Bogosi Sekhukhuni
Residency at Alma, NY & NJ
February 9, 2019 throughApril 1, 2019
Alma on Dobbin is pleased to host Bogosi Sekhukhuni for a residency while his work is profiled in "The Art Happens Here: Net Art Anthology" at the New Museum, New York.
As an emerging South African artist, Bogosi has made extraordinary strides in new directions, particularly in new-technology and digital media. He is one of a few artists of younger generations who have catapulted to prominence directly from social media. He reflects a grasp of new communication technologies and strategies for artists. While his subject matter is diverse, one strain of his highly original interests is bringing together art and new technologies with a view to understanding subtle energies that have always had psycho-spiritual relevance for humankind, and will continue to do so.
Bogosi has had the benefit of professional art training at University of Johannesburg, South Africa, has been awarded a major gallery prize in South Africa, his cutting-edge interests have nudged him into the international area where there is better reception for, and understanding of, the direction he is helping to forge, particularly within digital media. Alma therefore awarded him this residency opportunity in the United States, where many of the new communication technologies are based and are being further developed,
Bogosi's work at the New Museum, entitled "Conciousness Engine 2: absentfatherbot?" consists of two hologram avatars, of himself and his father, who he has never met in real life. Eventually they met via Facebook, and over several years a brief conversation ensued, mostly about music, but the artist’s father unfriended him when he requested help to pay his university fees. This work, both personal and impersonal, speaks volumes about the timbre of communication we are embroiled in today, and the degrees of presence or absence characters manifest in our lives. Recently, Bogosi Sekhukhuni was invited by MoMA to participate on a panel during the program for the Bodys Isek Kingelez exhibition—the first solo exhibition of an African artist at MoMA. Clearly, Bogosi Sekhukhune’s voice is an important contribution at a moment of change, as we stand on the cusp of an imagined future conjured from technology in which African artists finally are playing a significant role and no doubt will do so increasingly.
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Bogosi Sekhukhuni, born in Johannesburg in 1991, describes himself as a 'lightworker and creative director'. He studied at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Sekhukhuni is a founding member of the 'tech-health artist group' NTU and has worked with the CUSS Group collective. His most recent project is a 'visual culture bank and research gang' called Open Time Coven, which investigates 'emergent technologies and repressed African spiritual philosophies'.
His debut solo exhibition in the USA took place at Foxy production (2018). Simunye Summit 2010 was his first solo exhibition with Stevenson (2017). Recent group exhibitions include I was raised on the Internet at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018); Afrotopia, Rencontres de Bamako: African Biennale of Photography in Mali (2017); Americans 2017 at Luma Westbau (2017); Art/Afrique, le nouvel atelier at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2017); Full Disclosure at Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2016); the 2nd Kampala Biennale in Uganda (2016); the 9th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2016); the Dakar Biennale in Senegal (2016). In 2015 Sekhukhuni showed work as part of the 89+ Prospectif Cinéma programme at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Film Will Always Be You:South African Artists on Screen at Tate Modern, London; Co-Workers - Network as Artist, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and Filter Bubble at the LUMA Foundation's Westbau in Zürich, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets. Before that he participated in a number of group shows in South Africa, including In the night I remember (2013) and A Sculptural Premise (2014), both at Stevenson. His first solo show was Unfrozen:Rainbowcore at Whatiftheworld in Cape Town in 2014. With CUSS Group, Sekhukhuni was included in Private Spaces:Art After the Internet, at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, in 2014.
His ongoing research can be accessed at http://bogosisekhukhuni.tumblr.com/
© ALMA 2014