The pulse of the African art market

Podcast transcript: scroll to the areas that interest you

• TF: Tristanne Farrell, Investec Wealth and Investment International, Snr Investment manager
• HOL: Hannah O'Leary, Sotheby's London Snr Director, Modern and Contemporary African Art, head
• PT: Pule Taukobong, private equity and venture capitalist, The Intrepid founder

• 00:00: Intro

  00:00 HOL: When we started sales at Sotheby's in 2016, the African market was 20 million. The auction market, by the way, which is what we can really quantify, the turnover, annually, was like 20 million. It was less than 0.1 percent of the global market today.

  I think in 2023, which obviously is the most recent complete year, the turnover of auction sales was 80 million.

  So, a huge amount of growth, we're still talking 0.6 percent of the global art market. There is such potential in this market, but the support has to begin at home.

  TF: Welcome to Art in Focus, an Investec Focus radio series that explores the dynamic and growing African art market. I'm Tristanne Farrell, your podcast host.

  I'm a senior investment manager at Investec Wealth and Investment International and have a passion for art. In this podcast, I'll be chatting with art collectors, investors, renowned artists and emerging talents about the current state of the African art scene.

  Whether you're an art novice or a seasoned investor, join me now as we tour the landscape of Africa's artistic expression together.

  In this episode, we will be unpacking the African art market, the trends, the fairs, and we will discuss whether the African art market is sustainable in the long run. 

• 01:20: Introduction of guests

  TF: Let's meet my guests. I'm joined today by Hannah O'Leary and Pule Taukobong.

  Hannah is the Senior Director of Sotheby's London and Head of Modern and Contemporary African Art. She's also a very good friend of mine and a collector, and part of her day to day is travelling through Africa, visiting artists and studios across the continent. Pule, apart from us working together many years ago in finance, you're now an investor in private equity and venture capital and your career is also quite global.

  I think you left SA, you went to New York, you came back, you ventured offshore a little bit and you've got a passion for collecting art, it's a serious passion. And you only specifically collect African art, which is our draw card today. So to the point where your wife has actually kicked out your excess art to a man cave in town, right?

  PT: Correct

  TF: So welcome to you both.

  HOL: Thank you.

  PT: Thanks for having us.

   

• 02:16: Is the African contemporary art market's boom, about to bust?

  TF: So, should we kick off with the African art theme as our first question? So, Africa, the continent and African art has always been a big collecting focus for a lot of people globally. The shift seems to be moving now more towards the Chinese market. There was talk at one point of it shifting towards Lat Am. I don't know what you guys are seeing or if you've got a view on this and maybe we'll start with you Hannah. 

  HOL: Hannah. Sure, absolutely. Um, So we started sales of African art at Sotheby's in, I joined in 2016. We had our first sale in 2017. Sotheby's has always been the first into these quote-unquote emerging markets.

  So we were the first to sell Latin American art in the 90s, I think 80s, 90s, um, Middle Eastern art in the early noughties. Asian art in the 80s. What's interesting about these market is actually about fostering collectors. So for us, it's all about the collectors from the continent and how we're engaging with them and how we're giving them what they want and how we're providing a platform for the greatest art from those areas.

  That's quite aside from maybe what you're suggesting here, which is the contemporary art market, which is always looking for a fashion, a trend, what's new, what's exciting, what's investable, and how do you keep ahead of the market. So, we're talking about two different things, I think, and we're going to get on to sustainability, I think, in a moment.

  And I believe 100 percent in the sustainability of this market. But yeah, the contemporary art market is always looking for the next big thing, whether that's a region or a country or a gender or a political movement. It's always looking for what's next, what's hot, what's a good investment today.

  TF: Are you seeing the shift from the African sales specifically at Sotheby's to more. generic contemporary art within your space?

  HOL: I can say hand on my heart, no. There is a growing interest in African art. Every one of our auctions, we have more and more new buyers. I think in our last auction, we had 40 percent of our buyers were new to Sotheby's, meaning they had never been in an auction with Sotheby's before.

  So that's really encouraging. And our buyers tend to be younger, and majority of them are African themselves or from the African diaspora. So that's really what we're targeting anyway.

  What we could talk about maybe is within that market where there was a bit of a bubble, maybe related to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, we saw a huge surge in interest in black artists from Africa and the diaspora and collectors and collections really seeing them.

