“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.
