Art fairs

Stevenson takes part in Art Basel in June, presenting work by Kemang Wa Lehulere as part of Statements (the sector showcasing new solo projects by young, emerging artists), and a large-scale sculptural installation by Meschac Gaba on Unlimited (Art Basel's platform for projects that transcend the limitations of a classical art-show stand). The fair takes place from 13 to 16 June. See artbasel.com for details.

Artists / Exhibitions

The 55th Venice Biennale opens to the public on 1 June. Viviane Sassen is included on the main exhibition, The Encyclopedic Palace, and Wim Botha, Penny Siopis, Zanele Muholi and Andrew Putter have work on the South African Pavilion exhibition Imaginary Fact: South African art and the archive. The biennale runs until 24 November.
Related press: Brent Meersman on SA's participation in the Venice Biennale (Mail & Guardian, 19 April 2013)

Robin Rhode has his first Australian museum show at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Titled The Call of Walls, the exhibition features a number of the works included on Rhode's solo show, Paries Pictus, at Stevenson, Cape Town. The show runs from 17 May to 15 September. Rhode also has work on Fruits of Passion at the Centre Pompidou in Paris until 2 September.
Related press: Robin Rhode interviewed by Chad Rossouw (Artthrob, 10 May)

Dineo Seshee Bopape, Nicholas Hlobo, Zanele Muholi, Steven Cohen, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Simon Gush, Nandipha Mntambo, Sabelo Mlangeni, Kemang Wa Lehulere and Guy Tillim are all included on My Joburg at La Maison Rouge, Paris (21 June to 22 September). Bopape is also included on the group exhibitions The Beautyful Ones at Nola Judin, Berlin (20 April to 6 July); Digitale Afrique (Digital Africa) at La Bastide St Joseph in Marseilles, France (14 May to 5 July); and !Kauru: Cultural Brokerage - Africa Imagined Act 1 at Pretoria Art Museum (23 May to 30 June), and has been selected for the 12th Biennale of Lyon, Meanwhile... Suddenly, and Then (12 September to 5 January).

Meschac Gaba's 12-room Museum of Contemporary African Art (1997-2002), recently acquired by Tate, will be displayed at Tate Modern in London from 3 July to 22 September. The Library of the Museum was donated by Gaba to the city of Cotonou as part of his project Musée de l'Art de la Vie Active (MAVA). Gaba's Bibliothèque d'Art Contemporain, which also hosts artists' residencies, opened to the public of Cotonou in February.
Related press: 'Why Tate's showcase of African art is a good thing' (The Guardian, 26 November 2012); 'Tate Announces New Acquisitions Of Contemporary African Art' (Artlyst, 1 November 2012)

Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Sabelo Mlangeni, Pieter Hugo, Guy Tillim, Berni Searle and Andrew Putter have work on Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive, the third exhibition devoted to African photography and video art at the Walther Collection in Ulm, Germany. The exhibition, curated by Tamar Garb, opens 8 June and runs through till 2015.

Viviane Sassen's In and Out of Fashion and Pieter Hugo's There's a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends are featured solo shows at this year's Rencontres d'Arles photographic festival. Transition: Social Landscape, which includes works by Jo Ractliffe, Zanele Muholi and Pieter Hugo, will also be on view at the festival, which runs from 1 July to 22 September.
Related press: 'Double exposure: The two faces of Viviane Sassen's photography' (The Guardian, 1 February 2013); Review of In and Out of Fashion by Annie Goodner (Frieze, 21 January 2013)

Kemang Wa Lehulere has his first New York solo show, titled Sleep is for the Gifted, at Lombard-Freid Projects, running from 18 April until 1 June.

Nandipha Mntambo has her first European solo exhibition at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in Stockholm, Sweden, running from 16 May to 20 June. She is a Civitella Ranieri Fellow for 2013, in residence in Italy from 17 June to 30 July.

Zanele Muholi won the Index on Censorship - Freedom of Expression art award in London in March. She has a solo exhibition of her Faces and Phases series at the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Italy, at Palazzo S Agostino (20 April to 23 June) and at Widmer + Theodoridis in Zurich for the Pink Apple Film Festival (28 April to 11 May). She is included on the group show All You Need is Love at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (25 April to 1 September); Gender Questions at 19 CRAC in Montbéliard, France (3 May to 25 August); I See Rainbows at -kunstplass 5, Oslo, coinciding with Oslo Pride (20 June to 20 July); and has been selected for the 2013 Carnegie International survey of contemporary art, opening 4 October.
Related press: 'Power of the victor' (City Press, 7 April); Interview by Bim Adewunmi (New Statesman, 30 March); 'Zanele Muholi Highlights Lesbians, Transgender Women' (The Huffington Post, 18 March); 'For African Dykes, Zanele Muholi' (Gay City News, 27 February); 'Saving Face: The Portraits of Zanele Muholi' (Time LightBox, 25 February); Robyn Sassen reviews Faces and Phases at the Goethe-Institut (Sunday Times, 6 January 2013); Renee Holleman reviews 'Mo(u)rning' (Artthrob, September 2012); Dan Moshenberg on Zanele Muholi's 'Mo(u)rning' (Africa is a Country, 7 September 2012)

