Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi’s ‘Ntlo E Etsamayang’ (The Walking House) comes to the UJ Art Gallery 6 April – 17 May
The University of Johannesburg Art Gallery in partnership with Everard Read Gallery and the Embassy of Sweden Pretoria, proudly presents: ‘Ntlo E Etsamayang’ (The Walking House), a compelling exhibition co-curated by Gabriel Baard and Prof. Kim Berman. This exhibition honours the remarkable artistic journey and commitment to Indigenous Knowledge Systems of Mmakgabo Mmapula Helen Sebidi.
Opening publicly on 6 April 2024, the exhibition commemorates the recovery of 28 lost artworks, discovered at the Nyköping Folk High School after 32 years of their disappearance in Sweden. Join us at the UJ Art Gallery as we unveil these long-lost treasures to the public for the first time.
‘Ntlo E Etsamayang’ is a triumphant celebration of Sebidi’s artistic journey, confronting themes of self-positioning, power, responsibility, and healing. This exhibition reflects on the exchange of knowledge between South Africa and Sweden, highlighting Sebidi’s dedication to facilitating communication of the socio-political conditions that govern day-to-day existence.
Sebidi’s artworks serve as a powerful reminder of the enduring connections forged through artistic expression and cross-cultural dialogue. These artworks not only reclaim lost masterpieces to the public eye but crucially resurrect a critical chapter in the national artistic consciousness. Each artwork communicates an acute and unbounded search into the relationship between humanism and spiritualism of the contemporary black African lived experience.
This exhibition highlights not only Sebidi’s early artistic endeavours but also a pivotal juncture in her practice, heralding a significant moment of stylistic transformation into a new idiom that would pulsate with energy; part figuration, part abstraction, yet continuously seeking to escape the boundaries of both. Her art depicts the disordered and often uncomfortable process of decolonising, through which she has cultivated a visual language that compels us to feel things and perhaps even devote our own lives to the cause.
‘Ntlo E Etsamayang’ will be on display from 6 April to 17 May 2024 at the UJ Art Gallery on the University of Johannesburg’s Kingsway Campus in Auckland Park.
Thereafter, the walk-about dates will be as follows:
10 April 2024, 12:00-13:00
13 April 2024, 11:00-12:00
20 April 2024, 11:00-12:00
4 May 2024, 12:00-13:00
11 May 2024, 11:00-12:00
CLICK HERE TO RSVP FOR WALKABOUTS
Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi
BIOGRAPHY
Mmakgabo Mmapula Helen Sebidi was born in 1943 in Marapyane (Skilpadfontein), in the Hammanskraal area of the Northern Transvaal. As her mother was working in the city for much of her childhood, she grew up with her grandmother, who taught her the values that would guide and sustain her life. This includes the channelling of spirit back into the world through hard work, the commitment of the self to the community, but most of all through acts of creativity – whether this be cooking, making mud walls, creating murals, making pots and calabashes, weaving, beading, dress-making, drawing or painting. For Mmakgabo Sebidi, the artist starts from a root of pain and conflict and works her way towards the redemption of both herself and those around her through the act of making. The creator becomes invisible during this process and is the channel through which the spirit world flows. The artwork can be seen as the trace of this redemptive journey.
Mmakgabo spent much of her young adult life as a domestic worker in Johannesburg. She spent her spare time making dresses and knitting. When a German employer starting painting, Mmakgabo expressed an interest in painting herself and was given her first set of oil paints. She then sought lessons and joined the art classes of John Koenakeefe Mohl before returning to Marapyane to look after her ailing grandmother. The following decade would see her developing and refining her art in the rural areas, returning to Johannesburg only to exhibit her work – first at Zoo Lake, then at the Art Foundation and finally the Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg – and to buy more materials. Through the Art Foundation, Mmakgabo won a Fulbright Scholarship, which led to a tour of America, where she met up with the ‘stolen people’ (African Americans), ‘the people whose land was taken from them (Native Americans) and those who work the land (farmers and agriculturists). She concluded that we have far more in common than whatever separates us and that all the lessons she has needed in her life were available to her through the teachings of her grandmother and her community. That same year she also won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award.
Mmakgabo is without question an inspiration and pioneer to the younger generation of South African artists. Working predominantly in pastel, acrylic and oil paint, she has developed a distinct style that uses vibrant juxtaposed colour, distorted perspectives, human and animal figures, dream images – often in a pointillist, stippled style of pastel or paint application. More recently she has returned to sculpting in clay and this exhibition features the first of her sculptures ever to be cast in bronze.
Today Mmakgabo Sebidi is based in Johannesburg, where she continues to make work and spend much of her spare time helping to inspire and encourage the younger generation – especially of artists. She is represented by the Everard Read and CIRCA galleries in Johannesburg, Cape Town and London.
EXHIBITIONS
1977-88 Artists under the Sun, Johannesburg
1980-88 Brush and Chisel Club, Johannesburg.
1980-81 Washington, U.S.A (organized by a private collector).
1988 S.A Potters Association.
1986 FUBA, Johannesburg, (Solo Show).
Art for Alexandra, Sotheby’s, Johannesburg.
