Dineo Seshee Bopape

Last updated

Dineo Seshee Bopape
Born1981
Polokwane, South Africa
NationalitySouth African
OccupationContemporary visual artist
Years active2003 -- present
Awardswinner of the 2008 MTN New Contemporaries, 2010 Columbia University Toby Fund Awards, the 2017 Sharjah Biennial Prize, and the winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2017.
Website seshee.blogspot.com

Dineo Seshee Bopape is a South African multimedia artist. [1] Using experimental video montages, sound, found objects, photographs and dense sculptural installations, her artwork "engages with powerful socio-political notions of memory, narration and representation." [2] [3] [4] Among other venues, Bopape's work has been shown at the New Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and the 12th Biennale de Lyon. Solo exhibitions of her work have been mounted at Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam; Kwazulu Natal Society of Arts, Durban; and Palais de Tokyo. [5] [6] Her work in the collection of the Tate. [7]

Contents

Early life and education

Bopape was born in Polokwane, South Africa, in 1981. She studied painting and sculpture at the Durban Institute of Technology, and graduated from De Ateliers in Amsterdam in 2007. In 2010 she completed an MFA at Columbia University in New York. [8] [9] [10]

Notable Installations and Exhibitions

In 2011, Bopape had a solo exhibition, the eclipse will not be visible to the naked eye. Her work was also featured in the Geography of Somewhere exhibition at the Stevenson Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa that same year. [11]

Her piece but that is not the important part of the story, which first premiered at the Lyon Biennial in 2013, [11] was featured in the 2014 exhibition Ruffneck Constructivists at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, which was curated by Bopape's former teacher and mentor Kara Walker. [11] The installation work was made up of wooden beams draped in white fabric, electrical cables, screens, rear-view mirrors, a small fan, and sound recordings. [12] The piece would then be set on fire, on which the artist says "It really started as me wanting to burn the memory of another work, an un-solvable riddle. That’s why it started with the burning, with wanting to make a new work." [11]

In 2017, her piece Lerole: Footnotes (the struggle of memory against forgetting) was installed at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. [13] It was then re-installed at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, Netherlands in October of that year, [14] and Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Beirut, Lebanon in 2018. [13] The work is composed of clay bricks stacked at various heights around the exhibition space alongside sound recordings of the quetzal bird calls and moving water. [14]

Installation view of When Spirituality Was a Baby at Collective, 2018. Dineo-Seshee-Bopape-when-spirituality-was-a-baby-installation-view-2018.-Photo-by-Tom-Nolan.jpg
Installation view of When Spirituality Was a Baby at Collective, 2018.

In 2018 she was part of the 10th Berlin Biennale, curated by Gabi Ngcobo and a curatorial team that includes Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Serubiri Moses, Thiago de Paula Souza and Yvette Mutumba. [15] Her installation, entitled Untitled (Of Occult Instability) [Feelings], 2016–18 was located in the lower level of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Set among debris, and made specially for the biennale, the work was bathed in orange light and includes among its videos a film about a white man raping a black woman and clips of legendary artist Nina Simone’s mental breakdown on stage. [16]

When Collective, a new gallery in the City Observatory in Edinburgh, United Kingdom opened in November 2018, Bopape was commissioned to create a new work. Her piece When Spirituality Was a Baby was made of soil and timber. [17]

Recognition and awards

Bopape was the winner of the 2008 MTN New Contemporaries Award, the recipient of a 2010 Columbia University Toby Fund Awards, the 2017 Sharjah Biennial Prize, and the winner of the Future Generation Art Prize 2017. [10] [18] [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirazeh Houshiary</span> Iranian installation artist and sculptor

Shirazeh Houshiary is an Iranian-born English sculptor, installation artist, and painter. She lives and works in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etel Adnan</span> Lebanese-American writer and artist (1925–2021)

Etel Adnan was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, and visual artist. In 2003, Adnan was named "arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today" by the academic journal MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.

