#044 Spark Art Fair: Turiya Magadlela
Marx Halle, Vienna, Austria March 14 - 18, 2024
In its first participation at SPARK ART FAIR VIENNA, KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is proud to present a solo presentation by Contemporary South African Artist TURIYA MAGADLELA located at booth G11.
UNIQUE & FOCUSED: SPARK Art Fair Vienna shines with its world-wide unique concept based on the role of galleries in the primary art market. SPARK is the only international art fair which focuses exclusively on solo presentations. A natural development of this is that the choice of galleries and even the selection of works exhibited at SPARK is defined by a Curatorial & Advisory Board, consisting of experienced curators and advisors, each bringing their own unique expertise to the table.
All this is set within a unique exhibition architecture that - with its vast exhibition space and the booths’ open structure inspired by the impressive industrial architecture of Vienna’s MARX HALLE, allows equal attention to be paid to all artists and exhibitors.
CURATORIAL & ADVISORY BOARD: Together with the curatorial advisors Marina Fokidis and Christoph Doswald, artistic directors Walter Seidl and Jan Gustav Fiedler will ensure that the fair exhibits a diverse and high-quality selection of contemporary art by inviting the galleries and selecting the exhibited works in close cooperation with gallery representatives.
MARINA FOKIDIS is an independent curator, writer, and educator based in Athens, Greece. Besides several curatorial projects like the 51th Venice Biennale she was founder of the art centre Kunsthalle Athena (2010-2015) and of the journal „South as a State of Mind.“
WALTER SEIDL is based in Vienna and works as a curator, writer, and artist. He has realized numerous exhibition projects throughout Europe, North America, and Japan. His written pieces include catalogue essays for artist monographs as well as reviews published in international art magazines.
JAN GUSTAV FIEDLER is working as a curator for various galleries, interim spaces and museum formats. The curatorial practice of his international projects aims at supporting young and emerging artists.
CHRISTOPH DOSWALD is an independent curator, lecturer and publicist based in Zurich. He was Chairman of the Public Art Program in Zurich from 2008 to 2020, initiated numerous projects, among them one for the city’s new urban space. In 2023 he co-curated the 4th Industrial Art Biennial in Croatia and was appointed Artistic Director of ART FLOW in the Limmat valley.
TURIYA MAGADLELA: South African artist born in Johannesburg in 1978, employs art-making techniques historically associated with women, utilising sewing and embroidery on a range of conceptually charged fabrics, from pantyhose to correctional service uniforms. These materials are transformed into abstract compositions through cutting, stitching, folding, and stretching, ultimately affixed to wooden frames. Magadlela's subject matter oscillates between articulations of personal experiences of womanhood and motherhood and narratives stemming from the fraught history of black South Africans. Her oeuvre engages in an ongoing dialogue regarding the colonisation of black bodies and women, a theme that is particularly resonant in her use of materials with a capitalist character, a pertinent consideration in an era where commodification is increasingly relevant.
Magadlela has garnered significant attention both nationally and internationally, including the presentation of a solo exhibition at The Armory Show in New York City in 2017, as well as participating in numerous group exhibitions such as Blue Black, curated by Glenn Ligon at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation; Simple Passion, Complex Vision: The Darryl Atwell Collection at the Gantt Centre; The Past is Present at Jack Shainmann Gallery; and Blackness in Abstraction at Pace Gallery. In recognition of her exceptional talent.Magadlela was awarded the prestigious FNB Art Prize in 2015. Her academic background includes study at the University of Johannesburg and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
Magadlela's prodigious talent has not gone unnoticed, having been featured in a list of the top "10 African artists to invest in now" by the TimesLive in 2018, and shortlisted for the Jean-François Prat Prize. Her work offers a unique and compelling vision that is both aesthetically and intellectually arresting, firmly establishing her as a leading artist in the contemporary art world
Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa