Much ado about Cape07

Cape07 (formerly TransCape) opened to the public on March 24th. Billed as a 'cultural soup afrique' the event will be presenting over 40 artists or is it 45 down from the 65 originally intended across several venues in the city. The opening at Lookout Hill in the large Capetonian township of Khayelitsha proved to be an anticlimax for a project that had been in development for over 5 years when Susan Glanville floated the idea in 2002. My experience of the opening was one of a din. First a wedding reception taking place at the same time in the same venue and then the terrible acoustic which meant that it was more or less impossible to hear what the minister for culture Pallo Jordan was saying. Not minding the commotion - including a performance taking place on the roof (which i missed) Dr Jordan blissfully continued reading out his speech whilst I took the opportunity to slip into the gallery which was one of the main venues for Cape07.



The exhibition was well presented, and there were little surprises or discoveries. It was a verrrry safe exhibition that included locally and some internationally established South African artists such as Marlene Dumas, Nicholas Hlobo, Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko, David Goldblatt and Dineo Seshee Bopape amongst others. They were joined by other African artists such as Godfried Donkor,(Ghana/UK) El Loko (Togo/Germany)Hany Rashid (Egypt).



Godfried Donkor, Nicholas Hlobo andMambakweda Mutasa

Zanele Muholi

Hany Rachid