  Oh, our international collections are not international. Our collections are not diverse. We really need to correct that. There was a real knee-jerk reaction to that, which did result in a huge boom of interest in the market. And maybe some of that is quietening down and moving on to new markets.

  PT: I'd agree with Hannah that I think we're seeing a growing amount of collectors.

  If I remember, I, became an accidental collector in 2007. There was a friend of mine, her mother was an artist. dealer and we used to in Investec days, we would blow up our bonuses at a soccer and her mother at the time said, you know, you guys should really buy art. And I bought my first Kentridge then in 2007, but it was on advice, you know, I wasn't really seeking out.

  But since then, and a lot of people thought, you know, why are you doing this? Why are you buying art? It's just going to hang there. But since then, uh, I've seen peers start collecting. I've heard artists saying they get more, more local collectors. So it's still a tiny fraction in terms of like what we need from a local collectors.

  I think when Hannah and I last spoke, you see it a bit in Nigeria where there's a long, strong local support. I think in South Africa, we need like to go a lot more in terms of who's buying local art, diverse art. So not just your Kentridges and your Irma Stearns and your well-known established names.

  I think there's a vibrant scene from a creativity perspective. So yeah, more collectors are coming, but we definitely need a lot more. 

• 05:59: Women are the best-selling African artists

  TF: I recently read a book by Katie Hessel, who's an African art historian. I'm sure you've read it as well, Hannah, but it's a story of art without men, basically.

  And it's a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. And the book basically unpacks the history of art without men, but the pivotal role women play in the art space.

  Moving on that kind of theme- are you seeing any key sales, like when we were in Frieze now, but when we were in London, there was a lot of talk around black female artists being key drivers of sales at the moment from Africa as a continent.

  Are you seeing that? Are you agreeing with that comment?

  HOL: One of the really interesting anomalies of this market is that the African art market has always been led by women and people are always really surprised to hear this.

  The bestselling artists from the continent are all women from every corner. I mean we're here in South Africa the bestselling living artist from the continent until last year was Marlene Dumas. The best-selling 20th Century artist is Irma Stern. Irma Stern has dominated the auction market here since, I mean, in the 20 years I've been working in this market and going back through, you know, the last 50 years as well.

  We have in East Africa, you have people like Julie Moreto. She is now the best-selling, actually not just the best-selling female artists, the best-selling African artist of all time.

  We sold one of her works last year. I should have this figure at the tip of my tongue. I don't, but it was in excess of 10 million.

  West Africa, you have people like Toyo Nojo Odutola and Njideka Akanyili Crosby, both from Nigeria.

  They both command seven figures in US dollars at auction. So it has been kind of one of those weird anomalies about the African market is that  it is the highest selling market, um, artists from the continent are all women.

  And I wish that that was a great positive fact. I think the fact of the matter is that both African artists and female artists... when you have these talented artists that do rise to have representations by the likes of Hauser Wirth or Gagosian or these mega-galleries internationally, then there is a huge amount of demand.

  People say, Oh, I want an African artist, a female artist. I'm going to jump to one of these names. It doesn't really talk to a lot of diversity.

  If you look at the whole market, we're not seeing 50/50 parity between men and women, absolutely not. I think a lot more work still needs to be done in the representation of women at the auction houses.

  Sure. And it's something we're working on constantly, but at the galleries as well. And in the collectors too, don't forget that women makeup, you know, a very powerful collecting base as well, and really should be nurtured and taken care of by the galleries and by the people selling the art as well. It all plays into that representation in the marketplace.

• 08:37: Lack of diversity in art needs addressing

  PT: I'm glad you mentioned the point on the people selling the art. So I think yes, diversity is extremely important from many different facets.  We are seeing a lot of, you know, female artists out there creating art. I think you're also seeing more people being vocal about the LGBTQ space.

  You saw what happened in Uganda when the government tried to clamp that down and you're seeing artists more vocal about what's happening in that space.

  But I think it's one thing to be diverse on the creator side, which is what we need. I think galleries need to be more diverse and how they open up to collectors. I won't lie- a controversial point, like as a black collector, it's hard sometimes to interact with galleries. You know, they're not that receptive.

  It's like, do you have the money? There's this weird question about who you are, what's your profile, who can vouch for you. It's just not easy. But then what we're also seeing though, is that artists want more diverse collectors. Sure. So they also don't want to be selling only to a specific demographic of who has their art.

  They want people who can relate with their art. People who come from similar backgrounds and can really translate what's being created. So, diversity in general, in complex but needed. 

