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Norval Foundation opens 'Billie Zangewa: Breeding Ground' curated by Anelisa Mangcu

Under the Aegis is proud to announce that its founder, Anelisa Mangcu, is curating the Billie Zangewa: Breeding Ground - the care we give becomes our breeding ground for life, exhibition at the Norval Foundation. This compelling exhibition is open to the public from February 19, 2025, to September 11, 2025, offering visitors an inspiring and thought-provoking exploration of Zangewa’s artistic brilliance. We warmly invite everyone to experience this remarkable journey of creativity and resilience.


Inspired by Johannesburg’s vibrancy, Breeding Ground pays tribute to the city that shaped Zangewa’s creative journey. Her intricate silk collages weave personal and universal narratives, reflecting themes of care, resilience, and identity. By blending tradition with contemporary technique, Zangewa challenges historical stereotypes while celebrating the everyday experiences that connect us.


Image Shot by Jurie Potgieter
Image Shot by Jurie Potgieter


Billie Zangewa (born in 1973 in Blantyre, Malawi, lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa) works primarily with raw silk offcuts in intricate hand-stitched collages, creating figurative compositions that explore her intersectional identity in the contemporary context and challenge the historical stereotyping, objectification and exploitation of the black female body. Working in a flat, colourful style, she depicts narratives concerned with experience: both personal and universal. These narratives do not make grand gestures or even overt political statements, but rather focus on mundane domestic preoccupations; universal themes connecting us to each other. Almost always the protagonist in her works, Zangewa becomes a heroine whose daily life is revealed through the scenes she illustrates.


Zangewa has exhibited extensively at institutions both locally and internationally, including at SITE Santa Fe (2024), the Barbican (2024), Brighton CCA, United Kingdom (2023), Hirshhorn (2022), Brooklyn Museum (2021), Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco (2021), Astrup Fearnley (2020) Smithsonian Museum of African Art (2019), Norval Foundation (2018), MACAAL (2018), MASS MoCA (2017), Stedelijk Museum (2017), Studio Museum Harlem (2016), iZiko South African National Gallery (2016), Johannesburg Art Gallery (2016), Guggenheim Bilbao (2015), WIELS (2015), La Maison Rouge (2013) and the Menil Collection (2012).




Billie Zangewa

The Rebirth of the Black Venus, 2010

Silk tapestry

50 x 51 1/5 inches

127 x 130 cm

© Billie Zangewa. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London.



Her work is represented in several notable private and public collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York),  Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library (Preston, United Kingdom), Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston (Boston, MA), Johannesburg Art Gallery (Johannesburg, South Africa), JP Morgan Chase Art Collection (New York, NY),  Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, (Washington, D.C), Norval Foundation (Cape Town, South Africa), RISD Museum, (Providence, RI), Spelman College Museum of Fine Art (Atlanta, GA), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Tate Modern (London, United Kingdom), LACMA (Los Angeles, California) and Hirshhorn (Washington, DC). In 2018, Zangewa was selected as the Featured Artist for the FNB Joburg Art Fair.



Curator Anelisa Mangcu shares:

"It has been a privilege to witness Billie’s remarkable ability to balance strength and tenderness in her work. This exhibition underscores the power of collective care in shaping identity and nurturing transformation."



Image shot by Zander Opperman
Image shot by Zander Opperman


We warmly invite you to experience and learn more about this remarkable exhibition.



Norval Foundation: Billie Zangewa: Breeding Ground.

Dates: 19 February 2025 - 11 September 2025.


4 Steenberg Road, 

Tokai

Cape Town

7945.


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