Johannesburg is about to become a meeting point for art, music, food and ideas as The BMW Art Generation Vol. IV brings its latest edition to the city from 29 August.
Presented by BMW South Africa in collaboration with FNB Art Joburg, the fourth edition unfolds across two locations: The BMW Art Haus in Parktown North and the MAX section of FNB Art Joburg. But while the programme brings together a formidable list of contemporary African and diasporic artists, the exhibition is ultimately interested in something bigger than the work on the walls.
Its central question is one of inheritance: where does our knowledge come from, and what happens to it as it moves between generations?
That question sits at the heart of From Whose Waters Do We Drink?, a framework conceptualised by Kim Kandan. The exhibition considers indigenous knowledge systems not as relics belonging to another time, but as living systems that continue to shape contemporary life and artistic practice.
Memory, place, identity and transmission become points of departure for an exhibition that asks audiences to think about knowledge as something active. Something carried. Something altered as it moves from one person, generation or community to another.
It is a fitting question for a contemporary African art landscape that is constantly negotiating what it means to inherit, reinterpret and preserve.
The exhibition brings together Professor Berni Searle, Bronwyn Katz, Cheriese Maharaj, donna Kukama, Dr George Mahashe, Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi, Kamil Hassim, Kamva Matuis, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Lady Skollie, Lebohang Kganye, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Paulo Nazareth, Portia Zvahera, Robin Rhode, Simnikiwe Buhlungu and Yinka Shonibare.
Rather than positioning these practices as isolated artistic statements, the exhibition creates a space where different histories and ways of knowing can exist alongside one another.
That emphasis on exchange also extends beyond the exhibition itself.
Across the opening weekend, audiences will be able to move between the BMW Art Haus and FNB Art Joburg, encountering guided walkabouts, conversations, a reading room and bookstore curated by Jonathan Ball, food and drinks, and an evening music programme.
The programming runs from 11:00, with the guided walkabout beginning at 12:00, followed by conversations at 13:00 and 15:00. From 16:00 to 20:00, music takes over, with Thando Zide headlining Saturday and Nduduzo Makhathini closing out Sunday.
The result is less a conventional exhibition opening and more a cultural gathering built around the exchange of ideas.
For Mandla Sibeko, Director of FNB Art Joburg, that exchange is central to the project. The BMW Art Generation, he says, is about creating conditions for meaningful engagement, where knowledge can be shared across generations and collecting begins with understanding.
That distinction matters. The exhibition isn’t simply asking audiences to look at contemporary African art. It is asking them to consider the systems, histories and relationships that make that art possible in the first place.
And perhaps that is where From Whose Waters Do We Drink? finds its most interesting territory.
Knowledge is rarely something we encounter fully formed. We inherit fragments of it through family, community, place, culture and experience. We question some of it, preserve other parts and inevitably transform the rest.
The BMW Art Generation Vol. IV creates a space to sit with that process.
Following the opening weekend, The BMW Art Haus will reopen for free viewing from 3 to 6 September, giving audiences another opportunity to spend time with the exhibition beyond the pace of the launch weekend.
Because sometimes the most interesting question isn’t simply what do we know?
It’s who taught us, who carried it before us, and what will we do with it next?
The BMW Art Generation Vol. IV: From Whose Waters Do We Drink? opens at The BMW Art Haus on 29 August and 30 August, before reopening for free viewing from 3 to 6 September. Entry to FNB Art Joburg is ticketed separately.
