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 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 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.)