Dan Halter



About

Dan Halter (b. 1977, Zimbabwe) currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. Halter’s artistic practice is informed by his position as a Zimbabwean living in South Africa. Using materials ubiquitous to South Africa and Zimbabwe, Halter employs the language of craft and curio as a visual strategy to articulate his concerns within a fine art context. Through this, as well as through photography and video, Halter addresses notions of a dislocated national identity and the politics of post-colonial Zimbabwe within a broader African context.

Recent solo exhibitions include Dust in the Balance (2024), DNA Halter: Language is a Virus at WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town (2023), Get Out of Jail Free at WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town (2021), Money Loves Money, at Osart Gallery, Milano, Italy (2021); Plenty Sits Still, Hunger is a Wanderer at This Is No Fantasy, Melbourne and Cross the River in a Crowd at WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town in 2019. Halter has participated in numerous group shows, including We, the People: 30 years of Democracy in South Africa (2024-2025) at Norval Foundation,  Body Electric (2024) at Montague Contemporary in New York,  US at the South African National Gallery, curated by Simon Njami, Zeitgenössiche Fotokunst aus Südafrika at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK), Energy Flash – The Rave Movement, MHKA (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen), the 16th and 17th VideoBrasil (São Paulo) in 2007 and 2011, the 10th Havana Biennale in 2009, the Dakar Biennale in 2010 and Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa at Smithsonian Museum of African Art Washington DC, USA in 2013 and This is not Africa Unlearn what you have Learned at Aros Museum Denmark in 2021. 

Dan Halter’s work has been included in many notable private and public collections, both locally and internationally, including: The South African National Gallery; UNISA (University of South Africa), University of Cape Town; Scheryn Art Collection, Cape Town, South Africa;  SAFFCA (Southern African foundation for Contemporary Art) Collection; Artphilein Collection, Ticino, Switzerland; Pigozzi Collection, Geneva, Switzerland;  the prestigious Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada; Foundation H Madagascar; Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Tiroche Deleon Collection, Isreal;  National Gallery of Victoria, Southbank, Australia; as well as Stichting Droom en Daad, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

My experience as a white Zimbabwean now living in South Africa informs my practice. I deal with notions of a dislocated national identity and the dark humour of present realities in Southern Africa, largely a backlash to a history of oppression that continues today. I realize my work through the use of ubiquitous materials and the use of local popular visual strategies as a form of expression. This often tends towards the language of craft and curio within a contemporary fine art context. Two words that are useful in describing my art are fabric and fabrication:

fab·ric (n)
1. cloth of any type made from thread or fibers, whether woven, knitted, or felted
2. the particular texture or quality of a kind of cloth
3. the fundamental structure or makeup of something
4. the material from which something is constructed, especially a building, or the physical structure of something

fab·ri·ca·tion (n)
1. the construction of something, or something that has been constructed or made
2. the invention of something that is not true
3. a fraudulent imitation of a signature or document

(Encarta World English Dictionary (c) 1999 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing
Plc.)

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024 Dust in the Balance - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 DNA Halter: Language is a Virus - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Look to Windward, Fondazione Filiberto e Bianca Menna, Rome
2021 Get Out of Jail Free - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Money Loves Money, Osart Gallery, Milan
2019 Plenty Sits Still, Hunger is a Wanderer, This Is No Fantasy, Melbourne
Cross the River in a Crowd - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2018 Please Call Me - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Patience Can Cook a Stone - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2017 Zimbabwean Traffic, Skövde Konstmuseet, Skövde, Sweden
Mafuta Farm, Dillon + Lee, New York
2016 The Amory Show 2016 - Pier 94, New York
2015 The Original is Unfaithful to the Translation - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2013 DanHalter – HeartlanD, Special Project, Joburg Art Fair
2012 The Truth Lies Here - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2011 Dan Halter / Mappa Del Mondo, NKV (Nassauischer Kunstverein Weisbaden), Weisbaden, Germany
2010 Double Entry, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Shifting The Goalposts, (in collaboration with Adam Davies) Son Gallery, London & GoetheonMain, Johannesburg
2008 Never Say Never, Derbylius Gallery, Milan, Italy
2006 Take Me To Your Leader, João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town

