About
Ndzube was born in 1990 in Hofmeyr, Eastern Cape, and lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and Cape Town, South Africa. He has a BA Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town.
Ndzube’s work is characterised by a fundamental interplay between objects, media and two-dimensional surfaces; stitching together a subjective account of the Black experience in post-apartheid South Africa from a mythological perspective. Recent exhibitions include Vusamazulu: Awakening the Heavens, Nicodim Gallery, New York, USA (2021, solo); Lineages: Works from the Collection, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (2021); The Fantastic Ride to Gwadana, Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2020, solo); Where Water Comes Together With Other Water, The 15th Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France (2019); People, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2019); New Acquisitions, Rubell Museum, Miami (2018); and Waiting for Mulungu, CC Foundation, Shanghai, China (2018, solo). His work is collected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; Musée d’art Contemporain de Lyon, France; Iziko South African National Gallery, South Africa; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, South Africa; Denver Art Museum; Rubell Museum; and many others. Oracles of the Pink Universe was his first solo institutional exhibition in the States, at the Denver Art Museum.
Through painting, sculpture, and spatial intervention, Simphiwe Ndzube stages an introduction to his imaginative universe: the Mine-moon. He states, "We begin in the real world, and through interaction with the work enter a fabulist tale in progress. I’ve attempted to create the genesis of a cosmology that finds itself in the uncharted lands and trackless seas. In it exists characters: gods, and demigods—different people influenced by the post-apartheid Black South African experience. It emerges from the tradition of magical realism and is expanding to points currently unknown."
Narrative influences include Ben Okri, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, and Zakes Mda. In particular, Ndzube highlights Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community by Wendy B Faris and Lois Parkinson Zamora which describes magical realism as "a mode suited to exploring—and transgressing—boundaries, whether the boundaries are ontological, political, geographical or generic. [It] facilitates the fusion, or coexistence, of possible worlds, spaces, [and] systems that would be irreconcilable in other modes." Ndzube's recent body of work tells a story of power and conflict—within it is a focus on the people affected by abuses of power; these figures are on their own search for freedom, love, and meaning in a setting that has deemed them, as Frantz Fanon phrased it, the wretched of the earth.
C.V.
EDUCATION
BAFA. Michaelis School of Fine Arts, University of Cape Town, 2015
Peter Clarke Art Centre, Cape Town, 2010
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Isithunywa so Moya, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2022
Masemola Road, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. 2022
Vusamazulu | Awakening the Heavens, Nicodim Gallery, New York, NY. 2021
Oracles of the Pink Universe, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO. 2021
Like the Snake that Fed the Chameleon, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2021
In the Order of Elephants After the Rain, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania. 2019
The Rain Prayers, Museo Kaluz, Mexico City, Mexico. 2019
Uncharted Lands And Trackless Seas, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. 2019
Bhabharosi, The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL. 2018
Waiting For Mulungu, Cc Foundation, Shanghai, China. 2018
Dancing Into Form, Works on Paper, Harper's Books, New York. 2018
Bhabharosi, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2017
Becoming, WHATIFTHEWWORLD Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. 2016
Imithungo Yezivubeko, Michaelis School of Arts, Cape Town, South Africa. 2015
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
See You Through It, Cantor Art Gallery, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester. MA.
California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA.
2021
In Some Form or Fashion, The Momentary, Bentonville, AK.
Witness: Afro Perspectives, Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami, FL.
WHAT DO YOU SEE, YOU PEOPLE, GAZING UP AT ME, Sadie Coles, London
Summer Exhibition 2021, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Shattered Glass, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA
2020
INXS: Never Before Seen Major Works, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Hollywood Babylon: A Re-Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Los Angeles, CA
Pineal Eye Infection, Los Angeles, CA
2019
Trans World, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania
Trans World, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
People, Jeffery Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Our Lady of the Flowers, Bucharest, Romania
Together With Other Water, The 15th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
Filling In the Gaps, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2018
The Adderall and the Ecstasy, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania
New Acquisitions, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
Hacer Noche (Crossing Night), Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Oaxaca, Mexico
Noise!, Frans Hals Museum, Harlem, Netherlands
Both, and, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
The Eye Sees Not Itself, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Indulge, Art Movement, Los Angeles, CA
2017
The Hierophant, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest, Romania
Son of Mr. Green Genes, BBQLA, Los Angeles, CA
Homeward Bound, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Our Lady + Women's Work, South African National Gallery
Dear Eurpoa, Whatiftheworld gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
The Art of Disruptions, South African National Gallery
#TheOpening, Greatmore Studios, Cape Town, South Africa
2015
Pouring Ours Secretes, Smac Art Gallery, Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa
Kasi-2-kasi Public Arts Festival / Remaking Place, Gordon Institute for Centre and Creative Arts, Cape Town, South Africa
“But he doen’t have anything on!” Commune1 Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009
The rights of a child, Iziko National Gallery Annexe & Jewish Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
AWARDS
2019- Culture Creators Annual ‘Innovators & Leaders’ Award
2016- Tollman Award Winner
2015- Michaelis Prize Winner, Michaelis School of Fine Art
2015- Simon Gerson Prize
2013- Cecil SkotnesScholarship
RESIDENCIES
Greatmore Artist Residency Studios, Woodstock CT,
Dalton Warehouse, South Central, Los Angeles. CA. USA
PUBLIC & PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Longlati Foundation, Shanghai
Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, Geneva
Musee d’art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, United States
Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida
The CC Foundation, Shanghai, China
HOW Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Christen Sveeas Collection, Norway
The Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
Museo Kaluz, Mexico City, Mexico
Rubell family collection, Miami
Rupert Museum, Cape Town
University of Cape Town
Iziko South African National Gallery
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA)
A4 Foundation
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ashraf Jamal. In the World: Essays on Contemporary South African Art. Skira Publishing. August 2017.
Ashraf Jamal. Us & Them, The Killer of The World. Art Africa. no. 4, June 2016, pages 68-71.
Simone Heymans. Young Bright Thing. Art South Africa. Vol. 2, March 2015,
Journals
-2016. Sean O'Toele. ArtForum. Critic's Picks. https://www.artforum.com/picks/id=64536
-2016. Nkule Mabaso. (exhibition Review). Simphiwe's Ndzube's Becoming.
http://artthrob.co.za/2016/11/22/perched-at-the-edge-of-precarity-simphiwe-ndzubes-becoming/
CATALOGUES
Michaelis School of Fine Art Graduate Class Catalogue 2015. Cape Town
Simphiwe Ndzube, Imithungo Yezivubeko. Graduate exhibition Catalogue, 2015, Cape Town
INTERVIEWS
-Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/video/watch/journey-through-la-with-artist-simphiwe-ndzube
-ZOO #54 March 2017: http://www.martagnyp.com/interviews/simphiwe-ndzube
-Adjectives. October 2016. In Conversation with Mathew Patridge.
-http://www.adjective.co.za/2016/10/21/simphiwe-ndzube-perspectives/