To mark the historic Mount Nelson (aka The Nellie), A Belmond Hotel’s 125th birthday celebration in 2024, Mother City, a curation of artworks from the Norval Foundation’s Collection will be on show at the hotel.
Punctuating The Nellie’s grand halls and public spaces, artworks through the lens of 16 artists’ nuanced practices will find a home at the hotel until October.
On the surface, Mother City is a concept that owes its name to Cape Town’s moniker as the first city settled by Europeans in South Africa, but the exhibition probes deeper.
Drawing from the Norval Foundation’s extensive collection of contemporary works by some of the country’s most prominent artists, RESERVOIR founders Heinrich Groenewald and Shona van der Merwe, have framed the exhibition around the multifaceted and complex notions associated with the role of the mother - particularly as a symbolic source of care.
“Working with the geographical location of the Norval Foundation, the exhibition explores how these diverse and at times diasporic artists have come to be represented in the permanent collection, through an imagined symbolic connection to Cape Town - the Mother City,” said Groenewald and Van Der Merwe.
The continued: “Notions of not only the archetypal mother but its extended connotations of community, femininity, ancestry and social icons can be found throughout the practices of the artists on show.”
Displayed throughout Mount Nelson’s lounge, bar, reception, conservatory and transitional spaces, this immersive collection of works spans mediums from painting, photography, and relief sculpture to tapestry and stitching.
Each creator offers a unique perspective on the subject with exhibited artists including Mia Chaplin, Georgina Gratrix, Nicholas Hlobo, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Bronwyn Katz, Bonolo Kavula, Dada Khanyisa, Kapwani Kiwanga, Zanele Muholi, Cassi Namoda, Gregory Olympio, Thania Petersen, Athi-Patra Ruga, Gerda Scheepers, Berni Searle and Brett Charles Seiler.
“It’s a great honour to share part of the Homestead Collection with guests of Mount Nelson. As a leading 20th-century South African art collection dedicated to an expanded narrative, these works speak to the hotel’s reverence for its past and its insistence on being part of the future,” said founder of the Norval Foundation, Louis Norval.
Norval Foundation was established in 2018 as a platform to champion and support African Art and artists, and to develop art education in the Western Cape. Since its inception, Norval Foundation has hosted exhibitions dedicated to the works
Here are some of the pieces which form part of the exhibition:
