By Mary Corrigall
“I feel like I’m at a South African Venice Biennale,” a first-time visitor to the RMB Latitudes quipped. Though you don’t need to travel by boat to get from one venue to the next at Shepstone Gardens, the Italian-inspired buildings and the sheer volume of art to be seen could perhaps trick you into thinking you have slipped into an art-centric universe. Certainly, if you wanted to get a taste of South African art in its myriad forms and at different levels, this much-anticipated annual art event in Joburg could function as a ‘national pavilion’ as per the Venice Biennale format.
RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2026, photography by Anthea Pokroy.
As the art fair has grown, adding new display areas and partners ranging from the National Arts Council to La Motte Ateljee and grassroots players in the art ecosystem, it has become more representative of South African expression in all its breadth.
This may be why this year, there was a noticeable contingent from Cape Town’s art world in attendance: where else can you gauge art from the grassroots up, and in such a pleasing setting? First-timers tend to marvel at the novelty of attending a fair that seemed to take the visitor experience into account. With comfy chairs, tables and pop-up drinking holes and Motherland coffee within reach wherever you were, there was a sense that your attendance at the event was not only considered but also that the wheels of conversation and exchange were being greased at every corner.
This culture, unique to the fair, positions art as a natural extension of life rather than an elitist pursuit centred on objects removed from everyday experience and accessible only on a higher plane of consciousness, as white-cube and convention-centre settings often suggest.
RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2026, photography by Anthea Pokroy.
Since its inception, RMB Latitudes Art Fair founders, Lucy MacGarry and Roberta Coci, have sought to refine an appropriate art fair model for Africans and Joburgers. They embraced independent artists and African-based galleries, and artists could be accommodated in shared booths. However, you could argue that setting the fair outside a convention centre and across a pleasing rambling pseudo-Italian setting – Shepstone Gardens – was perhaps their boldest move.
Joburgers are in love with this annual art event – tickets for the whole weekend sold out days before the fair started. The location continues to delight visitors with its cobbled paths leading to new art discoveries and bubbling brooks and lush gardens, engendering this idea that you are enjoying a day out somewhere foreign. These characteristics aligned closely with the theme of the art fair this year – Oasis.
However, Joburgers are notoriously fickle. They grow tired of newness quickly. Art nodes have been unstable in this city – with Victoria Yards replacing Maboneng and Nine Yards said to be usurping the former. How do you keep Joburgers curious and, perhaps more importantly, keen to buy art?
RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2026, photography by Anthea Pokroy.
The art offering at this fair isn’t predictable and keeps the event fresh. There was such a smorgasbord of art this year. This is a fair where you can find an auction-rated work (at the Strauss booth) by the likes of William Kentridge, a Trechikoff worth millions to art by graduates at booths presented by Veto Collective, RMB Talent Unlocked, Aisebenze Art Atelier and Root Formula. The setting, with its multiple venues, quietly enforces the boundaries between art at different levels, which probably helps keep a few egos intact.
Each venue has assumed its own status, with the Latitudes Centre for the Arts (LCA) naturally at the top. Yet the space also hosted an intriguing mix: Cape Town heavyweights with an international focus, such as Whatiftheworld (appearing at the fair for the first time) and Stevenson, alongside the ex-Kalashnikovv owners’ two new Joburg ventures, Kumalo/Turpin (which recently opened at Nine Yards) and Chrome Yellow, as well as Cape Town rising stars Untitled and EBONY/CURATED. It also featured a specially curated aesthetic dialogue between Jan Neethling and the late Robert Hodgins.
Untitled took a calculated risk with their entire stand dedicated to Nazeer Japie, a rising Cape Town artist making haunting existentialist paintings, as did Reservoir (on the second floor of the LCA) with their collection of mostly abstract works – most galleries opted for a mix of modes. The latter was handed the Lexus Best Booth Award, which wasn’t surprising – the works were all texturally satisfying yet all unique for the novel choice of materials – sand, tape, disused archival records and fabric. In short, this gallery adopted an aesthetic position and stuck to it. In a way these were the booths that worked well, particularly when a single colour united the display, such as La Motte Ateljee’s verdant green booth that tied in with Jaco van Schalkwyk’s ethereal nature-driven paintings or Kooooos’s distinctive brown palette, which ran throughout the different mediums and works.
Robert Hodgins, Untitled, price on request, presented by Latitudes Online.
Locus, who seems bereft of a physical location, also braved an all-abstract art presentation, which was a pleasing mix of female painters. Gallery 2, one of my favourite Joburg spaces, also concentrated on female painters with impressive abstract works by Jenny Stadler that align with the kind of abstract works finding traction in Europe – layered, complex, textural compositions that somehow embody the complexity of our times. These booths stood out in Centre Court – though many were admiring the technical finesse of the Kentridge concertina-like prints at Jillian Ross Print.
Surprisingly, it was Lucinda Mudge’s vivid paintings – rather than her ceramics – that stood out at the Everard Read booth at the Chapel, having already marvelled at Zander Blom’s miniature paintings at a previous fair. Aside from the quirky collection of small figurines at Kooooos’s stand in the Glass Marquee, miniature art was less prevalent at this fair, with only Everard Read going for a booth filled with miniature bunnies by Guy du Toit. This may well be a way to deal with what many economic commentators are calling an austerity era – but I wanted a wow work from this gallery, given all the artists, the incredible Joburg-based artists they work with. Are Cape Town artists taking over this art fair?
A highlight of the fair is always the Round Room installation, and this year Dada Khanyisa’s expansive sculptural work, Above and Beyond, didn’t disappoint. It evoked religious bas-relief art, though its subject matter was thoroughly contemporary: a birthday celebration tinged with 1980s nostalgia.
RMB Latitudes Art Fair 2026, photography by Anthea Pokroy.
Offering Joburgers what isn’t on their doorstep is one way of keeping them curious, as is offering such a different range of art by producers at different levels. The art was accessible on a monetary level; you could acquire a decent artwork (a one-off, not an edition) for around R10k if you browsed carefully.
Inclusivity was reflected not only in the range of artists and artworks, but also in the programme of talks and off-site events focused on other art forms and venues. This coincided with the inaugural Jozi aMuse: Festival of Museums, and the talks engaged issues relevant to other artistic disciplines. It always helps when art fairs run alongside other city programming: it draws out-of-towners and gives locals who cannot access the fair a chance to experience some of the weekend’s creativity. It also reinforces the idea that an art fair can do more than sit at the centre of a creative scene or funnel talent through its event; it can help develop that scene further.
Corrigall is a Cape Town-based art commentator, consultant, and director of the Heat Winter Arts Festival.
