Originally scheduled from 19 to 21 February 2021, the fair will open its doors from 21 to 23 May 2021, with a preview day on Thursday 20 May.

South Africa has always been a milestone destination for collectors passionate about contemporary african art and art workers.

Among other important cities Cape Town, the nation legislative capital, in this last decade has become a vibrant cultural hub, attracting more and more international visitors. The number of new art galleries has sky rocked, some auction houses have opened nearby new branches and museums and cultural institutions have increased the number of exhibitions.

A portion of this success is “made in Italy”.

In fact the largest art fair on the African continent is owned by an Italian company, Fiera Milano Exhibitions Africa (Pty) Ltd (sole shareholder Fiera Milano S.p.A.) and it takes place in Cape Town.

Fiera Milano Exhibitions Africa (FMEA) was founded in South Africa in 2012 when Fiera Milano S.p.A. acquired the 75% of a local company called Cape Gourmet. Since then FMEA has strenghten its efforts to support economic growth in South Africa through the attraction of international FMEA clients, industry associations, chambers of commerce, and business partners to the regions it operates in.

Since 2012 the Investec Cape Town Art Fair has pushed well known art galleries, collectors, curators and artists from around the globe to engage in cultural and economic exchange at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).

Normally the foreign art galleries that participate in this important event and the European collectors are drived by Fiera Milano.



In 2020 the Investec Cape Town Art Fair has proposed artworks from more than 60 galleries from Brazil, Austria, Tunisia, Italia, Dubai.
Many complementary events took also place: the launch of the long-awaited Stellenbosch Triennale and the two William Kentridge's shows at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art and the Norval Foundation.

Unfortunately Covid-19 didn’t spare this important artistic event. In addition one new variant of the virus, the 501Y.V2, was firstly identified in December 2020 in South Africa. The art fair management has thus opted to postpone the event in late 2021 spring.

It’s interesting that Fiera Milano Exhibitions Africa hasn’t decided to transform the event into a digital meeting, which could turn out to be a good thing after all.

One year after the pandemic outbreak, the global art schedule began to be saturated with commercial events transposed into digital, with a consequent decline in public attention.

Fingers crossed hoping not to have to say goodbye to the 2021 event, waiting for 2022 when the majority of the world’s population will be vaccinated.
Who knows if the post Covid-19 situation will lead to a reduction in the presence of international operators and visitors.
Definitely the Investec Cape Town Art Fair will find different challenges compared to the ones that faced before.