Goodman Gallery is pleased to present Hata, a new series of paintings and drawings by Misheck Masamvu, his third solo exhibition with the gallery. Taken from Shona, the word Hata commonly refers to a cushion used to soften the load atop one’s head. In a broader sense, Hata stands as a coping mechanism for the burdens we bear, be they literal objects or our thoughts, emotions and ideas. For this exhibition, Masamvu uses painting as a hata-like device for processing our relationship to history. This position relies on thinking of the history we are burdened with as an opportunity for further education and growth. Drawing on personal tragedies, Masamvu looks at how he overcame these challenges in his life by turning to lessons gained from history. Visually, Hata transforms into Hakata – a contraption to delineate a probable outcome or becomes a grammar of expressive brushwork, chaotic compositions and perpetually altered or mutated figures often depicted between states of animal and human. The inclusion of these figures in the midst of transformation celebrates the determination of the human spirit and the pragmatic purpose of trying to understand our environment and social consequences. “When you look at a body there’s a story,” says Masamvu. In times of great sadness or joy these stories manifest in physical expressions such as laughter or tears. In his paintings, Masamvu attempts to “collect the moments of that struggle, awareness or realisation”, condensing these expressions into images which reference the “weight, the emotion of the spiritual connection, or intellectual space”. Masamvu’s use of figuration further helps the artist “harvest hidden emotions coming from the subconscious”. The effect allows viewers to emotionally connect to Masamvu’s work through their own experience. Masamvu describes his process as an “emotional dance”, which carries a message. “In Hata its a celebration and a violent dance. It’s not something you’re giving without risking yourself. It’s how you are reaching out to someone in a tragic moment, but when you’re in that moment of rescue you’re risking your life. That point of sacrifice is what I’m trying to show. As much as we are fragile, through this fragility there’s an element where we can become much stronger and give or harvest more through that sacrifice.” The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph, also titled Hata, edited by curator Gabi Ngcobo. The publication will be launched alongside a listening session between Ngcobo and Masamvu at 11H30 on 20 July.
Artworks
About
Misheck Masamvu
Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, Misheck Masamvu’s (b. 1980, Mutare, Zimbabwe) works allow him to address the past while searching for a way of being in the world. As one of the most significant artists from Zimbabwe, Masamvu’s work offers a renewed understanding of visual culture in Africa and the decolonial project more broadly. Rhythmic lines and layered fields of colour have become a prominent language for Masamvu to explore structures of power and how history comes to bear on the contemporary moment, but also how one can adapt to a new way of interacting with the world.
Selected solo exhibitions: Show me how ruins make a home, A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo (2024); Exit Wounds, Goodman Gallery, New York (2024); Safety Pin, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2023); Pivot, Bernier/Eliades Gallery, Brussels (2023); Talk to me while I’m eating, Goodman
Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2021); Hata, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2019); Still Still, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town; Misheck Masamvu, Institut Français, Paris, France (2015); Disputed Seats, Influx Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal (2009).
Notable group exhibitions include: Kuvhunura/Kupinda nemwenje mudziva, Fondation Blachere Bonnieux, France (2024); Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics, The Institutum, Singapore (2024); Inside Out, Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Geneva (2022); Witness: Afro Perspectives, El Espacio 23, Miami, USA (2020); Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami (2020); Two Together, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town (2020); Five Bobh: Painting at the End of an Era, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town (2017); Africa 2.0 > is there a Contemporary African art?, Influx Contemporary Art, Lisbon (2010); Art, Migration and Identity,, Africa Museum, Arnhem (2008); and 696 , National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (2008).
Major international exhibitions include: The ‘t’ is silent , 8th Biennial of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium (2022); STILL ALIVE , 5th Aichi Triennale, Aichi, Japan (2022), NIRIN , 22nd Sydney Biennale, Sydney (2020); Incerteza Viva (Live Uncertainty), the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2016) and his international debut at Zimbabwe’s inaugural Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).
Collections include: A4 Arts Foundation (Cape Town, South Africa); Braunsfelder Family Collection (Cologne, Germany); Uieshema Collection (Tokyo, Japan); Perez Art Museum (Miami, USA); Pigozzi Collection (Geneva, Switzerland); Taguchi Art Collection (Tokyo, Japan); Fukutake Foundation (Auckland, New Zealand); COMMA Foundation (Damme, Belgium); ANA Collection (Lagos, Nigeria); Sigg Art Foundation, Le Castellet, France; Fondation Gandur pour l’Art (Geneva, Switzerland); and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Cape Town, South Africa).
Masamvu lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Download full CV