Joaquín Torres-García, Gravado 57. Nuestro Norte es el Sur (Etching #57. Our North is the South) (1943). © Alejandra, Aurelio and Claudio Torres. Courtesy Joaquín Torres-García Archive
JCAF views its operational locale as strategically located in the Global South, a broad paradigm that offers a fuller and more complex understanding of identity. The Global South suggests an economic, social, political and cultural identification amongst postcolonial subjects who express common ideals from a variety of heterogeneous contexts identified with but not geographically bound in the South. Therefore, the Global South is a construct and not a geographic location. Central to this construct is the idea of shared identities that affirm themselves in contrast to Western or Northern forms of hegemony thereby liberating subjects to produce new forms of economic, cultural, social and political emancipation.
JCAF’s mandate is to advance the public’s understanding of modern and contemporary art, and to identify and collaborate with artists, scholars and institutions globally. Germane to this is the redress of the imbalance between ourselves and the ‘Global North’ in relation to knowledge, through a fundamental questioning of who produces knowledge about the Global South, who writes its histories, who generates new knowledge about its artists, and who curates its content.
Knowledge is set in motion through a Theme, a broad subject of contemporary and historical significance in which we immerse ourselves for a period of three years. This approach enables us to engage with subjects in depth. Our first research Theme, Female Identities in the Global South (2020–2022), focused exclusively on women artists. Outputs included exhibitions and catalogues, the School of the South Lecture Series, and publishing the first JCAF Journal (2024). We are currently working on our second Theme, Worldmaking (2024–2026).
JCAF aims to deepen the viewer’s experience of art, encourage close looking, and act as a space for contemplation and new ideas. Through the notion of ‘exhibitions as research’, we reposition contemporary South African art globally, participate in a dialogue between local and international art, and present exhibitions that are curated according to a Theme. Exhibitions are the visitor’s primary point of engagement with works of art, and are thus foundational to the programmes and research of JCAF.
JCAF Knowledge Talks are monthly live events held in our library, hosted by the JCAF team during the Worldmaking exhibitions.
These one-on-one conversations offer visitors an opportunity to engage directly with leading thinkers and practitioners from the Global South. This live interaction aligns with our broader goal of building a knowledge community around interdisciplinary thought amongst those who frequent our programmes. These talks are then recorded as podcasts, creating a seamless connection between live engagement and reflective, archived discourse.
In the live Knowledge Talks, JCAF hosted guests for conversations with Kirti Ranchod, Zayaan Khan, Zizipho Poswa, Ilze Wolff, Heinrich Wolff, Pelonomi Moiloa, MADEYOULOOK (Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho), Traci Kwaai, Stella Mutegi of Cave_bureau, Igshaan Adams, and Ayanda Mnyandu in the library (photos Earl Abrahams, Anthea Pokroy).
The inaugural edition of the JCAF Journal: Interdisciplinary Knowledge from the South considers the work of the modernist, neo-concrete, conceptual and contemporary artists and architects exhibited at JCAF from 2020 to 2022.
Since the institution’s launch in 2020, the exhibitions, lectures and publications at JCAF have focused on the significant role of women artists and intellectuals. They have also placed artists of the 20th and 21st centuries in dialogue with each other in the context of the Global South. The journal addresses and expands on these topics through contributions on specific artistic practices, commissioned critical essays, visual projects from architectural studios, photo essays, philosophical explorations and poetry.
Our second research theme, Worldmaking (2024–2026), refers to the ways we collectively make the spaces around us that we inhabit through symbolic practices, and presents concepts around environment, sustainability, architecture, habitat and biotechnology through a trilogy of exhibitions – Ecospheres (2024); Structures (2025); Reverse Futures (2026). The publications extend the exhibition through additional research, data and collateral material and are available at the links below.
Ecospheres (31 May – 7 December 2024) publications: Ecospheres Reader 1 and Ecospheres Reader 2.
Structures (31 May – 15 November 2025) publications: Structures Reader and Structures Exhibition Guide.
In 2023, JCAF introduced a South African-focused programme with Otherscapes. The exhibition proposed surveying the scene of contemporary South Africa through the artistic practices of four contemporary South African artists whose installations could be viewed as ‘scapes’. These addressed the local context by interrogating the tension between utopia and failure.
Download the catalogue for the exhibition Otherscapes: Four Installations by Four Contemporary South African Artists (28 June – 4 November 2023).
JCAF’s first research Theme, Female Identities in the Global South (2020–2022), focused on exhibiting only women artists as a way of amplifying the voices of those historically underrepresented in museum collections and exhibitions across the globe. We had the privilege of exhibiting ground-breaking thinkers and creative practitioners: from contemporary artists exploring identity and exile, to artists of the 1960s and 1970s pushing the boundaries of experiential art and modernist icons who paved the way for other women artists.
Download the catalogue for our third exhibition Kahlo, Sher-Gil, Stern: Modernist Identities in the Global South (25 October 2022 – 22 February 2023).
Download the catalogue for our second exhibition Liminal Identities in the Global South (03 August 2021 – 26 February 2022).
Download the catalogue for our inaugural exhibition Contemporary Female Identities in the Global South (16 September 2020 – 30 January 2021).
The name of the lecture series originates from Uruguayan artist and intellectual Joaquín Torres-García’s School of the South, located in South America and renowned for its contribution to knowledge aligned to the Global South. In line with Torres-García’s vision of creating strong institutions in South America, JCAF’s School of the South lecture programme hosts prominent intellectuals whose practice and research are located and inscribed within the Global South.
In 2020, JCAF launched publicly with a lecture by Arjun Appadurai. Subsequently, the School of the South Lecture Series took place in The Forum, a purpose-built amphitheatre at JCAF conceived of as a communal space for the exchange of ideas. The first lectures in The Forum introduced the artists featured in the 2022 exhibition, Kahlo, Sher-Gil, Stern: Modernist Identities in the Global South. Each of the three lectures focused on one of the artists, their life as well as the political and cultural context in which they practised.
Recordings of the lectures are available to watch below.
The Planet, the Universe and the Museum: Territories of the Imperial Imagination, presented by Arjun Appadurai at the launch of the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation on 27 February 2020.
Strange Kinships: Amrita Sher-Gil’s Art Across Continents, presented by Sonal Khullar at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation on 26 May 2022.
Frida Kahlo: The Invention of an Identity. A Political and Cultural Project of a World to Come, presented by Helena Chávez Mac Gregor at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation on 9 June 2022.
When Do Black Lives Matter?: Irma Stern’s Representations of Black Women in the Global South, presented by LaNitra M. Berger at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation on 22 June 2022.
