Buhlebezwe Siwani works with performance, photography, sculpture and installation. Siwani’s work interrogates the patriarchal framing of the black female body and black female experience within the South African context. As an initiated Sangoma, a spiritual healer that works within the space of the death and the living, Siwani focused her artistic practice into rituality and the relationship between Christianity and African spirituality. Central to her work is her own body, which operates in multiple registers as subject, object, form, medium, material, language and site. Her work can be described, although not literally, as the documentation of a diverse set of performances, which are rendered through video, photography, sculpture, installation and works on paper. Each of her projects deals with the relationship between ancestral rituals and modern life, touching social and political topics, such as the female body, black communities, histories of colonization and the paradoxes of our contemporary society, all seen through the filter of the artist’s own biography and experience.
Buhlebezwe Siwani was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1987 and currently lives and works between Cape Town and Amsterdam.
She completed her BAFA at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg in 2011 and her MFA at the Michealis School of Fine Arts in 2015.
Buhlebezwe Siwani was the winner of the 2021 Standard Bank Young Artists Awards in the category of Visual Arts.
Solo exhibitions include: iYeza, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg (2023); Amanzi angena endlini, Madragoa, Lisbon (2022); Impilo Inegama, No Man's Art Gallery, Amsterdam (2022); Dedisa ubumnyama, Cairns Art Gallery, Cairns (2021); ukuqhaqha, Camera Work, Palazzo Rasponi, Ravenna (2021); Inkanyamba, Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada (2020); othunjiweyo, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2019); Qab’Imbola, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town (2018); Imfazwe yenkaba, Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2017); Ingxowa yegqwirhakazi, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town (2016).
Recent group exhibitions include: 14th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju (2023); Chrysalis. The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva (2023); A Clearing in the Forest, TATE Modern, London (2022); Rethinking Nature, Museo Madre, Napoli (2021); Toronto Biennial, Arsenal Contemporary, Toronto (2022); The Power of My Hands, Paris Museum of Modern Art, Paris (2021); Goddesses of Healing, Mbassy, Hamburg (2021); Casablanca Biennial, Casablanca (2021); Sonsbeek,. Arnhem (2021); Living, Forgiving, Remembering, Kunsthal 3,14,Bergen (2021); Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Perez collection, Miami (2020); 14th Curitiba Biennial, Curitiba (2020); Viral portraits, Moderna galerija/Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana (2020); Materiality, Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town (2020); Present Passing: South by Southeast, Osage Art Foundation, Hong Kong (2019); Bamako Encounters, Mali (2019); Ngoma: Art and Cosmology, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg (2019); Cosmopolis #2: Rethinking the Human, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019); The Third Bank, Bienal Ano Zero, Coimbra (2019), Tell Freedom, KaDE Museum, Amsefoort (2018); White blood blue night, Centre d'art contemporain d'Alfortville, Alfortville (2018); Deep Memory, Kalmar Art Museum (2017); Art/Afrique, The Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2017);
Buhlebezwe Siwani on her solo exhibition at Standard Bank Gallery, interview for SABC, 2023
“Chickens are Thrown at My Body and Blood is Splattered onto My Face”, Interview for Elephant Magazine, 2021
Buhlebezwe Siwani by Miriam Bouteba, Nataal, 2020
Ginevra Bria on Buhlebezwe Siwani's UKhongolose, MADRAzine #8, May 2020
14th Gwangju Biennale Artist Interview | Buhlebezwe Siwani, Gwangju Biennale Foundation, 2023
Standard Bank Young Artis for Visual Art 2021 - Buhlebezwe Siwani, Standard Bank, 2021
Buhlebezwe Siwani's performance Nunza (owner of the water) at Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, 2021
Artist Talk: Buhlebezwe Siwani, The Photographers' Gallery, 2021
Interview of Buhlebezwe Siwani at Fondation Louis Vuitton, 2018
Sangoma and Artist, interview for The Narrative, 2018
My oma
Installation view at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
December 8th 2023 - September 1st 2024
soft and weak like water
Installation view at the 14th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea
April 7th - July 9th 2023
iYeza
Installation view at Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
February 24th - April 8th 2023
iYeza
Installation view at Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
February 24th - April 8th 2023
Installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal
September 21st - November 13th 2022
Installation view at Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal
September 21st - November 13th 2022
Yehla Moya
Installation view at National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa
June 23rd - July 3rd 2022
Vutha Mlilo
Installation view at National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa
June 23rd - July 3rd 2022
Iyeza
Installation view at National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa
June 23rd - July 3rd 2022
Toronto Biennial of Art
Installation view at Arsenal Contemporary, Toronto, Canada
March 25th - June 5th 2022
Installation View at Art|Basel 2021 - Galleries Section, Basel, Switzerland
September 21st - September 26th, 2021
The Power of My Hands. Africa(s): Women Artists
Installation view at Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France
January 22nd - August 22nd, 2021
Living, Forgiving, Remembering
Installation view at Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, Netherlands
October 4th, 2020 - February 14th, 2021
Witness: Afro Perspectives from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection.
Installation view at El Espacio 23, Miami, USA
November 30th, 2020 - January 31st, 2021
INKANYAMBA
Installation view at Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada, Almada, Portugal
February 22nd - April 18th, 2020
INKANYAMBA
Installation view at Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada, Almada, Portugal
February 22nd - April 18th, 2020
INKANYAMBA
Installation view at Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada, Almada, Portugal
February 22nd - April 18th, 2020
INKANYAMBA
Installation view at Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada, Almada, Portugal
February 22nd - April 18th, 2020
INKANYAMBA
Installation view at Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada, Almada, Portugal
February 22nd - April 18th, 2020
INKANYAMBA
Installation view at Galeria Municipal de Arte de Almada, Almada, Portugal
February 22nd - April 18th, 2020
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal
March 22nd - May 4th, 2019
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal
March 22nd - May 4th, 2019
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal
March 22nd - May 4th, 2019
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal
March 22nd - May 4th, 2019
Tell Freedom. 15 South African Artist
Installation view at Kunsthal Kade, Amersfoort, Netherlands
January 27th - May 6th, 2018
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal,
November 18th - January 13th, 2018
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal,
November 18th - January 13th, 2018
Installation view at Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal,
November 18th - January 13th, 2018
uKhongolose Part II
Performance at Appleton Square, Lisbon, Portugal
November 16th, 2017
Anozero’17, Bienal de Arte Contenporânea de Coimbra
Installation view at Coimbra, Portugal
November 11th – December 30th, 2017
Those ghels
Performance at Greatmore Studios, Cape Town
2017
Africa Raccontare un Mondo
Performance at Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
June 28th, 2017
Being There: South Africa, a contemporary scene
Installation view at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
April 26th - September 4th, 2017
Ingxowa yeGqwirhakazi
Installation view at WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa
November 17th - December 3rd, 2016
Qunusa! Buhle
Performance at Any Given Sunday, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa
2016
The Incantation of the Disquieting Muse - On Divinity, Parallel - and Suprarealities or the Exorcisement of Witchery
Performance at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2016
iJoowish
Performance at Live Architecture: the 55 Minute Hour, Cape Town, South Africa
2016
Inzilo; Ngoba ngihlala kwabafileyo
Performance at Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa
2015