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Nolan Oswald Dennis / Options/ 2019

24 January - 09 March 2019
Goodman Gallery, Cape Town

Goodman Gallery Cape Town 24 January – 9 March 2019

Options is Nolan Oswald Dennis’ second solo exhibition with Goodman Gallery. Consisting of a new series of drawings, diagrams and systems, the exhibition presents work synonymous with its title.

Dennis suggests thinking of artwork as prepositions rather than propositions. Prepositions are defined as a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations. Combining this definition with the ‘option theory of decolonisation’— summed up by the statement “the world we want is a world in which many worlds exist”— Dennis envisions his work ‘not as a catalyst for the future or reflection on the past, but as a shadow or diagram of the longness of now (or as the late keorapetse kgosistile describes it – the pastpresentfuture)’.

Artworks

Coloured pencil, washi tape, embossed label, ink, marker on paper
Work: 105 x 190 cm Frame: 121.5 x 84.5 cm
Unavailable
Two graphite drawings, washi tape, marker on butter board
Work (each): 61 x 45.7 cm
Coloured pencil,washi tape, ink,embossed label,marker on cotton paper
Work: 61 x 45.7 cm 68.5: 71.5 x 55.6 cm
Unavailable
Graphite, washi tape, marker on butter board
Work: 78.7 x 101.6 cm Frame: 89 x 109 cm
Unavailable
Coloured pencil,washi tape, ink embossed label marker on cotton paper
Work: 61 x 45.7 cm Frame: 71.5 x 55.6 cm
Unavailable
2 receipt printers, microcontroller, shelf
Variable Dimensions
Unavailable

About

Nolan Oswald Dennis image

Nolan Oswald Dennis

Nolan Oswald Dennis (b. 1988, Zambia) is a para-disciplinary artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. Their practice explores what they call ‘a black consciousness of space’: the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonization.

Dennis’ work questions the politics of space (and time) through a system-specific, rather than site-specific approach. They are concerned with the hidden structures that pre-determine the limits of our social and political imagination. Through a language of diagrams, drawings and models they explore a hidden landscape of systematic and structural conditions that organise our political sub-terrain. This sub-space is framed by systems which transverse multiple realms (technical, spiritual economic, psychological, etc) and therefore Dennis’ work can be seen as an attempt to stitch these, sometime opposed, sometimes complimentary, systems together. To read technological systems alongside spiritual systems, to combine political fictions with science fiction.

Dennis’ is the 2016 winner of the FNB Arts Prize, and has exhibited in various solo and group shows, including the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016), the Young Congo Biennale (2019), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Architekturmuseum der TU München, Palais de Tokyo (Paris) and ARoS Aarhus (Denmark). They were the 2020 artist in residence at NTUCCA (Singapore) and the 2021 artist in residence at the Delfina Foundation (London).

Dennis’ work featured at the Liverpool Biennale with their installation, ‘no conciliation is possible (working diagram)’ in 2023, as well as Kunsthalle Bern and Van Abbe Museum. Dennis also participated in the 12th edition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale as well as the ‘back wall project’ at the Kunsthalle Basel.

Download full CV