Thupelo Workshop Exhibition, Johannesburg Art Foundation, University of the Witwatersrand
1987 Vita Art Now, Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Delfiri/FUBA Creative Quest Exhibition, FUBA
FUBA (Seven Woman Artists)
Thupelo Workshop exhibition, toured to Johannesburg Art Foundation and NSA Gallery Durban
Standard Bank National Drawing Competition, toured SA.
1988 Detainees’ Parents Support Committee – 100 artists protested against detention without trial,
The Neglected Tradition”, Johannesburg Art Gallery.
Art Images in Southern Africa, group show, in Stockholm, Sweden exhibition
1988-89 Cape Town Triennial, toured SA
1989 Ten Years of Collecting, University of the Witwatersrand.
Standard Bank National Festival of the Arts, Grahamstown, resulted in a touring solo show, visiting museums and galleries, ending in Namibia in 1991
1990 Art from South Africa Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
Mozambiquan National Gallery
Zabalaza Festival, group show as part of South African Festival, Institute of
Contemporary Arts, London
1991 A Grain of Wheat, Group Exhibition, Art Gallery of the Common Institute, London
Standard Bank Young Artists Award winners Exhibition, Namibia
The Challenge to Colonization, group exhibition, 4th Havannah Biennial, Cuba.
1992 Future Realsms, Two person exhibition, The Afrika Uturistic Gallery, Johannesburg
Art from South Africa, S.A. National Gallery, Cape Town
Standard Bank Young Artists Award winners Exhibition, Zimbabwe National Gallery
1992 Woman from Africa Exhibition, Savanah Gallery of Modern Art, Bethal Green, London, representing eight woman artists from Africa
African Hei-iti-@e, Group Exhibition, Uranienborgreien, Norway
Graphics Exhibition, Jyraskyla, Finland
Group show – Biennale Italy
Three person show with Lucky Sibiya and Noria Mabasa, Everard Read Gallery
Group show, Stedelike Museum, Amsterdam
Il Croce Del Sud”, Rome, Italy
1993 Six Women from Southern Africa,” Exhibition in Lisbon, 1994
Civic Gallery, Johannesburg
1994 Bienale in Museum Africa, Johannesburg
Finders Keepers,Sunday Times, Cape Town National Gallery
The Laager, included in a group exhibition, Museo de Arte, Pretoria
Contemprario Santiago, Chile
Centre of the Arts Yerba Buenga Gardens, San Francisco
South Africa’s Finest Painters, The Everard Read Gallery
Common and Uncommon Ground, South African Art to Atlanta, City Gallery East, Atlanta, Georgia
Solo Exhibition, London
Solo Exhibition, Hamburg, Germany
1996 Thopelo Art Workshop and Exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa
1999 Human Rights Institute Exhibition, National Art Gallery, Durban
Changing Screens Exhibition, The Firs, Rosebank
1999 Judging University of North West
1999 Judging of competition at Wits University
2000 Axis Gallery, New York, USA
University of Illionois, Urbana Champaign, Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion
2001 The Markers exhibition, Venice Biennale, Italy
2002 Art in the context of the World Earth Summit on sustainable development
International traveling exhibition, “World Women, Visible Visions from International Woman,” opened in Johannesburg
2002 International world summit exhibition, Tilburg:
2002 Judging of Sasol competition
2003 Solo: The artificial shelter foundation: Tilburg
2002 Judging of competition at Wits University
2004 Exhibition “Visible Visions” Traveling exhibition: Germany: Hagen, Essen, Berlin, and Osnabrueck; Holland, Tilburg
2005 Telkom exhibition
2008 Joburg Art fair 2008 with Everard Read
2009 Great South African Nude Exhibition, Group Show, Everard Read
2013 Centenary Exhibition, Group Show, Everard Read Johannesburg
2016 Exhibition at Stevenson Gallery
Solo Show, Everard Read Johannesburg
Group Show , Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
2017 Johannesburg ArtFair, Solo Stand
2018 Batlhaping Ba Re!, Norval Foundation Crossing the Night, Group Exhibition, Mexico
COLLECTIONS
Africana Museum, Johannesburg
Art Workshop, London
Sasol Collection
Unisa, Pretoria
University of Bophutswana, Mafikeng
Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg
JohannesburgArt Gallery
Centre for Africa Studies, University of Cape Town
South African National Gallery
1820 Settlers Foundation
Standard Bank Collection
Pretoria Art Museum
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington
University of the Witwatersrand
Price Forbes
Federated Insurance Co.
Department of Education and Training
Galerie Adriana Schmidt
S.A. Perm
University of Wolverhampton
- Roque Investments
ABSA Bank
World Bank
South African Broadcasting Corporation
Gencor
First National Bank
S.A. Permanent Bank
Government of Australia
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, New York USA
The South African Reserve Bank
AWARDS
1988 Star Woman of the Year finalist
1989 Fulbright Scholarship – World Exhibition New York
Standard Bank Young Artist Award
1990 Vita Fine Art Award
2002 Nomination for the 1st nominee in the Human Sciences Research Council Living Treasure Award
2004 Award of the order of Ikhamanga silver award given by the Presidency, the Republic of South Africa,
Chancery
2005 Nomination for ILKSSA: National Heritage Council, National Living Treasure Award