Collapsing video, performance, sculpture, installation and painting, Mitchell Gilbert Messina’s practice is concerned with institutional critique and the pursuit of alternative means of production, played out in the form of fictional narratives and staged documentation. By producing mockups, sketches and ideas in various states of completion, he attempts to convey an aspirational body of work hovering just outside of his own reach.

Sure Thing! takes the form of a studio residency in which viable modes of practice will be prototyped through interventions, interviews and improvisations, turning the exhibition space into one of production, research and action.

Messina’s previous solo exhibitions include The Fluxus Commune, Open24, Cape Town (2019), Go Away Mitchell, Stevenson, Cape Town (2017) and Nobody Will Suspect a Thing, Whatiftheworld, Cape Town (2015). His work has also been included in numerous group shows, including The Main Complaint, Zeitz MOCAA (2018), To see this story better, close your eyes, Reid Gallery, Glasgow (2018), Shady Tactics, SMAC, Cape Town (2018), X-Show, Insitut Kunst, Basel (2017), Sex, Stevenson, Johannesburg (2016), and Filter Bubble curated by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Luma Foundation, Zurich (2015). Messina has been granted residencies at Atelier Mondial, Basel (2017) and the Sober & Lonely Institute of Contemporary Art, Johannesburg (2014).



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Born in 1991, Messina currently resides and works in blank projects, Cape Town. Sure Thing! is his first solo exhibition with the gallery.