Jane Alexander's major solo exhibition Surveys (From the Cape of Good Hope) is on view at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York, hosted by the Museum for African Art, through July 29.
Related press: Review by Neelika Jayawardane (Africa is a Country, 21 May); Review by Holland Cotter (New York Times, 25 April)

Pieter Hugo's survey exhibition, This Must Be the Place, opens at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest on 30 May and runs till 25 August. Hugo's work is included on the group shows The Glorious Rise and Fall ... (and so on) at Groot Ziekengasthuis, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands (4 May to 16 June); and Some Views of Africa at Studio la Città di Verona, Italy (11 May to 31 August).
Related press: Pieter Hugo interviewed by Noah Rabinowitz (Guernica, 15 May 2012); This Must Be the Place book review by Sean O'Hagan (The Guardian, 8 April 2012); Rwanda 2004: Vestiges of a Genocide reviewed by Sean O'Hagan (The Guardian, 16 November 2011); Permanent Error in Design Arts Daily (8 September 2011) and Photo District News (25 May); Permanent Error book review by Sean O'Toole (Mahala, 5 May 2011)

Nicholas Hlobo has work on Cinematic Visions: Painting at the Edge of Reality, curated by James Franco, Isaac Julien and Glenn Scott Wright, at Victoria Miro in London from 7 June through July, and on Out of Fashion: Textiles in international contemporary art at Gl Holtegaard in Copenhagen, Denmark (5 April to 7 July.) He is included in Hans Ulrich Obrist's recently published do it: the compendium, to be exhibited at the Manchester International Festival and Manchester Art Gallery from 5 July to 22 September.

Serge Alain Nitegeka is included on My House, curated by Anthea Buys and Mikhail Subotzky as part of Nouvelles vagues, a programme of exhibitions by young curators at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, running from 20 June to 9 September.

Wim Botha is the Stellenbosch University Woordfees Kunstenaar (Wordfest Artist), showing the fifth in his series of Solipsis polystyrene and neon installations at the Sasol Art Museum in Stellenbosch. The run has been extended to 20 July. A catalogue of all Botha's Solipsis works to date accompanies the exhibition - see Publications.

Jo Ractliffe, Berni Searle and Andrew Putter have work on Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa at the Smithsonian National Museum for African Art (22 April to 5 January). Ractliffe's solo exhibition As Terras do Fim do Mundo travels to the Museet for Fotokunst in Odense, Denmark (24 April to 25 August).

Guy Tillim's Avenue Patrice Lumumba shows at CentroCentro, Palacio de Cibeles, Madrid, from 18 April to 13 October. Tillim was shortlisted for the 2012 Prix Pictet, themed Power, for his Congo Democratic series. An exhibition of work by the shortlisted artists is currently touring in Europe, with openings in Budapest, Istanbul and Amsterdam in the first part of 2013.
Related press: Libreville reviewed by Percy Zvomuya (Mail & Guardian, 22 March 2013); Libreville reviewed by Matthew Partridge (Financial Mail, 22 March 2013); Leora Maltz-Leca on Avenue Patrice Lumumba (ArteEast Quarterly, 1 September 2011); Chad Rossouw reviews Second Nature (Mail & Guardian, 29 July 2011); Richard Poplak on Avenue Patrice Lumumba in Toronto (The Daily Maverick, 18 May 2011)

Guy Tillim, Jo Ractliffe, Sabelo Mlangeni, Pieter Hugo and Nicholas Hlobo are included on Present Tense, curated by Antonio Pinto Ribeiro as part of the Gulbenkian Next Future programme at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, from 21 June to 1 September.

Daniel Naudé shows selected photographs from Animal Farm in the print room at The Photographers' Gallery in London from 30 May to 28 July.

Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, curated by Okwui Enwezor with Rory Bester, opened at the International Center of Photography in New York in late 2012, and travels to the Haus der Kunst in Munich (15 February - 26 May 2013). The exhibition 'examines the aesthetic power of the documentary form - from the photo essay to reportage, social documentary to photojournalism and art - in recording, analyzing, articulating, and confronting the legacy of apartheid and its effect on everyday life in South Africa'. Among the artists included are Billy Monk, Guy Tillim, Jo Ractliffe, Jane Alexander and Sabelo Mlangeni.
Related press: Review by Holland Cotter (New York Times, 20 September 2012)

Penny Siopis curated The New Church No 1 - a first exhibition of works from the collection of Piet Viljoen, at The New Church in Cape Town. Featured artists include Zander Blom, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Wim Botha, Steven Cohen, Paul Edmunds, Nicholas Hlobo, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Robin Rhode, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Siopis herself. The gallery is open by appointment only.