What I Buy and Why: TV Producer Mfundi Vundla on His Fateful First Purchase, and Missing His Chance to Collect Jack Whitten

by Naomi Rea

Vundla is best known for his work on the long-running South African soap opera "Generations."

 

When he’s not at his day job as a television and movie producer, South African collector Mfundi Vundla is busy building up his art collection.

 

Vundla is best known as the creator and producer of the long-running South African soap opera Generations. The show, which started in 1993 and relaunched in 2014 as Generations: The Legacy following a pay dispute with the show’s original cast, is set against the backdrop of the advertising industry, and follows the lives of a multilayered cast of middle- and upper-class South Africans.

 

The producer was introduced to the art world in the late 1970s while residing in Boston, Massachusetts, and today his collection is particularly strong in works by South African artists. He has also been working to encourage photography in South Africa, and cofounded the Photo Education Trust with the late South African artist David Goldblatt.

 

We caught up with the collector to hear about the artists currently on his radar, what’s hanging in his bathroom, and which artworks he most wishes he could steal away for himself.

2 Nov 2020