CURRENT
CLAUDIA LARCHER & EVA FISCHER
IMAGINE A.I - FEMININE VISIONS FOR REGENRATION
NIROX COOL ROOM
MARCH 2025
This exhibition explores artificial intelligence’s (AI) transformative potential at the crossroads of digital humanism, democratic values, and ecological progress. Rooted in critical post-humanism, it seeks to envisage “regeneration” through the lens of contemporary technologies.
In addressing the disproportionate impact of bias and climate change on FLINTA individuals, the exhibition emphasises the necessity of a feminine perspective in shaping AI and envisioning inclusive futures. Rather than a radical rejection of technology, it advocates for integrating care, healing, and sustainability into the development of innovative solutions for today’s challenges, ultimately fostering empowerment and democratic ideals in the face of global crises.
Initiated by the Cultural Forum at the Austrian Embassy Pretoria / BMEIA, this exhibition fosters dialogue and exchange, presenting Austrian artistic perspectives alongside South African audiences. Through diverse artistic visions, it questions the societal and technological transformations needed for a more just and sustainable future.
Supported by Austrian Embassy Pretoria, Austrian Cultural Forum and Imagine Dignity
MARTINA DEMPF
MASTERING DISASTER - NATURE AND FICTION
VILLA-LEGODI CENTRE FOR SCULPTURE
MARCH 2025
“Mastering Disaster – Nature and Fiction” refers to the cultural relationship of man and nature and the desire for metaphysical protection of the human body. At NIROX, Martina has collected elements from the natural environment transforming them into experimental artistic amulets, with a new and expanded connotation.
The exhibition features the works originated during Martina’s residency, as well as jewellery created in her Berlin studio, together with her art photography of natural and spiritual atmosphere.
The exhibition in collaboration with the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, and is supported by the University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture (UJ FADA), Jewellery Department and FADA Gallery.
PAST
LOVE DEFAULT
SOPHIA VAN WYK
THE COVERED SPACE
NOVEMBER 2024 - MARCH 2025
Supported by the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust, Sophia van Wyk's Love Default delves into the intricate spectrum of learned behaviors shaping our relationship with intimacy, love, shame, dysfunction, and trauma. Through a playful creative process and a distinctive visual language, Sophia re-constructs and re-thinks individual and collective "love defaults"—a term she uses to describe unconscious, learned behavioral patterns.
Her work invites viewers to engage in a broader dialogue about these defaults and to explore more conscious ways of existing. Drawing inspiration from diverse sources such as Homer’s Odyssey, the myth of Arethusa and Alpheus, existentialist philosophy, and pop psychology, Sophia creates intuitive juxtapositions of iconography spanning ancient civilizations, popular culture, and futurism. Through this, she challenges established traditions and offers alternative encounters.
Sophia’s process begins with photographing clouds, which serve as markers for commemorating and documenting both socio-political and personal moments in time. These images evolve into sketches, which she transforms into multi-dimensional art objects using materials such as wood, concrete, paint, mixed media, and fabric. Her work is deeply tied to materiality, reflecting her exploration of circular economies, post-futures, and the climate crisis.
Through this layered approach, Sophia's quest for form becomes a broader search for meaning, presenting her audience with profound questions about our past, present, and future.
GROUP EXHIBITION
SMALL THINGS
VILLA-LEGODI CENTRE FOR SCULPTURE
DECEMBER - FEBRUARY 2025
The exhibition includes a range of models, The exhibition includes a range of models, maquettes, experiments,
and artworks which have led, or will lead, to largescale versions in the park.
At its heart is a curiosity about how different artists approach the transition from a model or maquette to realising larger work. For example, how do artists visualise their ideas, make informed decisions about the kinds of materials they want to use, or test the structural integrity of their work? What sort of changes can one anticipate in the process, and how important is it for artists to remain responsive to the site or context of exhibition, especially when exhibiting outdoors, in a less controlled environment? How important is it today, with the advent of 3D digital technologies, to be able to experiment materially, and what sort of consequences might the use of such digital renders have on the physical outcome?
