Photo: Maksym Biousov
Dineo Seshee Bopape’s artistic process engages with the matter of self-sovereignty, “exploring the metaphysics of ‘self-presence’ (the sense of being present to one’s self) and matter (in the literal, alchemical and symbolic sense) often surveying the wounds of the personal and collective body; this at times through the historical contexts backdrop of colonialisms, imperialism, and slavery” 1. Informed by Afro-diasporic spiritual aesthetics, she interweaves these themes through her large-scale, immersive installations that often encompass storytelling, sculpture, drawing, video, and sound.
Bopape has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her most recent solo exhibitions include (ka) pheko ye – Wo der Traum beginnt, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland (2024); Master Harmoniser (Ile, aya, moya, la, ndokh) at blank projects, Cape Town (2023); Lerato laka le a phela le a phela le a phela/My love is alive, is alive, is alive for the Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series at MoMA in New York, USA (2023); Born in the first light of the morning [moswara’marapo] at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, Italy (2022); The Soul Expanding Ocean #3 at Ocean Space in Venice, Italy (2022); Lerato le le golo (...la go hloka bo kantle) at Secession Vienna in Austria (2022); The Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA at VCU) in Richmond, USA (2021); Sedibeng, it comes with the rain at Towner Art Galler in Eastbourne, UK (2019); and When Spirituality was a Baby at Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland (2018).
Recent group exhibitions include those at the Pinault Collection Palazzo Grassi, Venice and Bourse de Commerce, Paris; PalaisPopulaire in Berlin; Helsinki Biennial, Finland; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany; National Museum of Cardiff, Wales; FRAC Poitou-Charentes, Anglouême, France; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Arsenale, Venice Biennale, Italy; Ford Foundation Gallery, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Canada; 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Germany; Sharjah Biennale 13: Tamawuj, UAE, among others.
Bopape was the main prize winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2017, the recipient of a 2010 Columbia University Toby Fund Award, and the winner of 2008 MTN New Contemporaries Award. In 2021 she was awarded the Artes Mundi 9 Prize by National Museum Cardiff, Wales.
1 The artist in conversation
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curriculum vitae
1981 Born in Polokwane, South Africa
education
2010 MFA at Columbia University, New York
2007 De Ateliers, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2004 Durban Institute of Technology
solo exhibitions
2024 (ka) pheko ye – Wo der Traum beginnt, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland
2023 Master Harmoniser (Ile aya, moya, la, ndokh), blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 Projects: Dineo Seshee Bopape, The Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Lobby, MoMA, New York, USA
2023 (ka) pheko ye – the dream to come, Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland
2022 Born in the first light of the morning [moswara’marapo], Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy
2022 The Soul Expanding Ocean #3, Ocean Space, Venice, Italy
2022 Lerato le le golo (...la go hloka bo kantle), secession Vienna, Austria
2020 New, Site-Responsive Commissions, The Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA at VCU), Richmond, Virginia, USA
2019 Dineo Seshee Bopape: Sedibeng, it comes with the rain, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, United Kingdom
2018 When Spirituality was a Baby, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2018 Lerole: footnotes. (The struggle of memory against forgetting), Sfeir-Semler Gallery Hamburg, Germany
2018 Solo Exhibition: Main Prize winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2017, PinchukArtCentre Kiev, Ukraine
2017 Lerole: footnotes (The struggle of memory against forgetting), Witte de With Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2017 sa kosa ke lerole, The Gallery in the Round, National Arts Festival Grahamstown, Grahamstown, South Africa
2017 and- in. the light of this. _____, Darling Foundry, Montreal, Canada
2017 222, PHURULLOGA, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Germany
2016 sa ______ ke lerole, (sa lerole ke ___ ), Art in General, New York, USA
2016 Untitled [of occult instability] (feelings) Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2015 Slow-co-ruption, Hayward Gallery Project space, London, United Kingdom
2015 we need the memories of all our members, Hordeland Kunst Sentrum, Bergen, Norway
2014 This is What You Will Look Like When You Die/After Ana Mandieta, August House, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Kgoro ya go tswa: even if you fall from a circle, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 lesobana!! lesobana! lesobana!! (le bulegile); lesobana! lesobana! lesobana!! (go phunyegile), Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Long Live the Immaterial...Effect no.55, Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2010 the eclipse will not be visible to the naked eye, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 I like to remember things my own way, Annarumma 404, Napoli, Italy
2010 ANTRHOPHOBIA installation at ABC art Fair in Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2009 You Horrible Horrible Bitch!, Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands Solo Project ARCO-Art Fair, represented by Mart House Gallery, Madrid, Spain, curated by Susanne Neubauer
2008 Love Strung, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2008 It’s a Celebration Bitches!!!, Thami Mnyele Studio, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2008 Non in Mind (fictions unending) dream weaver and other stories, Rotterdam Art Fair – represented by Mart House Gallery, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2007 Non in Mind (fictions unending) dreamweaver and other stories, Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2005 Keep it to Yourself, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
group exhibitions
2023 AVANT L'ORAGE, Pinault Collection Bourse de Commerce, Paris, France
2023 Thick as Mud, Henry Art Gallery; University of Washington, Seattle, USA
2023 ICÔNES, Pinault Collection Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
Helsinki Biennial, Helsinki, Finland
2023 The Struggle of Memory – Deutsche Bank Collection, PalaisPopulaire Berlin, Germany
2022 HDTS 2022: The Searchers, Joshua Tree, Southern California, USA
2022 15th Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach: The Vibration of Things, Fellbach, Germany
2022 23rd Biennale of Sydney - Rīvus, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
2022 Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo
2022 Back to Earth, Kensington Gardens, The Magazine Café and Serpentine North Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2021 “Everyone Is an Artist” Cosmopolitical Exercises with Joseph Beuys, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
2021 Artes Mundi 9, National Museum of Cardiff, Wales
2021 How to Make a Country, FRAC Poitou-Charentes, Anglouême, France
2019 SOFT POWER, SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA
2019 Co-representing South Africa: The Stronger We Become, Arsenale, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2019 Perilous Bodies, Ford Foundation Gallery, New York, USA
2018 BELIEVE, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Canada
2018 57th October Salon: The Marvellous Cacophony, Belgrade, Serbia
2018 We Don’t Need Another Hero, 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
2017 Future Generation Art Prize, Venice, Italy
2017 Conundrum of Imagination, Exhibition as part of the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria
2017 Sharjah Biennale 13: Tamawuj, Sharjah, UAE
2017 Exhibition of shortlisted artists: Future Generation Art Prize 17, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev, Ukraine
2017 Blind Date, Sfeir Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
2016 Not New Now, Marrakech Biennale, Marrakech, Morocco
2016 Incerteza Viva (Live Uncertainty), Sao Paulo Biennale, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2016 Le Grand Balcon (The Grand Balcony), Montreal Biennale, Montreal, Canada
2016 Apeirophobia/Aporia, Human Resources, Los Angeles, USA
2016 Neriri Kiruru Harara, SEMA - Media City Seoul 2016, Seoul, South Korea
2016 What We Have Overlooked, Framer Framed, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2016 Spirit Robot, Chale Wote 2016, Accra, Ghana, West Africa
2015 The Film Will Always Be With You: South African Artists On Screen, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom
2015 Spatial Stories: Topographies of Change in Africa, The Center for Visual Art, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado, USA
2015 diagno: tocolo, M1, Hohenlockstedt, Germany
2015 Avant Noir, ICA, London, United Kingdom
2014 Spring/Break, Old School, New York, USA
2014 Ruffneck Constructivists, ICA, Philadelphia, USA
2014 Lightning Speed of the Present, 808 gallery, Boston University, Boston, USA
2014 Soundscape/dispoem,Tropen Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014 Critically Queer, Africa Center for Humanities, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Stalactica, Galerie de l‘Ancienne Quincaillerie Vander Eycken, Brussels, Belgium
2014 Nuit Blanche 2014, Toronto, Canada
2014 The Danjuma Collection: One Man’s Trash (Is Another Man’s Treasure), 33 Fitzroy Square, London, United Kingdom
awards and residencies
2021 Artes Mundi, Wales, United Kingdom
2017 Future Generation Art Prize
—
curriculum vitae
1981 Born in Polokwane, South Africa
education
2010 MFA at Columbia University, New York
2007 De Ateliers, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2004 Durban Institute of Technology
solo exhibitions
2024 (ka) pheko ye – Wo der Traum beginnt, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland
2023 Master Harmoniser (Ile aya, moya, la, ndokh), blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 Projects: Dineo Seshee Bopape, The Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Lobby, MoMA, New York, USA
2023 (ka) pheko ye – the dream to come, Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland
2022 Born in the first light of the morning [moswara’marapo], Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy
2022 The Soul Expanding Ocean #3, Ocean Space, Venice, Italy
2022 Lerato le le golo (...la go hloka bo kantle), secession Vienna, Austria
2020 New, Site-Responsive Commissions, The Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University (ICA at VCU), Richmond, Virginia, USA
2019 Dineo Seshee Bopape: Sedibeng, it comes with the rain, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, United Kingdom
2018 When Spirituality was a Baby, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2018 Lerole: footnotes. (The struggle of memory against forgetting), Sfeir-Semler Gallery Hamburg, Germany
2018 Solo Exhibition: Main Prize winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2017, PinchukArtCentre Kiev, Ukraine
2017 Lerole: footnotes (The struggle of memory against forgetting), Witte de With Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2017 sa kosa ke lerole, The Gallery in the Round, National Arts Festival Grahamstown, Grahamstown, South Africa
2017 and- in. the light of this. _____, Darling Foundry, Montreal, Canada
2017 222, PHURULLOGA, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Germany
2016 sa ______ ke lerole, (sa lerole ke ___ ), Art in General, New York, USA
2016 Untitled [of occult instability] (feelings) Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2015 Slow-co-ruption, Hayward Gallery Project space, London, United Kingdom
2015 we need the memories of all our members, Hordeland Kunst Sentrum, Bergen, Norway
2014 This is What You Will Look Like When You Die/After Ana Mandieta, August House, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Kgoro ya go tswa: even if you fall from a circle, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 lesobana!! lesobana! lesobana!! (le bulegile); lesobana! lesobana! lesobana!! (go phunyegile), Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Long Live the Immaterial...Effect no.55, Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2010 the eclipse will not be visible to the naked eye, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 I like to remember things my own way, Annarumma 404, Napoli, Italy
2010 ANTRHOPHOBIA installation at ABC art Fair in Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2009 You Horrible Horrible Bitch!, Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands Solo Project ARCO-Art Fair, represented by Mart House Gallery, Madrid, Spain, curated by Susanne Neubauer
2008 Love Strung, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2008 It’s a Celebration Bitches!!!, Thami Mnyele Studio, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2008 Non in Mind (fictions unending) dream weaver and other stories, Rotterdam Art Fair – represented by Mart House Gallery, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2007 Non in Mind (fictions unending) dreamweaver and other stories, Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2005 Keep it to Yourself, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
group exhibitions
2023 AVANT L'ORAGE, Pinault Collection Bourse de Commerce, Paris, France
2023 Thick as Mud, Henry Art Gallery; University of Washington, Seattle, USA
2023 ICÔNES, Pinault Collection Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy
Helsinki Biennial, Helsinki, Finland
2023 The Struggle of Memory – Deutsche Bank Collection, PalaisPopulaire Berlin, Germany
2022 HDTS 2022: The Searchers, Joshua Tree, Southern California, USA
2022 15th Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach: The Vibration of Things, Fellbach, Germany
2022 23rd Biennale of Sydney - Rīvus, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
2022 Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo
2022 Back to Earth, Kensington Gardens, The Magazine Café and Serpentine North Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2021 “Everyone Is an Artist” Cosmopolitical Exercises with Joseph Beuys, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
2021 Artes Mundi 9, National Museum of Cardiff, Wales
2021 How to Make a Country, FRAC Poitou-Charentes, Anglouême, France
2019 SOFT POWER, SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA
2019 Co-representing South Africa: The Stronger We Become, Arsenale, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2019 Perilous Bodies, Ford Foundation Gallery, New York, USA
2018 BELIEVE, Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Canada
2018 57th October Salon: The Marvellous Cacophony, Belgrade, Serbia
2018 We Don’t Need Another Hero, 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
2017 Future Generation Art Prize, Venice, Italy
2017 Conundrum of Imagination, Exhibition as part of the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria
2017 Sharjah Biennale 13: Tamawuj, Sharjah, UAE
2017 Exhibition of shortlisted artists: Future Generation Art Prize 17, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev, Ukraine
2017 Blind Date, Sfeir Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
2016 Not New Now, Marrakech Biennale, Marrakech, Morocco
2016 Incerteza Viva (Live Uncertainty), Sao Paulo Biennale, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2016 Le Grand Balcon (The Grand Balcony), Montreal Biennale, Montreal, Canada
2016 Apeirophobia/Aporia, Human Resources, Los Angeles, USA
2016 Neriri Kiruru Harara, SEMA - Media City Seoul 2016, Seoul, South Korea
2016 What We Have Overlooked, Framer Framed, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2016 Spirit Robot, Chale Wote 2016, Accra, Ghana, West Africa
2015 The Film Will Always Be With You: South African Artists On Screen, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom
2015 Spatial Stories: Topographies of Change in Africa, The Center for Visual Art, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado, USA
2015 diagno: tocolo, M1, Hohenlockstedt, Germany
2015 Avant Noir, ICA, London, United Kingdom
2014 Spring/Break, Old School, New York, USA
2014 Ruffneck Constructivists, ICA, Philadelphia, USA
2014 Lightning Speed of the Present, 808 gallery, Boston University, Boston, USA
2014 Soundscape/dispoem,Tropen Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014 Critically Queer, Africa Center for Humanities, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Stalactica, Galerie de l‘Ancienne Quincaillerie Vander Eycken, Brussels, Belgium
2014 Nuit Blanche 2014, Toronto, Canada
2014 The Danjuma Collection: One Man’s Trash (Is Another Man’s Treasure), 33 Fitzroy Square, London, United Kingdom
awards and residencies
2021 Artes Mundi, Wales, United Kingdom
2017 Future Generation Art Prize
