Lebohang Kganye (born 1990) is a South African visual artist living and working in Johannesburg.[1] Kganye is part of a new generation of contemporary South African artists and photographers born shortly before or after Apartheid ended.[2]
Lebohang Kganye was born in Johannesburg and grew up in Katlehong, a township in South Africa. She started her photography training at the Market Photo Workshop in Johannesburg in 2009, completing its Advanced Photography Programme in 2011.[3] Kganye received her diploma in Fine Arts from the University of Johannesburg in 2016. She is currently working on a Masters in Fine Arts at the Witwatersrand University.[4]
Lebohang Kganye at the Award Ceremony of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, May 2024. Photography by H. Shuker
Career and work
Lebohang Kganye lost her mother when she was twenty years old. Her mother was her main connection to her extended family.[5] A few years later, after she had completed her studies at the Market Photo Workshop, Kganye started to explore her family stories by looking into old photo albums and recording oral stories narrated by her family members.[6] Through cross-dressing and performance, Kganye attempts to recreate moments in her family history she had not herself experienced. Her work aims to juxtapose different temporalities and transform photography as a meeting place between generations. Roland Barthes' eulogy to his late mother and reading of photography as overlapping past and present in Camera Lucida inspired Kganye's practice.
The spelling of Kganye's surname is another component of the artist's work.[7] The apartheid regime forced black South African families to move to designated areas away from city centres. Black South African surnames were often recorded incorrectly or misspelt by law officials.[8] The spelling of Kganye's surname changed from Khanye to Khanyi, and eventually, Kganye.[8] As Kganye explains, by revisiting her family journey, she discovered that identity could not be traced: "it is an invention, constructed of true, half-true and untrue narratives, hopes, dreams and fears".[8] Kganye's practice incorporates animated films, installations and large-scale sculpted papers and cut-outs as ways to re-experience the past and question the fabricated nature of history and memory.[9] As the artist explains: "a large part of history and memory is in fact fantasy."[10]
"Ka 2 phisi yaka e pinky II," 2013 from "Ke Lefa Laka: Her-story" by Lebohang Kganye
Photography
Lebohang Kganye's work deploys photography, self-portraiture and archives to engage notions of affiliations, memory and fiction. The artist explores history by creating imaginative sceneries where real and fictional characters coexist.
In B(l)ack to Fairy Tales (2011), created during her studies at the Market Photo Workshop, Kganye stages scenes drawn from The German Grimm Brothers fairy tales and Disney.[11] As the artist writes: "As a girl, I identified with fairy tale characters such as Snow White. Our annual primary school plays were about fairy tales, and I'd say, I'm Snow White and want to be her. My black skin and location became an increasing disjuncture with the fantasies I believed in."[11] Covering her body with black paint and dressed in childhood inspired outfits, she attempts to stress the disjunction between her childhood fantasies and experience growing up in black South African townships.[11][12]
Kganye was the recipient of The Tierney Fellowship in 2012 and exhibited Her-Story and Heir-Story, two photographic series combined under the overall title "Ke Lefa Laka" ("It's my inheritance," in Sesotho) at the Market Photo Workshop.[6] Working under the mentorship of the visual artist Mary Sibande and curator Nontobeko Ntombela, Kganye explores her family story through re-performance, digital juxtapositions and photocollages.[3]Her-Story, explains Kganye, is a way to "reconnect" with her late mother.[9] Using pictures of her late mother found in old family albums as a reference, Kganye dresses up with her mother's clothes, adopts her mothers' poses and is photographed by her sister in the exact locations displayed in the original snapshots.[6] She then digitally juxtaposes her contemporary images to her mother's. This series of double exposures attempts to annihilate differences between the present and the past .[7] As the artist explains, in Her-Story, she "(her mother) is me, I am her. There remains in this commonality so much difference, and so much distance in space and time. Photographs present us not just with the "thereness" of the object but the "having been there," thus having the ability to present past, present, and future in a single image."[9]Ke Lefa Laka (2013) was awarded the Jury Prize at the Bamako Encounters Biennale of African Photography in 2015 and the Contemporary African Photography (CAP) Prize in 2016.[10]
Cuttings
Besides the artist's family story, Lebohang Kganye's work explores the political and economic history of South Africa.