  HOL: I love that point you raised, Pule, because it's a conversation I just had with, I often have with the young, especially young black female artists in London, which is where I live, about the power of the artist.

  If you're going to join a big gallery and the gallery knows they're making money off your back, then you can lay down the law. You can say, you know, I want to have a show in Africa. I want to make sure that a certain percentage of my collectors are black, are African. It's really important to me.

  And I think the market is so focused on very young artists at the moment. I mean, many of them are under the age of 30. They don't always know their own power and, the leverage that they can have with those sales.

  And it's really important, I think, for all of us to make sure that where we can make those differences and diversify the art world as a whole, it's really, really valuable and artists hold so much of that power they need to understand it.

  PT: I love the point where you say, you know artists are the creators. They're the centre of this and they can be the drivers of it. So on the point about age, the focus does seem to be on the younger contemporary artists, which is great and exciting and needed, but let's also not forget about our legends, a lot of the living ones.

  If I think of Mama Helen Sebidi. You know, very important artists and, you know, it's interesting- I'd love to see what you see on the auction side where I find like the older living masters- people don't pay that much attention to them. It's more the ones that have passed on.

  HOL: Yeah. I mean, interestingly, that's really my main area of interest,  20th-century modernism.

  And when you think about the female artists, I mean, there were often, you know, there were real barriers to access the art market for African artists, let alone if you're a female African artist. The Smithsonian have done a lot of work on that in America at the National Museum of African Art. They did a major show on women artists of Africa.

  But a lot of work still needs to be done by the academics, by the authors, by the institutions. Norval Foundation did an amazing show on female South African artists.

  But that was at the tail end of COVID, I think. I would have loved to see that show travel. I'm always looking for more female artists for our auctions.

  I mean, if anyone out there wants to sign anything, please bring it to me because it's something I really want to prioritize is getting that right. 

• 12:07: The importance of fairs to the art ecosystem

  TF: The Investec Cape Town Art Fair remains the biggest of its kind on the continent at the moment. How important are art fairs to the whole African art ecosystem and to you personally?

  So we can start with Pule on that one.

  PT: Yeah, I think highlighting what's happening in a high-quality manner is absolutely key. And that's what the Investec Art Fair does. I think it gathers artists from across the continent. It brings in international collectors, and international galleries, but it centres the South of Africa and brings everyone in.

  So, it's important. It's a great quality event. If I think about: Why else do I enjoy it? I think that what I saw two years ago, was it two years ago? You took a break after COVID, right?

  TF: Um, we did online during COVID, but...

  PT: ...where I saw more artists start coming to themselves because it's sometimes the fairs tend to focus on the galleries and the artworks, right.

  And I think again, trying to bring the artist at the centre of it all. I saw that Investec Art Fair has started to do that. So important fair. And it's great that it's gathering more international attention. 

• 13:09 Young artists who came to the fore through the Investec Cape Town Fair

  TF: Have you purchased artwork at the fair?

  PT: Yes. So I remember I bought three Sungi works. When I saw Sungi, I was just like, what?

  Like, come on, no one's pulling the trigger here. So, and that was the first one after COVID, if I remember correctly. And I just like, was so blown away.

  HOL: we should maybe tell The listeners... Sungi is a young Ugandan artist who has blown up, and you're right, the first time I discovered her was because her Ugandan gallery came here to South Africa and showed her at the Art Fair, which is, I mean, goes to show just how important and how instrumental fairs can be.

  And now you cannot, I mean, there's a waiting list for her work. It's like, 10, 20 times the price they were back then. I mean, you did very well, Pule. And, but that's the exciting thing about art fairs, is discovering galleries and artists that you wouldn't in your day-to-day life in the city that you live in.

  And it's instrumental in that. I think, I mean, Cape Town Art Fair, I think I've been to every single one. I mean, I remember the first, and second edition, which was like in a tent down at the Waterfront. 

  It's grown so much. It's now such an international event that organizers do an amazing job of bringing collectors from not just across the world and across South Africa, but so many African collectors come here as like the prominent event on the continent.

  TF: Yeah.

  HOL: It's, it's not to be missed. And also what I just wanted to say is how they engage with the city. So it's not just about the fair, they engage. All the collectors, all the galleries and the museums here and make it into an art week. It's probably the most exciting art week on the continent right now.

