Upcoming Exhibitions

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Modzi Arts Gallery at FNB Art Joburg artsy & open City 2021 | Featured artists: Mapopa Hussein Manda + Aaron Samuel Mulenga

With the support of Prohelvetia and the Swiss Arts Council, the Modzi Arts Gallery will be participating for a third year running in the annual FNB Art Joburg Art Fair.

Established in 2017, the Modzi Arts Gallery is a growing voice in Contemporary Zambian art within African contexts and has been at the forefront of reframing the Zambian art market. The opportunity to take part in FNB Art Joburg for a third time since 2019 has given us strength in growing and innovating our approach within the Contemporary African Art scene as well as within the diaspora.

This year, the Modzi Arts Gallery will be showcasing the works of Mapopa Hussein Manda and Aaron Samuel Mulenga.

Watch this space for more!

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

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​THE IMAGINARY FLIGHT OF BIRDS / VOL D'OISEAUX IMAGINAIRE BY CHIEF TUMPA AGXON IN COLLABORATION WITH DJ SPILULU
11TH SEPT TO 7TH NOV 2021

The Imaginary Flight of Birds (Vol d’Oiseaux Imaginaire, 2019) depicts the threatening influence of political leaders in the seemingly peaceful landscape of Moba on Lake Tanganyika in eastern Congo. Made of driftwood from the shores of the Lake, the hovering "ominous birds” await the perfect attack, approaching in a Hitchcockian way and get face to face with the visitor.

Agxon (°1961, Lubumbashi, D.R.Congo) has been a traditional Tabwa chief in addition to being a visual artist since 2012. He left behind the urban artist life in Lubumbashi and Kinshasa and took up his responsibility as spiritual leader of the Tumpa community in the remote village Mulunguzi on Lake Tanganyika. In this landscape, which bears the burden of many past conflicts, minerals have been detected, which, combined with political developments, is causing tensions to rise. By assuming the combined functions of visual artist and traditional chief, Agxon brings a resolutely political dimension to his work. This project emphasises the turn taken since his enthronement as chief in considering his artistic production as a dialogue with his community.

With this series, Agxon builds on his oeuvre of assemblage art, in which he creates sculptures from what he finds on his way. Wanderings and walks are thus an integral part of his artistic process. With extremely minimal adjustments, matter that is part of his everyday surroundings takes shape. Where in Lubumbashi these were fallen branches of city trees and in Kinshasa ironware, he uses in Mulunguzi stones and, in this series, driftwood.

In a collective creation with composer and Afrohouse DJ Spilulu (b. 1983, Lubumbashi), a video and soundscape were created for the exhibition with images and sounds from Moba and Mulunguzi during DJ Spilulu’s during residency in situ.

Concept, curation and production by Sari Middernacht & Patrick Mudekereza

Installation by Taonga Julia Kaseka
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With the support of the Waza Art Centre and Pro Helvetia Johannesburg

Tumpa Agathon Kakusa Mapemba wa Nduba Mwine Musenga Kyume kya Mukanka (aka Agxon, °Lubumbashi, DRC, 1961) is the 10th chief of Mulunguzi village. He is also an artist, whose abstract portraiture in wood, iron, and stone has developed over the years he spent living in Lubumbashi, Kinshasa, and now Mulunguzi nearby Moba on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, DRC.

DJ Spilulu - formerly known as G'Sparks is a congolese Sound engineer, beatmaker, composer, producer and DJ , pioneer of mergers between Tribal African Villages Sounds with house Music, techno, zouk and rap creating a very unique Afrobeat Sound. He also created a dynamic around Afro-house music and afro-beat in the Republic Democratc of Congo from the landscape of Lubumbashi to kinshasa formerly fully trained in the Ndombolo.

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PAST EXHIBITIONS

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MODZI A.I.R EXHIBITION: "Along the new road" by Klaus Hartmann
9 to 14 December 2020

After over a month of residency time at Modzi Arts, Klaus Hartmann, spent his time creating wonderful paintings and drawings from various impressions he has had from visiting Western and Northern Zambia.

The paintings of Klaus Hartmann are picturesque constructions that originate from the artist’s detailed observations. Frequently, he integrates thematic breaks into his pictures that may be interpreted as reflections on society.

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FNB Art Joburg Online 2020
Modzi Gallery | Lusaka, Featured Artist: Stary Mwaba
6 to 18 November 2020

Modzi Arts Gallery was excited to present at the online edition of FNB Art Joburg 2020 under GalleryLAB
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The Gallery Lab section will had a solo presentation by Zambian artist Stary Mwaba | THE BLACK MOUNTAIN. Mwaba's work, research and current working process highlight specific subjects using personal little narratives that engage with archival materials as components of his work, and these then functions as the starting point for the works to engage with the current socio-political circumstances in Zambia.
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Supported by an ANT Fund grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation (SDC).

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Modzi Gallery | FNB Art Joburg
Ba Zambia Ndi Bantu Exhibition
29 August – 29 October 2020

​Experience contemporary Zambian artists tell local narratives through meticulous art works that are articulate of various local elements. We are happy to host this prestigious group exhibition that showed at the FNB Art Joburg Fair last year.