In Heir-Story (2013), Kganye unpacks her family's journey of migration during apartheid.[10] As Kganye explains: "The project evolves around how my family landed in Johannesburg – how they ended up in the city from the farmlands. But it's really a relatable story. There are stories of migration from around the world. It's not a foreign story."[10]Heir-Story focuses on Kganye's grandfather. Dressed in his suit, a typical garment in her family photographs, and stepping into his shoes, Kganye places herself in an installation made of large-size cardboard cut-outs of enlarged photos from her old family albums.[13] Kganye never met her grandfather who died before she was born.[13]Heir-Story, the artist writes, allows her to "enact these stories to construct a visual narrative, in which we (her grandfather and herself) meet".[13] In a series of six scenes, Kganye revisits her grandfather's displacement during the apartheid era. He was the first member of the family to move from the farmlands of the Orange Free State to Transvaal.[10] Kganye recorded stories narrated by her family members to help her recreate each scene.[8] As she explains: "I'm reimagining the scenes through what I've been told."[10] Kganye is the only figure shot in colour. She photographs herself interacting with life-size black and white flat-mannequins of the characters related to her in family stories and photo albums, and in doing so, creates a juxtaposition between the present and the past.[10]Heir-Story was exhibited together with the series Her-Story in the exhibition Ke Lefa Laka at the Market Photo Worksop.[14]
Kganye experiments with installation and sculpture. Her grandfather, the central patriarchal figure in her family, is a recurrent character in her creative practice. In Reconstruction of a Family (2016), she borrows archival elements from her photo albums to construct enlarged cardboard cut-outs.[9] She inserts black silhouettes of characters from her family photo albums into a human-scale white box and places her grandfather at the centre of the stage.[9]Reconstruction of a Family focuses on the family story of Kganye's mother, their successive displacements during the apartheid era and their creation of temporary homes across the country.[15] As Kganye explains: "A big difference compared to my previous series on this same process is that the characters here are reversed—the background is white, the silhouettes are black. The characters no longer have faces. They become anonymous."[9] By placing figures from different generations in the same scene, Kganye engages the theme of memory and death.[9]
From 2016-onwards, Lebohang Kganye produces the series titled Dirithi.[16] Using the family album as a primary material, Kganye selects family figures and transforms their photographic representations into anonymous and enigmatic silhouettes.[17]Dirithi, as Kganye explains, evokes the passing of family figures and stresses the capacity of photography to act as a bridge between the dead and the living. According to the artist: "photography is a ghost, an existence in transition, hovering in a duality of time. Silhouettes resonate with me because of this play".[17]
Theatrics
Lebohang Kganye's practice engages theatre and literature. In her series Tell Tale (2018), she stages the stories of the villagers narrated in Athol Fugard's play Road to Mecca and Lauren Beukes' book Maverick.[18] Placing silhouette cut-outs of characters in miniature theatre sets, Kganye figures her own interpretation of the tales.[18] As she writes: "Tell Tale confronts the conflicting stories, which are told in multiple ways, even by the same person – a combination of memory and fantasy. The work does not attest to being a documentation of a people but presents their personal narratives, which they share over a cup of tea, homemade ginger ale or the locally brewed beer."[18]Tell Tale (2018) presents villagers interacting with ordinary objects, their "prized possessions".[18] In these theatre sets, Kganye attempts to highlight the capacity of oral stories to pass from one generation to the next and "perform ideals of a community".[18]
Animation
Lebohang Kganye has been working with films, animating the life-size flat-mannequins of characters taken from her family albums with light and shadows.[9] In 2014, Lebohang Kganye turns her series Heir-Story (2013) into the animated film Pied Piper's Voyage.[19] In 2017, she animates her series Reconstruction of a Family (2016) in the film Ke Sale Teng.[20] The medium of film is a way for the artist further to explore the fluctuating character of memory and history.[10] As she explains: "Through the use of silhouette cutouts of family members and other props in a diorama, the film confronts the conflicting stories, which are told in multiple ways, even by the same person."[20] In Pied Piper's Voyage (2014) and Ke Sale Teng (2017), Kganye explores the malleability of oral narratives.[9]
Installation
Kganye works with a variety of medium and scales, alternating between life-size and monumental installations. The installation Mohlokomedi wa Tora ("lighthouse keeper") in 2018 presents the story of her grandfather in life-size sceneries made of cardboards and cut-outs standing up in the exhibition space.[21] Organising archival elements around a light positioned in the centre of the room, the artist creates a shadow play theatre and invites visitors to walk in and interact with each scene.[21] Kganye uses stories told by her aunt and her grandmother, defined by the artists as "the keepers of light" to create the photographic arrangements.[21] In Mohlokomedi wa Tora, Kganye highlights her matrilineal lineage and the women in her family as keepers of memories.[21] As the artist explains, the work aims to stress the power of oral stories to shape vivid and collective imaginaries.[21]
Cities and Memory, Photo Biennale, Brandts Museum, Odense, 2016
L'Autre Continent, Artistes, Femmes, Africaines, Le Havre, 2016
Recent Histories, New Photography from Africa, Walther Collection Project Space, New York, 2016
In Plain Sight: Social Life in South Africa and Romania beforeand after 1989, Aparte Gallery of George Enescu University of Arts, Iasi & Borderline Art Space, Iasi, 2016
Un Air de famille – parce que les fantômes disparaissent au lever du jour, H2M, Bourg-en-Bresse, France, 2018–2019
L'Afrique n'est pas une île, Fondation Zinsou, Cotonou, Benin, 2018–2019