  TF: Tristanne: I think that's a lot of thanks to our partner Fiera Milano in Italy that actually does a lot of that with us and the interactions and market us overseas, but also with the the Cape Town City, as you said, like Alan Winde and his team basically trying to interact with the galleries and bring everyone together.

  So hopefully it's just going to get bigger and bigger year after year. 

• 14:58: Reflecting on Frieze London and Emma Prempeh's show

  TF: So I wanted to reflect... all of us were at Frieze this year. Frieze is the largest annual contemporary art fair in London. It's held in Regent Park and it's called Frieze, F-R-I-E-Z-E. And since they've started out, they've actually acquired a number of other, several other art fairs under their banner.

  It's quite a large fair and they run a Frieze contemporary series, a masters and then they've got a sculpture garden in between the two. So, it's really well represented. Also, again, opens up to a new brand of African artists for us to explore.

  So we all went, to Frieze this year. We were lucky enough to have a breakfast at Sotheby's with Hannah and her team and Pule was there too.

  And Pule and I, and you, started talking about Emma Prempeh's show. So that stood out to all of us and I just thought it was worth mentioning and just sharing a few views on it.

  It was with Tiwani Contemporary. It was called Wandering Under a Shifting Sun and Emma basically lives between Uganda, UK, and West Africa. Her work concentrates on home, belonging and memory.

  And the thing that drew us to it was she had brought in this kind of visual experience where she reflected some birds and a few things onto the magnificently painted canvases. So I just wanted to talk to you both about that kind of show we both saw and what your view was of her work and that show.

  HOL: I'm a huge fan of Emma's. I've been following her career for a few years now. It gets better and better and more sophisticated. I should mention that Tiwani Contemporary is always a gallery to watch. They're so good at spotting young talent and they tend to get, like, stolen away by the big galleries in no time at all.

  They were the first to show people like Simone Leigh, Njideka Akinyili Crosby, Michaela Yearwood Dan, Joy Labinjo, like these big, big names in the kind of black art world.

  Yeah, I think that she is again, still incredibly young, incredibly sophisticated. I loved that show. You know, if you want to think about what's happened with the African art market in the last few years, and this like obsession with black figurative painting, which is kind of a redundant phrase, I think.

  I mean, just because you paint portraiture, you paint people that doesn't need to be reduced down to figurative painting or identity politics. And what Emma is doing here is so unique. and individual. I definitely think she's one to watch or she's one to buy. I mean, it's pretty hard to get hold of her work already.

  PT: I was blown away.  It's one of the best exhibitions I've been to and for many different personal reasons. So one of the reasons, if you look at our collection, the collection is focused on black joy, black joy, black everyday life in a very positive manner. Black beauty, because a lot of the art that we used to see created by people of from the continent of African descent, used to be of us suffering.

  So it was, this was apartheid. This was people getting hurt. This is where people get arrested and we wouldn't see art of us swimming, having joy or like when you're sitting at home in the township, how awesome that is, you know, often when people depict "hood life", it's in a depressing way- where it's like, no, this is where we live.

  And it was epic and Emma captured that, like she captured everyday life at home in such an awesome, natural, authentic manner. And then add the part about, I'm obsessed with like, how do you get digital to interact with physical art.

  And the way she had incorporated the projector to create moving scenes in her artwork, both in the nighttime and the daytime was just, yeah, I take my hat off. I'm blown away!

  HOL: It's so interesting you mentioned the technology because when I think of her work, I also think of her interest in art history and the old master paintings and Chiaroscuro. And so it's interesting to see this artist who's looking both at the very old and the very new as well. And I think that's another kind of layer to her work and that adds value and interest as well.

  PT:  Huge fan.Huge, huge fan.  

  TF: Pule and I debriefed this in London. We both were huge fans. So I emailed Tiwani to ask what was left and there were literally two tiny works left. So there's nothing there.

  HOL: I sent you the list! And then works kept disappearing off the list because I guess it's a dynamic list, right?

  TF: You didn't send it to me, Hannah.

  HOL: It was him that asked for it.

  PT: It was great. I hope to see more of her work.

  HOL: Did you get one?

  PT: Not unfortunately not yet.

  TF: We’ll sit on the back burner and wait.

  PT: I'll get one!

  TF: Keep me posted, Pule.

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• 19:59: Another African artist to watch: Pamela Phatsimo Sundstrum

  TF: The other artist that we saw at Frieze this year was Pamela Phatsimo Sundstrum that you and I often talk about, Hannah. Originally from Botswana, she had a show at the Barbicon and it was a solo show.

