Joburg Art Fair: Not yet bold enough
Political art probably isn’t as Instagrammable as all the abstract art, which has dominated previous fairs
Most often it is easy to guess what the most "Instagrammable" art piece at the FNB Joburg Art Fair has been without having to do a hashtag search on social media. Over the years Ed Young could be relied upon to deliver a showstopper at the Smac Gallery stand, with wry scripto-visual paintings like I see black people, which was photographed last year by everyone from school children to high-flying professionals and art aficionados.This year there were no obviously Instagrammable artworks, though Lucinda Mudge’s irreverent classical-looking pottery brandishing rude phrases like "holy shit" at the Everard Read stand must have attracted thousands of likes. Young did deliver a memorable work, in the form of a video work of two little people wearing masks depicting a cry baby and a bully, fighting it out in Cape Town’s manicured Company Gardens. However, he might have taken viewers on a journey far beyond the borders of decency. This is what you want from art. Yet due to market forces it ...
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