iiNtsika zeSizwe - Pillars of the Nation

ZIZIPHO POSWA

iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation Curated by Lee F. Mindel, FAIA, in collaboration with Southern Guild Gallery

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iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation

iiNtsika zeSizwe Pillars of the Nation 16 MAY - 28 AUGUST

FOREWORD “iiNtsika zeSizwe - Pillars of the Nation”, in collaboration with Southern Guild, is the fourth exhibition at Galerie56, a platform conceived to celebrate the intersection of art, architecture, and design. This exhibition featuring the work of Zizipho Poswa marks the South African ceramic artist’s debut solo presentation in the United States, as well as her first collection of work made entirely in bronze. iiNtsika zeSizwe expands upon the bold declarations of African womanhood established in Zizipho Poswa’s previous collection of ceramic sculptures that are inspired by the artist’s Xhosa heritage and the life-sustaining roles that African women play in traditional and contemporary life. The artist notes that her first US solo exhibition is a tribute to her own mother, the community of women who raised her and others like them, whose contributions to society are rarely recognized.

In Poswa’s words, these women “are the pillars of our nation”; momuments to sustenance and sacrifice given the lustre and permancence of bronze, a material historically reserved for memorializing colonial patriarchs and architects of the Apartheid.

Lee F. Mindel, FAIA

This exhibition would not be possible without the scholarship, sensitivity and generosity of Southern Guild.

GALERIE56 www.galerie56.com

SOUTHERN GUILD www.southernguild.co.za Interior Photos by Olympia Shannon @Olyshannon

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iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation

ZIZIPHO POSWA b. 1979

Zizipho Poswa is a Cape Town based ceramic artist whose large scale, hand-coiled sculptures are bold declarations of African womanhood.

Born in 1979 in the town of Mthatha, Poswa studied surface design at the Cape Peninsula Univeristy of Technology. She draws on this knowledge to amalgamate the visual stimuli she encounters in her daily life into a simplified pattern language.

Poswa’s work for Southern Guild explores her personal experience and heritage in monumental sculptural pieces. Her first major series, Umthwalo (meaning “load”), paid tribute to South Africa’s rural women and the heavy burden they balance on their heads, often walking long distances on foot. Her second series, Magodi, was inspired by the central role that hair salons play as a meeting place for African women. Each work is named after a family member or close friend, giving vivid, physical form to the artist’s own support network.

Poswa’s debut solo, iLobola, comprised 12 ceramic and bronze sculptures paying homage to the spiritual offering at the heart of the ancient African custom of lobola, or bride-wealth—the cow. Like some of Poswa’s earlier works, this series straddles figuration and abstraction, employing an intuitive vocabulary of shape, color and texture.

Her second solo, uBuhle boKhokho (Beauty of Our Ancestors), drew inpiration from the elaborate art of hairstyling practiced by Black women across the African continent and diaspora. The series of 24 monumental ceramic and bronze sculptures was accompanied by a series of photographic portraits of the artist, who collaborated with a hairstylist to recreate some of the most iconic styles on herself.

Poswa’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Loewe Foundation, as well as important private and corporate collections around the world. She has taken part in group exhibitions in New York, Paris, Hamburg, and Liverpool, and has presented her work though Southern Guild at Design Miami, The Salon Art + Design in New York and PAD London. iiNtskia zeSizwe - Pillars of the Nation at Galerie56 marks Zizipho’s first US solo exhibition.

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ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoNezile’ 2023 Bronze H 136 CM / 53.54 in.

L 60 CM / 23.62 in.

W 58 CM / 22.83 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation

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ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoZinzile’ 2023 Bronze H 128 CM / 50.39 in.

L 62 CM / 24.41 in.

W 44 CM / 17.32 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP 10

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ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoSekshin’ 2023 Bronze H 133 CM / 52.36 in.

L 62 CM / 24.41 in.

W 55 CM / 21.65 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP 12

iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation

ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoBongile’ 2023 Bronze H 132 CM / 51.97 in.

L 84 CM / 33.07 in.

W 60 CM / 23.62 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation

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ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoSayini’ 2023 Bronze H 105 CM / 41.34 in.

L 104 CM / 40.94 in.

W 36 CM / 14.17 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP 14

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ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoMathemba’ 2023 Bronze H 164 CM / 64.57 in.

L 75 CM / 29.53 in.

W 72 CM / 28.35 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP iiNTSIKA zeSIZWE - Pillars of the Nation

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ZIZIPHO POSWA ‘Mam’uNoAnswari’ 2023 Bronze H 103 CM / 40.55 in.

L 69 CM / 27.17 in.

W 66 CM / 25.98 in.

Edition of 5 + 2 AP 18

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