Portrait by DNA photographers | Courtesy of the artist
Working in a variety of media that includes sculpture, installation, drawing and performance, Kemang Wa Lehulere uses found objects and salvaged materials to create environments and events that situate personal memories within, and in contrast to, collective narratives. Using conceptually loaded materials such as school desks, tyres, chalkboards and ceramic dogs, he poeticises the ‘double lives’ of objects - their potential for multiple interpretations - to tease out their ambivalent or subversive meanings through reconfiguration and assemblage.
In an attempt to comprehend and process the trauma of South Africa’s contemporary history(s), his practice combines physical acts of excavation and deconstruction with strategies of collaboration across time - be it through referencing, re-framing or ‘call-and-response’ - with artists, writers and family members of personal significance. By re-presenting in his exhibitions the work of other practitioners, whose contributions are often only posthumously acclaimed, Wa Lehulere points to the politics of cultural erasure and asks us to consider the gap between individual (complex, lived) experience and official (sanctioned, reductive) accounts of history. Dealing in the visual language of institutions, Wa Lehulere’s work contributes to the discourse around structural violence and the urgency of decolonised education and theoretical research.
To date, Wa Lehulere has had solo exhibitions at Göteborg Konsthall, Sweden (2021); Manchester International Festival, UK (2021); Tate Modern, UK (2019); Pasquart Art Centre, Switzerland (2018); MAXXI, Italy (2017); the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Germany (2017); the Art Institute of Chicago, USA (2016); Gasworks, UK (2015); as well as blank projects (2023); Galerie Tschudi (2023; 2020); Marian Goodman Gallery (2018); and Stevenson (2018; 2016; 2015; 2012). Selected group exhibitions include Stories of Resistance at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2021), Global(e) Resistance at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020), Beyond the Black Atlantic at Kunstverein Hannover (2020), Ernest Mancoba: I Shall Dance in a Different Society at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019), May You Live in Interesting Times, the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Leaving the Echo Chamber, 14th Sharjah Biennale (2019); O Triângulo Atlântico, 11th Mercosul Biennial (2018); More For Less at A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town (2018); Tell Freedom. 15 South African Artists at Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (2018); Performa 17, New York (2017); Art/ Afrique, le nouvel atelier at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2017); African Odysseys at Le Brass Cultural Centre of Forest, Belgium (2015); the 8th Berlin Biennale (2014); Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2014); The Ungovernables, the 2nd New Museum Triennial, New York (2012); A Terrible Beauty is Born, the 11th Lyon Biennale (2011) and When Your Lips Are My Ears, Our Bodies Become Radios at Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2010).
Wa Lehulere was a co-founder of Gugulective (2006), an artist-led collective based in Cape Town, and a founding member of the Center for Historical Reenactments (2010) in Johannesburg. He was the winner of the inaugural Spier Contemporary Award in 2007, the MTN New Contemporaries Award in 2010, and the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts in 2012; he was one of two young artists awarded the 15th Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel in 2013, won the first International Tiberius Art Award Dresden in 2014 and was the Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Arts in 2015. Wa Lehulere was also the recipient of an Ampersand Foundation residency in New York in 2012. In 2017, he was Deutsche Bank’s ‘Artist of the Year’, the recipient of the fourth Malcolm McLaren Award and a finalist in the Future Generation Art Prize in Kyiv, Ukraine.
His work is represented in several notable public and institutional collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago (USA), Centre Pompidou (France), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Es Baluard (Spain), Hirshhorn Museum (USA) and Tate London (UK).
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curriculum vitae
1984 Born in Cape Town, South Africa
Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa
education
2011 BA Fine Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, ZA
selected solo exhibitions
2023 25 Years Baloise Art Prize, Art Forum Baloise Park, Basel, Switzerland
2023 To Every Earth its Blood, Galerie Tschudi, Zurich, Switzerland
2023 Bring Back Lost Love, blank projects, Cape Town
2021 I Love You Too, Manchester International Festival 2021, Manchester
2021 Bring Back Lost Love, Göteborg Konsthall, Göteborg
2020 Where Did the Sky Go, Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz
2019 I cut my skin to liberate the splinter, Tate Modern, London
2018 not even the departed stay grounded, Marian Goodman Gallery, London
2018 Here I am, a concrete man, throwing himself into abstraction, Stevenson, Cape Town
2018 Bird Song, Pasquart Art Centre, Biel
2017 Bird Song, Maxxi, Rome
2017 Bird Song, Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin
2016 In All My Wildest Dreams, Art Institute of Chicago, USA
2016 The knife eats at home, Stevenson, Johannesburg
2015 Sincerely Yours, Gasworks, London
2015 History will Break your Heart, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth; Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 To whom it may concern, Stevenson, Cape Town
2014 Tiberius Art Award, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
2014 A Conversation with a Homeless Piece of Grass, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
2013 Sleep is for the Gifted, Lombard Freid Gallery, New York
2012 Some Deleted Scenes Too, Stevenson, Johannesburg
2011 Thirty Minutes of Amnesia: Act 1, Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg
2009 Ubontsi: Sharp Sharp!, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town
selected group exhibitions
2023 Long-distance Friendships, 14th Kaunas Biennial, Kaunas, Lithuania
2023 You to Me, Me to You, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Beyond the Surface: Collage, Mixed Media and Textile Works from the Collection, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, USA
2022 The Future is Behind Us, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 History’s Footnote, Marres, Huis voor Hedendaagse Cultuur, Maastricht, The Netherlands
2021 Memory of Defence: Physical and Mental Architectures, Es Baluard, Palma, Spain
2021 GROUPS AND SPOTS, Zeitgenössische Kunst Bei Der Baloise, museum franz gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland
2021 Stories of Resistance, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, USA
2020 In aller Munde - von Pieter Bruegel to Cindy Sherman, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
2020 Ubuntu - The Harry David Art Collection, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Athens, Greece
2020 Gobal(e) Resistance, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2020 Beyond the Black Atlantic, Kunstverein Hannover, Germany
2019 Ernest Mancoba: I Shall Dance in a Different Society, Center Pompidou, Paris, France
2019 May You Live in Interesting Times, 58th Venice Biennale, Italy
2019 Leaving the Echo Chamber, 14th Sharjah Biennale, UAE
2018 9 More Weeks, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2018 Both, and, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius
2018 O Trângulo Antlântico, 11th Mercosul Biennal, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2018 More For Less, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Tell Freedom. 15 South African Artists, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
2017 Future Generation Art Prize, PinchukArtCenter, Kyiv
2017 The South African Pavilion without Walls, Performa 17, New York, USA
2017 Buried in the Mix, MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen, Germany
2017 15th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey
2017 The New Parthenon, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Art / Afrique, le nouvel atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
2017 NERIRI KIRURU HARARA, 9th SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea
2017 Dak’Art, 12th Dakar Biennale, Senegal
2017 Still (the) Barbarians, EVA International Irish Biennial, Limerick City, Ireland
2015 Sightings, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2015 Drawing: The Bottom Line, S.M.A.K., Gent, Belgium
2015 Edinburgh Arts Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
2015 African Odysseys, Le Brass, Brussels, Belgium
2015 Liberated Subjects: Present Tense, Foundation De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg, Belgium
2014 The Grave Step, 8th Berlin Biennale, Germany
2014 This is not Africa, This is Us, West Den Haag, The Netherlands
2014 Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2013 On the resonance of the literary outcry in the visual arts, Martinique International Biennale, Le Forte De France, Martinique
2013 A Sculptural Premise, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 My Joburg, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2013 My Joburg, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany
2013 Museum as Hub, Center Historical Reenactments: After-after Tears, New Museum, New York, USA
2012 If A Tree…, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Home where?, Lombard Freid Projects, New York, US
2012 Air de Lyon, Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2012 The Ungovernables – New Museum Triennial, New Museum, New York, USA
2011 A Terrible Beauty is Born, 11th Lyon Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
2011 Agter die Berge, 7 Hours, Berlin, Germany
2010 Xenoglossia: A Research Project, Center for Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 MTN New Contemporaries Award, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2010 US, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 1 hour of VIDEOart!, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, Germany
2010 Koma + Ulwaluko: Politics and Poetics of Making Manhood, Polokwane Art Museum, Polokwane, South Africa
2009 Dada South?, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009 Bring me a leaf of grass from the edge of the image: Dioptic, Weinheim, Germany
2009 Rites of Fealty/Rites of Passage, Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Identity – An Imagined State, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria
2009 Nothing Ever Changes, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Oudtshoorn, South Africa
2008 Performing South Africa, Hebbel am Ufer Theatre, Berlin, Germany
2008 Scratching the Surface Vol 1, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa
2008 World One Minutes, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008 Spier Contemporary 07, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 Eskaleni: Spatial Practices, Afrika Cultural Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Works on Paper, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 Spier Contemporary 07, Spier Estate, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 A Legacy of Men, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Akuchangywa – Cape 07 fringe, Kwa Mlamli, Gugulethu, South Africa
2005 Women Spaces, Annexe, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
residencies + awards
2022 IASPIS residency, Swedish Arts Grant Committee, Stockholm, Sweden
2019 Laying bare: Studio process at the Museum, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 4th Malcom McLaren Award, Performa 17, New York
2017 Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year
2015 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art
2014 International Tiberius Art Award Dresden
2013 15th Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel
2013 Guest Resident at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2012 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts
2012 Swiss Arts Council Residency, PROGR, Bern, Switzerland
2012 Ampersand Foundation Fellowship, New York, USA
2011 Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland
2010 MTN New Contemporaries Award
2010 Sommerakademie, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland
2010 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, USA
2007 Spier Contemporary Award
—
curriculum vitae
1984 Born in Cape Town, South Africa
Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa
education
2011 BA Fine Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, ZA
selected solo exhibitions
2023 25 Years Baloise Art Prize, Art Forum Baloise Park, Basel, Switzerland
2023 To Every Earth its Blood, Galerie Tschudi, Zurich, Switzerland
2023 Bring Back Lost Love, blank projects, Cape Town
2021 I Love You Too, Manchester International Festival 2021, Manchester
2021 Bring Back Lost Love, Göteborg Konsthall, Göteborg
2020 Where Did the Sky Go, Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz
2019 I cut my skin to liberate the splinter, Tate Modern, London
2018 not even the departed stay grounded, Marian Goodman Gallery, London
2018 Here I am, a concrete man, throwing himself into abstraction, Stevenson, Cape Town
2018 Bird Song, Pasquart Art Centre, Biel
2017 Bird Song, Maxxi, Rome
2017 Bird Song, Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin
2016 In All My Wildest Dreams, Art Institute of Chicago, USA
2016 The knife eats at home, Stevenson, Johannesburg
2015 Sincerely Yours, Gasworks, London
2015 History will Break your Heart, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth; Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 To whom it may concern, Stevenson, Cape Town
2014 Tiberius Art Award, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
2014 A Conversation with a Homeless Piece of Grass, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
2013 Sleep is for the Gifted, Lombard Freid Gallery, New York
2012 Some Deleted Scenes Too, Stevenson, Johannesburg
2011 Thirty Minutes of Amnesia: Act 1, Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg
2009 Ubontsi: Sharp Sharp!, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town
selected group exhibitions
2023 Long-distance Friendships, 14th Kaunas Biennial, Kaunas, Lithuania
2023 You to Me, Me to You, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Beyond the Surface: Collage, Mixed Media and Textile Works from the Collection, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, USA
2022 The Future is Behind Us, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 History’s Footnote, Marres, Huis voor Hedendaagse Cultuur, Maastricht, The Netherlands
2021 Memory of Defence: Physical and Mental Architectures, Es Baluard, Palma, Spain
2021 GROUPS AND SPOTS, Zeitgenössische Kunst Bei Der Baloise, museum franz gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland
2021 Stories of Resistance, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, USA
2020 In aller Munde - von Pieter Bruegel to Cindy Sherman, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
2020 Ubuntu - The Harry David Art Collection, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Athens, Greece
2020 Gobal(e) Resistance, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2020 Beyond the Black Atlantic, Kunstverein Hannover, Germany
2019 Ernest Mancoba: I Shall Dance in a Different Society, Center Pompidou, Paris, France
2019 May You Live in Interesting Times, 58th Venice Biennale, Italy
2019 Leaving the Echo Chamber, 14th Sharjah Biennale, UAE
2018 9 More Weeks, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2018 Both, and, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius
2018 O Trângulo Antlântico, 11th Mercosul Biennal, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2018 More For Less, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Tell Freedom. 15 South African Artists, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
2017 Future Generation Art Prize, PinchukArtCenter, Kyiv
2017 The South African Pavilion without Walls, Performa 17, New York, USA
2017 Buried in the Mix, MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen, Germany
2017 15th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey
2017 The New Parthenon, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Art / Afrique, le nouvel atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
2017 NERIRI KIRURU HARARA, 9th SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea
2017 Dak’Art, 12th Dakar Biennale, Senegal
2017 Still (the) Barbarians, EVA International Irish Biennial, Limerick City, Ireland
2015 Sightings, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2015 Drawing: The Bottom Line, S.M.A.K., Gent, Belgium
2015 Edinburgh Arts Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
2015 African Odysseys, Le Brass, Brussels, Belgium
2015 Liberated Subjects: Present Tense, Foundation De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg, Belgium
2014 The Grave Step, 8th Berlin Biennale, Germany
2014 This is not Africa, This is Us, West Den Haag, The Netherlands
2014 Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2013 On the resonance of the literary outcry in the visual arts, Martinique International Biennale, Le Forte De France, Martinique
2013 A Sculptural Premise, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 My Joburg, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2013 My Joburg, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany
2013 Museum as Hub, Center Historical Reenactments: After-after Tears, New Museum, New York, USA
2012 If A Tree…, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Home where?, Lombard Freid Projects, New York, US
2012 Air de Lyon, Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2012 The Ungovernables – New Museum Triennial, New Museum, New York, USA
2011 A Terrible Beauty is Born, 11th Lyon Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
2011 Agter die Berge, 7 Hours, Berlin, Germany
2010 Xenoglossia: A Research Project, Center for Historical Reenactments, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 MTN New Contemporaries Award, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2010 US, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 1 hour of VIDEOart!, Galerie Rupert Walser, Munich, Germany
2010 Koma + Ulwaluko: Politics and Poetics of Making Manhood, Polokwane Art Museum, Polokwane, South Africa
2009 Dada South?, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009 Bring me a leaf of grass from the edge of the image: Dioptic, Weinheim, Germany
2009 Rites of Fealty/Rites of Passage, Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Identity – An Imagined State, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria
2009 Nothing Ever Changes, Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Oudtshoorn, South Africa
2008 Performing South Africa, Hebbel am Ufer Theatre, Berlin, Germany
2008 Scratching the Surface Vol 1, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa
2008 World One Minutes, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008 Spier Contemporary 07, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 Eskaleni: Spatial Practices, Afrika Cultural Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Works on Paper, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 Spier Contemporary 07, Spier Estate, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 A Legacy of Men, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Akuchangywa – Cape 07 fringe, Kwa Mlamli, Gugulethu, South Africa
2005 Women Spaces, Annexe, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
residencies + awards
2022 IASPIS residency, Swedish Arts Grant Committee, Stockholm, Sweden
2019 Laying bare: Studio process at the Museum, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 4th Malcom McLaren Award, Performa 17, New York
2017 Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year
2015 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art
2014 International Tiberius Art Award Dresden
2013 15th Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel
2013 Guest Resident at Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2012 Tollman Award for the Visual Arts
2012 Swiss Arts Council Residency, PROGR, Bern, Switzerland
2012 Ampersand Foundation Fellowship, New York, USA
2011 Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland
2010 MTN New Contemporaries Award
2010 Sommerakademie, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland
2010 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, USA
2007 Spier Contemporary Award
