Goodman Gallery is thrilled to announce the re-imagination of Working Title, an initiative that champions and spotlights the next generation of artists, independent projects, major installations and experimental performances from South Africa. Expanding beyond the gallery’s represented roster, the platform offers artists opportunities to exhibit across the gallery’s programme. It also provides professional growth and creative experimentation through workshops, studio visits and mentorship opportunities. Working Title reflects the gallery’s commitment and continued interest in dynamic and innovative artists, independent practice and collaborative projects. This endeavour upholds the future of art through sustained support.
The 2025 iteration of Working Title brings together a group presentation of artists who are shaping the next wave of contemporary art in Africa. The artists include Bonolo Kavula, Banele Khoza, Bulumko Mbete, Unathi Mkonto, Micha Serraf and Guy Simpson and will launch a curated presentation at Goodman Gallery’s booth at FNB Art Joburg from 5–7 September. Johannesburg, a city celebrated for its diversity, energy and creative innovation, provides the ideal setting to debut this edition of Working Title. At a time when Johannesburg is in a state of transition it becomes even more urgent to support and help grow the local art ecosystem. This initiative brings together artists, creative thinkers, cultural institutions and both established and emerging collectors. It marks the start of a series of initiatives celebrating the gallery’s 60th anniversary in 2026, affirming the city’s role at the heart of the gallery’s history and future. Founded and rooted in South Africa, the Goodman Gallery’s vision remains inseparable from where its creative ethos is tied, carrying this spirit forward as it continues to expand globally.
Liza Essers, Owner and Director at Goodman Gallery says:
— “For over a decade, Goodman Gallery has been at the forefront of identifying some of the art world’s most compelling young artists and supporting their careers on a global stage. This new generation of artists brings together material innovation, cultural memory and future-facing ideas which expand and innovate how we understand contemporary art in Africa and yet resonates globally.’’
Originally launched in 2009 as an exhibition programme supporting young and independent artists, Working Title returns in a reimagined format with the expanded support focusing on artists’ development and creative experimentation. The artists forming this year’s Working Title are shaped by the legacies of African independence, and embody a generation for whom this emancipation is not only a historical backdrop but also a living inheritance, one that continues to inspire new possibilities for art, culture and global dialogue. Bonolo Kavula (b. 1992, South Africa) redefines material abstraction by transforming shweshwe cloth into rigorous post-minimalist forms, bridging ancestral archives with global avant-garde traditions. Banele Khoza (b.1994, Eswatini) brings tenderness and queer vulnerability to the centre of cultural discourse, redefining the personal and emotional as sites of contemporary power. Bulumko Mbete (b. 1995, South Africa) develops different forms of craft and design making predominantly performed by women in Southern Africa. Unathi Mkonto (b.1982, South Africa) collapses boundaries between architecture, performance and installation, creating a spatial language that resonates with the continent’s spirit of innovation. Micha Serraf (b. 1994, Zimbabwe) reframes displacement and trauma into joy and resilience, offering visionary narratives of diasporic belonging. Finally, Guy Simpson (b. 1994, South Africa) mines the poetics of the everyday, translating domestic memory into intimate works that challenge spectacle with quiet radicality.
