Lebohang Kganye - Photographs London Tuesday, November 21, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “She is me, I am her, and there remains in this commonality so much difference and so much distance in space and time…”
    —Lebohang Kganye  

     

    South African artist Lebohang Kganye (b.1990) began her series Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story, which translates to ‘my inheritance’ or ‘my legacy’, in 2013 following the sudden passing of her mother. In her mourning, Kganye rediscovered old family photographs and realised that many of the clothes worn by her mother in the photos still hung in her closet. In a desire to retrace her mother’s visual legacy, she carefully recreated these images by dressing in her mother’s clothes, revisiting the same locations and then staging herself within the composition as seen in the three works offered here. In two of the images, we see Kganye staging herself, and in the third, she has digitally fused her ghost-like figure with the original image of her mother. Appearing at auction for the first time, this deeply personal work echoes the ways in which memories and oral histories can overlap, blur and entwine. 

     

    In 2022, Kganye was one of the three leading artists chosen to represent South Africa in the 59th Venice Biennale. Most recently, Tell Me What You Remember, her dual exhibition and monograph was held at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (2023) and published with Sue Williamson. Her works reside in major collections, including the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Getty Museum, LA; the JP Morgan Art Collection, NY; and the V&A, London.

    • Literature

      S. Williamson & L. Kganye, Tell Me What You Remember, Philadelphia: The Barnes Foundation, 2023, cover, pp. 102, 106

    • Catalogue Essay

      Titles:
      Ke Bapala Seyalemoya Bosiu ka Naeterese I
      Ke Tsamaya Masiu II
      Ngawana o Tshwana le Dinaledi I

39

Selected Images from Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story

2013
Three archival pigment prints.
Each 37 x 24.7 cm (14 5/8 x 9 3/4 in.)
Each signed, titled, numbered 2/5, 5/5 and 3/5, respectively, in pencil in the margin; each signed in pencil, printed title, date and number on a Certificate of Authenticity accompanying the work.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£15,000 - 25,000 

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Rachel Peart
Head of Department, London
RPeart@phillips.com
 

Yuka Yamaji
Head of Photographs, Europe
YYamaji@phillips.com
 

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Photographs

London Auction 21 November 2023