Included on exhibition are works by Beth Diane Armstrong, Joni Brenner, Marco Cianfanelli, Richard John Forbes, Dean Hutton, Ebru Kurbak, Michele Mathison, Nandipha Mntambo, Farieda Nazier, Brett Rubin, and Sophia van Wyk
KHARTOON!
KHALID ALBAIH
THE COVERED SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2024
The exhibition includes a range of the artist’s political cartoons alongside an open-access, digital newspaper (accessible via the QR code on the postcards or via the link in our bio) that marries his work as a cartoonist with a selection of his writing over the last five years (2019 – 2024), providing a broader contextual arc whilst drawing connections between the struggles of those in his home country, Sudan, with those in other parts of the world, from Guantanamo Bay to Palestine.
Structured chronologically, the newspaper includes five articles by Albaih: “Palestine is a glimpse of the dystopic future that awaits us” (Al Jazeera, 6 August 2024); “Stolen Homelands: Sudan’s generations of conflict, displacement, and hope” (New Arab, 5 April 2024); “How I stopped being a cartoonist and became a ‘troll’” (Al Jazeera, 13 January 2024); “Breaking the chain of indifference” (Africa is a Country, 19 May 2023); “Fear, Guilt, and Hope in Sudan” (26 April 2023); “Sudan: Hostage to Normalization” (Jadaliyya, 30 September 2020); and “We used our art to fight. Now we need it to heal us.” (Quartz, 19 June 2019). In the not too-distant future, it will also include an essay by Atiyyah Khan (@atiyyahkhan), written following a conversation with Albaih, which provides more context to his life and work.
WILLEM BOSHOFF
ASSEMBLAGE AND COLLAGE
VILLA LEGODI CENTRE FOR SCULPTURE
SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2024
This exhibition included five large wall-based artworks by Boshoff, made from objects glued, welded, and bolted. These include ASH (2018), ELM (2021), and OAK (2022); Pointless (2021); and BLUE (2021); as well as GREY — a work-in-progress created using Guineafowl feathers that the artist will develop during a workshop with students from the University of the Free State, to demonstrate processes of assemblage and collage.
As a sculptural technique, assemblage has been defined as the ‘unlikely’ combination of found objects, often to surprising effect. While primarily associated with drawing and painting, collage, in turn, is described as the arrangement of ‘pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera’ on a ‘supporting surface’. Derived from the French “coller”, meaning to glue or stick, collage often makes use of cut-outs, allowing for the re- contextualisation and re-configuration of singular, stagnant meanings, concepts, or representations.
The exhibition was supported by NEDBANK PRIVATE WEALTH, the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust, and the University of the Free State. Our thanks to Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, for insuring the artworks in transit.
GROUP SHOW
RELIEF
VILLA LEGODI CENTRE FOR SCULPTURE
JUNE - SEPTEMBER 2024
The exhibition focuses on an age-old tradition from a variety of contemporary perspectives, foregrounding different approaches to relief work as a mode of storytelling and its relationship to sculpture in the round.
Held in partnership with Griffin Art Projects, the exhibition includes works by Dada Khanyisa, Collen Maswanganyi, Johan Moolman, Simon Moshapo Jnr, John Nkhoma, Usen Obot, Ben Tuge, and Xwalacktun.
It includes both pre-existing works as well as those produced during a 10-day woodcarving workshop, held in partnership with the Kromdraai Impact Hub in the lead up to the show.
OUPA SIBEKO & KAMOGELO WALAZA
KO GAE
NIROX RESIDENCY & COOL ROOM
MARCH - MAY 2024
Experimenting with personal belongings, archival materials, multi-media and installation from a variety of social and cultural perspectives, Oupa Sibeko’s work draws on his own recollections and how they have shaped his personalities, animating his actions and experiences. Ultimately we ask you, the viewer, to consider your own memories; to come into the space, play, and make use of KO GAE to activate your own childhood memories. We invite you KO GAE as an active space to participate and remember the child in you as you play.
