Kemang Wa Lehulere

Kemang Wa Lehulere

BornNationalityBased In
1984South AfricanJohannesburg
Biography

Kemang Wa Lehulere’s practice engages with the past of South Africa, tracing the ways it still haunts the country’s current condition. Working with personal and collective histories and archives, the artist repeatedly employs found objects representing both individual and collective memory. Wooden, old-looking school desks or mass-produced ceramic sculptures of Alsatian dogs are at once familiar and alienating; a reminder from childhood also acting as a reminder of the complexity of social structures within the Apartheid regime of South Africa. Inspired by set design and theatre, Wa Lehulere’s drawings and ‘living sculptures’, comprising smudged chalk drawings on blackboards, sculptures made of grass and soil and wall etchings, further dwell on the processes of revision, juxtaposition and the malfunction of histories. By making history physical and personal, the artist contrasts liberation with repression and sharply connects the painful past with a painful present. ...

Selected Artworks
The odds must be crazy
The Sky is coming home
Desert storm
Kemang Wa LehulereDesert storm, 2018
259 x 167.4cm
Canis Major 3
Kemang Wa LehulereCanis Major 3, 2018
167.4 x 259cm
Tip toe around Sirius B
Retrograde Shower 3
Retrograde Shower 5
Flickering flame
Kemang Wa LehulereFlickering flame, 2024
100 x 100cm
Electric emotions
Mesmerising sentiments
Unfulfilled desire
Awards
Baloise Art Prize2013
Biennals
Venice Biennial2019 - Venice
Mercosul Biennial2018 - Porto Alegre
Istanbul Biennial2017 - Istanbul
Performa2017 - New York City
Eva International2016 - Limerick
Dak’Art2016 - Dakar
Berlin Biennial2014 - Berlin
La Biennale de Lyon2011 - Lyon