Photo: Ferrante Ferranti
Working largely in black and white format, Sabelo Mlangeni has built his practice around intimate photographs that draw out the inherent beauty in the ordinary. Mlangeni is driven by his interest in the notions of community and communing where a central part of his process requires him to spend significant time —weeks, months, sometimes years—with those he chooses to photograph; sharing intimately in their thoughts, feelings, stories and everyday lives. His practice is a continuous survey of the most challenging, beautiful and confounding aspects of the human experience.
He states:
“I have been moving around Johannesburg and its closest suburbs as someone interested in story-telling about everyday life. In my early walks, I found myself in many spaces where the situation and the living conditions were impossible to look at and to photograph. Then I started wondering, what to frame? Soon another side of the hardships emerged, and I attempted to capture that hidden beauty, that ordinary peace.”
Mlangeni has had numerous solo exhibitions to date, including most recently Imvuselelo: The revival at Cantor Arts Center in Stanford (2023) and Ngiyabona Phambli at the Institute of Ideas & Imagination in Paris (2023). His work has been widely exhibited both locally and internationally, including at The 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2024), A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town (2023), Haus der Kunst / The Walther Collection in Munich (2023), Para Site in Hong Kong (2022), Huis Marseille in Amsterdam (2022), K21 in Düsseldorf (2022), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2021), Frestas Triennial of São Paulo (2021), Lagos Biennale (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2019), Huis Marseille Museum of Photography (2019), Wits Art Museum (2018), Savvy Contemporary (2018), Kunsthal KAde (2018), Museum Africa (2015), Liverpool Biennale (2013), Lubumbashi Biennale (2012), Lagos Photo Festival (2011), V&A Museum (2011), Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (2010), and Johannesburg Art Gallery (2010).
Mlangeni has been awarded several prizes including the Columbia University II&I fellowship and artist residency (Paris, 2022), Africa MediaWorks Photography Prize (London, 2018), POPCAP’16 Prize for Contemporary African Photography (2016), and the Tollman Award for Visual Arts (2009). He has also had residencies at A4 Arts Foundation (Cape Town, 2018), Centre de Art Waza (Lubumbashi, 2017), Walther Collection (Neu-Ulm, 2017), Akademie der Künste (Vienna, 2014), Akademie der Künste (Berlin, 2013) and Centre for Contemporary Art (Lagos, 2010). His work is represented in several institutional collections, including the Tate Modern, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Walther Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, KADIST, and CNAP - French national collections.
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curriculum vitae
1980 Born in Driefontein, Mpumalanga, South Africa
education
2001 – 2004 Market Photo Workshop
solo exhibitions
2023 Imvuselelo: The revival, Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, USA
2023 Ngiyabona Phambli, Institute of Ideas & Imagination, Paris, France
2022 Isivumelwano as part of The beauty of the world so heavy, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2021 Isivumelwano, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 The Royal House of Allure, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Umlindelo wamaKholwa, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
2018 Invisible Women, Memorial Dr. Antonio Agostinho Neto, Luanda, Angola
2017 Kholwa: The Longing of Belonging, Museum of Archeology, Cambridge, UK
2016 Heartbreaker, artSPACE, Auckland, New Zealand
2015 No Problem, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Black Men in Dress and Iimbali, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Country Girls, Aceberg Projects, Chicago, USA
2011 Ghost Towns, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Men Only/At Home, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 This is Our Time, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Invisible Women, Warren Siebrits Contemporary Modern Art, Johannesburg, South Africa
2006 Invisible Women, Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa
selected group exhibitions
(upcoming) Project A Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
2024 Sea and Fog, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden, Germany
2024 Look at Us. 25 Years of Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Eschborn, Germany
2024 GROW IT, SHOW IT!, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
2024 We, The Purple, The Javett Art Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
2024 Foreigners Everywhere, The 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
2023 A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern, London, UK
2023 Common, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 Trace - Formations of Likeness, Haus der Kunst / The Walther Collection, Munich, Germany
2023 Urban Cadence: Street Scenes from Lagos and Johannesburg, Middleburg College Museum of Art, Middleburg, USA
2022 A Different Now is Close Enough to Exhale on You, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 While we are embattled, Para Site, Hong Kong
2022 Shifting Dialogues: Photography from The Walther Collection, K21, Düsseldorf, Germany
2021 Ubuntu, a Lucid Dream, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2021 The River is a Serpent, Frestas – Triennial of Arts 3rd edition, SESC São Paulo, São Paolo, Brazil
2021 Handle with Care, Javett Art Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
2021 Photographs In Our Mother Tongue, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2019 Ngoma: Art and Cosmology, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2019 the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 How to Build a Lagoon with Just a Bottle of Wine?, Lagos Biennial II, Àkéte Art Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria
2019 The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto, USA
2019 Crossing Night: Regional Identities x Global Context, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, USA
2019 Mating Birds Vol.2, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2018 Recent Histories – New African Photography and Video Art from the Walther Collection, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam
2018 open agenda, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Hacer Noche (Crossing Night), Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico
2018 Both, And, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Africa State of Mind, curated by Ekow Eshun, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK
2018 About Whose Land Have I Lit On Now?, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2018 Invisible Women, Memorial Dr. Antonio Agostinho Neto, Luanda, Angola
2018 Tell Freedom. 15 African artists, Kunsthal KAde, Amersfoort, Netherlands
2017 Recent Histories – New African Photography and Video Art, Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany
2017 Urban Cadence: Street Scenes from Lagos and Johannesburg, Gund Gallery, Ohio, USA
2016 Close to Home: New Photography from Africa, The Walther Collection Project Space, New York, USA
2016 SEX, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2015 Rise and Fall of Apartheid : Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, Museum Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
2015 Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain
2014 Public Intimacy: Art and Social Life in South Africa at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2014 Apartheid and After, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2013 Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
2013 Distance and desire: Encounters with African Archive, Walther Collection, Neu Ulm, Germany
2013 Present Tense, Calouse Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
2013 Present Tense, Calouse Gulbenkian French Delegation, Paris, France
2013 The Unexpected Guest, Liverpool Biennale exhibition, Liverpool, UK
2012 Recontres Picha Biennale de Lumbumbashi (Lubumbashi Biennale), DRC
2012 Centre photograpie de la de Franse, Paris, France
2011 9th Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennale, Mali
2011 Lagos Photo Festival, Nigeria
2011 Appropriated Landscapes, Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany
2011 Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography, V&A Museum, London, UK
2011 Possible Cities: Africa in photography and video, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, Pennsylvania, USA
2010 Centre for Contemorary Art, Lagos, Nigeria
2010 Afropolis: City, Media, Art, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne, Germany
2010 I am not afraid, The Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
2008 Look Away, South African Photography Today, Kuckei+Kuckei, Berlin, Germany
residencies
2022 Institute for Ideas & Imagination, Paris, France
2018 A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Ses Ditze Naus, Ibiza, Spain
2017 Centre de Art Waza, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo
2017 Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany
2016 Diep, Haven, Arques la bataille, Normandy, France
2015 Afrovibes, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014 Akademie of art Vienna, Vienna, Austria
2013 Berlin Fellowship, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany
2012 The Center Photographique d'Ile-de-France, Paris, France
2010 Centre for Contemorary Art, Lagos, Nigeria
public and institutional collections
Tate Modern, London, UK
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Germany
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
KADIST, Paris, France
Sasol, Johannesburg, South Africa
SABC Art Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
