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Zwelethu Mthethwa @ The Studio Museum

Africa Is a Country Podcast
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Zwelethu Mthethwa @ The Studio Museum

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_ri7XJik0&w=500&h=281&rel=0]

Via Todd Johnson: Opening on Thursday, July 15, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, some new work by South African photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa. (For the opening night, Mthethwa will be present for a conversation with curator Naomi Beckwith.  It’s free, but you got to RSVP.)

The works are on display till October 24.

Here’s the description from the Museum:

Zwelethu Mthethwa: Inner Views brings together three series by South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa (b. 1960). “Interiors” and “Empty Beds” document the domestic lives of migrant workers around Johannesburg, South Africa, while “Common Ground” focuses on the shared experience of natural disasters in urban areas, featuring houses in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, after wildfires.”

* The video above is the highlight reel of a fascinating 4-part video conversation between Mthethwa and Okwei Enwezor, hosted recently by the Aperture Foundation. Links to parts one, two, three and four.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

On the pitch

This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.

Davido’s jacket

Davido’s appearance at ‘Amapiano’s biggest concert’ turned a night of celebration into a study in Afrophobia, fandom, and the fragile borders of South African cultural nationalism.

Empty riddles

Drawing on his forced migration from Rwanda, Serge Alain Nitegeka reflects on the forms, fragments, and unsettled histories behind his latest exhibition in Johannesburg.