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Indepth Arts News:
"Moshekwa Langa: Drawings and Installation Environments"
2003-11-21 until 2004-02-15
Contemporary Arts Center
Cincinnati, OH,
USA
Debuting in November will be a new project by Moshekwa Langa, a South African installation artist born more than a decade before the end of Apartheid. As a black South African, Langa experienced first hand the injustices of racial segregation. Langa recently left his native country for Amsterdam and his latest work explores aspects of his expatriation. For the CAC, he will bring together recent videos, photographs, works on paper and scatter-art pieces that broaden his investigations beyond the personal to the larger questions raised by globalization.
Moshekwa Langa was born in Bakenburg, Potgietersrus, South Africa, in 1975 - more than a decade before the end of apartheid and the unification and democratization of the nation. As a black South African, he not only witnessed but also experienced first hand the injustices of racial segregation; in particular, two decades of forced resettlement of blacks that displaced more than 3.5 million people. This government resettlement program resulted in a mass migration that separated families, disrupted the larger social fabric, and produced numerous impoverished, crime-ridden shantytowns.
Langa left South Africa for Amsterdam three years ago, and his current work explores the poetic aspects of his expatriation. He is a restless scavenger who uses a wide range of materials and media - string, photography, drawing, collage, video, found objects, and painting - to record its impact. His busy installation aesthetic is placed at the service of a critical wit fueled by his personal sense of displacement and alienation.
Incorporating maps, documentary materials, and appropriated texts, Langa's drawings and installation environments are charged with the sentimental voice of the émigré caught between new opportunities and nostalgia, the familiar and the fresh challenge. For the CAC, he will bring together recent videos, photographs, works on paper, and scatter-art pieces that broaden his investigations beyond specifically personal preoccupations to engage larger questions raised by globalization.
Moshekwa Langa was trained at the Rijksakademie voor Beeledende Kunst in Amsterdam. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at The Renaissance Society in Chicago, the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Geneva, and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
IMAGE
Moshekwa Langa
Courtesy of the artist
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