Goodman Gallery is delighted to present new work by Kapwani Kiwanga in a solo exhibition, ‘Rudiments’. The exhibition follows themes related to transcultural exchanges, material histories and world-making established in the artist’s Canadian Pavilion presentation at the 2024 Venice Biennale ‘Trinket’ as well as her Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art show ‘Kapwani Kiwanga: Where salt and freshwater meet and crooked trees filter the sun.’
“Kiwanga has built her career on the hard work of research: of exploring archives, of asking questions and distrusting simplicity. Since the start of her career, she has eschewed conventional ways of telling stories as they fail to contain the complexities to which she aspires.” – Edward Behrens on Kiwanga’s practice in Apollo, 2024Goodman Gallery is pleased to present ‘Rudiments’, a new solo exhibition by Kapwani Kiwanga, marking her return to the London gallery following 2024 Venice Biennale Canada Pavilion solo presentation ‘Trinket’ and her travelling 2023 mid-career retrospective, ‘The Length of the Horizon’ at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and Copenhagen Contemporary
Rooted in research, Kiwanga’s practice reveals hidden histories that shape our present. ‘Rudiments’ continues the artist’s exploration of various forms of world-making, delving into how diverse cultures construct and interpret their origins while also drawing attention to how conditions of trade and exchange affect realities.
Artworks
About
Kapwani Kiwanga
Kapwani Kiwanga (b. 1978, Hamilton, Canada) traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historic narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrow’s possibilities. Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalised or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. Kiwanga co-opts the canon; she turns systems of power back on themselves, in art and in parsing broader histories. In this manner Kiwanga has developed an aesthetic vocabulary that she described as “exit strategies,” works that invite one to see things from multiple perspectives so as to look differently at existing structures and find ways to navigate the future differently.
In 2024, Kiwanga’s acclaimed solo presentation titled ‘Trinket’, for the Canadian Pavilion, at the 60th Venice Biennale, commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada, debuted a site-responsive sculptural installation made of conterie, also known as seed beads. The installation examined Global trade and transactional relations between Africa and Europe and continues the artist’s concerns with how diverse forms of power are manifested.
In 2023, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg presented Kiwanga’s first comprehensive mid-career retrospective, ‘The Length of the Horizon’. This show includes her memorable Venice Biennale installation Terrarium (2022).
In 2020, Kiwanga received the Prix Marcel Duchamp (FR). She was also the winner of the Frieze Artist Award (USA) and the annual Sobey Art Award (CA) in 2018.
Selected group exhibitions include: Whitechapel Gallery, London (UK); Serpentine Galleries, London (UK); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (CHN); MOT – Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (JPN); Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (DE); Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden – MACAAL, Marrakech (MAR); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (CA); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (USA); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (USA); Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal (CA); ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus (DK) and MACBA, Barcelona (ESP).
Solo exhibitions include: Copenhagen Contemporary, Haus der Kunst, Munich; Kunstinstituut Melly – Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; Albertinum museum, Dresden; Artpace, San Antonio; Esker Foundation, Calgary; Tramway, Glasgow International; Power Plant, Toronto; Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago; South London Gallery, London and Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Collections include: NOMAS Foundation, Rome, Italy; FRAC PACA, Marseille, France; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Castilla y Léon, MUSAC, León, Spain; Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, Rochechouart, France; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada; Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France; Kadist Art Foundation Paris/San Francisco, France and USA; and Mead Art Museum, Amherst, USA.
Kiwanga lives and works in Paris.
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