The Black Collectors Forum is the only platform in South Africa that is targeting new audiences particularly the black high-end market. It aims to ‘widen access’ to art contemporary art appreciation by developing a new market, in particular affluent and young black professionals of art collectors through a series of events on ‘culture broking – to help first time buyers hurdle what may be their barriers to purchasing art. BCF is primarily cultivating an entirely new art market. Black Collectors Forum has been supported by leading art industry people including art loving audience, curators, collectors, gallerists, auctioneers, art patrons and art executives.

The Black Collectors Forum was successfully launched in July 2014 at Turbine Hall in Johannesburg. The event targeted affluent black individuals and other industry professionals. Reflecting change in post-apartheid South Africa, recent research by the University of Cape Town’s Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing shows the black middle-class has more than doubled in eight years to 4,3 million in 2012, and its annual spending has overtaken its white counterpart group. It is this market that is at the core of the BCF strategy, based on an innovative response and a creative way to building a generation of new black art collectors who will invest in African contemporary art.

The launch was facilitated by Andile Magengelele, an independent curator and art broker with a line up of stellar speakers: Makgathi Molebatsi (art collector and Board Member of The Bag Factory Artist Studios; Dr. Oupa Morare (Director, Becomo Art Collection and Becomo Art Centre); Michelle Constant (CEO, Business Art South Africa); Ruarc Peffer (Senior Specialist: Contemporary Art, Strauss & Co. Art Auctioneers) and Sam Nhlengethwa (a renowned artist and collector of art).

Central to the BCF strategy is to show that there are other art audiences and potential markets to be engaged in buying, appreciating and investing in visual arts.