Mohau Modisakeng

Mohau Modisakeng (b. in 1986,  Soweto, South Africa) lives and works between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Material, metaphor and the black body are the tools that Mohau Modisakeng uses to explore the influence of South Africa’s violent history that has been ignored in today’s society, on how we understand our cultural, political, and social roles as human beings in post-colonial Africa and in particular post-apartheid South Africa. His work engages race, the militarisation of society and the deep divides of post-apartheid South Africa and the post-colonial continent. He interrogates the collective narratives that inform our experience of the world, in particular those that evoke the black body as a site of fragmentation and distortion.

Represented through film, large-scale photographic prints, installations and performances, his “work doesn’t start off with an attempt to portray violence but it becomes mesmerizing because although we might recognise history as our past, the body is indifferent to social changes, so it remembers.”

Recent Years solo projects include Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam (2022, 2019), Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University (2022), African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), Lagos (2022), The Well-being Summit, Bilbao, ES (2022), Nelson Mandela Monument RONE BATHO, City of Amsterdam (2021), NIROX SCULPTURE PARK, Johannesburg (2021), The Museum Centre of Turku, FI (2021), KUNSTRAUM INNSBRUCK, Austria (2020), Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden (2020), Oakland Museum of California (2020), Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv (2020), Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York (2020), 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paolo (2019), Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah UAE (2019), Click Festival, Copenhagen (2019), Schneider Museum of Art, Oregon USA (2019), MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY, Chicago (2018).

Modisakeng work has also participated in group exhibitions around the world, among recent them The photography Show presented by AIPAD, New York (2022), Les Recontres De La Photographie, Arles, France (2021), Gandur Art Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland (2021), Mérignac Photo, France (2021), Apartheid Museum, South Africa (2020), Galerie Ron Mandos (2020), The Armory Show 2020, New York (2020), Javett Art Centre, South Africa (2020), National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Greece (2020), Arendt House, Luxembourg (2020), Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2019), BOZAR, Brussels (2019), Click Festival, Denmark (2019), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) (2019), M Bassy, Hamburg (2018), The 57th Venice Biennale – The South African Pavilion, Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, Venice (2017), and many more.

Modisakeng was awarded the Sasol New Signatures Award for 2011. He has exhibited at VOLTA NY, New York (2014); the Saatchi Gallery, London (2012); Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar (2012); Focus 11, Basel (2011); and Stevenson, Cape Town (2010). In 2013 he produced an ambitious new video work in association with Samsung as a special project for the 2013 FNB Joburg Art Fair. His work is included in public collections such as the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town and the Saatchi Gallery, London as well as in significant private collections such as Zeitz MOCAA.