Moshekwa Langa shows ‘The Jealous Lover’ in the IFA Gallery in Stuttgart.
Until September 21.
About:
This series of exhibitions is entitled “Solo for …”. These are solo exhibitions for artists who have been first discovered and exhibited in the ifa Galleries years ago, at the beginning of their international careers, and sometimes for the first time in Germany. Moshekwa Langa’s work was shown in the late nineties – now he is present with his site-specific work The Jealous Lover. Moshekwa Langa (*1975 in Bakenberg/Southafrica) is just as familiar with European culture, and particularly literature, as he is with the visual culture of South Africa. He combines and weaves together diverse European and African themes, motifs and elements, creating installations, works on paper, photographs and videos that form a new assemblage. He often uses ordinary materials like strings, watercolors, found items, tape, thread reels and threads. It is precisely that these threads tell (hi)stories. They connect different objects, thoughts, associations; with his threads Langa weaves a visual and often also linguistic net of political experiences and personal memories – between Apartheid and exile. Everything is connected to everything else, there are no linear developments; the lines meander and meet at various intersections. Moshekwa Langa’s works therefore stand for the experiences people make in a globalised world, for the difficulties and also the fascination that comes with moving through this world in which verything is interconnected.
The Jealous Lover, installation, 2014 (detail)
About the installation:
For this project Moshekwa Langa intented a sculptural installation made up of boxes, pipes, disco balls, streamers, black plastic, fans, streamers, toys and wood. All these different components are to be painted in the colour black, both matt and glossy. The floor was covered with black plastic pipes and tires in a suitable juxtaposition to evoke buildings. Then he put toys which were painted gold, silver and bronze on top of the boxes. To accompany this, he planned to make about fifteen drawings sized around 150 x 120 cm, in a form of maps, collages and drawings. The work “The Jealous Lover” musing on a contemporary human condition of moving to the metropolis in search of hidden gold. Langa believes that the metropolis gives an illusion of a better live, streets paved with gold, but human beings often end up in a morass of confusion, gritted teeth, sadness. He believed that the work that he did will deal with some of these issues. “The Jealous Lover” is someone who takes hold of one with all the motions and grips them tightly as if never letting go till all energy and sustenance may be drained out of that person – like the maelstrom of the African Megacities does.
The Jealous Lover, installation, 2014 (detail).
Address:
Charlottenplatz 17
D-70173 Stuttgart
Phone +49.711.2225.0
Fax +49.711.2264346
His installation in Venice, 2009.
Courtesy: Goodman Gallery, SA.
Blue Lagoon, 2012.