Berni Searle is an artist who works with photography, video, and film to produce lens-based installations that stage narratives connected to history, identity, memory, and place. Often politically and socially engaged, her work also draws on universal emotions associated with vulnerability, loss and beauty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PinchukArtCentre</span> Art museum in Block A, Velyka Vasylkivska

PinchukArtCentre is a private contemporary art centre, located in Kyiv with a collection of works by Ukrainian and international artists. The museum was opened on 16 September 2006 by the steel billionaire Victor Pinchuk.

Willem de Rooij is an artist and educator working in a variety of media, including film and installation. He investigates the production, contextualization and interpretation of images. Appropriations and collaborations are fundamental to De Rooij's artistic method and his projects have stimulated new research in art history and ethnography.

Ruth Sacks is a South African artist who lives and works in Johannesburg. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) for Social Change at Fort Hare University. Sacks holds a PhD (Arts) from the University of the Witwatersrand where she was a fellow at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). Her third artist book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under Seas, was launched in 2013. She is a laureate of the HISK in Ghent. She was one of the facilitators of the artist-run project space the Parking Gallery, hosted by the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) in Johannesburg. Ruth Sacks' work has been presented internationally in venues such as the African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennalein 2007, the ZKM Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe in 2011 and the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi in 2017.

Akram Zaatari is a filmmaker, photographer, archival artist and curator. In 1997, he co-founded the Arab Image Foundation with photographers Fouad Elkoury, and Samer Mohdad. His work is largely based on collecting, studying and archiving the photographic history of the Arab World.

Ziad Antar is a Lebanese filmmaker and photographer. He studied Agricultural Engineering at the American University of Beirut before turning to video and arts with a residency at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and a post-diploma of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris,

Andrée Sfeir-Semler is an art historian and gallery owner. The Sfeir-Semler Gallery has branches in Hamburg, Germany and Beirut, Lebanon, and both locations represent artists working in the field of conceptual art with a preference on political subjects. Since 2003, Sfeir-Semler Gallery has focused on contemporary art from the Arab World.

Massimiliano Gioni is an Italian curator and contemporary art critic based in New York City, and artistic director at the New Museum. He is the artistic director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan as well as the artistic director of the Beatrice Trussardi Foundation. Gioni was the curator of the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kunstinstituut Melly</span> Art gallery in Rotterdam NL, opened 1990

Kunstinstituut Melly is a contemporary art gallery located in a former school building on Witte de Withstraat, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was founded in 1990 and originally named after the street it was located on. It presents curated exhibitions, symposiums, live events, educational programs, and has a separate art literature publishing arm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimsooja</span> South Korean conceptual artist

Kimsooja was born in Daegu, South Korea. Kimsooja is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist who travels between her three homes and places of work in New York City, Paris, and Seoul. In 1980 Kim graduated with a B.F.A in Painting from Hong-Ik University, Seoul and continued to pursue her M.F.A there, obtaining the degree in 1984 at the age of 27. Her origin as a painter was a crucial starting point for the development of her art. That same year, she received a scholarship to study art at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, where she studied Printmaking. Her first solo exhibition was held in 1988 at Gallery Hyundai, Seoul. Currently, her work is featured in countless international museums and galleries as well as public art fairs and other spaces. Her practice combines performance, film, photo, and site-specific installation using textile, light, and sound. Kimsooja's work investigates questions concerning the conditions of humanity, while engaging issues of aesthetics, culture, politics, and the environment. Her principle of ‘non-doing’ and ‘non-making,’ which follows a conceptual and structural investigation of performance through modes of mobility and immobility, inverts the notion of the artist as the predominant actor.

Anne Barlow is a curator and director in the field of international contemporary art, and is currently Director of Tate St Ives, Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018. There she directs and oversees the artistic vision and programme, including temporary exhibitions, collection displays, artist residencies, new commissions, and a learning and research programme. At Tate St Ives, Barlow has curated solo exhibitions of work by artists including Thảo Nguyên Phan (2022), Petrit Halilaj (2021), Haegue Yang (2020), Otobong Nkanga (2019), Huguette Caland (2019), Amie Siegel (2018) and Rana Begum (2018). She was also co-curator of "Naum Gabo: Constructions for Real Life" (2020) and collaborating curator with Castello di Rivoli, Turin for Anna Boghiguian at Tate St Ives (2019).

