​Contemporary South African Art

Article credits to: http://www.caacart.com
​

Born in 1936 in Sekhukhune Land, in the Gauteng, South Africa.  Lives and works Sekhukhune Land.

 

In 1967, Segogela was trained as a craftsman at the Standard Bank Center in Johannesburg. His works, for which he had no formal artistic training, were inspired by the Bible and developed further through his own visions. His activities in the anti-Apartheid ANC movement, his membership, from 1954 on, in the Church of Five Missions, influenced his work considerably. His goal, "to save the world from violence and horror", started in the late 1980's with the work "Satan Fresh Meat Market", with its figures of angels and demons. Segogela, very concerned with the future of mankind, he paid as much attention to the development of large African urban centres, as to the problems of rural life. Each of his installations is the result of his long and meticulous work as a sculptor, in which the characters and the objects are precisely composed, detailed and painted. Segogela wants to transmit messages linked to religion, politics, culture, feelings, and all the activities of life. His installations reveal his sensitivity, humour and irony.

 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

 

1995-1989-1986
Johannes Mashego Segogela.
Devils Angels and Other Things.
The Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

 

2003
Coexistence : Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University
Waltham, Mass. – USA

 

2000
A World of Christians
Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum, Aalborg - Danemark.

 

1995
The Body Politic, Africus
Johannesgurg 1st Biennal.
Standard Bank National Arts Festival.Grahamstown - South Africa.

Big City : Artists from Africa
Serpentine Gallery.
London, Great Britain.

 

1994
Johannes Segogela
Ludwig Forum
Aachen, Germany.

Havana 5th Biennal.
Havana, Cuba.

 

1993
Zuiderkruis
Stedelijk Museum
Amsterdam, Holland.

 

1993
Biennal for Visual Arts
Venice, Italy.

 

1985
Tributaries Show
Johannesburg - South Africa.

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

1996
Contemporary Art of Africa. Segogela by Anitra Nettleton, p.96-98.
Edited by André Magnin, Jacques Soulillou.
Publisher Harry N. Abraams.

 

1996
Colours -Kunst aus Sud Afrika.
Haus der Kulturen Der Welt. Herausgeber, Verlag.

 

1995
African Arts. UCLA (Winter 1995).

 

1994
Havana 5th Biennal
Exhibition Catalogue.

 

1993
Incroci Del Sud. Affinities, Contemporary South African Art.
Exhibition catalogue, Venice Biennal, Italy.

 

1989
Resistance art in South Africa.
By Sue Williamson.

 

1989
Images of Wood.
By Elizabeth Rankin.

 

1988
The neglected tradition : Towards a New History of South African Art
(1930-1988).
Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa.