Southern Guild Gallery: Los Angeles

Highly anticipated, Southern Guild Gallery will open its doors in Los Angeles on 22 February 2024.

To mark the momentous occasion, the gallery will showcase two very unique collections by prominent African artists, including Zizipho Poswa, Andile Dyalvane and Porky Hefer.

The two inaugural exhibitions will consist of a group show titled Mother Tongues and a solo exhibition titled Indyebo yakwaNtu (Black Bounty) by Zizipho Poswa.

Mother Tongues will include works by 25 artists from the African continent, including artists such as Andile Dyalvane, Manyaku Mashilo, Zanele Muholi, Porky Hefer, Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Ayotunde Ojo, Ranti Bam, Tony Gum and Jody Paulsen. 

Described as the artist’s “most ambitious technical undertaking to date” Indyebo yakwaNtu (Black Bounty) by Zizipho Poswa will comprise five colossal ceramic and bronze sculptures. The monumental clay bodies were produced during her summer-long residency at the Center for Contemporary Ceramics (CCC) at California State University Long Beach in 2023.

“The expansion of Southern Guild into California is not unprecedented,” explains the gallery.

“In the late 1960s, a group of artists left South Africa in the wake of the Sharpeville Massacre, mass bannings and the censorship of political parties and cultural workers, eventually establishing a contact point for the interchange of knowledge and meaning between South Africa and California.

The locale of so much cultural osmosis, LA was a logical choice for the gallery –  a prime location for contemporary artistic migration, a touchpoint between cultures and ideas where a new chapter of creative exchange can now begin.

The exhibitions will run from 22 February to 18 April at the Southern Guild Gallery in Los Angeles, USA.