Featuring Artists
Aaron Samuel Mulenga | Agnes Buya Yombwe | David ‘Daut’ Makala | Nomes Dee |Stary Mwaba

Ba Zambia Ndi Bantu
Ba Zambia Ndi Bantu group exhibition is a combination of several elements of Zambian narratives that are unique in approach of techniques and contemporaries from Agness Yombwe’s prehistoric paintings style which makes reference in style of work that to Mwela Rock painting of late Stone Age from Northern Zambia, discussions around Taboo and beliefs integrity in daily livelihood of the Bemba Mbusa culture that focuses on the Snakes as a reference for love and humility. The paintings are of outstanding beauty and intricate detail depicting individual and social needs, as well as conceptual and communicative motivations with stages of development. It creates a thread of meaning and understanding in the ancient story of African people. Which brings strong authentic to Nomes Dee’s digital print Cooking Woman where she explores pop culture with a hit of sexuality, bring ideas of how the traditional play a role in modern narratives around love potion. Then I take a look back with Daut David Makala’s welded wire and his focus on masks and the role the Nyau Masquerade of Easter Zambia play as a spiritual society for men in the teaching of knowledge through the coming of age. Aaron Samual Mulenga’s bronze goddess, has vision of God to take on a female being and connected to his belief in Christian to strongly discuss the elements around The father, The sun and The Holy Spirit. Also very much connecting his choice of material in bronze to begin a discuss on the presence of 70% Copper which connects with Stary Mwaba’s Black Mountain series, his personal narratives where he tells small stories on people he has meet in research within his home region of Copperbelt. He points out his cousin as his ‘Superhero’ one who lives a dangerous life as a illegal miner but these men take pride in spending long hours beneath the rocks of Zambia digging out perhaps the only narrative they know. His choice of newsprint as the material is both delicate and intricate through the painful slow process of perforating/burning out words he either places on a pillar or doesn’t bear any reference to.
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Ba Zambia Ndi Bantu Exhibition is supported by an ANT Fund funding grant from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation (SDC).
#modzigallery
#BaZambiaNdiBantu
Pro Helvetia Johannesburg - Swiss Arts Council

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Modzi Residency Exhibition
​Matt Kayem | Notes about the times
16TH MAY – 25th JULY 2020

Solos exhibition by Matt Kayem who is an artist and art writer born in Kampala, Uganda. His work explores identity issues, race, history, sexuality and culture through installations, collage-paintings and photography. Kayem has exhibited extensively in Kampala notably at the Kampala Biennale(2016 & 2018), has had three solo shows, one in Nairobi. As a writer, he is interested in the commercialization of art and the comparison between the western and African art market. He has written for Africanah.org, ContemporaryAnd, Nairobi Contemporary, psp-culture.com, START journal and The Independent Magazine.

More on Matt Kayem 
Buy the Catalogue
Buy the art work 

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​Afro Luso Residency Show Case
7 September - 17 November 2019

Afro Luso Residency of Experimental Visual art Lusaka is an initiative of Modzi Arts in partnership with Pro Helvetia, to expand the Zambian and African artists exchange network. The five-week residency is open to four mid-career artists within the SADC visual arts sphere. The 2019 cycle of Afro Luso will address experimentation within the context of Zambian contemporary art. 

​​​Featured Artists:
Mwamba Chikwemba (ZAM), Nyakallo Maleke (SA),Taka (MAD), Nathi Khumelo (SA)

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​Modzi Arts at FNB Art Joburg
13- 15 September 2019

With the support of Prohelvetia and the Swiss Arts Council, Modzi Arts had the privilege of participating in the FNB Art Joburg Art Fair 2019. It was the first time a Zambian gallery was present at this event. We showcased a variety of contemporary art from exceptional Zambian artists. The group exhibition was a combination of several elements that are unique, but not limited to a Zambian environment and reflect the internal construction of ideas around Zambian myths, taboos and personal narratives. 

​Featured Zambian Artists:
Stary Mwaba ,Agness Buya Yombwe, Aaron Samuel Mulenga, David ‘Daut’ Makala and Nomes Dee

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Memories of Mother
Nick Chendela Sangale
Aug 10 - Aug 17 2019
Sangale's work was conceptualized around the recent loss of his mother through the exploration of her experience with illness and hospitalization. It is an Installation piece exploring the connection of symbols (Nguvu symbols which he created over an extensive period of time) burned onto wood covered in chitenge; thus focusing on the different wooden textures and the brown colour, emulating his dreams through the memories of his mother and how chitenge resonates with motherhood in the Zambian context.  

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YOME Residency Exhibition
Ho Jin
March 1- March 8 2019
The exhibition is the culmination of a 6 month residency at Modzi Arts. Ho Jin presented his large scale works of reimagined traditional Zambian Makishi Masks, important figures in African and Korean history as well as smaller pieces drawn on different objects like pizza boxes, plywood and animal figures. The exhibition was presented in the performance theather at Circus Zambia in Lusaka.

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