Billie Zangewa
The artist
Born in 1973 in Malawi, Billie Zangewa lives and works in Johannesburg. Using samples of vibrant silk, the artist hand sews sprightly embroideries who take inspiration from contemporary life scenes. Often the heroin of her figurative compositions, she mixes personal experience with the universal: the bustle of urban megalopolises as well as the actions of ordinary life come alive on the fabric. Everyday life thus becomes a pretext for political reflection on identity, and questions gender stereotypes and racial prejudice.
Exhibitions
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Soldier of Love
March 14 - June 6, 2020
Paris - Beaubourg
Biography
| Birth | Born in 1973 in Blantyre, Malawi |
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| Residence | She lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Education | 1995 BFA Printmaking Major, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa |
SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
| 2024 | ECHO. Enveloppé dans le souvenir, MoMu, Antwerp, Belgium |
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| 2023 | A Quiet Fire : Billie Zangewa, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, England/ Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland (touring exhibition) |
| 2022 | Billie Zangewa, Harvey B. Grantt Center for African American Arts & Culture, Charlotte, NC, USA Flesh and Blood, Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Corea |
| 2021 | Billie Zangewa: Domestic Life, Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle, Le Locle, Switzerland Billie Zangewa: Thread for a Web Begun, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA, USA |
| 2020 | Soldier of Love, Galerie Templon, Paris, France |
| 2018 | Vision of Love, Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL, USA |
| 2017 | Art Paris, Afronova Gallery, Grand Palais, Paris, France Love and Happiness, Frieze Frame, Regent’s Park, London, UK |
Voir plus
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
| 2024 | ECHO. Enveloppé dans le souvenir, MoMu, Antwerp, Belgium |
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| 2021 | The Power of My Hands, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France Portals, NEON Foundation, Athens, Greece and I will wear you in my heart of heart, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY Rituals of Resilience, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN, USA |
| 2020 | Global(e) Resistance, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Alpha Crucis – Contemporary African Art, The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway Media Networks, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom |
| 2019 | The Power of My Hands, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France I Am . . . Contemporary Women Artists of Africa, National Museum of African Art - Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, USA Mating Birds Vol.2, KZNSA – Kwa, Zulu Natal Society of Arts, Durban, South Africa Presence, Spelman Museum, Atlanta, USA |
| 2018 | Soft Power, Transpalette – Centre d’art contemporain, Bourges, France Making Africa: A Continent Of Contemporary Design, The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, USA Second Life, Musée d'Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden – MACAAL, Marrakech, Morocco Pulling at Threads, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa Ladies by Ladies, Space Art Absolute, Paris, France |
| 2017 | Lucy’s Iris, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno together with Casa África, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain Essential Landscape, MACAAL, Marrakesh, Morocco Making Africa, Atlanta Museum of High Art, Atlanta, USA Half-Life of Love, MASSMoCA, North Adams, USA Stedelijk BASE, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands Et Dieu créa la femme, Maison Guerlain, Paris, France Africa. Raccontare un mondo, CAP, Milan, Italy Frans Masereel, Mu.Zee, Oostende, Belgium Back to the Self, Marabouparken Konsthall, Sundbyberg, Sweden Onder Ons, CIAP Hasselt, Belgium |
| 2016 | Africa Forecast: Fashioning Contemporary Life, Spelman Museum, Atlanta, USA African Contemporary Art Fair, Afronova Gallery, Somerset House, London, UK - Pioneer Works, New York, USA Essentiel Paysage, MACAAL, Marrakech, Morocco Women’s Work, Crafting Stories, Subverting Narratives, IZIKO South Africa National Museum, Cape Town, South Africa Essentiel Paysage, Musée d'Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden – MACAAL, Marrakech, Morocco Making Africa: A Continent Of Contemporary Design, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands - Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelone (CCCB), Barcelona, Spain Africa Forecast: Fashioning Contemporary Life, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, USA A Constellation, Studio Museum Harlem, New York, USA The Substance of Things Not Seen, JAG, South Africa |
Voir plus
RESIDENCIES AND AWARDS
| 2017 | Bus Expo, Art Paris in collaboration with Air France |
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| 2009 | Bronx Museum. New York City, USA |
| 2006 | Air Antwerpen. Antwerp, Belgium |
| 2005 | Cite International Des Art. Paris, France |
| 2006 | Awarded Res'artis residency with Air Antwerpen at the Dak'art Dakar Biannale |
| 2004 | Absa L'Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award |
| 1997 | Artists in Botwana Award Printmaking |
| ABSA Bank, South Africa | |
| Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France | |
| Fondation Blachère, Apt, France | |
| Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, USA | |
| ICA Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA | |
| Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa | |
| J.P Morgan Chase Manhattan, USA |
Voir plus
Press
Artskop - mars 2020
Zangewa : un manifeste pour l'amour dans des temps incertains
M le Magazine du Monde - mars 2020
Avie recommandés : le fil de l'intime
Phaidon - 2019
Talking textiles with Billie Zangewa
Elephant - juin 2018
Billie Zangewa on her sociopolitical silk works
BBC News - avril 2017
African artist Billie Zangewa on working with silk
Aduna - juillet 2016
Billie Zangewa : painting the contemporary african woman in silk
SA Creatives - août 2014
Visual Artist working with raw silk - Billie Zangewa
Represent.co.za - mai 2007
Represent Interview : Billie Zangewa
Alarm - mars 2007
Billie Zangewa
News
Billie Zangewa
SOLO SHOW – A QUIET FIRE
Brighton Centre for Contemporary Arts, England Through May 13, 2023
For her first solo exhibition in England, Billie Zangewa presents artworks from the past 12 years at Brighton Centre for Contemporary Arts until May 13, 2023.
Chiharu Shiota
Billie Zangewa
GROUP SHOW – NARRATIVE THREADS: FIBER ART TODAY
Moody Center for the Arts, Houston
From January 13 to May 13, 2023
As part of the group show Narrative Threads: Fiber Art Today at the Moody Center for the Arts, Chiharu Shiota and Billie Zangewa will exhibit their works from January 13 to May 13, 2023. The artists featured in the exhibition speak to contemporary issues of identity, gender, race, sexuality, and power through a medium with deep, multicultural roots that predate written history.
Billie Zangewa
TOMORROW IS A DIFFERENT DAY – GROUP SHOW
Stedelijk Museum
Museumplein 10, 1071 DJ, Amsterdam
On Going
Using samples of vibrant silk, the artist hand sews sprightly embroideries who take inspiration from contemporary life scenes. Tomorrow is a Different Day spotlights art and design from the collection, from 1980 to the present, by international artists and designers who are helping to shape the changes of today and tomorrow. They challenge the status quo and offer alternative perspectives.
Billie Zangewa
THE POWER OF MY HANDS, AFRIQUE(S) : ARTISTES FEMMES – GROUP SHOW
From January 22 to May 30, 2021
Musée d’Art Moderne, 11 Avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris
As part of the Saison Africa2020, Suzana Sousa, independent curator based in Luanda, Angola and Odile Burluraux, curator at the au Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, bring together at MAM a set of works by sixteen female artists from several English-speaking African countries, and Portuguese speakers, or from the diaspora, offering a glimpse of a contemporary African art scene little presented in France. The Power of My Hands, through the creations presented – painting, pottery, photography, video, performance, embroidery etc. – takes into account the capacity of the artists to approach, starting from their personal histories, the social questions which determine the female condition.
Omar Ba
Billie Zangewa
GLOBAL(E) RESISTANCE – GROUP SHOW
From July 29 to January 4, 2021
Centre Pompidou, Rue Beaubourg, 75003 Paris
The exhibition ‘Global(e) Restitance’ reveals for the first time, more than sixty artists reunited for the last century around the question of “resitance”, including Senegalese Omar Ba and South African artist Billie Zangewa.
The exhibition that collects many work from many different medium and countries, questions the theoretical and esthetical relationship between politics and art. The idea of resisting, studied through the handling of politic as well as art for activism, as always been experienced by artists under oppression and inequalities.
Norbert Bisky
Jim Dine
Billie Zangewa
TEMPLON LAUNCHES A NEW VIEWING ROOM
We invite you to experience our new online viewing room for an immersive visit of our Paris and Brussels spaces.
Currently on view: Norbert Bisky: Desmadre Berlin, Jim Dine: The Classic Prints, and Billie Zangewa: Soldier of Love.
Click on the link below and on each work to explore!
Billie Zangewa
ALPHA CRUCIS – GROUP SHOW
ASTRUP FEARNLEY MUSEET, OSLO, NORWAY
From 31 January to 17 May, 2020
Alpha Crucis exhibition at Astrup Fearnley Museet gathers seventeen artists from seven African countries – a constellation of artists from the South, brought into northern sight—among which, Billie Zangewa, from Malawi.
The seventeen artists gathered here originate from numerous countries, belong to different generations and have diverse practices. But what they all have in common is that, living in Africa, they are all able to see Alpha Crucis. Can this be seen as a symbol of hope for a pan-African utopia, in which, despite antagonisms, all African countries look in the same direction towards the same guiding light, and do not need to look north when making their art?
