the silences between – Group Show

the silences between – Group Show
4 August 2017
Closes: 23 September 2017
Goodman Gallery Cape Town is excited to announce its upcoming exhibition the silences between, a group show curated by Emma Laurence.
the silences between brings together major works by a selection of pre-eminent contemporary artists who use varying modes of storytelling to rethink, rework and reimagine the world and our place within it.
The title is taken from the Maori poetry book, The Silences Between: (Moeraki conversations) in which writer Keri Hulme prompts the question: ‘What is recorded in the writing of history and what is left out?’
The exhibition considers the role of the artist in questioning how meaning is made and what is recorded in visual memory. Works by artists such as Paulo Nazareth (Brazil), William Kentridge (South Africa), Candice Breitz (South Africa/Germany), Nolan Oswald Dennis (Zambia/South Africa), Grada Kilomba (Portugal/Germany) and Samson Kambalu (Malawi/UK) confront this process and offer alternatives to the ‘grand narrative’ of Western thought.
This exhibition takes its cue from Donna Haraway’s influential book Staying With The Trouble (2016), in which the prominent academic argues that the world cannot be understood ‘as the heroic story, told yet one more time, of the privileged signifier moving across time and space to bring back the prize at the end and die’.
the silences between presents works that expose the layered scaffolding of ‘meaning-making’ through the telling of everyday stories of ordinary people and seemingly insignificant events that have been left out of the dominant narrative.
‘The show seeks to activate the small but crucial stories that are so often forgotten, and in so doing offer new ways of crafting sensibilities,’ says curator Emma Laurence. ‘Through interfering with systems of knowledge production and archiving, the works puncture the overarching narratives of our globalised world.’
Artists on the silences between include: Candice Breitz, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Nolan Oswald Dennis, mounir fatmi, Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt, Haroon Gunn Salie, Alfredo Jaar, Samson Kambalu, William Kentridge, Grada Kilombo, Paulo Nazareth and Mikhael Subotzky.
.
View more from
Beyond Representation
Dec 7, 2023–Dec 31, 2026
M’barek Bouhchichi: Les mains des poètes
Apr 24–Oct 17, 2026
Cecilia Vicuña - The vanished glacier
Apr 30–Sep 20, 2026
Panmela Castro – A Crônica da Não-Solidão
Mar 14–Sep 6, 2026
The Narratives of Migration
Mar 27–Aug 26, 2026
Zumví Arquivo Afro Fotográfico
Mar 28–Aug 23, 2026