  It was around Frieze at the time. Goodman Gallery in Cork Street then showed some of the pencil works that she'd done on these big, larger works of hers.

  And they were lived stills effectively. And she places herself in the stills. What did you think of her show? How, what kind of benchmark is this for her in her career?

  HOL: I feel like Pamela is the reason for our entire friendship, Tristanne. (Laughter) Because many years ago I walked into the Cape Town Art Fair and I saw her work and I said, I want that piece and they said, no, it's already sold. And later on, I met up with Tristanne and she said, look what I just bought and she bought my painting.

  So that has always been a bone of contention. And then I missed out on so many, again at Tiwani Contemporary. We just talked about her with Emma Prempeh.

  They showed her work for many years. I do have one of Pamela's paintings. It's my pride and joy, which was after my, I think, fourth attempt of buying one from them.

  They finally relented and gave me one. I think she's phenomenal. Look, she is, again, a highly intelligent, really put so much thought into her work, very sensitive, works with great galleries, works on amazing museum projects. I loved her work at the Liverpool Biennial, two summers ago, I think now, in Northern Summer.

  The space at the Barbican, that curved space, is so special and really forces an artist to think creatively about how they use that space. And I think she's done that so sensitively. I loved the show at Goodman Gallery with the propriety sketches for it. I think she's phenomenal. 

  PT: I missed the exhibition, but I saw the ones at Goodman downstairs, and I think that was very, very well done.

  I think I also like sketches in the sense that it sometimes feels like the process behind the scenes in terms of creation. So it's more like of an inside look. So I did appreciate that about it.

  TF: Okay, great. So she's one we're going to keep on the radar.

• 22:02 African art becoming more tactile

  TF: The next thing I wanted to dive into was basically around African art taking more of a tactile direction.

  So, it seems a lot of the sales and a lot of the collectors are now looking towards ceramics and fabrics and, you know, namely like an Igshaan Adams with tapestry works. Um, we saw Hylton Nel on the Dior catwalk this year. It's an artist who lives in Calitzdorp is in Paris on the catwalks! And then Zizipho Poswa with the large bronze ceramics and Francis Goodman at the Frieze Sculpture Garden.

  So there's a lot of tactile, around that market. What are you guys seeing or feeling around that subject?

  PT: For me, it's also a step in the direction of recognising how we as Africans create. So like we to use our hands in terms of like natural. This is how we make things. It's not always like writing it or painting it.

  Sometimes it's really physical of how we express ourselves in the arts. And I think it's great to see that the industry is recognizing that there's a lot more being created and I think artists themselves, even though they're known for painting, wanting to do more. You'll hear artists, someone like, let me see, Wanda Kuhle, who'll say, why can't I create a furniture piece?

  Like his furniture piece, he's Zulu, strong heritage that he really zones into where a lot of things that were created to express were done physically.

  So how do you incorporate that into your art? And I think it's allowing the natural language of some artists to come through rather than just what goes on a canvas.

  So hopefully we see more of it, but yes, it's a step closer to our authenticity.

  HOL: I think it also speaks to the diversification of the art world. You know, the art, there used to be so many gatekeepers and there was this very strict canon of what, what is an artist? What is fine art, you know? And mostly it was, what's the phrase?

  Male? Male and stale. Yeah, And it was painting and sculpture, and it wasn't female artists, and it was definitely not ceramics and tapestries.

  They were kind of. denigrated as craft. And of course, these are phenomenal artworks. You cannot think of someone like Yixuan as anything but a phenomenal contemporary artist.

  And Zizipho, I'm probably not correctly saying her name, but I think she's an amazing artist, sculptor, and her material happens to be ceramics. So I'm really enjoying this, you know, revisiting these art forms and incorporating them into the canon as well. 

  PT: Did you see, when Prof Zanele Muholi had done the sculptures at Southern Guild, those were amazing, you know, and here's Prof is known for their photography and now to go into sculptures of that size was just amazing and then there was Wangechi Mutu at the New Museum...

  HOL: Wangechi is amazing! And then she uses, I mean, so many of her work. I, you might know this, but she has a practice. She has a studio in New York and she has a studio in Nairobi. And in Nairobi, she, a lot of those sculptures come from her studio in Nairobi, where she actually works with the clay of the ground in Kenya.

  So the African soil, the African earth is so central to her practice. I love those pieces. Yeah. You've just mentioned three names. I think it's worth noting that you mentioned Zizipho…. Please help me with her name!

