Amsterdam

STEVENSON is pleased to host Unathi Mkonto’s In place, an open-studio residency concluding with an exhibition. The gallery has previously included Mkonto in the group show Where do I begin (2022) and in Juxtapositions alongside David Goldblatt (2023), both in Cape Town. The artist now occupies our gallery on the Prinsengracht as part of a self-directed exploration of 'anti-architecture’.

Mkonto has said previously, ‘I am always studying and looking at processes to humanise this historically apartheid-inspired built environment.’ With In place, he continues this focus in Amsterdam, investigating what forms can emerge from a new environment historically enmeshed with his own spaces of home. He now writes:

This show is about all the details you want to hide from the audience. I am seeking to get clearer and closer to the work. In Amsterdam I’ve been visiting new places with stinky bins and histories of architecture.

I’m making sculptures with plywood, bending and clamping it, which results in bent lamination, from where I create half circles and other shapes. At the moment I am obsessed with the idea that any life could be architecture. The show is looking at space as still life, water as structures, portraiture as the architecture of all forms of life.

Unathi Mkonto was born in 1982 in Peddie and lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. He has a BA in Architecture from Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha and was among the design fellows at Architecture for Humanity in Johannesburg (2012-13). He has previously participated in residencies at the A4 Arts Foundation (2018) and Alma Martha (2017), both in Cape Town. Mkonto recently completed an eight-month studio residency titled TO LET at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa as part of the museum’s ongoing Atelier programme.

Mkonto’s studio is open for visits during our regular gallery opening hours, Thursday to Saturday 12 to 6pm. A finissage will take place on Thursday 30 May, 5 to 8pm.