Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to announce Kaeen-deharee, Lively sunshine, the first solo exhibition of Bronwyn Katz’s work in New York.
In her research, Katz is interested in creolization, the process through which languages mix to create new ones, which in turn informs her treatment of material. The three sculptures included in the exhibition are formed from manipulated mattress springs, bent and unraveled to create new dynamic structures. Through this process, Katz opens her works to histories and symbolism intrinsic to the materials she selects, such as the mattress’s ability to suggest movement, displacement, as well the body and its absence. Adorned with plastic and metal pot scours in varying colors, they not only emphasize the works' uncanny protrusions, but also invite other associations, such as the derogatory phrase for Black hair - “hair you can scour pots with”. These interventions allow Katz to not only weave social identity into her work, but also Katz’s own ancestral history and culture, which was partially eradicated through structures of colonialism within South Africa. This is emphasized through the works' titles, which in Kaeen-deharee, Lively sunshine, draw on a Korana myth describing a Jackal and its eventual transformation. In Katz’s works, the resulting constellation of materials, and their modification, map out a new mode of survival, through which the search for lost knowledge and history can generate something new.
Bronwyn Katz (b.1993, Kimberley, South Africa) lives and works between Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. In 2022 Katz’s work was included in The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. She additionally participated in Soft Water Hard Stone, New Museum Triennial, New Museum, New York, 2021, NIRIN, 22nd Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2020, and Là où les eaux se mêlent (Where the water mingles), Biennale de Lyon, France, 2019. Past solo exhibitions include I turn myself into a star and visit my loved ones in the sky, White Cube, London, 2021, A Silent Line, Lives Here, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2018, among others. In 2022, Katz was selected as a Protégé, as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and in 2021, was shortlisted for Future Generation’s Prize, PinchukArtCentre, Ukraine.
