This minimalist artwork features a black rectangular shape with the number "50" prominently displayed in the center, set against a stark white background. The simple composition and bold use of negative space create a striking visual impact, drawing the viewer's attention to the symbolic power of the stamp-like form. The artist's use of monochromatic colors and geometric abstraction reflects the reductive aesthetic of conceptual art, inviting the viewer to contemplate the meaning and significance behind this seemingly mundane yet thought-provoking image. ...
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. ...
