Nicholas Hlobo

Hlobo was born in Cape Town in 1975, and lives in Johannesburg. Solo exhibitions have taken place at institutions including the SCAD Museum of Art (2019); the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius (2017) Uppsala Konstmuseum (2017); Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague (2016); Locust Projects in Miami (2013); the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo (2011); the Level 2 Gallery at Tate Modern, London (2008); and the Boston ICA as part of the Momentum series (2008), among others.

In 2011 Hlobo showed commissioned work on ILLUMInations, the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale; his work also appeared in Venice on The World Belongs to You, works from the Pinault Collection at the Palazzo Grassi, and the Future Generation Art Prize exhibition at the Palazzo Papadopoli. Other notable group exhibitions include Matereality, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2020); Indian Ocean Current: Six Artistic Narratives, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College (2020); Crossing Night: Regional Identities X Global Context, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, USA (2019); Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, London (2019); And Counting, Johannesburg Art Gallery (2019); Material Insanity, Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakesh, Morocco (2019); African Metropolis. An Imaginary City at MAXXI, Rome (2018); Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art at Haus der Kunst (2018); Umthamo at the Maitland Institute (2018); Performa 17, New York (2017); Art/ Afrique, le nouvel atelier at Fondation Louis Vuitton (2017): Energy and Process at Tate Modern in London (2016); A History (art architecture design, from the 80s to now) at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2015); Liberated Subjects: Present Tense at Foundation De 11 Lijnen in Oudenburg, Belgium (2015); The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, MMK (Museum für Moderne Kunst) in Frankfurt and SCAD Museum of Art in Georgia (2014-15); Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (2014); the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012); La Triennale 2012 - Intense Proximity at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2012); Touched, the Liverpool Biennale (2010); the third Guangzhou Triennial, China (2008); and Flow at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2008.

Hlobo was the first recipient of the Villa Extraordinary Award for Sculpture in 2016. He was the Tollman Award winner 2006, the Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art 2009, and the Rolex Visual Arts Protégé for 2010/11, working with Anish Kapoor as his mentor.

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