Elana Brundyn

Elana Brundyn is a fine art and cultural consultant based in Cape Town, South Africa. She has previously worked as a commercial gallerist and a museum director.

Brundyn was involved in launching two important African museums – she was the founding CEO of Norval Foundation and an inaugural director at Zeitz MOCAA. During her time at Norval Foundation, she helped establish a formal art partnership with Boschendal which resulted in the launch of satellite art exhibitions hosted on the farms’ historic manor house with a focus on artists from across Africa.

Currently, Brundyn sits on the Board of Trustees for Aspire Art Lalela, and the Stellenbosch Outdoor Sculpture Trust. She is also the founder of the Art House Collection.

Career
In 2023, she founded Brundyn Arts and Culture, a consultancy that offers curatorial, education, and fine art advisory services. The consultancy has two exhibition spaces – in the Cape Town CBD and at Boschendal in the Cape Winelands. The launch of Brundyn Arts and Culture coincided with the opening of Lebohang Kganye’s solo exhibition, Mmoloki wa mehopolo: Breaking Bread with a Wanderer in Cape Town. The show traveled to Boschendal where it was presented alongside The Sea is History, consisting of four large-scale pop-up sculptures. In 2024, Kganye won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.

Brundyn was the founding CEO of Norval Foundation – a museum dedicated to exhibiting, researching and archiving 20th and 21st-century art from Africa and its diasporas. Norval Foundation launched in April 2018. Notable exhibitions during her time at Norval Foundation include Accomplice by Michael Armitage, Heliostat by Wim Botha, Why Do I Hesitate by William Kentridge and Alpha and Omega by Jackson Hlungwani.

Prior to joining Norval Foundation, Brundyn was part of a small team that helped launch the Zeitz MOCAA in September 2017. Her role was Director of Institutional Development and External Affairs.

In 2020, Elana was part of the judging panel that nominated the most beautiful object in South Africa.