  PT: Zizipho.

  HOL: Yes, Zizpho Muholi and Francis Goodman. Yeah. Um, all three of these artists were at the sculpture park at Frieze this year, which made up for, I think, 13 percent of the artists were these female or non-binary South African artists, which is kind of amazing actually for a part of the fair where we really didn't see much interaction from the African continent.

  PT: Did any of you make it to 154?

  HOL: Of course. It's a must see.

  PT: Loved the color. I mean, the contrast between 154 and Frieze was completely interesting. Different audience, different crowd. I was glad I made it through.

  HOL: I think 154, so 154 being the African Art Fair, it started in London in 2013, it now takes place in Marrakesh and New York as well.

  They have done so much work for providing a platform for African art outside the continent and now on with what they do in Morocco as well. When I started working in this industry 20 years ago, it was so hard to access art from Africa outside Africa. It was as basic as that. But as soon as you bring it to the to an audience, they appreciate the quality. They appreciate the phenomenal creativity and industry that takes place on the continent.

• 26:24: Are the record high prices being fetched sustainable?

  TF: So just another point, I think we kind of covered it earlier, but I just want to go back to it- Is African artists now that are beyond most people's price ranges, and this came up on Sotheby's, I think, website hitting the international markets, breaking all-time highs. We're talking Julie Merethu, Lisa Brice and Jacob Crosby, Michael Armitage, William Kentridge... Is this kind of traction sustainable in your view?

  HOL: I'm going to say yes. I mean, those are masters. Those are geniuses, wherever you're coming from. Whatever way you look at it.

  One thing I try and remind collectors is that they were all affordable at one point. I mean, Pule, you just said that the majority of your collection is artists between the ages of 25 and 35.

  If you had collected any of those artists at those ages, you would have picked something up for a reasonable price, and now you'd be sitting on a masterpiece. I think you should definitely as a collector be looking at a wide scope. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. You know, maybe if you invest in ten young artists, one of them is going to be a Julie Mehretu.

  But I would always encourage people to be supporting young artists because that's what's going to give them the encouragement to keep moving, keep making, keep getting better.

  TF: It's your next market.

  HOL: It is always, there's always going to be the next Judy Mehretu, I mean, people say this to me all the time, who's the next, and I give them a name, they say, oh, I've never heard of them, and I say, that's the point, right?

  Don't just follow what everyone else wants, like, really, you know, go to the galleries, put, you know, do some homework, speak to insiders, and take a punt on a less known artist.

  TF: Yeah, I think that's key actually, as well, because when I was buying Pamela's work, I was the only one who liked it and everyone was like, Oh, I'm not sure about it.

  And I was like, I really loved it. So I buy what I love and stick with it. And I think you're the same, right?

  PT: Yeah. If I think about Cinga Sampson, it was a similar story where, there was a friendship first where I was really just inspired by how he approaches his creation, but also how he approaches entrepreneurship which is another passion of mine.

  I love supporting entrepreneurs and when artists recognize the entrepreneurship behind the practice, it's like, wow, for me, I'm like, okay, this person recognized that they can make a sustainable living and thrive. And Cinga was one of those persons for me.

  But similarly, you know, very early on, not that many people were supporting and supporting doesn't mean just necessarily buy, it connects to galleries internationally.

  It's helping with mentorship with any other things that they might want to know. How do you register for VAT? How do you, as you open up a company, how do you think about where you're going to be in five, 10 years? And you know, now you'll sit with thing and you'll say, I've looked at my life and I have 16 more exhibitions left in my lifetime.

  So I'm approaching things like this. So it's great to have that, you know, friendship and relationship and support. Yeah. Like I say, it's not just about buying the art. And sometimes you're connecting artists with other collectors as well. If I know, Hey, Hannah likes X, here's the artists that I think you should see. I'm in Cape Town so let's maybe walk you around. So we can support artists in many ways. 

   

• 29:21: How to show proper support to artists: Example of Cinga Sampson

  TF: I also had that as one of my questions to you was, you are one of the biggest collectors of Cinga Sampson’s work. And why do you buy more than one work of an artist? If you really love them, like you said, now you bought three previously...

  PT: Yeah, I bought some and there were some that again came up on auction and didn't get spotted and I was just really puzzled. A- It's support, you know, just to show the artists that I really appreciate their work, because I do appreciate the work, but also for them to recognize that this is something you can make a living with and thrive.

