BillieZangewa - Galerie Imane Fares

Billie Zangewa
41 rue Mazarine, 75006 Paris, France • +33 1 46 33 13 13 • [email protected] • www.imanefares.com
Billie Zangewa
Broderie sur soie / Tapisserie
Née en 1973 à Blantyre au Malawi.
Vit et travaille à Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud.
Billie Zangewa s’intéresse aux relations humaines émancipées et à l’urbanité. Son matériau de prédilection
est le textile. Elle recycle les chutes de soies pour créer des œuvres cousues et brodées de l’ordre de la
tapisserie contemporaine. Ses récits quasi-cinématographiques sont figuratifs et inspirés des domaines de
la mode et du graphisme. Tels des épisodes d’un journal intime d’une grande immédiateté, des fragments
de textes manuscrits sont tissés sur ces surfaces asymétriques. Elle plaide pour la liberté d’action et de
pensée.
En 2004, elle avait remporté le prestigieux Prix Gerard Sekoto grâce à un triptyque de sacs à main de
scènes de la ville de Johannesburg intitulé “Faith, Love and Hope”.
Billie Zangewa a une monographie publiée par Les Carnets de la Création. Afrique du Sud, Les Editions de
l’oeil, Paris, 2009. Texte de Pierre Jaccaud.
Expositions majeures
2015 Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Work of Six African Women Artists, WIELS, Bruxelles
2013 My Joburg, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2012 Hollandaise, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Pays-Bas
Love and Africa, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, USA
2010 Transformations, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
2006 Dak’Art, Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, Dakar, Sénégal
Collections - selection
Rhodes University Alumni collection
Reserve Bank of Botswana
Fondation Blachère
ABSA
Spier
J.P. Morgan Chase
Vues d’exposition - Exposition collective
En toute innocence - septembre à novembre 2014
En toute innocence - septembre à novembre 2014
Courtesy de l’artiste et Imane Farès
Biographie
Billie Zangewa
Broderie sur soie / Tapisserie
Née en 1973 à Blantyre au Malawi. Vit et travaille à Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud.
Expositions personnelles
2010
Black Line, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Solo Project , ARCO Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, Madrid, Espagne
2009
101 Tokyo, Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, Tokyo, Japon
2008
Stitch by stitch, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Fragments, Galerie Johann Levy Gallery, Paris, France
2007
Tapestries, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
2005
Hot in the City, Gerard Sekoto Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
1997
With a series Gestures, Alliance Française, Gaborone, Botswana
Expositions collectives
2015 Africa, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Danmark
Making Africa, Vitra Design Museum, Allemagne
Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the Work of Six African Women Artists, WIELS, Bruxelles
2013
1:54 Contemporary Africa Art Fair - Magnin-A, Londres, Grande-Bretagne
My Joburg - La Maison Rouge - Commissariat par : Paula Aisemberg et Antoine de Galbert - Paris, France
2012 Hollandaise, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Pays-Bas
Love and Africa, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, USA
2011
Celebrating 20 artists, MDIS, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
En toute innocence: subtilités du corps, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, France
Afrique, Galerie Hussenot & Magnin – A, Paris, France
Art Paris (Magnin – A), Grand Palais, Paris, France
Kaddou Diggen, Galerie Le Manége, Dakar, Sénégal
Marakesh Art Fair, Palace Es Saadi, Marrakech, Maroc
2010
Space , Museum Africa, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Paris + Guests, Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris, France
Transformations, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
2008
Re / Presentaciones: Ellas, Casa Africa, Las Palmas, Iles Canaries, Espagne
Vibrant exposure, Amaridian Gallery, New York, U.S.A
2007
Afronism, Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Social Fabric, Goodman Gallery, Le Cap, Afrique du Sud
2006
Nie Meer, De Warande Kunsthalle, Turnhout, Belgique
