Events of the past year have challenged existing notions of access to art. Responsive and independent curatorial models have emerged outside of art institutions, confronting the physical and social barriers that keep people from engaging with art. Recent initiatives such as Die Balkone, No Straight Line, Al Aire Libre, or A Few In Many Places, have claimed public space and developed a more open reach to their publics.
Foreseeing many of these shifts, Any Given Sunday, curated by Riason Naidoo, was a 2016 public art project that was presented in Cape Town, South Africa, and consisted of undisclosed and random public artistic interventions intended to reflect on the social, economic, and political tensions of the city.
The work of participating visual artists—Zanele Muholi, Gabrielle Goliath, Gerald Machona, Sethembile Msezane, Burning Museum, Hasan and Husain Essop, et al.—all centered, in various ways, on questions of power and prejudice: structural, institutional, and personal. While the project was inspired by the 2015 student-led university protests across South Africa and their sense of urgency of the now, the artists—via their socially engaged artistic practice—contributed to a dynamic and interactive communal undertaking, which constantly shifted and altered predetermined schemas of art, its institutions, and its expected publics.
Visit the Facebook page, Any Given Sunday, Cape Town.
These events are free and open to the public and include live ASL interpretation and closed-captioning.
