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Kapwani Kiwanga / The Sun Never Sets / 2017

21 October - 18 November 2017
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Goodman Gallery Johannesburg 21 October – 18 November 2017

For Kapwani Kiwanga’s first solo exhibition in Africa, the Paris-based artist investigates the intersection of history, politics and the organic, presenting new work in which the 20th century expression, ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire’ is subtly critiqued.

The Sun Never Sets comprises works of a variety of media, including video installation and sculpture, through which the artist positions the natural world as a ‘witness’ to colonial rule and, thus, an important means of archival documentation in and of itself.

Artworks

Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Frame: 52.5 x 68.1 x 3 cm
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Frame: 52.5 x 68.1 x 3 cm
Flowers, vase, protocol allowing reactivation, with certificate signed by the artist
Unavailable
wood, shadecloth
Unavailable
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Frame: 71 x 79 x 3 cm
Flowers, protocol allowing reactivation, with certificate signed by the artist
Unavailable
wood, shadecloth, paint
Unavailable
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Unavailable
Protocol of assembly and display including archival iconography to guide the reconstruction of a floral arrangement consisting of cut flowers
Variable Dimensions
wood, shadecloth, paint
Unavailable
Single channel video, high-definition, colour with sound
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Unavailable
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Frame: 60 x 72 x 3 cm
Unavailable
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Frame: 60 x 72 x 3 cm
Unavailable
Folded pigment prints on paper 285g
Unavailable
Silkscreen print on Rivoli paper 240 g
Unavailable

About

Kapwani Kiwanga image

Kapwani Kiwanga

Kapwani Kiwanga (b. Hamilton, Canada) lives and works in Paris. Kiwanga studied Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal and Art at l’école des Beaux-Arts de Paris.

In 2020, Kiwanga received the Prix Marcel Duchamp (FR). She was also the winner of the Frieze Artist Award (USA) and the annual Sobey Art Award (CA) in 2018.

Solo exhibitions include Haus der Kunst, Munich (DE); Kunstinstituut Melly – Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (NLD); Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (CHE); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (USA); Albertinum museum, Dresden (DE); Artpace, San Antonio (USA); Esker Foundation, Calgary (CA); Tramway, Glasgow International (UK); Power Plant, Toronto (CA); Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (USA); South London Gallery, London (UK); and Jeu de Paume, Paris (FR) among others.

Selected group exhibitions include Whitechapel Gallery, London (UK); Serpentine Galleries, London (UK); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (CHN); MOT – Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (JPN); Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (DE); Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden – MACAAL, Marrakech (MAR); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (CA); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (USA); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (USA); Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal (CA); ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus (DK) and MACBA, Barcelona (ESP).

She is represented by Galerie Poggi, Paris; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Cape Town and London; galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin.

Kapwani Kiwanga is a Franco-Canadian artist based in Paris. Kiwanga’s work traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historic narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrow’s possibilities.

Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalised or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance.

Kiwanga co-opts the canon; she turns systems of power back on themselves, in art and in parsing broader histories. In this manner Kiwanga has developed an aesthetic vocabulary that she described as “exit strategies,” works that invite one to see things from multiple perspectives so as to look differently at existing structures and find ways to navigate the future differently.

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