WHATIFTHEWORLD is pleased to announce Lefa La Ntate, an exhibition of work by Mohau Modisakeng as part of his 2016 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art. The exhibition takes place at the Monument Gallery in Grahamstown during the National Arts Festival 2016. The exhibition will run from 30th June until the 10th July 2016.

The exhibition then travels to numerous locations around South Africa towards the end of the year, as well as into early 2017. Exhibition venues include; the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth; IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town; the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, University of the Free State; the Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg; and the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg.

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Athi-Patra Ruga presents the newly conceived performance ‘The Decimation’ as part of the ‘An Age Of Our Own Making’ Performance Festival which is held from the 25-26 June 2016 in Roskilde Denmark.

‘An Age of Our Own Making’ is an exhibition project in three parts, the first part in Holbaek. The project examines the human and material life and circulation and the tracks they put themselves in environments worldwide. The exhibition is part of the nationwide art program IMAGES 2016.

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Mohau Modisakeng will be opening a solo exhibition, Bophirima at Tyburn Gallery, London, UK from 10 June to 17 September 2016.

His new work’s title, Bophirima, is from the artist’s mother tongue Setswana, meaning ‘West’ or ‘where the sun sets’, but can also be interpreted as ‘twilight’ or ‘before dusk’.

The series reflects on his own personal experiences of growing up in Apartheid and Post-Apartheid South Africa, with central themes which revolve around violence, labour, security and ritual.

Originally trained in sculpture, Modisakeng uses the technique of the self-portrait – through large-scale photographs, performance and video installations – to mediate on his own identity and the political processes within his country.

The artist uses his body to explore the influence of South Africa’s violent history, allowing his body to represent a marker of collective history.

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