56 Church Street
Cape Town CBD
Monday - Friday
09:30 - 17:00
Saturday
10:00 - 13:30
First Thursdays
17:00 - 21:00 Visit Website
With an increasing focus on African Art around the world, Eclectica Contemporary aims to present a carefully selected and focused collection of art from the continent that interrogates the issues facing us in a globalized world. The art at Eclectica often shows practices and materials familiar from art history but which push these boundaries and explore uncharted territories of representation, technique and theory.
Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Eclectica Contemporary sees itself as an African gallery with an international vision. We celebrate the diversity and depth of art making on our continent while aiming to contextualize this for a growing global market.
Our program of exhibitions shows a mix of solo shows by gallery artists alongside curated group shows. In addition, the Eclectica Contemporary exhibition space has facilities for experimental, new media and project-based works.
The dominant iteration in Contemporary African Art is portraiture, a genre and tradition primarily the province of white men in power. Its ubiquity today is immensely instructive, because now it is no longer power – the economy of patronage – which dictates portraiture, but a democratic instinct and desire to embrace the lives of others – black lives in particular. Moreover, it is not the classical genre of portraiture that prevails but its distinctive morphing, notably, ‘the freshness or boldness of the palettes’. Today, in African and diasporic paintings by black artists, there is undoubtedly a marked colour saturation – ‘something different in the way the black body is rendered’. - Ashraf Jamal
Participating artists include:
Nedia Were, Ley Mboramwe, Olajumoke Lateef, Boris Anje, Oloruntobi Aina, Ibim Cookey, BobNosa Uwagboe, Aladejare Ayodeji, Restone Maambo and Aluu Prosper.
2 June 2022 (Cape Town)
116 Loop Street (CLOSES 9PM)
99 Loop Street (CLOSES 8PM)
37A Somerset Road (CLOSES 8PM)
15 Buitenkant Street
25 Commercial Street (CLOSES 7PM)
Church Square (CLOSES 9PM)
25 Commercial Street
117 Long Street (CLOSES 8PM)
