Goodman Gallery Johannesburg presents If Joburg had a beach, who would go? a solo exhibition of new sculptural work by Unathi Mkonto. Installed as an immersive environment, the exhibition extends Mkonto’s practice into a spatial field where wall-based works and freestanding structures operate as one continuous system rather than separate objects.
Developed within Goodman Gallery’s [Working Title] programme, the exhibition also speaks to Mkonto’s upcoming solo presentation at Frieze London 2026, positioning this Johannesburg iteration as part of a larger unfolding body of work.
Working primarily in fine-grained beechwood, Mkonto builds repeated, pared-back forms that shift between sculpture and architectural fragment. Slanted planes, cylindrical volumes and circular motifs accumulate into a unified visual rhythm, an environment meant to be walked through as much as viewed. The work reduces architecture to its most essential elements: point, line and plane.
At the centre of the exhibition is a speculative question: what would Johannesburg feel like if it had a beach? From this premise, Mkonto frames the city as an emotional and spatial condition rather than a fixed geography, an urban field shaped by movement, memory and uneven histories of space.
Cylindrical forms echo Johannesburg’s skyline but appear displaced within an imagined oceanic setting. As the artist suggests, the interest is not in buildings as such, but in “deep water waves” formed within the city itself, an energy that accumulates, shifts and resists stability.
The restrained use of beechwood sharpens this reading. Its muted surface and repetitive geometry strip architecture of ornament, turning it into a visual language built from repetition and variation. Circular forms recur as foundational “points,” suggesting both structural origin and organic life which is linking built environments back to natural systems.
Across the installation, Mkonto proposes architecture as a relational and evolving process: something to be reimagined, rather than fixed. The exhibition becomes an encounter with form as atmosphere and where space is felt, constructed and reconsidered at once.
The presentation continues into Frieze London 2026, where the work will further evolve. Mkonto’s inclusion forms part of the Artist-to-Artist initiative, selected by Yinka Shonibare, and reflects Goodman Gallery’s broader commitment to extending the [Working Title] programme across local and international contexts.
Unathi Mkonto (b. 1982, Peddie) is a Cape Town-based artist working across sculpture, installation and drawing. His practice explores architecture, spatial memory and the lived experience of urban environments shaped by South Africa’s histories. He has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Stevenson Gallery and Open 24 Hours Gallery, and group presentations at institutions such as the ICA London and Goodman Gallery London.
