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Sam Nhlengethwa / Townships Re-Visited / 2006

09 November - 02 December 2006
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Sam Nhlengethwa’s solo exhibition entitled ‘Townships revisited’ opened on 11 November 2006 at The Goodman Gallery. Along with Nhlengethwa’s work, the monograph entitled Sam Nhlengethwa the Goodman Gallery Editions publication will be launched. This was the first comprehensive publication about Sam Nhlengethwa’s life and artworks.

For the exhibition Nhlengethwa has chosen to focus on the theme of townships around South Africa. Historically townships were under-developed urban residential areas created for non-whites by the apartheid government. They were places of riots, unrest and violence. Townships were also places of great music, fashion and style. They were ‘monumentalized’ in the paintings of Gerard Sekoto and George Pemba. Sekoto and Pemba’s depictions of the townships have inspired Nhlengethwa’s work.

Nhlengethwa was interested to see how life in the various townships of South Africa had changes over the years. Whist working on this series of artworks Nhlengethwa revisited and photographed various South African areas and townships. He visited townships in the Western Cape; KwaZulu Natal; Free State; North West and Gauteng. Nhlengethwa describes how ‘as autumn set in 2005, I embarked on the townships project. As part of my research, I visited different townships in the six provinces. I discovered during my research that each of the townships I covered has its own character depending on where it is’. Nhlengethwa describes townships situated near Metropolitan cities as different from townships that are near less densely populated towns and rural areas. They have a more ‘hybrid’ character that is fast-pacing and one cannot clearly distinguish an origin or cultural essence. Townships, generally speaking, have similar infra-structure and architecture. Life-style is casual and vibrant as portrayed by the different characters in the artworks on exhibition.

Artworks

Mixed media on paper
122 x 140cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
50 x 122cm
Unavailable
Lithograph
37 x 46cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas, triptych
40 x 40cm / 40 x 51cm / 40 x 40cm
Unavailable
Colour Lithograph
37 x 46cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
70 x 100cm
Unavailable
Etching
Image: 12.3 x 19.7 cm Work: 50 x 35 cm
Mixed media on paper
70 x 100cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
40 x 50cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
40 x 50cm
Unavailable
Mixed Media On Paper
127 x 275cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
140 x 260cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
82 x 79cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
120 x 322cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
74 x 125cm
Unavailable
Colour Lithograph
37 x 46cm
Unavailable
Colour Lithograph
37 x 46cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
88 x 147cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
88 x 147cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
40 x 51cm
Unavailable
Lithograph
37 x 46cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
70 x 100cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
53 x 101cm
Unavailable
Mixed media n canvas
40 x 50cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
70 x 100cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
40 x 50cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
79 x 282cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on paper
40 x 51cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
50 x 60cm
Unavailable
Mixed Media On Canvas
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
40 x 40cm
Unavailable
Colour Lithograph
37 x 46cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
40 x 51cm
Unavailable
Mixed media on canvas
40 x 51cm
Unavailable
Colour Lithograph
Work: 37 x 46 cm
Unavailable

About

Sam Nhlengethwa image

Sam Nhlengethwa

Sam Nhlengethwa was born in the black township community of Payneville near Springs (a satellite mining town east of Johannesburg), in 1955 and grew up in Ratanda location in nearby Heidelberg. In the 1980s, he moved to Johannesburg where he honed his practice at the renowned Johannesburg Art Foundation under its founder Bill Ainslie.

Nhlengethwa is one of the founders of the legendary Bag Factory in Newtown, in the heart of the city, where he used to share studio space with fellow greats of this pioneering generation of South African artists, such as David Koloane and Pat Mautloa.

Despite Nhlengethwa’s pioneering role in South Africa art, his work has received rare visibility in London. A major survey exhibition, titled Life, Jazz and Lots of Other Things, was hosted by SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia in 2014, which was then co-hosted in Atlanta by SCAD and the Carter Center.

Other notable exhibitions and accolades in South Africa and around the world include: in 1994 – the year South Africa held its first democratic elections – Nhlengethwa was awarded the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award; in 1995, his work was included in the Whitechapel Gallery’s Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa in London; in 2000, he participated in a two-man show at Seippel Art Gallery in Cologne.

Other significant international group exhibitions include Constructions: Contemporary Art from South Africa at Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Niteroi at in Brazil in 2011, Beyond Borders: Global Africa at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in 2018.

Nhlengethwa’s work has featured on a number of international biennales: in 2003, his work was included in the 8th Havana Biennale, Southern African Stories: A Print Collection, the 12th International Cairo Biennale in 2010, the 2013 Venice Biennale as part of the South African pavilion, titled Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African Art and the Archive, and in the 6th Beijing Biennale in 2015.

Nhlengethwa’s practice features in important arts publications, such as Phaidon’s The 20th Century Art Book (2001).

Download full CV