The first fair in Africa to focus on selling contemporary African art offers plenty of work reflecting the continent's war, disease and poverty: sculptures of guns with spikes; dark, bloody etchings; installations on the dangers of unprotected sex.
Masks, fetishes and the odd protest poster from South Africa's resistance art movement also are on display. But so is art with more universal themes, such as a wistful sculpture of mother and child.
And still other work is irreverent, pop-oriented and cheeky.
The kaleidoscope of images and themes is fitting backdrop for the debate the Joburg Art Fair has sparked about what it means to be African and an artist. The fair also has got the art world buzzing about tensions between art and commerce.
"Whatever we call African art, I think the African artist exists," said Simon Njami, a Cameroon-born, Paris-based curator who spoke at Thursday's reception, the night before the fair opened to the public. "To be an African ... means to see the world from a specific point of view, which doesn't mean we don't look at our world or only look at our neighborhood."
The Joburg Art Fair, in the city's wealthy financial and shopping district of Sandton, brings together 22 major galleries from Europe, the US and Africa showcasing works on sale from US$150 to US$750,000.
There is work by some of South Africa's top artists such as William Kentridge, photographer David Goldblatt and Gerard Sekoto, regarded as one of the fathers of African modernist painting.
The rest of the continent is well represented with El Anatsui and Owusu-Ankomah from Ghana and Beninese artist Romuald Hazoume.
From Cameroon and based in Paris and Brussels, photographer Bili Bidjocka prefers to be seen as an "international" artist.
"I am an African, without any doubt, but I am also a contemporary artist and I have no difficulties with this," he said.
The fair is something of a homecoming for Cape Town artist Robin Rhode. Since leaving for Berlin in 2003, Rhode has had huge success with his hip, athletic performances and photographic work.
Represented by the New York Perry Rubenstein Gallery, Rhode is a special guest artist at the fair.
"I consider myself an artist of the world," he says. "The labels will continue to exist. But let the art question the validity of that. Then art is not about geography, then the art becomes of the world." Claude Simard, from New York's Jack Shainman Gallery, said African artists "are rooted to Africa through issues such as race, politics, poverty and social issues." He points to South Africa's Zwelethu Mthethwa striking portraits of African migrant workers.
There's no doubt African art - however you define it - is hot. An African Pavilion was set up at the Venice Biennial for the first time last year - grabbing headlines, not least for reports of collections being funded by blood diamonds.
"In America there is also a renewed interest in African art," says Durban-based curator Carol Brown, who consulted on the fair.
She says "the Big Five" draw the most interest - Kentridge, El Anatsui, British stars Chris Ofili and Yinka Shonibare of Nigerian families, and Kenyan potter Magdalene Odundo.
South African-born Marlene Dumas is the most expensive living female artist after a painting sold in London for US$3.34 million.
Based in Amsterdam, Dumas is holding her first solo show in her native country at another Johannesburg gallery.
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