When Art and Politics Converse

Amongst the extensive collection of booths at the 2025 edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair, there sat a box, built from six frames of canvas, with a slit at its top: a ballot box. 2024 and 2025 held a remarkably high number of national elections across nations around the world. 2025 was also the year when artHARARE hosted its own ‘Artist General Election’: artists were positioned as electoral candidates, and visitors actively participated in the gallery’s reimagining of the democratic process. After a process of physical and online voting over the fair weekend, the booth’s ‘election’ resulted in a significant acquisition by former South African Member of Parliament, Marcel Golding.

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