Dak’Art, Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, Dakar, Sénégal
2005
Black Fine Art Show, Galerie Intemporel, New York, U.S.A
2004
L’Atelier Award exhibition, Absa Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Brett Kebble Art Award exhibition, Cape Town Convention Centre, Le Cap, Afrique du Sud
Aardklop Festival, Absa Top Ten, Potchefstroom, Afrique du Sud
2003
Handbags, Merely Mortal, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Fashion Design, Design District, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
Playtime Festival, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
2001
Spark! Gallery, Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud
1999
Printwork, Rhodes University retrospective, Albany Museum, Grahamstown, Afrique du Sud
1997
Artists in Botswana, National Gallery of Botswana
1996
Gallery Anne, Gaborone, Botswana
Collections
Rhodes University Alumni collection
Reserve Bank of Botswana
Fondation Blachère
ABSA
Spier
J.P. Morgan Chase
Collection Gervanne et Matthias Leridon
Récompenses
2006
Air Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgique
2004
Gerard Sekoto Award
1997
Artists in Botwana Award
Publications
B. Zangewa, P. Jaccaud, Billie Zangewa, Les éditions de l’oeil, 2009
Hot in the City , Billie Zangewa, 2005
Business Day / BASA Awards, catalogue, 2005
Christine Eyene, L’art au Féminin : approche contemporaine, L’Harmattan, 2011
ArtParis, Catalogue, 2011
Andre Magnin, African Stories, Marrakech, 2010
Pierre Jaccaud, Animal Anima, Fondation Blachere, 2009
New Art, Fresh Discoveries, 101TOKYO art fair, catalogue, 2009
Living and Dreaming. AIM 29. Bronx Museum, NY, 2009
Elvira Dyangani Ose, Arte Invisible, ARCO Madrid Art Fair, 2009
Danielle Tilkin, RE/ presentationes: Ellas, 2008
Afronova Modern and Contemporary Art, catalogue, 2007
DAK’ART Dakar Biennale, Catalogue, 2006
Absa L’Atelier Awards, Catalogue, 2004
Brett Kebble Awards, Catalogue, 2004
Textes
Billie’s beautiful and sad world
Par Sean O’ToolE, 2005
The only art hanging on the wall of Billie Zangewa’s studio, in the docile suburb of Parkhurst, are three
prints from her days as he student at Rhodes University. The setting of the triptych bears much in common
with her current work: the city. Despite the “slightly morbid” nature of the work, which depicts a murder
scene, the prints nonetheless suggest many of elements that continue to preoccupy this emerging young
artist.
Narrative is certainly one of them; Billie’s work often asks the viewer to engage with the written word
as much as it does with visuals. Then there is also Billie’s delight in pop, be it manifest in her unorthodox
choice of material or overt references to Franck Sinatra. But, it is the urban settings that remain most striking.
“I came to Johannesburg in 1997”, explains Billie in her poised yet casual speaking manner. Then a
resident of the suburb of Kensington, she often used taxis to navigate her adopted city. She still recalls the
journeys she took from her home in Kensington into the inner city along Commissioner Street.
“It was so beautiful, the geometric patterning of the city, the glass and how it reflected the light”, she
recalls.” It always inspired me even though I didn’t know what to do with it.”
A suggestion one day by an interior designer friend that they visit the store St Leger and Viney proved
quiet fortuitous, and helped unblock the creative impasse. This statement requires a brief preface. Before
her move to Johannesburg, from Gaborone in Botswana, Billie had already started experimenting with
embroidery on fabric, a skill she had learned in primary school. Many of the subjects in these fabric works
were rendered in a plainly realist manner, and depected scenes from her family garden: indigenous trees,
plants and insects.
While browsing through St Leger and Viney, a store notable for its fastidious clients, Billie chanced
upon a silk fabric swatch. In an instant she was reminded of the urban settings she had observed from the
taxi window. She played around a bit with the silk and realised it allowed her to create scenes that were
“more abstract” than those depicted in her embroideries.
“I decided to explore the idea a little more and started making once-off bespoke bags with silk offcuts,” she explains.
