Johannesburg is once more hosting FNB Art Joburg, now in its 18th edition and still the longest-running fair dedicated to African contemporary art. Few cities are as fitting a stage: Joburg, with its rhythm of finance and flux, its grit and glamour, has long been both South Africa’s cultural capital and the continent’s artistic nerve centre. In anticipation of this year’s fair, I sat down with a real culture insider, the fair’s PR and Comms manager Zaza Hlalethwa, to ask what audiences can anticipate, what guiding impulses shaped this year’s production, and how the fair continues to affirm its role as a decisive platform for African and diasporic artists, galleries, and institutions. Our exchange opened up reflections not only on the fair itself but on the state of African art as it stands in 2025.
Phokeng Setai (PS): What is the overarching theme or focus of this year’s fair?
Zaza Hlalethwa (ZH): This year’s fair continues our commitment to depth and continuity, rather than a one-off theme. FNB Art Joburg is built on an invite-only model that privileges the integrity of the ecosystem over volume. The fair remains the leading platform for contemporary African art, foregrounding practices that shape how we see ourselves and how the continent is seen globally. Instead of a singular curatorial thesis, we hold space for the multiplicity of African voices, ensuring that audiences, collectors, and institutions encounter the best of the continent on its own soil first.
PS: How does this edition build on or differ from previous years?
ZH: Every edition builds on our responsibility as the longest-running fair dedicated to contemporary African art. What distinguishes this year is a sharper focus on our model: a curated invitation process that keeps the offering considered, accessible, and internationally reputable. We are also seeing stronger institutional collaborations, and with initiatives like BMW Young Collectors Co. and Open City, our impact extends well beyond the fair weekend. It is less about reinventing and more about reinforcing, building an infrastructure that keeps Johannesburg central to global conversations.
PS: How many galleries, artists, and countries are participating this year?
ZH: This year, FNB Art Joburg presents 40 invited exhibitors representing more than 200 artists from across the continent and diaspora, spanning 14 countries. The fair is a microcosm of African contemporary art today, geographically expansive but unified in excellence.
PS: What do you think will surprise audiences most about this year’s fair?
ZH: Audiences will be struck by how intentionally the fair balances blue chip names with new voices. That mix is deliberate, because FNB Art Joburg’s role is to nurture an ecosystem rather than a hierarchy. They will also notice the scale of international engagement, not as outsiders shaping the story but as institutions and collectors engaging African art on African soil. This year, for example, the Dikan Centre from Ghana joins us, alongside Canadian collector Dr. Kenneth Montague who contributes to our public programme. Their presence underscores how the fair is expanding global conversations while keeping Johannesburg at the centre.
PS: If someone only had one hour at the fair, what three things should they not miss?
ZH: One of the best ways to engage with the fair is to sign up for a curator-led walkabout, especially if you are new to the scene. These tours introduce you to the objectives of each of the seven sections, gallery HUB, gallery LAB, ORG, ETC, GIF, and MAX, and help you see the fair not just as a commercial or transactional site but as a summative look at all of the cogs in the contemporary African art ecosystem. But if I had to dictate I would start with Artist as First Responders, an intervention by STILL Artist Residency, before moving on to the ORG area to encounter Exhibition Match, who are unpacking the symbolism of the number nine in football and art, exploring endings, beginnings, and reinvention.
PS: Which young or emerging artists are you most excited for people to discover?
ZH: Abebe with The Space Ethiopia, Nthabiseng Kekana with Wunika Mukan Gallery, Musa Ganiyy with Windsor Gallery and Katlego Twala with Everard Read. But it is difficult to single out individuals because discovery is built into our structure. The LAB section is one of the most exciting parts of the fair, where you can feel the pulse of what is next: artists experimenting with form, material, and ideas. That encounter with the unknown is central to how we see our role.
PS: How would you describe the mood of Joburg’s art scene right now, and how does the fair capture it?
ZH: Living and making from Johannesburg is becoming kin with improvisation, restlessness, and a generative buzz. It remains the continent’s cultural capital, a place where ideas are tested, movements are born, and aesthetics are challenged. FNB Art Joburg captures that mood by being action based. Through initiatives like Open City, the fair ripples outward into the city, activating art, music, food, and fashion, and making sure the energy is felt beyond the convention hall. On the Saturday of the fair, three friends turned collaborators, Jack Markovitz (filmmaker), Francesco Mbele (gallerist and artist), and Khumo Morojele are hosting an unmissable film festival titled Migration Patterns that brings this urgent, multidisciplinary, textured energy together in ways I have not seen executed elsewhere.
