Fairs, Events & Announcements
Art Fair
Art Basel Unlimited 2021
Meleko Mokgosi
September 24–26, 2021, Hall 1, booth U50
Messe Basel
www.artbasel.com
Art Basel Unlimited 2021, curated by Giovanni Carmine, will include a major work by Meleko Mokgosi, presented by Gagosian in collaboration with Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Bread, Butter, and Power (2018) is an epic twenty-one-panel painting that forms one of the eight chapters of Mokgosi’s ambitious project Democratic Intuition (2013–20). Examining the ideals and reciprocities of democracy in a southern African context, each panel depicts the gendered division of labor and its manifestations in daily life—namely, the work involved in maintaining land, families, and households.
Meleko Mokgosi, Bread, Butter, and Power, 2018 (detail) © Meleko Mokgosi
In Conversation
Meleko Mokgosi
Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi
Saturday, August 14, 2021, 5:30pm
The Current, Stowe, Vermont
www.thecurrentnow.org
Join Meleko Mokgosi and Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, for a conversation about Mokgosi’s exhibition Scripto-visual, on view at the Current in Stowe, Vermont, through November 13, 2021. The pair will discuss the technical aspects of Mokgosi’s practice and the themes in the exhibition, including the artist’s investigations of representation and power. This in person event is free to attend.
Meleko Mokgosi, Woman Sitting, 2021 © Meleko Mokgosi. Photo: Paul Rogers Photography
Art Fair
FIAC Online 2021
Printemps oublié
March 2–12, 2021
Gagosian is pleased to present Printemps oublié for the first online edition of FIAC. This curated presentation reflects the dual character of springtime as a reminder of past trials and the harbinger of a vibrant new season to come.
All the artworks will appear on the Gagosian website and a rotating selection will appear in the inaugural FIAC Online Viewing Rooms, from March 4 to 7.
Jeff Koons, Bluebird Planter, 2010–16 © Jeff Koons
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Meleko Mokgosi
Scripto-visual
June 17–November 13, 2021
The Current, Stowe, Vermont
www.thecurrentnow.org
Titled after a neologism describing the combination of image and textual work, Meleko Mokgosi’s exhibition Scripto-visual continues the artist’s investigations into the links between these two elements in relation to the politics of representation. Small and large works are paired with writing by African American or African authors, including poems and theoretical texts addressing a variety of topics ranging from history to the lived experiences of particular sections of the population both in the United States and in southern Africa.
Meleko Mokgosi, The Social Revolution of Our Time Cannot Take Its Poetry from the Past but Only from the Poetry of the Future, VIII, 2019 © Meleko Mokgosi. Photo: Aaron Siskind Foundation
Closed
Ubuntu
The Harry David Art Collection
September 19, 2020–March 18, 2021
National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens
www.emst.gr
The South African term ubuntu refers to notions of community and a spirit of sharing. As the inaugural exhibition of works from the Harry David Art Collection—which showcases leading artists active in Africa and the diaspora as well as African American artists—Ubuntu introduces five distinct curatorial viewpoints unfolding across five specially designed rooms. Each presents a personal selection of works from the collection chosen by one of five different artists and curators. In this way, the collection functions as a resource that is open to interpretation, with each space enabling artworks to be encountered as a series of unique conversations. Work by Ellen Gallagher, Theaster Gates, Romauld Hazoumè, and Meleko Mokgosi is included.
Ellen Gallagher, Abu Simbel, 2005 © Ellen Gallagher