Goodman Gallery presents Unbind, an exhibition of key works by a selection of artists living in Angola and South Africa alongside diasporic artists with ancestral roots in Tanzania, Algeria and Morocco – bringing together a chorus of influential international voices all with significant ties to the African continent. Featured works provide a variety of perspectives on Africa’s inherited colonial past, with artists like Zineb Sedira drawing on powerful visual strategies, known as joyful resistance, for processing this past in the present and for unshackling from its bind. Artists: Yto Barrada, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Grada Kilomba, Kapwani Kiwanga, Zineb Sedira, Sue Williamson

Featured artists have prominent international moments happening around the world. Kapwani Kiwanga has just opened a major solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (16 Sept 2023 – 7 Jan 2024) and is soon to represent Canada at the forthcoming Venice Biennale; Zineb Sedira’s Dreams Have No Titles is currently on view on New York’s High line and she has a survey exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in 2024; Grada Kilomba co-curated the highly anticipated 2023 São Paulo Art Biennial (6 Sept -10 Dec); Kiluanji Kia Henda’s work is a centrepiece in the recently opened Tate exhibition A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography (until 14 January 2024); and Sue Williamson’s acclaimed joint exhibition with Lebohang Kganye took place at The Barnes Foundation in the US earlier this year.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is by French Algerian artist Zineb Sedira – For a Brief Moment the World was on Fire, which makes its South African debut. The work comprises a series of colourful photomontages featuring archival media that highlights the Pan-African Festival and further encapsulates the inspiration of the Algerian nation at the spearhead of independence movements in Africa. This body of work expands on the artist’s career-long exploration of the archive as a device to expose, reconsider and challenge history.

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