The Absa L’Atelier Award is one of the most sought-after and prestigious in SA. But another is as coveted: the Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award, which is bestowed on the most promising emerging artists to enter the competition every year. Absa introduced the award in 2004 and honours Sekoto’s legacy, which changed the narrative of how the work and lives of black South African artists would be perceived, valued and documented. An array of top artists has won the award since 2004 and this month a major exhibition brings together their works for the first time, Among the artists in the exhibition, A Change in the Narrative, are Matete Motubatse, Lawrence Lemaoana, Bambo Sibiya and Isabel Mertz, together with many others. And making his curatorial debut is the young Durban artist, Luyanda Zindela, who won a merit award in the 2014 L’Atelier competition. Part of his prize was an art residency at the Ampersand Foundation in New York. Zindela is currently completing his master’s degree i...

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