| | | |  | | | | "Mohlokomedi wa Tora", Scene 2, 2018 (detail) © Lebohang Kganye. | | | | | | Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home | | | | 17 February – 21 May 2023 | | | | | | | | | ... until 14 June 2023 | | | | | | | ... until 5 March 2023 | | |  | | | Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 . 1017 DS Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20-5516500
pressoffice@foam.org
www.foam.org
Mon-Wed 10am-6pm; Thu-Fri 10am-9pm; Sat-Sun 10am-6pm |  |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | | | "Setshwantso le ngwanaka II" from "Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story", 2013 © Lebohang Kganye. | | | | | | Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home | | | | 17 February – 21 May 2023 | | | | Opening: Thursday 16 February 18:30 | | | | In 2022, Lebohang Kganye won the 16th edition of the Foam Paul Huf Award. Subsequently, Foam is now proud to announce her solo exhibition Haufi nyana? I've come to take you home. Although her work has been featured in many group shows all over the world, this is her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. | | | | | |  | | | | "Shadows of Re-Memory", Film Still 1, 2021 © Lebohang Kganye. | | | | | | The artistic practice of Lebohang Kganye, who lives and works in Johannesburg, is focused on exploring the personal and collective ‘micro histories’ of her family. It is embedded in the wider history of South Africa from before, during, and in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism. Her work is largely informed by oral narratives and texts — she collects stories about the impact of apartheid on her family along with plots from South African literature. Words are translated into a ‘play’ or theatrical scripts, and images, sourced from vernacular albums or produced by the artist, are turned into settings, silhouettes, cut-outs, puppets, shadows or even ghosts that fill the imaginative space between words. Kganye is interested in the dynamics between memory and fantasy that photography and storytelling jointly create. The constructed nature of both images and words allows her to bridge gaps in (collective) memory. Effortlessly moving within the sphere of possibilities, Kganye develops methods of decolonizing the medium of photography and South African cultural heritage.
‘Haufi nyana?’ means ‘Too close?’ in Sesotho, one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. The exhibition title refers to the nature of the dialogue between a viewer and the artist: how far can one enter a photographic autobiography on the one hand, and how much can one share a personal story on the other? It also refers to the idea of ‘home’ — which can be far, close, or too close… perhaps even simultaneously. Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home showcases four projects from the artist’s oeuvre, spanning the last decade. Each emphasises the complex visual vocabulary of the artist, and the diversity of media and approaches she engages with — from photographic montages (Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story, 2013) to spatial installation (Mohlokomedi wa Tora, 2018), and from film animation (Shadows of Re-Memory, 2021) to patchwork (Mosebetsi wa Dirithi, 2022). | | | | | |  | | | | "Shadows of Re-Memory", Film Still 1, 2021 © Lebohang Kganye. | | | | | | Lebohang Kganye (1990, Johannesburg, SA) received her introduction to photography at the Market Photo Workshop, in Johannesburg, in 2009 and completed the Advanced Photography Programme in 2011. She obtained a diploma in fine arts from the University of Johannesburg in 2014 and is currently doing her masters in fine arts at Witwatersrand University. Apart from the Foam Paul Huf Award 2022, other notable recent awards include the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2021/22, Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize 2020 and the Camera Austria Award of 2019.
Over the past eight years, she has exhibited her work extensively within curated group exhibitions and biennales. Most recent examples include Into the Light, South African Pavilion, 59th Venice Biennale, Venice, and the touring group exhibition As We Rise, by Aperture, amongst many other presentations of her work. Kganye’s work forms part of several private and public collections, among which the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago Collection, the Getty Museum in LA, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the JP Morgan Art Collection in New York, the Carnegie Art Museum in Pennsylvania, and the Walther Collection in Ulm. | | |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | | ... until 14 June 2023 | | | | Foam proudly presents the first overview of the work of South African photographer Ernest Cole. The exhibition includes parts of his archive, which had long been considered lost. The overview was assembled in collaboration with the Ernest Cole Family Trust, which in 2017 secured control of Cole’s archive. Cole is celebrated for his tireless documentation of Black lives in South Africa under apartheid: a regime of institutionalised racial segregation that was in effect from 1948 to the early 1990s. | | | | | |  | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | As one of the first Black freelance photographers, Cole offered with his work an unprecedented view from the inside. Born in a township, Cole experienced the strains of apartheid first-hand. By having himself reclassified from ‘black’ to ‘coloured’, he managed to access places where most South Africans were banned. He risked his life exposing the grim reality of racial segregation, by documenting miners inside the mines, police controls and the demolition of townships, among others.
Cole lived a nomadic life, exiled from his native South Africa for his photographic publication House of Bondage (1967). The chapters from this book form the narrative for this exhibition. The book openly denounced the apartheid regime and was promptly banned in South Africa. In risk of arrest, Cole had gone into exile in 1966. He would never return to South Africa again. | | | | | |  | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | |  | | | | Mamelodi, 1960s, South Africa © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | About the artist
Living between Sweden and the United States, Cole continued to document Black lives in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. However, being Black and stateless proved debilitating there too, and a publication of his American work would never materialise. Towards the end of his life, Cole became increasingly disillusioned and reportedly started living on the streets of New York. He died at age 49 from pancreatic cancer. Much of Cole’s work had been considered lost, until the rediscovery of 60.000 negatives and contact sheets in the safety deposit boxes of a Swedish bank in 2017.
Besides (colour) images from his time in America, the archive contains unpublished photographs and contact sheets from House of Bondage. The exhibition in Foam is the first large scale overview of Cole’s work to include parts of his retrieved archive. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | | | © Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2020 | | | | | | | ... until 5 March 2023 | | | | Anyone looking at Agterberg's work can sense a dark history, but what exactly lies at its core is not immediately clear. This is what makes her images fascinating: she not only investigates the malleability of memories but also how people, willingly or unintentionally, try to fill the voids within. Politics, media and citizens play the leading role in her work: they are inextricably linked, but they also find themselves in a continuous power struggle. | | | | | | Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 . 1017 DS Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20-5516500
pressoffice@foam.org
www.foam.org
Mon-Wed 10-18; Thu-Fri 10-21; Sat-Sun 10-18 | |
| | | | | |  | | | | © Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2020 | | | | | | Agterber's inspiration
Like an optical illusion, a memory can also be manipulated or distorted: by your own brain, but in some cases also by external factors. An example is the Spanish amnesty law of 1977, which introduced the Pact of Forgetting . After the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the government took the decision to officially forget the 40-year dictatorship. Legally, that meant crimes under Franco's dictatorship were not prosecuted. In public spaces, it meant that visible remnants of these crimes were obscured. Thus the Spanish collective memory before the Pact was fragmented, distorted and blurred.
This history forms the starting point for Bebe Blanco Agterberg's (Netherlands, 1995) images where a visual tension is felt that Agterberg manages to capture in an almost surreal and sometimes apocalyptic way. | | | | | |  | | | | © Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2020 | | | | | | Florentine Riem Vis Grant recipent
Bebe Blanco Agterberg is the sixth recipient of the Florentine Riem Vis Grant. Established in memory of Florentine Riem Vis (1959-2016), the grant is awarded each year with the aim of enabling young artists to further develop their artistic careers. The previous recipients of the grant were Karolina Wojtas (2022), Gilleam Trapenberg (2020), Solène Gün (2019), Rebecca Sampson (2018), Stefanie Moshammer (2016/17). | | | | | | unsubscribe here
Newsletter was sent to newsletter@newslettercollector.com
© 13 Feb 2023 photography now UG (haftungsbeschränkt) i.G.
Ziegelstr. 29 . D–10117 Berlin
Editor: Claudia Stein & Michael Steinke
contact@photography-now.com . T +49.30.24 34 27 80 | | |
| |
|
|
