Nandipha Mntambo

Artist Biography

b. 1982 Mbabane, Swaziland

Nandipha Mntambo completed a Master’s in Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, in 2007. She is currently based in Johannesburg. Mntambo originally intended to study forensic pathology but found her way to Fine Arts in an unusual, but fortunate, shift in her career trajectory. Within her sculpture, photography, video and mixed media works, Mntambo’s acute interest in the human body is evident. Mntambo is perhaps best known for her cowhide sculptures (with the cured hide draped over human forms and set with resin) which confront and question the relationship between humans and animals. These investigations into organic nature and the corporeal address performance, gender, identity, life and death.

She states:

‘My intention is to explore the physical and tactile properties of hide and aspects of control that allow or prevent me from manipulating this material in the context of the female body and contemporary art. I have used cowhide as a means to subvert expected associations with corporeal presence, femininity, sexuality and vulnerability. The work I create seeks to challenge and subvert preconceptions regarding representation of the female body.

‘Themes of confrontation, protection and refuge play out particularly in relation to inner conflicts and to notions of self-love/hatred. The bronze, Sengifikile, uses my own features as a foundation, but takes on the guise of a bull. Referencing the head-and-shoulder busts of the Renaissance tradition, I challenge male and female roles in society and expected associations with femininity, sexuality and vulnerability.’

In 2017, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa presented Material Value, a solo exhibition of her work, including the impressive installation of the work EMABUTFO (2012) in which dozens of hide/human spectres were suspended in mid-air, occupying the gallery room in their haunting formation. Her bronze sculpture, Ophelia (2015) is featured in the sculpture garden of the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, as a permanent acquisition in the institution’s collection.

In 2011, Mntambo won the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art, for which she produced the travelling exhibition Faena. She was shortlisted for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize in Canada (2014), was a Civitella Ranieri Fellow (2013), and received the Wits/BHP Billiton Fellowship (2010).

Solo Exhibitions

2022 Agoodjie, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2021 Agoodjie, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017 The snake you left inside me, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa Material Value, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa

2015 Love and its companions, Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Sweden, Metamorphoses, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2014 Transience, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa

2013 Nandipha Mntambo, Zeitz MOCAA Pavilion, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa, Nandipha Mntambo, Andrehn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Sweden

2012 Faena, Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; University of Potchefstroom Art Gallery, South Africa, The Unspoken, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2011 Faena, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum, Port Elizabeth; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Durban Art Gallery, South Africa

2009 Umphatsi Wemphi, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Encounter, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2007 Ingabisa, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 OASIS, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town

2020 Contemporary Female Identities in the Global South, Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, South Africa Matereality, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa TINY2020, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2019 Ngoma: Art and Cosmology, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa Speculative Inquiry #1 (On abstraction), Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa IncarNations: African Art as Philosophy, BOZAR Centre for Arts, Brussels, Belgium Personal Structures – Identities, European Cultural Centre - Italy, Venice, Italy Made Visible: Contemporary South African Fashion and Identity, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, USA

2018 City Deep, The Centre for the Less Good Idea, Johannesburg South Africa Dance Africa Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, USA Beyond Borders: Global Africa, University of Michigan Museum of Art, USA Both, and, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Norval Sculpture Garden, Norval Foundation, Tokai, South Africa Sculpture, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius Not A Single Story, Nirox Winter Sculpture Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017 Nandipha Mntambo and Per B Sundberg, Galerie Hervé van der Straeten, Paris, France Afrique Capitales, La Vilette/ Paris, France When the Heavens Meet the Earth: Selected Works from the Sina Jina Collection of Contemporary Art, Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge, UK Jaguars and Electric Eels, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, Germany Regarding Africa: Contemporary Art and Afro-Futurism, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel The Future is Female, 21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, USA

2016 Dak’Art, 12th Dakar Biennale, Senegal Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; Fowler Museum, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, Los Angeles, USA

2015 The Film Will Always Be You: South African Artists on Screen, Tate Modern, London, UK Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Seattle Art Museum, USA What remains is tomorrow, South African Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale, Italy The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA Barriers: Contemporary South Africa, Wanås Konst, Southern Sweden

2014 Performance Now, Queensland University of Technology Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia Chroma, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa One Man's Trash (Is Another Man's Treasure), The Danjuma Collection 33 Fitzroy Square, London, UK AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada

2013 A Sculptural Premise, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa My Joburg, La Maisone Rouge, Paris, France Female Power: Matriarchy, Spirituality and Utopia, Arnhem Museum, Arnhem, the Netherland Material Matters: New Art from Africa, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius From Sitting to Selfie: 300 Years of South African Portraits, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, MMK (Museum für Moderne Kunst), Frankfurt, Germany; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA To Be Real – Performance and Performativity, Videonale.14 Elektronenströme, Videonale E.V, IM Kunstmuseum Bonn, Ge

2012 The Rainbow Nation, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague, the Netherlands 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia Viewpoint: A Closer Look at Showing, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Mine – A selection of films by SA artists, Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

2011 ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland Contemporary South African Artists, Turner Galleries, Perth, Australia Mine – A selection of films by SA artists, Iwalewa-Haus, University of Bayreuth, Germany

2010 PEEKABOO: Current South Africa, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland Ampersand, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany The Beauty of Distance: Song of survival in a precarious age, 17th Biennale of Sydney, Australia Space: Currencies in contemporary African art, Museum Africa, Newtown, Johannesburg, South Africa Dak’Art, 9th Dakar Biennale, Senegal Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Wales The Good Old Days, Aarhus Art Building, Denmark Hautnah: Hair in art and culture, Kunstverein Leonberg, Germany Toros! Works from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, Paris, France She Devil, Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome, Italy

2009 Hautnah: Hair in art and culture, Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden-Rot, Germany Les Rencontres de Bamako biennial of African photography, Bamako, Mali Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK La modernité dans l'art africain d'aujourd'hui, Panafrican Cultural Festival of Algiers, Algeria Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Works from the 2008 Dak'art biennale, ifa Gallery, Berlin; Stuttgart, Germany Number Two: Fragile, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany Why not?, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany Beauty and Pleasure in South African Contemporary Art, The Stenersen Museum, Oslo, Norway

2008 Summer 2008/9: Projects, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Disturbance: Contemporary art from Scandinavia and South Africa, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa Dak'art, Dakar Biennale, Senegal Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Skin-to-skin: Challenging textile art, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa.za: giovane arte dal Sudafrica, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena, Italy The Trickster, ArtExtra, Johannesburg, South Africa

2007 Summer 2007/8, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Apartheid: The South African Mirror, Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, Spain Afterlife, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa

2006 Olvida quien soy - Erase me from who I am, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria MTN New Contemporaries 2006, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa Second to None, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2005 In the Making: Materials and Process, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

AWARDS

2016 Creator Award | Glamour South Africa Women of the Year

2014 Shortlisted for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize, Canada

2012 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art, South Africa 2010 Wits/BHP Billiton Fellowship, South Africa

2005 Curatorial Fellowship, Brett Kebble Art Awards, South Africa 2004 Mellon Meyers Fellowship, South Africa

2003 Mellon Meyers Fellowship, South Africa

RESIDENCIES

2013 Citivella Ranerie Residency, Umbertide, Italy

2013 The SPACES World Artists Program (SWAP), Cleveland, USA