Moshekwa Langa

This is the newest museum debut for this young South African artist whose work explores the poetic aspects of expatriation. Langa, currently a resident of Amsterdam, is a restless scavenger who uses a wide range of materials and media - string, photography, drawings, collage, video, painting - all on a needed-as-found basis. His rather bumble aesthetic is at the service of an abrupt and broken wit fueled by displacement turned desire. Incorporating maps and appropriated text, Langa’s drawings are charged with the sentimental voice of the ?migr? caught between new places and nostalgia, the familiar and the absurd. For his exhibition at The Society, Langa will draw upon Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca to create a palimpsest-like installation juxtaposing camp and Classical Civilization.

This exhibition is part of Cry of My Birth: Five Contemporary African Artists, a residency project developed by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Visiting Artist Program. The project integrates studio programs, seminars, and other public programs at The School of the Art Institute, Gallery 400 at The University of Illinois, Chicago, The Block Gallery at Northwestern University and Columbia College. Conversations in the Ballroom, an informal roundtable discussion, is designed to bring together the various components of this project through a dialogue with scholars and the other participating artists.

Langa’s exhibition was organized in collaboration with The Centre d’Art Contemporain, Genova.