Stevenson Gallery, Woodstock-Cape Town

The gallery, Stevenson, was founded in 2003 after two of its founding directors Michael Stevenson and Andrew da Conceicao, visited Documenta 11, and felt that something new was afoot that had yet to find a home in South Africa, which at the time had only one serious contemporary art gallery. In 2005 and 2006, Stevenson was the first South African gallery to exhibit artists from other countries in Africa, and over time developing a fully international exhibition programme with a particular focus on the region.

From the start, the gallery has had a particular emphasis on publications.  This addressed the local dearth of art publishing, and allowed its exhibitions to travel beyond the confines of the gallery. To keep with the times and also emphasizing access, the publications are also available online, and the catalogues remain a reference point for curators and art historians and have included contributions by Teju Cole, TJ Demos, Okwui Enwezor, William Kentridge and Hans Ulrich Obrist, among others.

In the absence of institutions dedicated to contemporary art, the gallery brought the work of International artists such as Francis Alÿs, Rineke Dijkstra, Thomas Hirschhorn, Glenn Ligon and Walid Raad to South Africa, often for the first time, functioning as a de-facto Kunsthalle for local audiences.  The gallery’s institutional programming included an extensive restaging and reimagining of Enwezor’s seminal 1997 Johannesburg Biennale in 2012, with a republished artist’s book by Olafur Eliasson and work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Pierre Huyghe among the highlights.

In 2012, the gallery started a process to convert to a law firm-like structure, offering equal equity shares to its five directors and the founder. More recently, small shareholdings have been allocated to key junior staff and one outside advisor, bringing the total number of partners to 10.  A further 17 support staff allow us to take a proactive role in supporting and developing the careers of our artists, for many of whom we are the primary point of contact with the international art world.

Currently the gallery represents about 30 artists, approximately a third of whom are not South African.  Stevenson participates in fairs including Cape Town Art Fair, Frieze New York, Art Basel, Joburg Art Fair, Frieze London, Art X Lagos, Paris Photo and Art Basel Miami Beach.

Stevenson has spaces in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

This article was produced for SAHO in collaboration with Stevenson Galley