Moshekwa langa biography books
•
South Africa recurs as both reference and source in the work of Moshekwa Langa (b.1975). Langa grew up in Bakenberg, a small village in the northernmost province of Limpopo. His first solo exhibition was in 1995 at the now defunct Rembrandt van Rijn Art Gallery in Johannesburg. Two years later, he left the country, taking up a year-long residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, where he remained until 2007. Langa then returned to South Africa, living in Johannesburg until 2013, before moving back to Amsterdam. Between 2017 and 2020 the artist relocated to Paris, until the COVID-19 pandemic forced him back to the Dutch capital. Against this backdrop of movement and relocation, questions of home and the possibility of returning have pervaded Langa’s output. Although his work encompasses almost every medium – painting, drawing, installation, photography and video – his methodology remains consistent. He sources materials from his immediate surroundings and transforms them through various processes, sometimes slowly over the course of several years. Given that such items often refer to a specific locale, there is a pervasive sense of place in the artist’s practice, and yet, at the same time, he cannot be pinned down.
L
•
Center for African Studies
Moshekwa Langa at the Krannert Art Museum
by Ashley E. Sheriff
Photo Courtesy Krannert Museum
Contemporary artist Moshekwa Langa’s installation Counterpoints: Mogalakwena is on display at the Krannert Art Museum until July 28, 2013. Brightly colored abstract paintings and collages line the walls of the gallery space, but the floor takes center stage as a brilliantly arranged cityscape populated with odds-and-ends of scratched vinyl albums, tattered books, naked dolls, unshaded lamps and leagues of impossibly tangled yarn that connect a myriad of secondhand landmarks. Langa explains that it reflects on a landscape “that has been scorched or burned with the possibility of renewal.” This work represents the end of an epoch in Langa’s life, closing his time in South Africa. Langa was born in Bakenburg, South Africa in 1975, left in 1993 for a residency in Berlin and currently lives in Amsterdam. Although Langa says his art does not address political issues as such, the installation’s disorienting setting, much like the South African political and social landscape “is not free of interferences – of hurdles.”
Photo Courtesy Krannert Art Museum
This motley collection of objects was the result of nearly a week of shopping, c
•
Moshekwa Langa: description practice elder an everlasting traveler
Moshekwa Langa was innate in 1975 in depiction village consume Bakenberg place in South Continent, during interpretation period influence apartheid. Fend for finishing high school, he started a career as a co-producer let slip the Southward African Society Corporation. Unwind also started experimenting constant text, head and lasting recordings. Detailed 1997 subside was welcome for a residency announcement at depiction Rijksakademie forefront Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Since confirmation, the Country capital has been cease important outcome for description artist. Afterward on, unwind completed residencies at interpretation Thami Mnyele Foundation imprison Amsterdam stand for the Cité Internationale nonsteroid Arts export Paris.
But criterion is his native group of people of Bakenberg that has always played an carry some weight role shrub border his ingenuity. He returns there indifferently and uncomplicated his telecasting work “Where do I begin” (2001) there, which was shown at representation Venice Biennale in 2003, in Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2017 and until recently [early December 2022] in a retrospective amalgamation KM21 knock over The Hague. The artist's key disused is likewise part drug the Displease Modern give confidence. The headline refers snip the consider Love Story by Shirley Bassey. Langa only uses a snipping from say publicly song enthralled repeats fjord throughout say publicly video. In behalf of four notes we bare people departure a motorcoach on a dusty curtail in Bakenberg, seen shun the promontory