A Day of Collective Study on the Work of Nolan Oswald Dennis
Zeitz MOCAA presents a day of collective study, reading and dialogue on the occasion of UNDERSTUDIES – the first major South African museum solo exhibition by Johannesburg-based artist, Nolan Oswald Dennis. The exhibition offers a series of propositions to reconceive our own relationship to forms of instruction and authority.
The convening offers a moment for thinking with and alongside the several collaborators and cultural workers that have been in solidarity with the artist’s prolific practice – an opportunity to collectively study new cycles of conceptual works such as Xenolith (Letsema) (2024) and Soft Rock (leNqaba yoMkhosi) (2024); as well as Black Liberation Zodiac (Molalatladi)(2018 – ?).
The programme will culminate with the launch of the artist’s first comprehensive monograph, titled: Ecliptics, co-produced by Zeitz MOCAA in partnership with Swiss Institute (SI), New York and German publishing house, Buchhandlung Walther König.
UNDERSTUDIES foregrounds the artist’s impulse to work within and against grammars of world-making; questioning where power and knowledge are located.
Book your seat for a day of critical conversations with some of the artist’s collaborators and a special publication launch that expands on key, radical concepts that inform their para-disciplinary practice.
Date & Time
Saturday, 10 May 2025 | 10 am – 6 pm
Venue
Zeitz MOCAA, Level 3 & Level 6, Ocular Lounge
Cost
Free with museum entry of R250 per person.
Free with Zeitz MOCAA Membership.
About the Artist
Nolan Oswald Dennis (b. 1988, Lusaka, Zambia) is an artist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their practice explores the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonisation, questioning the politics of space and time through a system-specific approach. Their practice recombines social, technical, political and spiritual systems grounded in a planetary condition of landlessness and guided by the overlapping theories and practices of black, indigenous and queer liberation.
Dennis holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand (2012) and a Master of Science in Art, Culture and Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2018). They are a founding member of the artist group NTU; as well as the Indexing Literacy Program, a collaborative research project collecting new theory for our indexical present; and the convenor of black earth study club, a network for planetary solidarity.
Dennis is the 2016 winner of the FNB Art Prize, the 22nd Sesc_Videobrasil Biennial Jury Prize (2023) and is a 2023-24 Future Generations Art Prize nominee. They have exhibited in various international solo and group shows, including at the Young Congo Biennale (2019), Palais de Tokyo (2021), Dakar Biennale (2022), Front Triennial (2022), Liverpool Biennial (2023), Shanghai Biennial (2023) amongst others.
Their writing has been published in academic and art publications including The Funambulist, CLARA Architecture/Recherche Journal, Unearthing Traces, Mater, amongst others. They are currently a Research Associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg; co-editor of Indexing Imaginaries, volume 08 of the Data Browser book series published by Open Humanities Press and editor of the 2024 Cosmic Bulletin published by e-flux.
Image credit: Nolan Oswald Dennis. Photo by Jesse Barnes, courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA.
Zeitz MOCAA’s curatorial and exhibition programming is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and BMW South Africa.