Marian Goodman Gallery has kicked off its 2018-2019 season with an inaugural presentation by draughtsman, performance artist and sculptor Kemang Wa Lehulere at its London outpost. The Cape-town native initially rose to prominence in 2006 with Gugulective, an artist-led, community-engaged collective co-founded with childhood artistic associate, Unathi Sigenu and is rapidly emerging as one of South Africa’s most prominent artistic exports.
Last year he scooped both Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year honour and the Malcolm McLaren Award at Performa 17 in New York, exposure that piqued the interest of Marian Goodman Gallery. Drawing on years of social activism, the artist confronts themes of post-apartheid unrest and broader socio-politics by recounting and re-enacting what he deems to be ‘deleted scenes’ from South African history.
The show – titled ‘not even the departed stay grounded’ – features both new works and reworked strands lifted from the multi-element Performa commission, I cut my skin to liberate the splinter, comprising messages-in-bottles, imposing sphinx-like ceramic dogs and bird houses indicating the prevalence of forced removals under apartheid. The exhibition sees an expansion of new imagery with large chalk wall drawings and objects bound and suspended by shoelaces spanning floor to ceiling.
The artist will present a partial reiteration of his now distinctive salvaged classroom desk and chair construction, defaced and riddled with generations of juvenile inscriptions – personal initials and crude carvings of genitalia – exuding themes of collective revolt and a poignant narration of the 1976 student uprising. ‘The works are not as huge and complex as my previous installations. I want to simplify and distil ideas I have been thinking through,’ the artist tells Wallpaper*.
‘Wa Lehulere’s exhibitions and performances are spaces for working out ideas’ says School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor Delinda Collier, ‘not allowing something to be fixed into a static representation is very much at the heart of all he does.’ Visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to donate books to be passed on to Wa Lehulere’s forthcoming library project in Gugulethu.
INFORMATION
‘Kemang Wa Lehulere: not even the departed stay grounded’ is on view until 20 October. For more information, visit the Marian Goodman Gallery website
ADDRESS
Marian Goodman Gallery
5-8 Lower John Street
London W1F 9DY
-
What is the role of fragrance in contemporary culture, asks a new exhibition at 10 Corso ComoMilan concept store 10 Corso Como has partnered with London creative agency System Preferences to launch Olfactory Projections 01
-
Jack White's Third Man Records opens a Paris pop-upJack White's immaculately-branded record store will set up shop in the 9th arrondissement this weekend
-
Designer Marta de la Rica’s elegant Madrid studio is full of perfectly-pitched contradictionsThe studio, or ‘the laboratory’ as de la Rica and her team call it, plays with colour, texture and scale in eminently rewarding ways
-
'We need to be constantly reminded of our similarities' – Jonathan Baldock challenges the patriarchal roots of a former Roman temple in LondonThrough use of ceramics and textiles, British artist Jonathan Baldock creates a magical and immersive exhibition at ‘0.1%’ at London's Mithraum Bloomberg Space
-
Discover Rotimi Fani-Kayode's fluid photographs of the queer male body, on show in London‘Rotimi-Fani Kayode: The Studio – Staging Desire’ at Autograph ABP celebrates the work of the Nigerian-born photographer
-
Saatchi Gallery is in full bloom with floral works from Vivienne Westwood, Marimekko, Buccellati and more‘Flowers – Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture’ at Saatchi Gallery, London, explores the relationship between creatives and their floral muses, and spans from fashion and jewellery to tattoos
-
'I want to get into these images and perfume them': Linder's retrospective opens at the Hayward Gallery'Linder: Danger Came Smiling' gathers fifty years of the artist's work at the Hayward Gallery. We meet the punk provocateur ahead of her first retrospective
-
Tasneem Sarkez's heady mix of kitsch, Arabic and Americana hits LondonArtist Tasneem Sarkez draws on an eclectic range of references for her debut solo show, 'White-Knuckle' at Rose Easton
-
‘A call to action for more authentic expressions of working-class life’: a London show reframes working-class BritainLondon exhibition ‘Lives Less Ordinary’, at Two Temple Place, challenges age-old stereotypes
-
‘Dr Tetris’ on the biggest ever iteration of the puzzle in LondonTetris comes to 360-degree, 23,000 sq ft, 16k LED screens in London; Craig McLean speaks to Henk Rogers, the man who’s kept the game alive
-
Never-before-seen Barbara Hepworth works go on show in landmark exhibitionIn ‘Barbara Hepworth: Strings’, various Hepworth sculptures will be exhibited in public for the first time, at Piano Nobile, London