Billie says the abstract blocks of colour that decorated her bags had an almost pixellated quality, an
observation that is consistent with her training in graphics. Although soured by her early experience of
Johannesburg’s art scene, she entered three bags into the 2004 Absa l’Atelier Art Competition. Her entries
won her the Gerard Sekoto Prize.
Emboldened by the outcome, she decided to try-out on another competition and entered a new
work into the 2004 Brett Kebble Art Award. Unlike the works submitted to the former competition, Billie
opted to enter a two-dimensional work, partly “because it takes forever to make a bag, sometimes three
times as long”. This latter work, with its jagged, almost asymmetrical character, defines the look and feel of
her most recent work, which is also presented on a flat surface. This new body of work brings together two
of Billie’s most profound interests: fashion and art. Quite how they meet is revealed when I ask Billie about
the enduring appeal of silk in her work.
“Silk has a fabulous reflective quality but at the same time I think it is quite modern and edgy,” she explains.
“Just think Issey Miyaki. But the fabric is also important in defining my obsession with fashion and surface. I
think it really started there, with the idea that the surface is as important as the thing you put on it.” Billie describes her working process as “intuitive” with certain pieces spontaneously arrived at, while others
are the product of mistake. It is however the winsome sentimentality of the texts that appear on her works
that first caught my eye, those “kitsch little sentimental situations”, as Billie describes them. I ask her where
they are derived from. Her personal journals, she replies. Transcribed verbatim – mistakes and all – these
text pieces can be seen to function as memorials celebrating very private things.
“Yes, a lot of the works are about failed relationships and personal things,” admits Billie. “in this sense
the work is at all intellectual, it is very much about human emotions.”
Sean O’Toole est critique d’art, écrivain, journaliste et rédacteur en chef du magazine
trimestriel Art South Africa
Billie Zangewa
Née en 1973 à Blantyre, au Malawi, et élevée au Botswana, Billie Zangewa se prend de passion pour
la mode dès son plus jeune âge. Elle étudie le dessin et la gravure à l’Université Rhodes, Grahamstown,
Afrique du Sud, puis retourne au Botswana où elle s’immerge dans l’univers de la peinture. Les pastels
donnent alors corps aux figures féminines glamour qui peuplent l’imaginaire de la jeune artiste.
Lorsqu’elle s’installe à Johannesburg en 1997 une brève incursion dans le monde de la mode ne
parvient à détourner son âme d’artiste. Encouragée par une amie à explorer la matière textile plutôt que le
pigment, Billie crée une petite série de sacs à main en soie réhaussés de broderies.
Le monde de l’art la remarque lorsque que lui est décerné le Prix Gerard Sekoto en 2004. C’est en
préparant l’exposition associée à ce prix que lui vient l’envie de transposer ses soieries sur une surface
plane. Ce passage de l’objet-art à l’objet d’art la consacre alors au rang de plasticienne.
Aujourd’hui Billie Zangewa a acquis une réputation internationale pour ses tapisseries contemporaines
qu’elle préfère nommer “appliqués”. Ses pièces sont généralement précedées d’études préparatoires
consistants en un pré-arrangement des formes aux crayon et aquarelle. Le tissu est alors découpé,
assemble, puis cousu de manière à laisser apparaître coutures et fils. Comme pour en renforcer le caractère
“fait main” et nous en livrer la nature dans sa relative immédiateté.
L’œuvre de Billie est autobiographique. Ce qu’il faut entendre par là est que l’on pourrait presque
imaginer que chaque tapisserie soit une page bordée de son journal intime. L’artiste se fait muse, usant de
son propre corps pour mettre en scène de multiples expériences féminines. Ces récits font souvent état
du cycle amoureux : de l’engouement des premiers jours jusqu’à la rupture. D’abord dépeinte comme
objet, sujet du désir masculin, trophé de celui dont elle serait la conquête, chaque fois la femme connaît de
nouvelles phases d’émancipation. Ainsi, les scènes brodées, cousues, apiécées, jouent sur la subtilité du
corps féminin, de l’innocence à la sensualité, de la reconquête de soi à l’inversion des rapports de genres.
