Nicholas Hlobo
Current Review(s)
Umtshotsho
Nicholas Hlobo at Monument Gallery'Enjoy dancing around the figures', urges Hlobo, as he gestures towards his installation Izithunzi, which is part of 'Umtshotsho', the artist’s Standard Bank Young Artist’s exhibition at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Izithunzi consists of eight robe-like sculptures—or characters, says the artist—that are made of rubber inner tubes, ribbons, organza and lace. Seven of these characters cluster together on one side of the room, while a single figure sinks into a couch.
The scene is umtshotsho, a traditional Xhosa youth party that encourages young girls and pre-initiation boys to safely explore their curiosity of adulthood by playing at war and love through performances of stick-fighting and non-penetrative ‘thigh-sex’ (ukusoma). Umtshotsho is a tradition, though, that Hlobo has never experienced. It is something that he says he does not really understand, but has heard about through stories; stories that submerge his characters in myth as they stand poised for movement like ethereal underwater sea creatures.
As such, Hlobo’s exploration of Xhosa tradition itself is playful and performative, for it is a tradition that does not easily embrace the gay identity that is so pertinent to his life and his work.
02 July 2009 - 11 July 2009
Listings(s)
Hlobo and Siopis on 'Wild is the Wind,' Savannah, Georgia
Penny Siopis and Nicholas Hlobo at Savannah College of Art and DesignPaying homage to the 1957 American standard 'Wild is the Wind', made popular over several decades by musical icons including Johnny Mathis, David Bowie, George Michael, Cat Power and Nina Simone, this exhibition brings together a collection of recently produced work that resonates in with this tune. The song lyrics make an appeal for love, intimacy, escapism and transcendence as love is like the wind, and wild is the wind.
Similarly, each work in the exhibition offers poetic visual and emotive moments through the exploration of translation, fantasy, epic voyages, and engagements with melancholia. Artists include Ghada Amer, Lara Baladi, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Nicholas Hlobo, Odili Donald Odita, Zineb Sedira and Penny Siopis.
'Wild is the Wind' has been organized as part of the Africa on My Mind: Contemporary Art, Home and Abroad exhibition series held in conjunction with SCAD's third biennial art history symposium.
11 January 2010 - 28 February 2010
Umtshotsho
Nicholas Hlobo at Monument GalleryNicholas Hlobo presents a major new sculptural installation in his Standard Bank Young Artist exhibition, ‘Umtshotsho’. Hlobo draws strongly on his Xhosa heritage in his work, invoking the rich idioms of the Xhosa language and exploring how traditions evolve in changing times. Of equal interest to Hlobo is his own sexual identity, and his place as a gay man within Xhosa culture. Where his previous shows have looked at ideas surrounding birth and sex, in this exhibition Hlobo takes as his theme the rituals that accompany the transition from youth to adulthood.
The term 'umtshotsho' refers to a traditional party for young people. 'The focus is on that time when children are beginning to think and act like adults; the desire to explore life, dating, going out at night and all the consequences of wanting to do things older people do. Umtshotsho rarely takes place in its old form any more and young people have found alternatives such as going to bars and clubs. The works are not trying to tell a story about an old way of partying for teenagers but look at the new conventions and draw similarities between different times.'
02 July 2009 - 11 July 2009
'Paintings'
Nicholas Hlobo at Stevenson in JohannesburgIn this solo exhibition, Hlobo moves away from paper and fabric as the grounds for his intricate stitched 'drawings' in ribbon and rubber, and works on canvases instead. This exhibition indulges in the idea of painting on the brink of sculpture - the 'thing-ness' of the canvas - while preserving the sumptuous materiality for which Hlobo is known and loved by many.
On show in the Project Room is Lerato Shadi's meditative knitting performance 'Selogilwe'.
Attend the opening of both shows on May 6 at 6pm.
06 May 2010 - 04 June 2010
'Umtshotsho'
Nicholas Hlobo at Iziko South African National Gallery2009's Standard Bank Young Artist exhibition showcases the work of Nicholas Hlobo. Entitled 'Umtshotsho', the exhibition presents a major new sculptural installation from Hlobo, who draws strongly on his Xhosa heritage in the work, invoking the rich idioms of the Xhosa language and exploring how traditions evolve in changing times.
Where his previous shows have looked at ideas surrounding birth and sex, in this exhibition Hlobo explores the rituals that accompany the transition from youth to adulthood.
30 May 2010 - 15 August 2010
'Nicholas Hlobo: Sculpture, Installation, Performance, Drawing'
Nicholas Hlobo at National Museum of Contemporary Art, OsloNicholas Hlobo's first solo show in Scandanavia, focussing largely on the artist's production over the last five years, this exhibition presents a number of works that show how Hlobo uses sculpture, installation, performance and drawing to address issues of gender, cultural difference and contemporary politics. Hlobo’s work implicates viewers in the scenario of South African culture, providing enough clues to bridge the differences between his local cultural sensitivities and those of a global art world. He invites one to read his world through the visual play of materials and the poetry of his titles that touch global and South African realities.
04 March 2011 - 29 May 2011
'Future Generation Art Prize': Group Exhibition
Nicholas Hlobo at Pinchuk Art CentreThe Pinchuk Art Centre presents an exhibition of the 21 artists shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize 2010, out of more than 6 000 applications from 125 countries. The group show features works submitted for the competition as well as brand new works specially made for the show. An international jury will chose and announce the winner of the main prize on December 10, 2010 in Kiev. The jury includes Daniel Birnbaum (Sweden), Okwui Enwezor (Nigeria), Yuko Hasegawa (Japan), Ivo Mesquita (Brazil), Eckhard Schneider (Germany), Robert Storr (USA) and Ai Weiwei (China). The winner will receive a generous prize of $60,000 in cash and $40,000 to be invested in the production of new work.
30 October 2010 - 09 January 2011
'Intense Proximity' - La Triennale
Guy Tillim, Meshac Gaba and Nicholas Hlobo at Le Palais de TokyoThe first major event marking the reopening of the Palais de Tokyo in 2012, La Triennale offers a large panorama of contemporary art at the intersection of the French art scene and global sites of production. Beginning within the interiors of the expanded and refurbished Palais de Tokyo, La Triennale is set in a series of overlapping cartographies that shift from small-scale collaborations with emerging research, production, exhibition, and performance spaces in Paris and the surrounding suburb, to explorations of the critical valences between the near and far, between the edges of France and countries adjacent to and bordering them.
Okwui Enwezor serves as Artistic Director of La Triennale, with associate curators Mélanie Bouteloup, Abdellah Karoum, Émilie Renard and Claire Staebler.
20 April 2012 - 26 August 2012