  B- It's this going back to the fascination of helping artists create a self-sustainable business is very important to me to say, okay, if you know that me as a patron, I'm going to buy six works over 12 months. What does your business model look like? And I'll ask those questions to say, I'm going to do it like this.

  They'll say, okay, I can get my studio now. I can think who I partner up with logistics. And all of a sudden you start creating something that's sustainable. So, that comes from my angel investing and venture background where I'm like, okay... we on the continent are creating high-quality tech companies.

  Why isn't it being recognized like it is in San Francisco? But if you look at a company like Yoco, it's up there with a company like Square. So it's the same thing with art where I think if we put it on the global scale, help people recognize that the quality of this is epic. Then the artists and the creators have the same confidence to say, okay, I can make this thrive.

  I can become a Njideka and have my work selling for x, but it's up to that local belief and self-belief to get into the artist's practice. 

• 30:57 Where's the best place to source artwork?

  TF: And then sticking with you (Pule) just for a moment, when you collect works, what sort of channels do you use? Do you go online? Do you do galleries? Do you do fairs? Do you do auctions?

  PT: I would say a large part of the art I've collected has come from artists I know who have said, "Whoa", you know, based on this, you need to meet this person, you need to meet that person. I think I'm excited about, there's a business called Latitudes Online, which is a large online gallery.

  And I've supported them as well. That's a quick way of seeing, like a good way of seeing a very broad vast network online. But I would say, yes, hand-on-heart artists have introduced me to other artists and that's led to something else. So, when I'm visiting Durban, there's an artist who's saying, let's go see these six artists.

  When I'm going to Joburg, it's the same thing. And that's how it's been built.

• 31:47: Pule and Hannah reluctantly give up the names of their current favourite artists

  TF: Can you give us some names of your favourite artists that you already own?

  PT: Love them all. But I would say like some local artists that I'm collecting and advise people if well, not advise, but would suggest in terms of if you're looking to collect it's kind of like what are you looking for if I look at...

  TF: I feel like I've just asked him who his favorite child is...

  PT: it's not favorite it's it's more about

  HOL: that I would love to...

  PT: ...talk about I'm really excited about what Mmangalisa Nzuza is doing um I think his take of, call it cubism in a very African authentic way.

  And again, telling natural stories in a natural way from a wonderful lady from the DRC living here in Johannesburg, uh, Cinthia Malunga. Very interesting data point, she says the same birthday as someone she's really inspired by Sam Nhlengethwa in terms of how he's done collage and Sam is another, yes, collage, mixed media.

  TF: And she was at 154, right?

  HOL: Yeah, we've sold her a Sotheby's as well.

  PT: So I think she's, you know, really exciting, young, up and coming. In KZN, there Sphephepo Mnguni who's really kind of steers toward he's inspired by Kerry James Marshall and the likes and what he's telling about what we as black people are doing on our everyday scenes in happiness, joy he's got a series now where he's giving capturing living legends, uh, which is very exciting.

  Like so other artists that he recognised that are inspiring him as well that alive are great. Gosh that list is endless. There's Ndidi, Emefieli…

  HOL: I love her.

  PT: and like she's in London and yeah, lives... but from Nigeria, but in London. And I did a studio visit with her last year, November or two years ago.

  And I just think she's so under the radar, but she's epic. Absolutely, epic! But I could go on. I want to stop. 

  TF: Hannah, I'll give you two minutes to share some of…

  HOL: My favorite artists? My God.

  TF: Personally, what do have your eye on?

  HOL: Oh, my goodness. So my collection is quite varied. It is focused on the continent, obviously. I have a balance between artists that I know, um, you know, when you have a relationship with them. And, so I have people like Miranda Forrester, who's a black British artist who I really love. And Peju Alatise, who's a Nigerian artist.

  TF: Miranda was a Tiwane as well.

  Another Tiwane artist... I mean, it sounds like I'm being paid by Tiwane! I am not.

  PT: Peju, was at 154.

  HOL: I have an addition by my friend Nengi  Omoku. I wish I could have an original. I don't know if you saw that she had a solo presentation at Frieze this year. They had an "artists by artists" section, so big-name artists who chose an up-and-coming artist that they really enjoyed.

  So Yinka Shonibara chose Nengi OMoku. It was like my favourite spoof in the entire fair. I just came to Cape Town from Lagos, so these Nigerian artists are fresh in my mind. Modupeopla Fadugba - another young Nigerian artist, and she just showed me her new body of work. It's mind-blowing. There is so much talent on the continent and so much... I mean, I don't know if I'm biased, but so much of it is female right now.

