Vu Horwitz

Vu Horwitz’s research is concerned with the impact of social and political change on the production of meaning and ‘value’ for art objects from across Africa. More specifically, she focuses on how mission-generated collections of ‘art’ objects from the contemporary Democratic Republic of Congo can be interpreted and (re)configured in ways that decolonise Art History in Africa. She received a Master of Arts (with Distinction) in History of Art from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2019, and a BA (Hons) in the same subject in 2015. She was awarded the Stein-Lessing Scholarship, and the Standard Bank Group African Art Essay Prize. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town in 2014. Horwitz curated the Public Programme for the RMB Turbine Art Fair in 2019, and in 2016/2017 she undertook a pre-doctoral research fellowship as part of The Arts of Africa and the Global South Programme at Rhodes University. She has presented research papers at a number of conferences, including the South African Visual Art Historians (SAVAH), and the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA). Her research has been published in African Arts (2017), and in two books produced by the Wits Art Museum (2016; forthcoming 2020). She was a lecturer in History of Art at the University of Johannesburg from 2017 - 2020, where her focus was to de-hegemonise the ways in which the field was taught previously in South African contexts.