Double Booked: Big art show pops steroids

It has been a protracted wilderness period for Brendon and Suzette Bell-Roberts.

In 2010, this Cape Town husband-and-wife team closed their Woodstock gallery and scaled back their publishing operations. Now, after a foray into corporate events and communication, the couple are back in the art game.

Best known for their quarterly magazine Art South Africa, launched in 2002, the "Bellies" (as they're widely known) are launching an art fair.

Billed as That Art Fair, the event, opening on Friday in Salt River, is pitched as an "accessible platform for African artists".

There's a cheerful literalness to their promise: the fair will be held in an architect-designed parking garage. The split-level venue is suited to the aspirations of the fair, which aims to develop "new audiences and a fresh generation of collectors", according to Brendon.

Opening a day after the third instalment of the Cape Town Art Fair begins at the V&A Waterfront, That Art Fair will include work by Guinean-Swiss photographer Namsa Leuba and a selection of things that interest stylist Malibongwe Tyilo.

The Bell-Robertses are currently redesigning Tyilo's cult blog "Skattie what are you wearing?" in anticipation of its fifth anniversary next month.

Other highlights include a visit by Jacob Ashong, son of legendary Ghanaian fantasy coffin maker Joseph "Paa Joe" Ashong, who will be showing 14 small sculptures.

On the same night that William Kentridge presents his multimedia chamber opera Refuse The Hour at City Hall, That Art Fair will be hosting an art party featuring Afro-hippies Brother Moves On and a DJ set by Spoek Mathambo.

"We know how to do big exhibitions, but this is one on steroids," enthused Brendon, who first came to prominence with his small self-titled gallery on Loop Street.

In 2000, the gallery showed a video of Peet Pienaar's controversial circumcision surgery as well as a display of the offending body part. Four years later, partnered by his lawyer wife, he invited Waddy Jones, aka Ninja of Die Antwoord, to exhibit a range of soft toys.

Painters Matthew Hindley and Sanell Aggenbach, both now represented by dealer Elana Brundyn, had early career shows with Bell-Roberts, as did draughtsman and sculptor Cameron Platter, now with the Whatiftheworld Gallery. Brundyn and Whatiftheworld will be exhibiting at the Cape Town Art Fair.

Other notable exhibitors will include leading Italian gallery Galleria Continua which represents Kendell Geers and Pascale Marthine Tayou, a Cameroonian artist whose first London solo opens at the Serpentine Gallery in March.

Smith, a new art gallery opening on Church Street today, will not be showing at either fair. It's still early days for this ambitious new venture, which takes its first baby steps with a solo show by abstract painter and floral specialist Kurt Pio.

"It was my husband's idea and one I was surprised I hadn't thought of myself," said Candace Marshall-Smith, who has partnered with art historian Amy Ellenbogen on the gallery. "It's a great way to combine my financial background and love of art."

Unlike the two fairs opening this week, both of which aim to shoot the lights out, Smith plans to show its "wild cards" later. It makes sense: there's much to distract art audiences this week in Cape Town.

• Buy tickets for That Art Fair from webtickets.co.za, www.thatartfair.com. For Smith Studio, www.smithstudio.co.za. For the Cape Town Art Fair see www.capetownartfair.co.za