Glimpses of the Now is a group exhibition showcasing collage-based works by seven artists from Africa and Latin America that highlight the role of collage-making in the Global South.
28–31 May
Four Corners
121 Roman Road, London, E2 0QN
Opening Night with Sam Nhlengethwa
28 May, 6pm–9pm
Glimpses of the 50s and 60s, a series of thirty lithographic collages by South African artist Sam Nhlengethwa, reflects the tumultuous landscape of South Africa under apartheid. Completed in 2003, Glimpses of the 50s and 60s brings together photographs from the artist’s family albums and photographs published in Drum, a renowned South African magazine that highlighted Johannesburg’s contemporary black urban culture and featured work by black photographers.
Collage has defined the work of influential South African artists throughout the twentieth century and has remained a defining feature of the work of contemporary artists across the Global South. Curated by Georgia Nasseh and Gillian Fleischmann, the exhibition Glimpses of the Now places Nhlengethwa’s lithographic collages in conversation with works by six contemporary artists whose practices involve varied forms of collage-making: Alexia Ferreira (Brazil), Ethel Tawe (Cameroon / United Kingdom), Gê Viana (Brazil), Neo Matloga (South Africa / Netherlands), Phumulani Ntuli (South Africa), and Thato Toeba (Lesotho / Netherlands).
Glimpses of the Now reflects on why the practice of cutting and pasting has emerged, in both the twentieth and twenty first centuries, as a preferred visual language—not previously afforded by the conventions of photography—for representing and re-presenting the experiences of apartheid and post-apartheid, racism and xenophobia, as well as individual and collective identities. The exhibition explores further how collage disrupts photography’s coloniality, allowing for the fragmentation and juxtaposition, the merging and colliding, of multiple photographic frames, conceptually and practically.
The exhibition also showcases collages produced at workshops held at the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett–UP) and at the University of Oxford with students and members of both universities’ broader communities.
This exhibition is made possible through the BRIDGE Fellowship, a partnership between the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett–UP) and The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) at the University of Oxford.
Curated by Georgia Nasseh and Gillian Fleischmann
Opening Night
with Sam Nhlengethwa
28 May
18–21pm
Four Corners
121 Roman Road, London E2 0QN
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