Editor’s Note

There was a clever little stall a few years ago at one of the iterations of the FNB JoburgArtFair, before it was FNB Art Joburg. It consisted of a wall with the words, “What is Art?” written on it and there were a few tables covered in yellow and purple Post Its. Visitors to the fair were invited to take a coloured koki from a big box and write their answer to the question and Post It among thousands of others flapping in the space to form the word “Art”.

Answers were profound and silly.

“Art is after maths on a Tuesday,” read one. “Art is a poem without words,” said another. My daughter, seven years old at the time, had an answer too: “Art is for people who have too much money.”

American author Chuck Klosterman once

wrote that “Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” I think that’s true.

How else do you explain the feeling you get from seeing an artwork that speaks to your soul? The same heart-palpitating, desire-inducing, vaguely nauseous feeling you get when you meet someone whose chemistry inexplicably speaks to yours. You want the artwork the same way you want the person, and you can’t say exactly why.

Luckily, artworks don’t get jealous if you add to your collection, and there’ll be more opportunity than ever for Joburgers and visitors to the city during Art Week to find that special piece that you’ll adore and appreciate for the rest of your life.

If you don’t, you’ll have plenty of Instagram fodder. Sean O’Toole argues that since the advent of the smartphone we look at art through the screen and no longer with the naked eye. And now that there are more fairs, Mary Corrigall wonders which one will capture the soul of the Joburg collector.

Prepare yourself for an arty few weeks.