RMB Latitudes held on the last weekend in May
This art fair takes place annually over the last weekend in May and for the last 3 years has been held at the perfect art fair venue: Shepstone Gardens in the eastern Jozi suburb of Mountain View. Lucy MacGarry and Roberta Coci co-founded Latitudes Online in 2019 with a vision to make a truly African marketplace focusing on contemporary art from the African continent, bridging the gap between artists and collectors through both an online marketplace and a physical art fair. But much has been written about this fabulous event which this year hosted nearly 70 exhibitors/galleries and over 300 artists. It is an event to be diarized – really high quality art on display; an extraordinary venue with its mad hodge-podge of buildings and inviting paths, archways and rockeries; many open-air food stalls with delicious light meals on offer; and if the weather is kind as it was this year – a completely glorious sunny warm winter’s day. After a stimulating visual overload, it was fabulous just to relax and people-watch. It’s days like this that make me realize, yet again, how fabulous Jozi can be!
Shepstone Gardens 8 -12 Hope Road Mountain View
Although I originally wanted to write something about RMB Latitudes Art Fair, it’s honestly impossible to write about this Art Fair without mentioning the venue … and this sent me straight down the internet rabbit hole. I had to start with Shepstone Gardens own website to see what they said about themselves. And that is where things got complicated. Ever alert to alternative facts (in this case it is hardly world-shattering misinformation, but nevertheless), I started to question when I read that the new buildings were kept “true to the Herbert Baker style”; that Ghandi was a good friend of the architect (nowhere … yet … can I find the name of the architect of the original building on property); that, as a good friend of the architect, Mahatma Gandhi had intervened between the commissioning Modderfontein Dynamite Company and the labourers when there was a dispute during the building of the original house shortly after the South African War; that the house was built of 350 million year-old quartz. Hmmm … it is more likely the original building was built of sandstone (but this needs checking). Mahatma Gandhi was a very close friend of the architect Kallenbach, not Herbert Baker. Gandhi and Kallenbach lived together in Mountain View for a while. And the style of the Shepstone Gardens buildings of the last 5 decades (marvellously varied, mad and eclectic), is VERY far removed from any “original Herbert Baker architectural style”. And then in a conversation with Kathy Munro, Johannesburg heritage researcher of note, it transpired that there is also NO evidence that the house was commissioned by the Modderfontein Dynamite Company! So all sorts of myths to be dispelled.
But in some sources this mythology is corrected. Shepstone Gardens was bought nearly 5 decades ago by Chris Rayner. Chris has renovated the site ever since, in a frenzy of what his son Ken, calls ‘obsessive compulsive building disorder’. Over the last nearly 50 years, the property (now extending to 3 acres) has been magnificently landscaped with rose gardens, a Japanese garden, terraces, rockeries, several buildings which include quaint towers, a Turkish rooftop terrace, classical fountains, a miniature castle, a chapel with stained glass windows, a glass marquee; there are marbled floors, stone pillars, chandeliers, archways and pathways. It’s a marvellous labyrinthine wonderland of whimsy. VERY far removed from Herbert Baker’s classical restraint and homogenizing Imperial style.
Enjoy the photo journey:
The Turkish rooftop garden with views to east and north from this magnificent elevation up on the Mountain View ridge
Make sure to diarize the event for 2026 … it simply gets better and better every year! Mary Corrigall writes: “Whatever bad press this city battles, events such as this serve as a reminder that this city is bursting with art, creativity and innovation”. And if you missed it you can still see what the Fair has to offer on-line