Acclaimed curator and museum leader brings a Pan-African and international vision to Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town as the institution enters its second decade.
12 August 2026
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) has announced the appointment of Elvira Dyangani Ose as Artistic Director, effective 1 October 2026, placing one of contemporary art’s most experienced curators and institutional leaders at the centre of the museum’s next chapter.
Her appointment comes as Zeitz MOCAA approaches its tenth anniversary and begins to define the ambitions of its second decade. Dyangani Ose will oversee the museum’s curatorial vision and direction across exhibitions, research, collections and public engagement, while shaping how the institution works with artists, audiences and cultural partners across Africa and internationally.
Dyangani Ose’s extensive career across influential institutions in Europe, Africa, and the United States, including MACBA and Tate Modern, underscores her capacity to lead Zeitz MOCAA with confidence and pride in its global standing.
What distinguishes Dyangani Ose’s trajectory is the range of contexts in which she has worked. Her practice moves between museum leadership, exhibition-making, public art, research and institution-building, consistently engaging the relationship between African and diasporic artistic practices and the wider histories of modern and contemporary art. Her career has been marked by a sustained commitment to artists from Africa and its diaspora, alongside an ability to position their work within broader international conversations rather than as a separate or peripheral field.
Dyangani Ose’s international experience will inform Zeitz MOCAA’s strategies for engaging local and global audiences, ensuring the museum remains relevant and innovative in an evolving landscape.
Zeitz MOCAA Co-founder and Co-chair David Green OBE described the appointment as reflecting the museum’s identity as an institution “rooted in Africa, while connected to the world”. He noted that Dyangani Ose will lead the institution into its next chapter while building on the foundations established during the museum’s first decade.
Co-founder and Co-chair Jochen Zeitz similarly emphasised the scale of the appointment, noting that Dyangani Ose brings “deep experience in institutional leadership” and will expand the museum’s artistic ambitions across its exhibitions, research, collections, public engagement and relationships with artists and audiences.
For Dyangani Ose, this role offers a meaningful balance of continuity and reinvention, reassuring stakeholders of a thoughtful evolution aligned with the museum’s core values. “It is a privilege to join Zeitz MOCAA,” she said. “I am thrilled to come on board at this moment to continue its journey as a leading African institution with global reach. I look forward to working alongside the museum’s remarkable team, artists, supporters, and the local and global communities, building upon its extraordinary foundation by fostering meaningful collaborations and artistic exchanges across cultures and geographies.”
Dyangani Ose succeeds the late Koyo Kouoh, whose leadership established important artistic and institutional foundations at Zeitz MOCAA. Her appointment now signals a new phase: one in which a curator with substantial international experience, a strong Pan-African outlook and a record of collaborative institutional leadership will have the opportunity to articulate her own vision for the museum.
This vision offers Zeitz MOCAA the chance to deepen its African relationships and forge new dialogues, inspiring hope and excitement for its future role in global and local cultural conversations. As the museum enters its second decade, Dyangani Ose’s appointment is therefore more than a change in artistic leadership. It places an accomplished curator and museum director in a position to redefine how Zeitz MOCAA thinks about its audiences, its collection, its international relationships and, critically, its responsibility to the artists and histories it exists to serve.