PS: How is this edition responding to the current social or political moment in South Africa and across the continent?
ZH: Contemporary African art cannot be separated from its context. Artists are addressing land, migration, gender, and memory in their practices. Our role is not to impose interpretation but to provide a platform where these voices can be heard, discussed, and valued.
PS: What is one story behind the scenes that captures the energy of putting this fair together?
ZH: There was once a little girl, I think her name was Elizabeth. She could not have been older than 8 years old. She had come to the fair on a school excursion and she was taken aback when she saw Georgina Gratrix’s work. I don’t know if it was the scale, the texture, the colour, or the matter but it stayed with her. The next year, around April or May, Elizabeth asked that her art teacher reach out to Georgina to show her a still life she had made in response to seeing her work. FNB Art Joburg together with the artist’s gallery organised a preview where Elizabeth and her classmates had the opportunity to meet Georgina and hear from her the day before one of her solo exhibitions at Stevenson in Johannesburg.
That story demonstrates why we are committed to building a sustainable contemporary African art ecosystem through year-long engagement. The fair is not only about one weekend in September. It is about what happens before and after: the connections that continue, the inspiration that carries forward, and the ecosystem that deepens with every encounter. Elizabeth’s response is just one example of how FNB Art Joburg becomes more than an event. It is a living platform that ensures contemporary African art is experienced, remembered, and carried into the future.
PS: What makes this year’s edition distinctly Joburg?
ZH: This fair could not happen anywhere else. Johannesburg demands clarity and conviction, and that ethos is embedded into the edition. It is in the people you will see. Johannesburg isn’t a passive holiday destination, it is a home base that incubates and generates relationships and breakthroughs. You can’t miss it on the fair floor. In terms of work, I would say it is Santu Mofokeng and Robin Rhode’s solo presentations in GIF, Zandile Tshabalala’s glitz and glamour at BKhz, all the way to the sheer scale of everything in Johannesburg.
PS: How do you see the fair shaping conversations about African contemporary art globally?
ZH: FNB Art Joburg is a touchstone for how contemporary African art is seen, collected, and written about. By centring African perspectives and practices, we resist the idea that excellence must be validated elsewhere. Instead, we ensure that Johannesburg, Lagos, Accra, and Dakar are understood as the places where the global story of contemporary art is being written.
PS: Beyond sales and collectors, what kind of public encounter with art are you hoping for?
ZH: We want art to be experienced as more than a commodity. Through AUX talks, ETC publishing houses, and ORG institutions, the fair opens up civic encounters where audiences reflect, learn, and engage. For us, the transaction is not just financial, it is the possibility of being moved, provoked, or inspired. Some of the most meaningful moments at the fair are not tied to ownership at all, but to the intimacy of discovery. It is overhearing an artist speak about their work, watching a child light up in front of a painting, or finding yourself unexpectedly caught by a performance. Those encounters remind us why we do this work: because art helps us see differently, and in doing so, it draws us closer to one another.
As our conversation drew to a close, what lingered was not only the scale of FNB Art Joburg but its sense of responsibility. At a time when African artists are increasingly visible on global stages, this fair insists that visibility begins here, in Johannesburg, in Africa, on African terms. Its model of considered invitation of participating galleries, its commitment to discovery alongside excellence, and its capacity to ripple outward into the city, all reinforce why it remains the continent’s flagship.
Dr. Phokeng Setai is a curator and writer with a PhD in Anthropology from the University of the Western Cape. His work explores contemporary African art, experimental curatorial practice, and the evolving infrastructures of cultural life on the continent. In 2024, he joined Zeitz MOCAA as Assistant Curator, where his cross-disciplinary approach informs one of the continent’s most ambitious cultural platforms. He is also the co-founder of Exhibition Match, an art-meets-football initiative. An alumnus of globally renowned platforms including Raw Material Company (Dakar), Independent Curators International (New York), Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Madrid), and G.A.S. Lagos, he brings a globally informed sensibility to the contemporary African art conversation.
