MOHAU MODISAKENG

Laumeier presents an indoor multimedia exhibition by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng in the Whitaker Foundation Gallery at the Adam Aronson Fine Arts Center, November 5, 2016–January 29, 2017.

Soweto-born, Cape Town-based Mohau Modisakeng creates lush, elegant photographs and videos that reimagine the black body in contemporary South African society. Modisakeng is often the actor in his simple performances that express issues of rebirth against the historical trauma of colonization and apartheid. The exhibition is supported by Adrienne D. Davis, Alison and John Ferring, Patricia Smith-Thurman and the Des Lee Collaborative Vision at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, with assistance from WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery, Cape Town.

In Modisakeng's own words, “The violence that threads through most of my work is deeply personal and largely symbolic. This is because black people in my country didn’t only experience violence as a physical threat, but also on a political, economic, psychological and spiritual level. My work responds to the complexities that have come from such a history.”

Mohau Modisakeng’s exhibition is the second project organized in collaboration with Mark Coetzee, Founding Executive Director & Chief Curator, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town, that explores issues of Truth & Reconciliation from two distinctly different historical perspectives.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Mohau Modisakeng was born in Soweto in 1986. He completed his undergraduate degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, in 2009 and worked toward his Master’s degree at the same institution. Modisakeng’s work has been exhibited at Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam (2016); Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg (2016); Chavonnes Battery Museum (in partnership with Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town (2015); Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria (2015); VOLTA NY, New York (2014); the Museum of Fine Art, Boston (2014); 21C Museum, Louisville (2014); IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2014); Saatchi Gallery, London (2012); the Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar (2012); Focus 11, Basel (2011); and Stevenson, Cape Town (2010). Public collections include the Johannesburg Art Gallery, IZIKO South African National Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, the From Cobra to Contemporary Collection, EKARD Collection, Dommering Collection and Zeitz MOCAA. Modisakeng was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art in 2016 and the SASOL New Signatures Award in 2011. He lives and works between Johannesburg and Cape Town.