Of their first exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ, Radio Juxtapoz and featured artist alum Dada Khanyisa presents a bunch of ‘sculptural work’ that look to their speedy group in Cape City, in style tradition, and Khanyisa’s intensive analysis into the social and political histories of South Africa, producing vigorous figurative assemblages that convey the vibrancy and variety of latest life. All through their labour-intensive apply – incorporating hand carved wooden, meticulously compiled sculptural components and located objects, and painted backdrops borrowed from candid or historic photographic sources – Khanyisa expresses interpersonal dynamics by means of the lens of their social observations and lived expertise.
that is for you foregrounds nostalgia and shared histories – documented and fictional – as a tool to judge the current, utilizing the formal points and private associations of images to speak social performativity and notion. Works are composed like pictures or scrapbooks, with figures choreographed into archetypal poses and gestures collaged towards different three-dimensional points – each representational and summary. Characters and references are pulled from a spread of sources, rejecting hierarchy by seeking to family and friends, artwork historical past, social documentation, and media cultures in equal measure; a painted panel partially hid behind vertical blinds in 70 years in the past (2025) appropriates a scene from Lionel Rogosin’s 1959 movie Come Again, Africa, which sits comfortably alongside Ria (2020-25), a portrait of a sultry antagonist from the early 2000s South African teen drama Yizo Yizo.
Khanyisa builds scope for experimentation into their course of, using an in depth repertoire of supplies, textures and finishes of their constructions. Having studied Conventional and Digital Animation, intuitive modernist shapes expertly intersect with the artist’s distinctive figuration, with skilful painted panels including an sudden realism to the compositions. Humour is innate to Khanyisa’s apply, used to grapple with consequential topics while retaining a way of levity – … (2025) speaks to generational disillusionment, that includes a lone feminine determine weeping within the lavatory of a nightclub after one too many margaritas, having misplaced a false eyelash, mascara operating down her face… Intertwined lovers embody the complexities of youth in Sammy and Boipelo (2025), the younger couple lifted from the pages of Phaswane Mpe’s 2001 novel Welcome to Our Hillbrow, wherein they each meet premature deaths in an inner-city, post-apartheid Johannesburg neighbourhood.
Discovered objects act as signifiers for time and place, evoking latest histories and modern consumerism: a Nineties Nokia cell phone, a coupe cocktail glass, an ostrich leather-based purse, a classic rotary telephone… Khanyisa states in our Spring 2024 characteristic: “I attempt to embrace native gadgets in my work…I feel it’s essential so far as grounding the work in a location. I wouldn’t say the persons are specific or particular, however these are the folks I’m round, and I’m fascinated about presenting a wider picture of the folks I’ve round.”
