While the commuter world of taxis seems far from the world of the contemporary art gallery, for some time SA Taxi’s shareholders have quietly been supporting emerging contemporary South African artists by acquiring their works. Through their SA Taxi Foundation, they have now got behind the wheel of the SA Taxi Foundation Art Award, which is an innovative new competition that aims to bridge the divide between high art, contemporary culture and the vast population of South Africans using our public transport daily.
“There are a number of good reasons to support the arts, but as a business, ours is clear. With access to 40% of the commuter population in South Africa through our network of financed taxi owners, we see a direct way that we can impact on the art industry through exposure, while creating a unique way to promote the benefit of taxis as an advertising platform.” – Bonisile Makubalo Director of Corporate Affairs for SA Taxi
As a moving public art project, the SA Taxi Foundation Art Award aims to not only provide support to emerging artists but to take art to the audiences of South Africa. While so many other worthy initiatives are trying to pull audiences into niche locations such as galleries and museums this project takes the art to where the audiences are.
Image: Example of an artwork image applied to a taxi. Image: Guernsey Arts Commission