Moshekwa Langa: The Jealous Lover

Reality and fiction, past and future, South and North – Moshekwa Langa is a wanderer between worlds. The South African artist interweaves different materials, value systems, cultural reference points, and motifs in his works. Within the frame of the exhibition series Solo for …, the ifa Gallery Berlin presents his site-specific installation The Jealous Lover. The installation describes the hope for a better life in the metropolis, a hope which “captures, captivates and grips” people like jealousy. The exhibition series Solo for … presents artists that have exhibited at the ifa Galleries already at the beginning of their international careers. Moshekwa Langa participated in the show Changing the Point of View – African Video Art in the ifa Galleries in 2000. For his works, Moshekwa Langa (*1975, Bakenberg/South Africa) often uses ordinary materials such as packaging, cardboard, found objects, thread reels and strings. Installations, works on paper, photographs and videos are combined to complex assemblages. These multi-layered visual and at times also linguistic networks illustrate political developments and the artist’s personal recollections from his childhood under the Apartheid regime to his exile in the Netherlands. Everything is connected with everything else, there are no linear developments, the lines meander and meet at different points of intersection. In his new installation The Jealous Lover Moshekwa Langa examines the pull that cities exert on people. The desire for a better life in the metropolises – connected with the abandonment of traditions and relationships – exemplifies the experiences of people in the globalised and digitised world; the difficulties of orientation as well as the fascination for networks. In addition, the exhibition presents a selection of Moshekwa Langa’s drawings and gouaches. Drawing from historical, political, scientific, poetic, and private elements, images and words from different cultures, he constructs fictional landscapes and mind maps that reflect intercultural experiences and the difficulties to navigate within an elusive reality. http://youtu.be/O75v5Ow9c6s EVENTS: Thursday 10 July 2014, 19:00 Opening Friday, 11 July 2014, 16:00 Guided tour of the exhibition with Moshekwa Langa (In English) Thursday, 17 July 2014, 19:00 Lecture (In English) Introduction The Future in the Contemporary – Potential and Challenges in International Art Exchange Elke aus dem Moore, director of the art department, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations Into the Darkness – Black Subjectivities and Alternative Knowledge Production Sinethemba Twalo, artist, author, DJ from Johannesburg, currently artist in residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart ART EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME Sunday, 14 September 2014, 11:00 – 13:30 Children’s Art Programme Kartografien des Zwischenraums #2: LEGENDEN (Cartographies of the interstice #2: LEGENDS) From the age of 6. With Annika Niemann. Admission free Thursday, 18 September 2014, 19:00 Exhibition Talk With Annika Niemann Re_Mapping: Landkarten der Dislokation (Maps of Dislocation) The art educational programme of the ifa Gallery is also open for school classes. Simply contact us! Information and reservation: kunstvermittlung@ifa.de; +49.30.28449140 Urban excursions with Elfi Müller von außen nach drinnen (from the outside to the inside) Sunday, 31 August 2014, 12:00 Sunday, 07 September 2014, 12:00 Sunday, 21 September 2014, 12:00 On occasion of the Berlin Art Week from 16. – 21. September the ifa gallery extended the opening hours of the exhibition until 8pm. ifa Gallery Berlin Linienstraße 139/140, 10115 Berlin www.ifa.de