You Will Find Us in the Best Places: Arts of Africa around the world now

By PETRA MASON November 3, 2026

2026 has already delivered a packed global arts calendar for artists from the African continent – Igshaan Adams In Situ Unsettling Dust: The Body’s Archive at the Guggenheim Bilbao (Spain), Bridget Baker at Bienal Burgos (Spain), pan-African Southern Guild Gallery opening in Tribeca, New York City and the impressive 14th KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival in Kyoto, Japan. Art writer and curator Sean O’Toole presented his much-anticipated ‘Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook!’ in Kyoto this year. O’Toole dedicated years of research to the comprehensive overview -- an important book, vital and evocative and one that will save you from enrolling in a South African photographic history course -- no one knows more on this neglected area of art publishing than O'Toole. To help you locate one of the limited print run, we have added a list of the independent stockists below. African photography legacies and archives have been highly visible all year: the Santu Mofokeng Foundation and Alf Kumalo Estate actively engaging with audiences to carry the great photographers’ and photojournalists’ work forward locally and abroad.

Installation of Space showing Yinka Shonibare, Refugee Astronaut X (2024) 

Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, South Africa

'You will find us in the best places' Moshekwa Langa retrospective at the Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, Holland

unfolds across all four floors of Kunstinstituut Melly, bringing together Moshekwa Langa’s practice, from 1995 to 2026.

Curated by fellow South Africans Gabi Ngcobo, Director of Kunstinstituut Melly, and Kabelo Malatsie. The exhibition is the most comprehensive presentation of Langa's work in the Netherlands to date.

Langa works across mediums including drawing, collage, video, photography, and installation, using readily available materials collected from his surroundings in places he has lived and traveled to. These materials collide with phrases, names, and songs drawn from memory and particular moments, constructing dense, layered works that are perhaps best described as fictions or otherworldly dreamscapes, infused with real events, figures, and places. Rather than reaching conclusions, ideas in the artist's practice return, repeat, and begin again. Works may start and only be finished years later; chronology and linearity are not employed, things begin again, beginnings are continuous, and instead of conclusions there are pauses and ellipses. Time is nebulous and elastic. 'You will find us in the best places' revealing recurring themes, questions, and interests, marking time not linearly, but through a continuous unfolding across his practice.

Moshekwa Langa, Temporal distance (with a criminal intent) you will find us in the best places … 1997 - Mixed Media

Bridget Baker, Bienal Burgos Spain

I WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN HERE — SOON - - - SOON!! SOON SOON!!! I WAIT — ALWAYS (2026)

The 16th-century chapel (Ars Venerables) in Burgos is a poignant architectural setting in which Baker creates space to once again hold her mom, who recently died from complications with dementia. Through the installation Baker uses this moment to venerate her mom's life, deeply rooted in the Christian faith, to engage with her persistent presence, by handcrafting excerpts from her mom's journals, weaving fabric derived from her voice notes into a dress-form and placing these new works in relation to earlier archival works says Emilio Navarro, Director Bienal de Burgos about Bridget Baker’s installation.

 Bridget Baker, I WAIT FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN HERE — SOON - - - SOON!! SOON SOON!!! I WAIT — ALWAYS (2026)  Photography: Jorge Martin Muñoz

'Reverse Futures' at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa

Since its 2020 launch, JCAF has offered carefully curated exhibitions under a “do less, better” philosophy. Free entry (book online) makes it accessible to all. 'Reverse Futures' – the third in a trilogy exploring “Worldmaking” – is the current exhibition. JCAF is neither museum nor gallery, but a sustainable cultural institution vital to the arts ecosystem.m.

Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, South Africa Photo by Graham De Lacy.

'Reflections' Iziko Museums, at the Old Townhouse, Cape Town

'Reflections' at the newly reopened Iziko Old Townhouse Museum links historic collections with contemporary South African art. If you enjoy Cape Rococo architecture and are drawn to works from the 17th century, the exhibition offers a rewarding dialogue between old masters and contemporary artists. The Old Town House Museum is a gem that often gets overlooked, even though it marks the central point from which Cape Town, as we know it, originated. Part of the Iziko Museums, the Old Townhouse is located at 6 Greenmarket Square, Cape Town Central.

 Group Show 'Reflections' Iziko Museums, Cape Town Photo by Petra Mason

Kate Gottgens 'Unsteady Realms' at the Norval Foundation, Steenberg, Cape Town

Art has been present in Louis Norval’s life ever since his first investment. An art world outsider, Louis Norval, the businessman founder of the Norval Foundation purchased two South African artworks on auction in Pretoria back in 1998, a transformative moment in which he gained a new perspective: “Art has given me another perspective, and it’s given me the opportunity to understand that life is not one-dimensional,” says Norval. In 2018, the South African native founded the Norval Foundation in Steenberg, Cape Town. The non-profit occupies a 20 000-square-foot plot that includes a private museum, restaurants, a nature reserve, and a sculpture park. Motivated in part to address a lack of political and economic support for the arts in South Africa, the privately funded Norval Foundation is now considered an established favourite on the Cape art map. Don't miss Cape Town artist Kate Gottgens’ unsettling paintings of suburban privilege and rituals, 'Unsteady Realms'.

Kate Gottgens Turning Back, 2026 at Norval Foundation, Cape Town

 Santu Mofokeng Foundation Rumours at Standard Bank Art Lab, Sandton, Johannesburg

Where to buy Sean O'Toole's Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook!

A4 Foundation book store in Cape Town and online through Clarke's Cape Town in Long Street, and Love Books in Melville, Johannesburg. Stocked at SKWAT/twelvebooks in Tokyo and at the International Center for Photography (ICP) in New York. In London from mid-November at The Photographers’ Gallery.