International curator Elvira Dyangani Ose lands top job of Artistic Director at Zeitz MOCCA 

This follows the passing away last year of its former Executive Director Kuoh

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

The Cape Town art ecosystem, and effectively in the country will soon witness a new injection of intellectual addition has there is a new appointment in one of the leading institutions of art in the country, Zeitz MOCCA.

The Cape Town museum, which acquires, exhibits and catalogues contemporary art from the African continent and its diaspora, has appointed art scholar and seasoned international curator as its new Artistic director, following tht demise of Kuoh, who passed on last year.

The traditional role of executive director, the position that Kuoh held before her passing, has now been split into two, Artistic Director to which has been appointed and another person who will be in charge of operations, the museum said in a statement.

Elvira Dyangani Ose appointed artistic director of Cape Town’s Zeitz MOCCA comes into the position with a wealth of art leadership behind her name, gained at some of the world’s leading art institutions. She is former director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and has alsopreviously held influential leadership roles as the director of the Showroom London and held curatorial roles at Creative Time in New York and at Tate Modern where she contributed to the development of the institution’s first strategy for collecting art from Africa and its diaspora, a statement says. She served as a curator at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Dyangani Ose is also a doctoral candidate in the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University in New York.

Earlier this year, Ose was in the news when she resigned as a member of the Venice Biennale jury over the participation of Russian and Israel artists.

Elvira Dyangani Ose will take up her new position on October 1, 2026.