Tiffany & Co's ‘Artist-to-Artist' programme at Frieze London (see more Frieze Week highlights) invites established artists to select up-and-coming creatives to present their work at the fair. This year, Yinka Shonibare has nominated self-taught Cape Town-based artist Unathi Mkonto. Spanning drawing, installation, sculpture and performance, his distinctive practice is driven by a keen interest in the possibilities of architecture, exploring, through sculpture, how to create a better standard of living.
Yinka Shonibare: Unathi Mkonto's work caught my attention because he has such a unique approach to minimalist art. Having lived in Cape Town, he's really interested in what's going on in South Africa. His method of presenting his work reminds me of a lot of minimalist approaches, but the difference is that he does have a subject matter, which is South African, whereas the minimalists were really focusing on the object itself.
Unathi Mkonto: I studied architecture, and that is part of my art now – in a newer way and with my own rules. I've been comfortable being in between the two, and never having to choose a side. In my practice, the work is sometimes theatrical. I'm interested in the environment that architecture gives – what people experience in the space and what is left behind. The voids and the in-between; everything can be habitable within my world in my architecture. A cardboard box can be a building, a drawing can be a building, you can live in anything. I'm exploring those theories and trying to stretch a language of architecture from the continent that is also inspired by nature, water and the land, and so I'm pulling from all those things.
YS: I've been looking at the work from London, thinking it's a unique approach to art-making. Is it architecture? Is it sculpture? I like that about the work. It refers to art-making in the past, but in an African setting. That kind of continuity of history interests me.
‘I'm trying to stretch a language of architecture from Africa that is also inspired by nature, water and the land'
Unathi Mkonto
UM: I had been thinking about how agriculture could become the future of African architecture, because we draw from the ground and we learn from the soil. We know how it works, and for me, it's an important resource – rather than bricks and glass and things to build, the ground gives us so much. I've been thinking about what architecture could come out of the soil, and I've been thinking about trees. There is also an aquatic feel, with trees that are floating in water at the same time. It's a mix of the elements, a continuation of the sea, and the beach and the towers. What is the ancient knowledge that Africa has about soil? And how can Africans look more into the soil to create a language – because at the end of the day, our languages are going to come from the soil, they're going to come from nature.
YS: When people see this work at Frieze, I think they should be broad-minded and nourished by new ideas.
UM: I'm really looking forward to making a singular statement, and encountering this fast-moving audience. I was thinking about a work that is a singular language that can communicate, and also create a moment to pause. Something you can meditate on, something that's raw and quite honest, and that isn't overly done, but that attracts you for its honesty and its openness.
The Tiffany & Co ‘Artist-to-Artist' programme is on show from 14-18 October at Frieze London, Regent's Park
A version of this article appears in the November 2026 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 8 October in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today