Africa

South African Museum Named After Former CEO of Puma

The Zeitz Museum will host the largest contemporary African art collection in the continent

June 14th, 2016
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Jochen Zeitz, Former CEO of the German sportswear company Puma, will lease his private collection of modern African and diaspora artworks currently held in his Kenyan estate. The artworks will form the core of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, which will open to the public in late 2016.

The Zeitz MoCAA, although still closed to the public, will be a museum unique in the world. Its collection of Contemporary African artworks is already the largest in Africa. Director, Mark Coetzee, who for many years has been the Cultural Specialist of the Zeitz Foundation and the Curator of the Zeitz Collection, is acquiring new pieces through donations or monetary acquisitions from all over and beyond Africa.

The collection comprises numerous artworks from “Born Free” artists, or those artists who were born and raised in an Apartheid-free South Africa. The main mission of this collection is to show how the end of racial segregation and cultural openness have reshaped traditional art for younger generations of artists. 

Moreover, a relevant part of the Museum will be dedicated to the Modern African Diaspora, and it will provide a rare view of how Diaspora artists have changed their artistic styles living in foreign countries. The MoCAA collection celebrates Africa, preserving its cultural legacy while showing how openness to foreign cultures has redefined African artistic identity.

Jochen Zeitz, founder of the Museum, started developing the collection in 2002 at his Kenyan estate of Segera. Today the Zeitz collection is considered one of the world’s leading collections of contemporary art from Africa and the diaspora. It comprises paintings, installations, videos and sculptures, including works by Marlene Dumas, Kudzanai Chiurai and Hank Willis to name a few. Although part of the collection is currently being shown throughout the world in temporary exhibitions, once the MoCAA opens it will compose the core of the museum. These pieces will remain part of the museum collection for decades, thanks to a lease granted by the Zeitz Foundation.

The Zeitz MoCAA will comprise of over 9,500 square meters, spread over nine floors. With over two thirds of this space dedicated to temporary exhibitions, it will become one of the largest contemporary museums worldwide. The museum is located in a renovated unused grain silo dating back to 1921, a historic building placed on the southeast side of the industry V & A Waterfront. It will open to the public in late 2016 and will mark a major stepping-stone for the visual art world and for Cape Town.

References

Cultural Diplomacy News
Giorgio Malvermi, CD News