La Biennale de Montréal — The Grand Balcony

Dineo Seshee Bopape

From October 20, 2016 to January 15, 2017
Opening on October 20 at 8:30 pm

La Biennale de Montréal and Dazibao present the work of Dineo Seshee Bopape in the context of BNLMTL 2016 – The Grand Balcony.

Curator: Philippe Pirotte

Le Grand Balcon draws loosely on Jean Genet’s Le Balcon, in which the play’s high porch is a space of contestation between revolution and counter-revolution, reality and illusion. A recurring motif in Genet’s writing, his balcony is a place where representation itself can be perversely troubled.

Born in Polokwane in the North of South Africa, the artist Dineo Seshee Bopape uses video, sound, sculpture and found objects as well as performance to develop an artistic practice engaged in socio-political thought. Her work deals with issues of memory and identity, and multiplies points of view on genre, sexuality and colonial histories. 

A graduate from the Durban Institute of Technology – the school of her hometown – she completed an MFA at Columbia University in New York. Her work was recently shown in numerous group exhibitions including The Generational: Younger Than Jesus (New Museum, New York), With or Without (Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam), Unorthodox (The Jewish museum, New York), Ruffnek Constructivists (Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia), Lisi Raskin: Leaden Hearts (Riccardo Crespi Galleria, Milan), Live Uncertainty (32nd São Paulo Biennial). She has had solo shows at The Tate Modern, London, abc art berlin contemporary, Berlin, KZNSA Gallery, Durban and the Hayward Gallery Project Space, London. 

Bopape is premiering Sa kosa ke lerole at Dazibao, in the context of BNLMTL 2016 – The Grand Balcony. With this work the artist evokes the ephemeral nature of music and the joy of singing, as she retraces and revives from their records the historical milestones of a choir, which she in turn relates to her own memories.