FNB Art Prize winner Thato Toeba’s solo exhibition I beat you because I love you, examines symbols of power in society

Contemporary issues such as migration, the contested idea of power, climate change and gender politics are in fact at the centre of I beat you because I love you, provocatively titled in reference to the toxic twins of masculinity and Gender Based Violence, which President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a pandemic.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

Societies, whether in Africa, Europe, Asia and elsewhere, where human beings have settled, are governed and controlled by power structures. Either formally in the case of governments, or informally in the case of traditional leadership and religion –all these are power structures that control societies everywhere.

The manifestation of power, therefore is multi layered. Through religion, masculinity, politics, tradition and of course the control and ownership of the economy.

Often who has the right to wild power, and how they exercise that power, is a site of contestation as that affects how societies are arranged, managed and directed.

These are ideas one inevitably grapples with when viewing the recently opened solo exhibition by last year’s winner of the prestigious FNB Art Prize Lesotho born multi-media artists Thato Toeba.

The exhibition titled……opened at Johannesburg Art Gallery in the CBD on Sunday, 6, September, 2026, on the last day of the annual FNB Art Joburg, under whose auspices this award is organised.

Amid a somewhat cold weather, art lovers descended on this sometimes-forgotten, sometimes controversial and sometimes feared iconic art space in the centre of Johannesburg. Cold or no cold, they came in respectable numbers to celebrate with Thato the manifestation of her ideas she has been working on for months in preparation for this solo exhibition.

Okay, let us get out of our way, the lingering issues the politics around Johannesburg Art Gallery, or simply JAG, as it is called in art circles. We cannot really ignore that. Or can we? The suburban folk often cite the issue of crime as a reason for fearing to visit this art space, and the fact that for a number of years, the gallery was dogged by controversy due to the lack of regular art activities, such as hosting regular exhibitions has not helped matters in allaying the fears of the suburban folk.  The space has suffered credibility challenges, as besides the lack of regular programming, the building has frequent structural issues that often threaten the safety and security of the valuable art work housed there, and in the middle of being moved to other safe locations as the building is to undergo major renovations, commissioned by the City Of Johannesburg.

However, here, we are not talking about the challenges this iconic art and cultural space is currently facing, but about the current exhibition by Toeba.

The exhibition has been well conceptualised, and there is no question about that. The artist went deep into thinking what kind of message she wanted to send out about contemporary issues. Contemporary issues such as migration, the contested idea of power, climate change and gender politics are in fact at the centre of I beat you because I love you, provocatively titled in reference to the toxic twins of masculinity and Gender Based Violence, which President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a pandemic.

These themes come out strongly in this exhibition. However, it must be stated out-rightly that if you focus first on the several art pieces hung by strings around the gallery, you might miss the point the artist are making here, and this is simply because the art pieces are in small scale, and it might be hard to actually discern a message the artist is delivering through approaching this exhibition by first viewing these pieces, instead of the giant centre piece installation, which gives more clarity about what this exhibition is grappling with.

Rather, focus on the large scale piece at the centre of the gallery. This giant installation, which at first looks like a scene of chaos, but soon clarifies itself will make you think hard about the issues at the centre if this exhibition, and how they manifest themselves in our daily life in society.

The centrepiece is a religious structure. Call it church, which symbolises religion as one of the centres of power in society. Be patient and linger therefor sometime. You will soon realise that this installation in fact, aptly summarises the whole narrative of this exhibition –that is power, who wields it, and how it is exercised in society.

From there, you will then be able to discern the message and point of this exhibition as you move around the smaller pieces that are suspended around the JAG Gallery.

What is clear though is that both the FNB Art Joburg and Stevenson Gallery, to which Toeba is signed, are proud of this exhibition.

“”The Johannesburg Art Gallery, in collaboration with Stevenson, is proud to present I beat you because I love you by Thato Toeba. This is the Lesotho-born artist’s first institutional exhibition in South Africa, and follows their being awarded the 2025 FNB Art Prize.

Toeba speculates on the tendency of power across different levels to usurp, or otherwise interfere with, personal agency for paternalistic ends. Thinking through Saidiya Hartman’s concept of ‘Innocent Amusements’ – with emphasis on the theorist’s discussion of how basic human emotions, instincts, beliefs, amusements or expressions are used to perpetuate subjection – the exhibition reimagines the aesthetics of power.

The artist responds to the Johannesburg Art Gallery’s elegant architecture, and its history as an ornament of colonial conquest housing material of colonial sanction, by turning the gallery into a cathedral of refusal. Collages of found images, glass, mirror and red ochre are embedded in Catholic iconography to propose an aesthetic of power. An altar, a grotto, a cross, and 14 stations of the cross are reproduced as political rather than religious symbols, and made synonymous with power across state, labour and familial configurations through the artist’s layered images.

The exhibition features sound, installation and large-scale collage arranged across the walls and floors of the museum’s exhibition spaces, interweaving seemingly disparate images to question structures of power and ‘known’ truths. In I beat you because I love you, Toeba offers uncertainty as a critical framework, their immersive tableaux employing light and perspective to turn static images kaleidoscopic and allow doubt to infiltrate a space of venerated history. They state, ‘I would like to use the iconography of religion and how we read public images … I am looking for gestures that speak to the subversion of subjection, they state in their text accompanying this exhibition.