Appropriated Landscapes

"Appropriated Landscapes" explores landscape typologies in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique presenting works by fourteen artists: Jane Alexander, Ângela Ferreira, Peter Friedl, David Goldblatt, Christine Meisner, Sabelo Mlangeni, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Penny Siopis, Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse, Guy Tillim, and--with his North American landscapes--Mitch Epstein.

The exhibition includes newly-commissioned works by Ângela Ferreira, Christine Meisner, Mikhael Subotzky/Patrick Waterhouse and Peter Friedl, as well as an extended presentation of "As Terras do Fim do Mundo," Jo Ractliffe's photographic essay on the war-torn Angolan countryside. Many of the artists presented in "Appropriated Landscapes" have created images through topographical studies, explorations of nomadic peripheries and in-between spaces, or chronicles of social geography altered by divisive spatial planning and modern architecture. The concept of landscape here is not linked to historical notions of the picturesque and the sublime. Instead, the exhibition considers landscape as a prism of experience, a reflection of ideology, and a stage for the performance and perception of identity.

Whether sweeping views, architectural compositions, or portraits, the varied works in the exhibition remind us of the density and richness of the notion of landscape, the complexity and subjectivity of its depiction--and ultimately, of our own spiritual, emotional, personal, and political relationship to it.

Appropriated Landscapes
Kurator: Cornne Diserens

Künstler: Jane Alexander, Mitch Epstein, Angela Ferreira, Peter Friedl, David Goldblatt, Christine Meisner, Sabelo Mlangeni, Santu Mofokeng, Zanele Muholi, Jo Ractliffe, Penny Siopis, Mikhael Subotzky / Patrick Waterhouse, Guy Tillim