Zohra Opoku is a German-born Ghanaian textile artist and photographer. She used textile patterns to inform her photographed portraits. She was born in Altdöbern, Germany, and she lives in Accra. She is known for her installations, performances, textile designs, photographs and videos.

Kahlil Davis, known professionally as Kahlil Joseph, is an American filmmaker, music video director, and video artist. Joseph is known for creating "intellectually and emotionally dense short films" that center on the experience of African Americans in the United States. He was a 2017 Artadia Awardee.

Anna Boghiguian is one of Egypt's foremost contemporary artists. Her work investigates various historical happenings for political meaning, such as the history of the cotton trade, the salt trade and the life of Egyptian Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy. Her work frequently takes the form of vast installations composed of painted figures that are arranged to fill rooms.

The Future Generation Art Prize is a biannual global contemporary art prize with the aim to discover, recognize and give long-term support to young artists. The prize was established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in 2009. The winner is awarded a total of $100,000 (2019), including a cash prize of $60,000 and $40,000 towards the production of new work.

Bronwyn Katz is a South African sculptor and visual artist. She is a founding member of iQhiya Collective, a network of young black female artists based in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabi Ngcobo</span> South African curator, artist and educator

Gabi Ngcobo is a South African curator, artist and educator. Currently she is the Curatorial Director at the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarik Kiswanson</span>

Tarik Kiswanson, born 19 July 1986, Halmstad, is a Swedish visual artist. He lives and works in Paris.

References

  1. Great women artists. Phaidon Press. 2019. p. 68. ISBN   0714878774.
  2. Massara, Kathleen (6 April 2009). "Detritus and Drawings: The Art of Dineo Seshee Bopape". Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  3. "DINEO SESHEE BOPAPE". Suspicious Minds. 1 August 2013. Archived from the original on 18 December 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  4. Africa, Art South (23 September 2015). "In Conversation with Dineo Seshee Bopape". Art Africa Magazine. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  5. Van Dyke, Kristina (2012). The Progress of Love. Houston and St. Louis: Menil Collection and Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. p. 177.
  6. "Dineo Seshee Bopape UNTITLED (OF OCCULT INSTABILITY) [FEELINGS]". Palais de Tokyo. 8 June 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  7. "Dineo Seshee Bopape born 1981". Tate. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
  8. "Dineo Seshee Bopape". One Art. 1 January 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  9. Barnes, Friere (1 August 2015). "Dineo Seshee Bopape: slow -co- ruption". Time Out.
  10. 1 2 Hegert, Natalie (1 November 2009). "RackRoom Interview with Dineo Seshee Bopape". Art Slant. Archived from the original on 14 September 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Whitley, Zoé (1 December 2014). "Today and yesterday, forever: Negotiating time and space in the art of Mame-Diarra Niang and Dineo Seshee Bopape". Technoetic Arts. 12 (2): 175–183. doi:10.1386/tear.12.2-3.175_1. ISSN   1477-965X.
  12. Walker, Kara (2014). Ruffneck constructivists : Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kendell Geers, Arthur Jafa, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Deana Lawson, Rodney McMillian, Pope. L, Tim Portlock, Lior Shvil, Szymon Tomsia. Brooklyn, New York: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. ISBN   9780985337742.
  13. 1 2 Asthoff, Jens (2019). "Dineo Seshee Bopape: SFEIR-SEMLER GALLERY". Artforum International Magazine, Inc. 57 (7): 239 via Gale Onefile.
  14. 1 2 "Dineo Seshee Bopape — Lerole: footnotes (The struggle of memory against forgetting)". Contemporary And (in German). Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  15. "About 10th Berlin Biennale". 2018. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  16. "Meet Gabi Ngcobo, one of the most powerful curators in the world right now". W24. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  17. "Dineo Seshee Bopape: 〰️ [when spirituality was a baby]". Contemporary And (in German). Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  18. "Dineo Seshee Bopape Wins Future Generation Art Prize | artnet News". artnet News. 17 March 2017. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
  19. "Dineo Seshee Bopape (South Africa) receives the Future Generation Art Prize 2017 / PinchukArtCentre". PinchukArtCentre.org. Retrieved 19 February 2018.

Further reading