online catalogue
SPECTRUM
Opening Saturday March 11 / 5 - 8 PM
11 March - 16 April 2023
Artist Talk with Jamal Nxedlana
Thursday April 6th / 6 - 8 PM
RSVP (free admission)
No Man’s Art Gallery is honoured to present SPECTRUM, the second solo exhibition by Jamal Nxedlana at the gallery. The exhibition showcases a new series of images that continues his exploration of topics such as race, masculinity, post-colonialism and consumer culture, with a particular focus on the representation of the black body in fashion photography. Nxedlana is a visual artist and cultural organizer who is recognized for establishing initiatives and projects that support the South African arts community, including Bubblegum Club, a digital platform and culture agency that promotes innovative work and emerging cultural workers.
His first solo exhibition at No Man's Art Gallery, AVATAR, celebrated the creativity of Johannesburg's cultural scene, using their work and personal style as statements of mystery and beauty. Nxedlana created a mythology in which new gods and spirits emerge from a moment in the city’s history (2016-2019) where Nxedlana felt in sync with his contemporaries. While his subsequent global exhibitions garnered attention, the lens through which his work was viewed failed to recognize its multifaceted nature. SPECTRUM examines black portraiture and the artist's path towards abstraction of the black body, presenting a complex series of photographs that resists any singular perspective on black identity.
In SPECTRUM, Nxedlana continues to refine a visual language that incorporates and reflects on objects that are ubiquitous to his context, such as the monobloc chair. It functions as a symbol in itself, but it also appears in dialogue with the artist, recognising the chair as contextually problematic; its provenance suggestive of the unsustainable relationship between the African continent and the rest of the world. “A dumping ground” for cheap products, plastic, clothes; what the world doesn’t seem to want or need anymore. Simultaneously, the omnipresence of the chair has caused it to become part of the visual culture of the artist. The chair reflects the multiplicity of meanings and values encountered along the route of limitlessness and abstraction. A contraction that turns one object into a mindful discussion on identity and questions a tangible encapsulation of the Black experience. “The chair is a way to speak to multiplicity”.
Experimental manipulations with translucent perspex create a prism effect that further informs of the dimensionality and separational nature of the work.. The perspex reflects the shapes of the city of Johannesburg and further entangles the bodies that hold it up. The shape mimics some of the properties of the monobloc chair and enters a symbolic space that allows it to extract abstraction and expression from the deconstructed bodies and objects. The careful combination of these elements provides presented scenes with a wonderfully sharp sculptural quality. Overlapping, layered, and intangible, Nxedlana brings together different symbolic elements and plays with their potential in a way that results in an patchwork organism that can be at any point spotlighted and broken apart into limbs.
Location: NMAG KIOSK, Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327 and NMAG, Bos & Lommerweg 88 (this exhibition extends to both gallery locations)
Press:
- Weekendtips van Mitchell Esajas: SPECTRUM by Jamal Nxedlana, Het Parool, 2023
Photos: Neeltje de Vries
Jamal Nxedlana (b. 1985, South Africa) is a visual artist and cultural organiser living and working in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the founder of a number of independent organisations that support the South African arts community among which is Bubblegum Club, a digital platform and culture agency showcasing innovative new work and creating opportunities for emerging cultural workers. He is also a founding member of CUSS Group, a Johannesburg-based artist collective that has been exploring the hybrid culture of post-colonial South Africa over the past decade. As a solo artist, his practice addresses the portrayal of the black body in fashion photography while exploring themes of race, masculinity, post-colonialism and consumer culture.
Jamal Nxedlana has exhibited in galleries, institutions and independent spaces internationally. Most recently, his images were featured in the collective shows The New Black Vanguard curated by Antwaun Sargent and Orlando curated by Tilda Swinton.
Jamal Nxedlana by Senay Berhe