Bubblegum Club

Tag: Lebohang Kganye

  • Tell Freedom. 15 South African artists

    Kunsthal KAdE in the Netherlands will host a new exhibition titled Tell Freedom. 15 South African artists. The 15 artists featured engage with South Africa’s history of racial violence, racial capitalism, inequalities and injustice. However, there is a sense of hope for the future that comes across in their work; a realistic hope that comes from being deeply embedded in a layered South African socio-political context. Their work interrogates differing levels of social, political and economic injustices rooted in the colonial era and the period of apartheid. Through this contextualized engagement with differing levels grown from South Africa’s history, they attempt to understand their own position in the fluid and solidified aspects of the country’s social fabric. This also allows the artists to create an imaginary of South Africa’s future which is expressed through visual vernaculars.

    ‘Verraaier – Devil’s Peak’ 2017 by Francois Knoetze

    Fine artist, culture consultant and curator Nkule Mabaso as well as art historian, writer and critic Manon Braat are the curators for this exhibition. The exhibition’s curatorial foundation is based on a specific question: is it possible to envisage a future based on principles of humanity and equality, rather than on exclusion and division? The objective for this exhibition and associated event is to contribute towards conversations and theoretical engagements on inequality to achieve a more inclusive society in South Africa and the Netherlands.

    ‘The Pied Piper’ 2013 by Lebohang Kganye

    The artists included in the exhibition are Bronwyn Katz, Neo Matloga, Donna Kukama, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Lerato Shadi, Madeyoulook, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Lebohang Kganye, Ashley Walters, Francois Knoetze, Mawande Ka Zenzile, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Dineo Seshee Bopape and Sabelo Mlangeni.

    The exhibition will be from 27 January – 6 May 2018.

    ‘Batsho bancama’ 2017 by Buhlebezwe Siwani
    ‘Orkaan Kwaatjie’ 2017 by Bronwyn Katz
    ‘The messengers or The knife eats at home’ 2016 by Kemang Wa Lehulere

  • Lebohang Kganye // living memory

    Looking for a way to live in her late mother’s memories, Johannesburg-based artist Lebohang Kganye produced the work Ke Lefa Laka which was awarded the Contemporary African Photography (CAP) Prize. Ke Lefa Laka translates to ‘my inheritance’, and this was the starting point for her work. By embodying her mother through images she is able to combine the past, the present and memories of her mother without any chronological order being made to dominate the work. Kganye put on her mother’s clothes and inserted herself into photographs of her mother before she passed away, allowing herself to occupy two moments at once. Here she quite literally inserts her body into images to live in her mother’s memories.

    Primarily a photographer, her work also incorporates sculpture and performance and focuses on the thematics of memory, the archive, narrative, storytelling and how photography relates to these.

    ‘Setupung sa kwana hae II’

    Recognizing that family photographs are a documentation of personal and collective narratives, and how they are displayed projects a particular way in which those narratives unfold, Kganye also addresses how their construction can be performative and used to channel ideals around “family-ness”.

    While Ke Lefa Laka was produced in 2013, it highlights one of the key aspects her practice, which is to make connections between macro level political and social issues and personal/familial narratives. By visiting places that her family had lived and by finding family photographs she was able to explore the stories told to her by her grandmother, and uncover the story of her grandfather, mother, clan names, and her own story. These stories involved the multiple times her family had to move due to apartheid laws and social conditions, and how her family surname changed with these moves. This work culminated in a reflection on larger political and social conditions by highlighting how the personal is political. This premise is carried through her artistic practice.

    ‘Ka mose wa malomo kwana 44 I’
    ‘The last supper’