Au-delà du récit autobiographique émane de ce personnage à l’allure fine et cheveux courts une
quintessentielle beauté africaine.
À l’heure où les pratiques artistiques contemporaines africaines sont entrées de plain-pied dans l’ère du
numérique, du multiple, voire de l’innombrable que le virtuel fait circuler à grande vitesse, l’œuvre de Billie
Zangewa est un nécéssaire rappel du lent mûrissement des formes et de la minutie d’une main appliquant
une à une, à vitesse humaine, des pièces de tissus plus soyeuses les unes que les autres, sélectionneés de
par le monde.
Christine Eyene, Londres, Octobre 2011
Publications /
Presse
disappointment in the predominant feminist movement, as well as white radical feminism,
6 Feminist African Artists Changing The Body Of Contemporary Art
both of which overlooked the realities of life for women of color and often marginalized them
The Huffington Post | By Priscilla Frank
in their demands for "equality." This vision of a feminist world that is truly all-inclusive runs
Posted: 02/20/2015 9:40 am EST Updated: 02/20/2015 11:59 am EST
In 1929, a group of Igbo women gathered in the Nigerian city of Aba to protest the tax
policies of the British colonial administration. As their weapons, they used their own naked
bodies. This event, for many, marked the beginning of a modern Nigerian women's
as a continuous thread throughout the show.
The exhibition, held at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, features the work of Zoulikha
Bouabdellah, Marcia Kure, Miriam, Syowia Kyambi, Valérie Oka, Tracey Rose and Billie
movement, and the symbol of the unclothed female body as a tool of protest.
Zangewa, all of whom have been active in the African art world since the 1990s. The artists
A Brussels-based exhibition entitled "Body Talk: Feminism, Sexuality and the Body in the
currently live in places ranging from Abidjan, in Côte d'Ivoire, to Princeton, New Jersey,
Work of Six African Women Artists" will follow the narrative of using bodies as a vehicle of
working in media ranging from video to performance to painting to sculpture.
feminist expression to its contemporary manifestations. Featuring the work of six
contemporary female artists from throughout the continent of Africa, the exhibition will
Billie Zangewa's "The Rebirth of the Black Venus" adapts Botticelli's 1486 painting to the
explore the various modes of black feminist expression, as well as the way the body can
city of Johannesburg, replacing the traditional Venus Pudica with a black body that negates
serve as subject, object, model, tool and field of reference.
the male gaze. Her medium, a silk tapestry, references a traditionally female craft, imbuing it
with the power of a contemporary goddess. The sash around her body reads "surrender
whole-heartedly to your complexity," communicating the immeasurable power of knowing
Billie Zangewa
oneself.
"What is an African female black
Zoulikha Bouabdellah’s "L’araignée" is a looming sculpture composed of eight arches, each
body?" curator Koyo Kouoh asks
representing a different architectural style. Together, the sweeping forms create the
in a statement. "Is it the supreme
object of patriarchal sacrifice? Is
it
the
sacred,
stained
body,
transgressing the boundaries of
race and gender in the way it
stages and embodies history? Is it
silhouette of a massive spider, reminiscent of Louise Bourgeois' haunting tribute to her
mother, "Maman." The piece conjures questions regarding the mythology associated with
the spider, and its relationship to protection, freedom, sexuality and the soul. Bouabdellah
offers
up
the
spider
as
a
sort
of
body, not quite fixed and open to the world in flux.
all of the above?"
In
her
statement,
Kuoh
also
references Womanism, a term
coined in the early 1980s to
denote a more inclusive form of
feminism.
emerged
Huffington Post, 20.02.2015
The
from
movement
a
widespread
"Body Talk" runs until March 5, 2015, at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels
social
41 rue Mazarine, 75006 Paris, France • +33 1 46 33 13 13 • [email protected] • www.imanefares.com