"I have built the history of an unknown world, perhaps rather an unexplored territory [...] by writing my own memories of things past, of the people I left behind".
A multidisciplinary artist, Moshekwa Langa uses drawing, installation, video and photography as his means of expression. Since the mid-1990s, he has developed a body of work based on the association of disparate elements, experimentation with materials, and intuition and gesture in order to transcribe the "fleeting memories" of his South African childhood in the small town of Bakenberg.
Langa explores the poetic potential of the incomplete memories we all encounter when we try to excavate the empty spaces of our memory. He shows us the pleasures and pitfalls we encounter when we exploit our past. Between fantasies and real-life stories, the artist reproduces a cluttered cartography with a colorful psyche, revisiting the specific territories of the artist's memories, where the simple act of remembering seems inadequate. The works presented here "Overseas I - Overseas II" were exhibited at the "Fugitive" exhibition at the Stevenson Gallery in Johannesburg in 2017 and conceived during his residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris of the same year.
Moshekwa Langa lives and works in Paris and Amsterdam. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at venues such as Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, The Renaissance Society, Chicago and Zeitz Mocaa, Cape Town, among others. He has taken part in numerous group exhibitions, including "Afrique Capitales", in Lille and Paris, in 2017, as well as Art/Afrique, le nouvel atelier at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in the same year, and "Corner of the Eye with Nora Schultz" at the Kadist Foundation in 2016.
His work has been seen in numerous biennales: "We Don't Need Another Hero", 10th Berlin Biennale and
"L'heure rouge" curated by Simon Njami, 13th Dakar Biennale. Langa also took part in the Lyon Biennale in
2011, the 2010 and 1998 editions of the São Paulo Biennale, the 2009 and 2003 editions of the Venice Biennale
and the 1997 Johannesburg Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor.
Lot 70 | Moshekwa Langa
Overseas I - Overseas II, 2017
Estimate: 25000 / 35000€