  TF: ...which is great. 

• 35:01: The overall health of the African art market

  TF: So also then towards Hannah.

  Now we're going to target your business brain here. So with Sotheby's, the African art market results recently, what are the trends? What are results looking like? Is it up? Down? I know there was a shift in the global art market from that UBS report.

  HOL: Yeah, I mean the UBS report I don't think goes into Africa so much. So that's looking at the global market. So there are some market reports like Art Tactic do a really good one on African art. But the data coming out of the African sales is few and far between. I wish there was a little bit more done on it.

  We do a lot of it in the house. The market is growing. It's not a steady growth. It comes in fits and ... fits and starts... was the phrase I was looking for.

  Thank you. We've definitely, look, we've had a year of a bit of a slowdown in the art market globally, and I won't pretend that hasn't affected the art market.

  But for example, for us at Sotheby's in 2024, it just means that we've done more private sales this year than we did in auction sales. There's always reasons people are selling, and there are always people buying, and it just, we just have to adapt to where the market is.

  We definitely saw a huge amount of interest between 2020 and 2022 in very young black artists doing figurative painting, we kind of touched on that earlier.

  We're seeing the market move on from that, but I don't think that's any bad thing. You know, there's more interest in older artists now, there's more interest in abstract work. We have definitely brought on a lot of new collectors who are interested in learning more. So constantly, it's a question of, " what else should I be looking at, of what, how can I refine my collection?"

  And that's what I really enjoy is working with collectors in the long term on building meaningful collections rather than the short-term investors

• 36:40: Understanding the potential of the African Art market

  TF: Then just again, Hannah, the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, UNLAC 154, doesn't categorize the fair as an African fair, but as a contemporary fair, um, what is the impact of African art on the contemporary market globally?

  HOL: Yeah, I mean, of course, you're not going to call your own contemporary art African art and that term African is often kind of a redundant term, right? I mean, you can't categorize the entire continent.

  We use it because at Sotheby's, we weren't showing a lot of African art and therefore we felt like there was a use or a need for a platform for these artists and certainly in the time I've been there, we've included hundreds of African artists in Sotheby's auctions that were not selling in Sotheby's auctions before.

  So I'm very proud of that fact. In the long term, I would love there not to be an African sale. I would love these artists to have full recognition and full representation within our international categories. And that's what we do more and more every year. So every year we're including more African artists in our international sales, and we're expanding the market for them.

  So that's something I really enjoy about my job. Look, there's still a long way to go before we see that the African market... When we started sales at Sotheby's in 2016, the African market was 20 million auction market, by the way, which is what we can really quantify with the turnover annually was like 20 million.

  It was less than 0.1 percent of the global market today. I think in 2023, which obviously, is the most recent complete year, the turnover auction sales was 80 million dollars.

  So a huge amount of growth, but we're still talking 0.6 percent of the global art market. Africa represents 20 percent or nearly 20 percent of the world's population, and we're not even thinking about the diaspora that lives outside the continent.

  There is such potential in this market, and it comes down to, like Pule said, it's you know, collectors on the ground supporting local markets, which will allow for international interest.

  I'm never going to say African art should only be for African collectors. I know the artists want an international market, but the support has to begin at home.

  The patronage has to begin at home. So I feel so positive about the future of this market. We have a long way to go, but I think we're all heading in the right direction. There is growing interest on the ground. There's growing interest internationally. There are more and more institutions being built on the ground here and on the continent, and more international institutions are looking at the continent as well.

  So all signs are good. 

• 39:16: Closing and where to subscribe to listen to the series

  TF: Great. Thank you both for joining us today. I really appreciate all the views and the thoughts we've shared.

  We'll see you both at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in February the largest contemporary art fair on the continent that brings Africa to the world and the world to Africa.

  [00:39:16] Thank you. Awesome. Thanks for listening to this episode of Art in Focus, brought to you by Investec Focus Radio. You can find all these episodes of the series at investec. com forward slash art in focus, or wherever you get all your podcasts. If you've enjoyed this episode, please rate it, leave a comment and forward it to all your friends and colleagues.

  [00:39:43] Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the contributors at the time of publication and do not necessarily represent the views of the firm and should not be taken as advice or recommendations. Investec Bank Ltd. An authorized financial services provider and registered credit provider.

   

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