Judging Panel | Norval Sovereign African Art Prize

2022 - 2023

DAVID ELLIOT

Art Historian, Writer and Curator

Elliott was Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England from 1976-96, Director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden from 1996-2001, the founding Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan from 2001-06, the first Director of Istanbul Modern, Turkey in 2007 and from 2016-2019, Vice-Director and Senior Curator of the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art in Guangzhou. From 1998-2004, he was President of CIMAM (the International Committee of ICOM for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) and in 2008, the Rudolf Arnheim Guest Professor of Art History at Humboldt University, Berlin; from 2012 to 2017 he was a guest professor in curatorship at the Chinese University, Hong Kong.

He has worked extensively on modern and contemporary art from different parts of Africa and organised in Oxford Makonde in 1988 (with Moti Malde), Art from South Africa (1990) (with David Koalane) and, in Stockholm, Tokyo and other cities (with Simon Njami), Africa Remix (2003-06).

Since 2010, he has been the Artistic Director of biennales of contemporary art in Sydney, Kiev, Moscow and Belgrade and is currently working freelance as a writer and curator.

JANINE GAËLLE DIEUDJI

Exhibitions Director, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden

A native of France and Cameroon, Janine moved to Florence (Italy) in 2011 and has gained a broad range of experience in arts and culture over the years. Experiences include exhibitions and projects in collaboration with Le Murate Art District, American Academy in Rome, Villa Romana, Gallerie degli Uffizi as Co-director and Vice-President of the cultural association BHMF (Black History Month Florence).

As a cultural activist and multilocal, at MACAAL she’s committed to building an inclusive museum, through the curation and production of exhibitions, as well as educational programs and artists residencies.

TIM MARLOW

Chief Executive and Director, Design Museum, London

Formerly Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts and Director of Exhibitions at White Cube, Marlow has been involved in the contemporary art world for the past thirty years as a curator, writer and broadcaster. He has worked with many of the most important and influential artists of our time to deliver wide-ranging and popular programmes and brings a commitment to diverse and engaging exhibitions to his new role showcasing the transformational capability of design.

Marlow sits on the Board of Trustees for the Imperial War Museum, Art on the Underground Advisory Board and Cultureshock Media. Marlow was awarded an OBE in 2019.

BONOLO KAVULA

Artist and Winner of Norval Sovereign African Art Prize 2022

Kavula is the winner of the inaugural Norval Sovereign African Art Prize 2022. She obtained a BA(FA) from the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town in 2014, majoring in Printmaking. She received the 2014 Katrine Harries Print Cabinet Award at the University of Cape Town and she was a founding member of the Cape Town based artist collective, Iqhiya. In 2021, she presented a solo booth at Art Basel Miami Beach as well as her first solo exhibition at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town. Other recent projects include a solo booth at the 2020 Investec Cape Town Art Fair; Art Times, a performance at A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town; and Twenty Sexy, a performance at blank projects gallery in Cape Town. Selected group exhibitions include: Inner Landscapes, at Bloom Galerie in Geneva, Switzerland; and Subverted Realities at Bode Projects in Berlin, Germany; Speculative Enquiry #1: On Abstraction, at the Michaelis Galleries in Cape Town; The Main Complaint, curated by Michaela Limberis at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa; and Shady Tactics, curated by Thuli Gamedze at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town; Atomic Peace at The Bag Factory in Johannesburg; iQhiya Group Exhibition at the Association for Visual Arts Gallery in Cape Town and New Monuments at Commune1 in Cape Town. Her works are included in collections such as Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) Collection in Miami, USA, and the Iziko South African National Gallery Collection in Cape Town, South Africa.

MARIE-ANN YEMSI

Independent exhibition curator and contemporary art consultant

Marie-Ann Yemsi is an independent curator and contemporary art consultant, born in Germany to German and Cameroonian parents. A graduate in political science, she lives and works in Paris. in 2005, she founded her own Paris-based agency, Agent Créatif(s), which has developed a renowned expertise in cultural production and art consulting with a focus on contemporary artists and artistic scenes in Africa and its Diasporas. She was the Artistic Director of «Afrotopia», the 11th edition of the Rencontres de Bamako - African Biennale of Photography in Mali (2017). She has been the curator at several international exhibitions, including «African Odysseys» at the Brass Cultural Center (Brussels) in 2015, «A Silent Lines, Lives Here» at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) in 2018 and «Have You Seen a Horizon Lately?» at the MACAAL-Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (Marrakesh) in 2020. She is currently the curator of «Transport Commun», an exhibition of the Societe Generale’s Contemporary Art Collection (Paris) and guest curator of the Palais de Tokyo for «Ubuntu, a Lucid Dream», a group show which opened in the fall of 2021.

Past Judge: Khanya Mashabela, curator at A4 Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa