Lerato Shadi’s work challenges common assumptions to critique Western notions of history and make visible that which is invisible or overlooked. Working across video, performance and installation, and often employing repetitive processes, she argues the importance of centering - not just including - the marginalised body as a main figure of narrative experience. By placing herself at the forefront of her work, Shadi deals with the politics of cultural erasure and structural exclusion. She states: “It serves to challenge myself, and hopefully my audience as well, in how I/we are complicit in the violence of historical erasure by not fighting for a more inclusive and accurate historical narrative. I realised that – by just blindly or lazily accepting an inaccurate history – I would be sanctioning the problematic dominant narrative with my own inactivity.”
Shadi graduated from the University of Johannesburg in 2006 and in 2018 earned a M.A. in Spatial Strategies from the Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin. She has had several solo exhibitions locally and internationally including, most recently, at the Galerie im Turm and KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art in Berlin and Kunstverein in Hamburg. Her work has been included on numerous institutional exhibitions, including at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town, Kunstmuseum Celle, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Kunsthalle Münster, Museum of Fine Art, Chur, Switzerland, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), Daimler Contemporary, ifa-Galerie and SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin; Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town; Kunsthal Amersfoort in the Netherlands; and the Tate Modern in London. She has also exhibited at the Curitiba Biennial in Brazil, the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, and DAK’ART Dakar Biennale. Later this year, Shadi will have a solo exhibition at blank projects in Cape Town.
She was awarded the Alumni Dignitas Award of the University of Johannesburg in 2016, the Villa Romana Prize in 2018, and the Berliner Senat Arbeitsstipendium in 2019. Her work is represented in the collections of the Tate Modern, n.b.k Videoforum, and IZIKO South African National Gallery, among others.
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curriculum vitae
Born in Mahikeng, South Africa
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
education
2018 M.A. (Spatial Strategies), Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, Germany
2006 BFA, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
solo exhibitions
2023 Tsela di matlapa, Britta Rettberg Gallery, Munich, Germany
2022 Maropeng, Galerie im Turm, Berlin, Germany
2020 Maru a Pula Is a Song of Happiness, KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
2020 Batho ba me, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
2019 Lefa Le, SACI Gallery, Florence, Italy
2016 Di Dikadika Tsa Dinaledi, GoetheOnMain, Johannesburg, Germany
2016 Noka Ya Bokamoso, South African National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
2015 Seriti Se, POW, Galerie Wedding, Berlin, Germany
2014 Leleme, dance performance in ‘On Fire’ (choreographical collaboration Miki Shoji), Dorkypark, Berlin, Germany
2014 Makhubu, Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva), London, UK
2012 Seipone, alpha nova (galerie futura), Berlin, Germany
2011 50 G and Tlhogo, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Selogilwe, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Mosako Wa Seipone, GoetheOnMain, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Project Room#7, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Aboleleng and Hema, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
selected group exhibitions
2023 It's Human Nature?, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, Germany
2023 It Go Have To Adjust, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2023 FLOAT, Kunstmuseum Celle, Celle, Germany
2023 Who We Are: Reflecting a Country of Immigration, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany
2023 Common, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 FLOAT, Kunstmuseum Celle, Celle, Germany
2022 Empowerment, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
2022 Polyphone. Polyphonies visuelles et sonores, Musée d’art et d’histoire Paul Eluard de Saint-Denis, Paris, France
2021 Nimmersatt? Imagining Society without Growth, Kunsthalle Münster, Germany
2021 Beyond Homogeneity, Syker Vorwerk (Center for Contemporary Art), Syke, Germany
2021 LACED: In Search of What Connects Us, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK
2021 LandLiebe. Kunst und Landwirtschaft, Museum of Fine Art, Chur, Switzerland
2021 Polyphon. Mehrstimmigkeit in Bild und To, The Gera Art Collection, Gera, Germany
2021 On Hannah Arendt: What is Authority, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK
2021 European Media Art Festival, Kunsthalle Osnabrueck, Osnabrück, Germany
2021 What is forgotten and what remains?, Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, France
2021 The Power of My Hands, Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France
2021 The thing itself exists everywhere, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 31: Women, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin
2020 These Are the Only Times You Have Known, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin
2020 31: Women, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2019 Sound on the 4th Floor, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2019 the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town South Africa
2019 Open Borders, 14th Curitiba Biennial, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil
2019 Merdelamerdelamer, curatedby… Kendell Geers, Mauroner Contemporary Art, Vienna, Austria
2019 Agropoetics, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2019 Seeds for Future Memories, ifa Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2019 Sound on the 4th Floor, compiled and arranged by Gerwald Rockenschaub, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2019 Supplica per un’appendice, Kunstraum München, Munich, Germany
2018 The Main Complaint, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Both, and, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 She Devil Remix, Centro Pecci, Prato and Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome, Italy
2018 blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin, Germany
2018 Tell Freedom. 15 South African artists, Kunsthal Amersfoort, Netherlands
2017 MINE—The Film Will Always Be You, LRG, Austria
2016 Undisciplinary Learning—Remapping The Aesthetics of Resistance, District, Berlin, Germany
2016 Being and Becoming: Complexities of the African Identity, Unisa Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
2015 MINE—The Film Will Always Be You, Tate Modern, London, UK
2015 Sights & Sounds: South Africa, Jewish Museum, New York, USA
2014 Territorien, <rotor>, Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria
2014 Fast Forward, Zajia Lab, Beijing, China
2014 Giving Contours to Shadows, n.b.k., Berlin, Germany
2013 A Sculptural Premise, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Próximo Futuro, Next Future, Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
2012 III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia
2012 DAK’ART 2012, Dakar Biennale, Dakar, Senegal
2012 Theatre of life, Center of Contemporary Art, Torun, Poland
2011 Beyond football—shifting interests and identity, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin and Goethe Institut, Lagos, Nigeria
2011 (Re)constructions: Contemporary Art in South Africa, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2011 Alterating Conditions: Performance Art in South Africa, GoetheOnMain and Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Hinter offenen Türen, Stadtgalerie im PROGR, Bern, Switzerland
2011 Ampersand, Daimler Contemporary, Art Collection, Berlin, Germany
2009 Innovative Woman, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Self/Not self, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Tlhogo ya Tsie, World Summit on Arts and Culture, Museum Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 Ke Tlhogo, House of Legacy, Belgrade, Serbia
2008 Real Presence, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy
2008 Reflect Refuel, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
residencies + awards
2019 Recipient of the Berliner Senat Arbeitsstipendium, Berlin, Germany
2018 Seeds for Future Memories residency, Thread, Tambacounda, Senegal
2018 Villa Romana Prize, fellow and residency program, Florence, Italy
2017 AFRICA’SOUT! residency program, New York, USA
2016 Alumni Dignitas Award of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa
2014 mart stam studio grant, Berlin, Germany
2013 Fellow of Sommerakademie, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland
2013 Hospitalfield residency by invitation of Iniva, London, UK
2009 – 2011 Bag Factory Artist Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Pro Helvetia residency program, Stadtgalerie, PROGR, Bern, Switzerland
2010 Infecting the City, residency program, Cape Town, South Africa
public and institutional collections
Iziko, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Daimler Art Collection, Berlin
n.b.k. Videoforum, Berlin
Tate Modern, London
UNISA Art Gallery, Pretoria
William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley
