Sam Nhlengethwa / Joburg Selected
Goodman Gallery Johannesburg 12 October – 9 November
Goodman Gallery is is pleased to present Joburg Selected, a new body of work by Sam Nhlengethwa which take the artist’s relationship to the city’s built environment as its source of inspiration.
Nhlengethwa was born in Springs in 1955 and grew up in the Ratanda location in Heidelberg, east of Johannesburg. Despite living outside of the city to this day, Nhlengethwa has spent much of his life working in and around Joburg, occupying a workspace at the Bag Factory in Fordsburg for 25 years and more recently, a studio at August House in Doornfontein. With this new series, Nhelgethwa reflects on the sights and sounds he’s absorbed during this period, zeroing in on a series of buildings and places which for one reason or another occupy a place in his impression of the city.
Artworks
About
Sam Nhlengethwa
Sam Nhlengethwa (b. 1955, Payneville, Springs) part of a pioneering generation of late 20th century South African artists whose work reflects the sociopolitical history and everyday life of their country. Through his paintings, collages and prints Nhlengethwa has depicted the evolution of Johannesburg through street life, interiors, jazz musicians and fashion.
Nhlengethwa was born in the Black township community of Payneville near Springs (a satellite mining town east of Johannesburg), in 1955 and grew up in Ratanda location in nearby Heidelberg. In the 1980s, he moved to Johannesburg where he honed his practice at the renowned Johannesburg Art Foundation under its founder Bill Ainslie. Nhlengethwa is one of the founders of the legendary Bag Factory, in Newtown, in the heart of the Johannesburg CBD, where he used to share studio space with fellow greats of this pioneering generation of South African artists, such as David Koloane and Pat Mautloa.
In 2014, a major survey exhibition, titled Life, Jazz and Lots of Other Things, was hosted by SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, which was then co-hosted in Atlanta by SCAD and the Carter Center.
Nhlengethwa’s practice features in important arts publications, such as Phaidon’s The 20th Century Art Book (2001).
Other notable exhibitions and accolades in South Africa and around the world include: in 1994 – the year South Africa held its first democratic elections – Nhlengethwa was awarded the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year award; in 1995, his work was included in the Whitechapel Gallery’s Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa in London; in 2000, he participated in a two-man show at Seippel Art Gallery in Cologne.
Group exhibitions include: Constructions: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Niteroi, Brazil (2011); Beyond Borders: Global Africa, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Michigan (2018).
Biennales include: 6th Beijing Biennale in (2015); 55th Venice Biennale, as part of the South African Pavilion, titled Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African Art and the Archive (2013); 12th International Cairo Biennale (2010); 8th Havana Biennale (2003); Southern African Stories: A Print Collection, CCA (Caribbean Contemporary Arts), Trinidad (2002).
Collections include: Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), Durban Art Gallery (DAG), Iziko South African National Art Gallery (ISANG), Standard Bank’s Head Office, Absa, Botswana Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, amongst many in South Africa and abroad.
Nhlengethwa lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Download full CV