Selected Group Exhibitions

2024 We, the People: 30 years of Democracy in South Africa, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
Body Electric, Montague Contemporary, New York
2022 Shout Plenty, African Artists' Foundation
Freedom of Movement, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Europe doesn't fall from the sky, Fondazione Imago Mundi, Treviso Italy
The Future as Negative Spaces, ID:I Galleri, Stockholm
Good Neighbours, NIROX Sculpture Park, Johannesburg
fonds / vonds, Oude Leeskamer, Stellenbosch
Norval Sovereign Art Prize, Norval Foundation, Cape Town
Contemporary Art Fair/ Colonial Exhibition, Galerie Kai Erdmann, Berlin
2021 This is not Africa – Unlearn what you have learned, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark
Spier Light Art, Spier Wine Farm, Stellenbosch
RESTUDIO, Cunningham Contemporary, Johannesburg
Gangwon Triennale, Gangwon, South Korea
2020 Dance of Urgency, Het HEM, Netherlands
Histories of Dance, Museu de Arte de Sāo Paulo, Brazil
Chateaubriand (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil
Anuário 2020, Palácio das Artes, Porto Portugal
2019 Mapping Worlds: Selected Works from the Scheryn Art Collection, Norval Foundation, Cape Town
LagosPhoto Festival, Lagos
No Photos on the Dance Floor! Berlin 1989 – Today, C/O Berlin Foundation
Rocks, The Gallery 44 Stanley, Johannesburg
Lost Lover, RAMPA, Porto, Portugal
Dance of Urgency, Q21 Museums Quartier, Vienna
Growbox Art Project, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
2018 The Reyden Weis Collection, Museum Weserburg, Bremen
Hacer Noché, Santo Domingo, Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico
Forward? Forward! Forward… Stellenbosch University Museum
Baggage Claims, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
2017 You & 1, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town
Baggage Claims, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando
Everyday Anomaly - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
PLAY/III Video and Performance Festival, Galerie Ampersand, Cologne
Two To Tango, Sperling Gallery, Münich
Chinafrika. under construction, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Low Res: Spatial Politics in the Cloud, NARS Foundation, Brooklyn
2016 HISTORICODE: Scarcity and Supply, The 3rd Nanjing International Art Festival
Mir ist das Leben lieber, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst
Negative Space - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
After the Thrill is Gone, Gwen Frostic School of Art, Michigan
Dear Europa ... - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
2016 Joburg Art Fair - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
Home Land Security, FOR-SITE Foundation, San Francisco
ENERGY FLASH - The Rave Movement, M HKA, Antwerpen
Nano, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town
100 Geographies, US Museum, Stellenbosch
Winter 2015: Collected Works, Rennie Collection at Wing Sang, Vancouver
Artists’ Books and Africa, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
2015 Broken English, Tyburn Gallery, London
Foreign Bodies - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Johannesburg Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale fringe
2015 Joburg Art Fair - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg
Migrations, The National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, New Church Museum, Cape Town
Brave New World…20 Years of Democracy, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
2014 Uncertain Terms - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Exact Imagination: 300 Years of Botanically Inspired Art in South Africa, Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg
No Fixed Abode, New Church Museum, Cape Town
Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in Arts of Africa, Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC
Ngezinwayo - Migrant Journeys, WITS Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
Vegetation as a Political Agent, Parco Arte Vivente (PAV) Turin, Italy
Paperwork, SMAC Art Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Unerasable Memories: A Historic Look at the Videobrasil Collection Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil
2013 Beitbridge Moonwalk, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan Weather Report - Aardklop Festival, Potchefstroom
Who is afraid of the public? ICA (The Institute of Contemporary Arts), London
Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in Arts of Africa, Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC
Digi Re-engineering, UNISA Art Gallery, Pretoria
Making Way, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg
2012 Positive Tension - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Under Constant Threat, Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto Alegre, Brazil
4th Protest Arts International Festival (PAIF), Harare, Zimbabwe
Beyond Apartheid: Sex, Race, and Politics in Contemporary Africa, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Making Way, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown
2011 17th VideoBrasil, São Paulo, Brazil
7th International Triennial of Contemporary Textile Arts, Tournai, Belgium
10 Years On, Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town
Propaganda by Monuments, Cairo, Egypt
2010 LADUMA! Rotterdam, Holland
Dak’art, Dakar, Senegal
US, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Harare International Art Fair (HIFA), Zimbabwe National Gallery
Spier Contemporary, City Hall, Cape Town
/ + = X, Serialworks, Cape Town
Mooimarkshow III, Galerie Weisser elefant, Berlin, Germany
2009 Project 35, NADA Miami Art Fair
Holiday, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
ECC25 (End Conscription Campaign 25 years), Spier Wine Estate Stellenbosch
US, Johannesburg Art Gallery
WORD!, Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town
Encounters, South African International Documentary Festival
10th Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba
Second Johannesburg Art Fair, Sandton convention centre, Johannesburg
Objects of a Revolution, Dominque Fiat Gallery, Paris, France
8th Annual Art Salon at Rose Korber Art, Cape Town
2008 Big Wednesday, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
3rd Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China
Monologs, Rome, Italy and at the Gallería Animal in Santiago, Chile
MTN New Contemporaries, University of Johannesburg
Forty Years of Friendship: The Friends of The National Gallery: 1968–2008, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Power Play, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town
First Johannesburg Art Fair, Sandton Convention Centre
Prints + Editions, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Studio 2666: Ons Skrik vir Niks, Blank Projects, Cape Town
17th Annual Art Salon at Rose Korber Art, Cape Town
2007 Spier Contemporary, Spier Wine estate Stellenbosch
16th VideoBrasil, São Paulo, Brazil
The Inchoate Idiosynchratic Descent into Nihlism, Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town
The 2nd Cape Town Biennale, Blank Projects, Cape Town
3C Committee and Critics Choice, Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town
Hell Yeah, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cape Town
Zeitgenössiche Fotokunst aus Südafrika, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK), Berlin, Germany
16th Annual Art Salon at Rose Korber Art, Cape Town
2006 Second to None, South African National Gallery, Cape Town
The Cape Town Biennale, Blank Projects, Cape Town
The Last Braai 666, in collaboration with christian Nerf and ed Young, l/B’s lounge, Cape Town
Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, Australia
15th Annual Art Salon at The Bay, Bay Hotel, Cape Town

Art Fairs

Cape Town Art Fair 2025
Art Cologne 2024
Cape Town Art Fair 2024
The Armory Show 2023
Cape Town Art Fair 2023
Joburg Art Fair 2022
Cape Town Art Fair 2022
Artissima 2021

Awards

Pro Helvetia residency in Zürich, Switzerland – 2018

CAT Cologne residency – 2017

Nanjing International Festival of Art, award – 2017

Nine Urban Biotopes, EU residency in Turin, Italy – 2014

Glenfiddich residency in Dufftown, Scotland – 2010

Nominated as MTN New Contemporaries finalist – 2008

Pro Helvetia residency in Zürich, Switzerland – 2008

Capacete residency in Rio de Janiero, Brazil from VideoBrasil – 2008

Judy Steinberg Prize, Michaelis Pianting Prize – 2001

 

 

Permanent Collections

The South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

UNISA (University of South Africa), South Africa

University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Scheryn Collection, Cape Town, South Africa

SAFFCA (Southern African foundation for Contemporary Art) Collection, South Africa

Artphilein Collection, Ticino, Switzerland

Pigozzi Collection, Geneva, Switzerland

Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada

Foundation H, Antananarivo, Madagascar

Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, USA

Tiroche Deleon Collection, Isreal

National Gallery of Victoria, Southbank, Australia

Stichting Droom en Daad, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Ekard Collection, The Netherlands

Jorge Perez Collection, Miami, El Espacio

A4 Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa

The National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe

Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa

Selected Publications

2013      Selected Works