cases a clash of cultures bring dynamism, writes Melvyn Minnaar
If the great make-belief of the contemporary art fair — punted by the most proficient PR operations — is that it is an authoritative showcase of the finest creativity once the terrain of art museums, the reality is that such events are charged only by two dynamics: the old and the new. It can also be described as the established versus the emerging, and both can be convincingly flogged by dealers and gallerists — perhaps the most fashionable career in today’s high-fly, money-charged culture. (The people who love to misuse the word "curate".) If you have any doubts about what fuels the business of the art bazaar, the new moniker of the sixth one in Cape Town gives it all away: the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2018. The third party in the venture is the buyer or, as the cultural cliché these days will have it, the "collector". They also come as "old" or "young", but are mostly rich and skilled in the manner art can shape a social profile. The grandly established dealer-galleries will b...
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