ABDUS SALAAM
INSAAN
NIROX RESIDENCY, COOL ROOM, SCREENING ROOM & COVERED SPACE
MARCH - MAY 2024
Abdus Salaam’s first solo institutional exhibition will open April 27th at Nirox Foundation following his six week long residency. This is his first residency during the month long fast of Ramadan and the theme of this work will be that of Love with a capital L in its terrestrial, etherea and Divine forms. The title of this exhibition will be ‘ﺇِﻧﺴَﺎﻥ‘ transliterated as ‘insaan’ meaning human being, a word that when broken down to its roots in Arabic as انـس (uns) meaning ‘intimate or love’ as well as نَسِيَ (nasyia), meaning forgetful, defines the human being as both the intimate one and the forgetful one. This poetic fragrance is often alluded to by the mystics and scholars of Islam as it so poignantly delivers us to the essence of humanity being that of love, a reality that we often forget and one that is most appropriate considering our ongoing communal self harm and the location of Nirox within the Cradle of Humankind where some of the oldest remains of early humans have been found and studied.
Exhibiting across three spaces at Nirox, Salaam will present his largest paintings to date, a series of sculptures, gildings, a video work and an original musical composition that was written and recorded at Nirox - to also be released on sound streaming platforms late April. During these six weeks he will also produce work for 1-54 New York and RMB-Latitudes art fair’s curated sculpture pavilion as well as a permanent sculpture for Nirox Foundation’s Sculpture Park.
RICHARD JOHN FORBES:
PRAXIS
NIROX COVERED SPACE. / SCREENING ROOM
FEB – MAR 2024
Held a year after his residency at the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, Forbes returns to showcase the finished body of work, alongside glass-blown sculptures and prints produced over the course of the year. As writes Sean O’Toole for the forthcoming publication, ‘Forbes’s mesmerising rose quartz sculptures embody sculptural restraint. Often half-formed and incomplete, they showcase his understanding of moderation as a necessary gesture in sculpture.’
The exhibition also includes a new film in the Screening Room, titled Guava (2024), coupled with a cameo appearance of Shy Restrained Pink Thing (ongoing). Sometimes inflated, sometimes deflated, the latter is described by Ashraf Jamal as an ‘anthropomorphised intimate’, that makes evident the ‘wear and tear’ of life through a ‘choreography of movement and stillness, liberation and abduction’. This sense of restraint is echoed in the display of Forbes’s glass-blown works. In contrast, Forbes’s spinning-top prints, produced in collaboration with participants in different parts of the world, are ‘pulled from plates that hold the marks of the spinning tops.’ As writes Chloë Reid in her contribution to the book, ‘Minor imbalances and asymmetries in the tops, in the techniques or gestures of the participant, in the plate itself, and on the surface beneath, contribute to a field of spiralling marks, each infinitely unique... The prints have a celestial quality. Layers of marks and spherical forms revel in oblique space.’
To learn more about Forbes’s practice, and the rose quartz works on exhibition, access the catalogue by clicking the button below.
Both the exhibition and publication are supported by the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust.
SEAN BLEM: RESONANCE
A TEN YEAR RETROSPECTIVE
VILLA-LEGODI CENTRE FOR SCULPTURE
FEB – MAR 2024
Sean Blem completed his first residency at NIROX in 2014, where he created a body of work titled Hyperextension. Through sculpture and painting Blem merged his interests in communication and language — evident in earlier series like Form (2004–2011) — with anatomy and object resonance; how particular forms take on a life of their own.
On his return in 2016, Blem created the Mastaba series, cross-referencing early memories with one of the most ancient and resilient pre-pyramidic forms. That said, Blem is not one to explain his work, opting to set up the parameters for audiences to experience it on their own terms.
His work often includes hidden references or aspects that are unknown, from choice pigments and the coating of works to specific material decisions, which all contribute to Blem’s multi-referential vocabulary.
Produced from wild olive, his latest body of work continues the evolution of this engagement with materials, drawing on the structural and medicinal properties of indigenous wood and its cultural and historic resonance in South Africa and further afield.
To learn more about Blem's work, click the button below.
OLDER EXHIBITIONS
