CAPE was initiated in 2003 in response to the dramatic shifts in the artworld over the past decade.
The rapid acceleration of globalism, the rise of the international biennale system and the subsequent increase in international exhibitions and conferences of African contemporary art have all turned the global eye onto Africa while, ironically, drawing the African gaze increasingly towards the global.
This changing global cultural climate has highlighted the need to productively rethink the interface between local African art practices and the international art circuit; to question the role of the arts, the location of art practice, and the production of discourses of cultural identity on the continent.
Using Cape Town, South Africa as its vantage point, CAPE views these cultural, political and theoretical shifts as an opportunity to challenge the balance of power within the contemporary artworld superstructure.