Recent Histories, Contemporary African Photography and Video Art from The Walther Collection, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, NL, 2018–2019
Gifts, 25 years of Open Society Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Cape Town, 2018–2020
The Bricks that Build a Home, The Migratie Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands, 2018
OZANGÉ, Bienal de Fotografía Africana, Malaga, Spain, 2022–2023
Words Create Images, 5th International Biennale of Casablanca, Morocco, 2022–2023
Family Affairs. Family in Current Photography, Traveling Exhibition, Kunsthalle Erfurt, Germany, 2022–2023
Motherhood, Syker Vorwerk Contemporary Art Center, Bremen, Germany, 2022–2023
Foggy Island, Modern Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2023
Memory is the Seamstress, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE, 2023
Rooms with a View. Aby Warburg, Florence and the Laboratory of Images,Uffizi Galleries, Florence, 2023
Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection,Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, USA, 2023
Trace — Formations of Likeness,Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, 2023
The Struggle of Memory – Deutsche Bank Collection, Palais Populaire, Berlin, 2023
Book_Spaces, Museum für Photographie Braunschweig, Germany, 2023
Tell Me What You Remember: Sue Williamson and Lebohang Kganye,Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, USA, 2023
As We Rise: Photography from The Black Atlantic, Traveling Exhibition, The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, 2023 / Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA, 2023
Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like tendency to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing.
Richard Billingham is an English photographer and artist, film maker and art teacher. His work has mostly concerned his family, the place he grew up in the West Midlands, but also landscapes elsewhere.
Dame Sonia Dawn Boyce is a British Afro-Caribbean artist and educator, living and working in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practice and the critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of study. Boyce has been closely collaborating with other artists since 1990 with a focus on collaborative work, frequently involving improvisation and unplanned performative actions on the part of her collaborators. Boyce's work involves a variety of media, such as drawing, print, photography, video, and sound. Her art explores "the relationship between sound and memory, the dynamics of space, and incorporating the spectator". To date, Boyce has taught Fine Art studio practice for more than 30 years in several art colleges across the UK.
Paul Graham is a British fine-art and documentary photographer. He has published three survey monographs, along with 26 other dedicated books.
Rineke Dijkstra HonFRPS is a Dutch photographer. She lives and works in Amsterdam. Dijkstra has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, the 1999 Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize and the 2017 Hasselblad Award.
Jim Goldberg is an American artist and photographer, whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations.
Simon Njami is a writer and an independent curator, lecturer, art critic and essayist.
The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize is awarded annually by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the Photographers' Gallery to a photographer who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium in Europe during the past year.
Fazal Sheikh is an artist who uses photographs to document people living in displaced and marginalized communities around the world.
Zanele Muholi is a South African artist and visual activist working in photography, video, and installation. Muholi's work focuses on race, gender and sexuality with a body of work that dates back to the early 2000s, documenting and celebrating the lives of South Africa's Black lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex communities. Muholi is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, explaining that "I'm just human".
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin are artists living and working in London.
Viviane Sassen is a Dutch artist living in Amsterdam. She is a photographer who works in both the fashion and fine art world. She is known for her use of geometric shapes, often abstractions of bodies. She has been widely published and exhibited. She was included in the 2011 New Photography exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. She has created campaigns for Miu Miu, Stella McCartney, and Louis Vuitton, among others. She has won the Dutch Prix de Rome (2007) and the Infinity Award from International Center of Photography.
Destiny Deacon HonFRPS was an Australian photographer and media artist. She exhibited photographs and films across Australia and also internationally, focusing on politics and exposing the disparagement around Indigenous Australian cultures. She was credited with introducing the term "Blak" to refer to Indigenous Australians' contemporary art, culture and history.
Michèle Magema is a Congolese-French video, performance, and photography artist. She currently resides in Nevers.
Deana Lawson (1979) is an American artist, educator, and photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is primarily concerned with intimacy, family, spirituality, sexuality, and Black aesthetics.
Zineb Sedira is a London-based Franco-Algerian feminist photographer and video artist, best known for work exploring the human relationship to geography.
Chen Ke is a Chinese artist. She currently lives and works in Beijing. Having participated in numerous international and domestic exhibitions, Chen Ke has worked in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture and fashion design. Chen Ke is recognized as the most representative artist of the New Generation of Cartoon of China.
Tracy Edser is a South African photojournalist and documentary producer.
Arthur Jafa is an American video artist and cinematographer.
Senzeni Marasela is a South African visual artist born in Thokoza who works across different media, combining performance, photography, video, prints, textiles, and embroidery in mixed-media installations. She obtained a BA in Fine Arts at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1998.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
