Dineo Seshee Bopape; :indeed it may very well be the ___________itself, 2016 (Detail), Mixed media installation, Installation view, Courtesy the artist and Fundaçao Bienal de Sao Paulo

Exhibition support

222, Phurulloga

NOVEMBER 18, 2017 - JANUARY 28, 2018

OPENING: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 7PM

Dineo Seshee Bopape investigates the personal and socio-political dimensions of emotion and representation. She links digital and analogue media expansively and also tightly together into immersive environments. Videos, sounds and photographs encounter found objects and natural materials. What interests Bopape in this process are particularly the cultural, metaphysical and political connotations of the individual objects. Various expressions of African diaspora, like, for example, songs by Nina Simone, protest songs, as well as literary and theoretical texts by James Baldwin (1924-1987), Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), and Bessie Head (1937-1986) and statements from South African political activists like Winnie Mandela, Julius Malema or Robert Sobukwe (1924-1978) form often the point of departure for her artistic researches.
In her most recent works, Bopape focuses especially on the question as to what symbols, stories and memories are embedded in earth, clay and other materials. For her, land/earth/soil are material vehicles for memories and for history and hence also for life and death. The ground goes beyond its pure materiality to reveal various cultivation processes, changing ownership claims and geological resources. And in addition, charcoal, ash, plants, herbs, minerals, precious metals, heavy metals and water are all respectively loaded with specific meanings in terms of time, culture, politics and economics. For her first solo exhibition in Germany the artist is developing an expansive installation in situ and presents new works consisting of muck, natural materials and mixed media.

Dineo Seshee Bopape, born 1981 in Polokwane (ZA), lives and works in Johannesburg. In the recent years solo exhibitions were shown, among others, at the Darling Foundry Montreal (CAN, 2017), at the Palais de Tokyo Paris (F, 2016) and in the Hayward Gallery London (UK). Furthermore she was represented by works in group exhibitions, among others, on the 13. Sharjah Biennale (ARE, 2017), on the 32. Sao Paulo Biennale (BR), at the Biennale de Montréal (CAN), the 6. Marrakesh Biennale (MA, all 2016), in the ZKM Karlsruhe (GER), and on the Jewish Museum New York (USA, both 2015). Dineo Seshee Bopape was awarded the Future Generation Prize 2017 and the Sharjah Biennial 13 Prize.

Curator: Thomas Thiel

To mark the exhibition, a 28-page brochure will be published (German/English).