Kemang Wa Lehulere
Sincerely yours
24 September–8 November 2015
Preview: 23 September, 7–9pm
Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
Having purchased and redeveloped our South London home of over 20 years, Gasworks reopens to the public on 24 September 2015 with Sincerely yours, the first UK solo exhibition by South African artist Kemang Wa Lehulere.
Unravelling the relationships between personal and collective histories, amnesia and the archive, Wa Lehulere’s practice explores how South Africa’s past continues to haunt the present. Inspired by theatre and set design, his drawings, performances and sculptures are often conceived as “rehearsals,” framed by longer-term research projects on motifs such as the act of falling or the unfaithfulness of language. In recent years, Wa Lehulere has also worked as part of the collectives Gugulective (2006–ongoing) and the Center for Historical Reenactments (2010–ongoing).
Processes of revision and juxtaposition—of past lives, ideas and forms—underpin Wa Lehulere’s show at Gasworks. The exhibition takes as its starting point South African intellectual Sol Plaatje’s journeys to England in the early 20th century to petition against the 1913 Natives Land Act that helped lay the groundwork for apartheid. This is combined with research into American playwright Richard Walton Tulley’s forgotten play The Bird of Paradise (1912), set in 1890s Hawaii, and postage stamps from countries that no longer exist. Including new chalk-on-blackboard drawings, wall etchings and soil-and-grass sculptures, which the artist refers to as “living sculptures,” the exhibition stages a speculative encounter between Plaatje’s past and its interpretation by the artist in the present.
Please click here for further information.
Autumn open studios
Open studios: 26 September, noon–6pm
Artists’ talks: 26 September, 4–5pm
Drop by and get to know the work of our current international artists in residence:
Andrea Canepa (Peru), hosted in the Outset Residency Studio
Desire Machine Collective (India), hosted in the Sackler Residency Studio
Rubén Grilo (Spain), hosted in the Roberts Residency Studio
Grace Weinrib (Chile), hosted in the Juan Yarur Torres Residency Studio
These events offer London audiences a unique opportunity to see, hear about and discuss the research and work-in-progress developed by these artists during their residencies at Gasworks over the past three months.
Please click here for further information.
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Thanks to: Stevenson Gallery and the Shelagh Wakely Bequest, administered by the Elephant Trust
