Press Release

MOCA is excited to present the first major survey exhibition in Canada of Canadian-French artist Kapwani Kiwanga. Kiwanga creates installation, sculpture, and performance as well as video and sound pieces to explore the relationships between historical narratives, systems of power, and the use of material within these contexts.

Kapwani Kiwanga, Remediation

MOCA, Toronto (Canada)

24.02 - 23.07.2023

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For her exhibition at MOCA, Kiwanga presents five new commissions, including a site-specific version of her ongoing sisal installations on the Museum’s free-of-charge Ground Floor, as well as flooring and window interventions. These are presented alongside key existing artworks, such as an updated series of inflatable vivariums from 2020, The Marias, 2020, and Vumbi, 2012.

Through this curated selection, Kiwanga expands on her research into how botany has long held a relationship to exploitation and acts of resistance and how plant life has and may intervene in the rejuvenation of contaminated environments.

This project builds upon the relationship established between Kiwanga and MOCA during the presentation of her highly acclaimed work Flowers for Africa, shown at the Museum in 2021.

Kapwani Kiwanga, Maya-Bantu, 2019. Installation view, The Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, 2021. Photo: Nash Baker. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London. © ADAGP, Paris / SOCAN, Montreal (2022).

Kapwani Kiwanga, Flowers for Africa, MOCA, 2021. Photo Toni Hafkenscheid

The exhibition is co-organized by MOCA Toronto and the Remai Modern, Saskatoon, where it will be presented in fall 2023.

About the Artist

Kapwani Kiwanga is an artist who has emerged in recent years as a highly acknowledged figure within the international contemporary art scene. In 2018, she received both the inaugural Frieze Artist Award (USA) and the Sobey Art Award (Canada), and in 2020 she won the Prix Marcel Duchamp (France).

After completing studies in Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University, with a focus on medical anthropology and an idea of going into documentary filmmaking, Kiwanga turned to the visual arts and attended École normale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she is now based. Drawing on her education, experiences, ongoing research and commitment to observation, Kiwanga produces work across a wide variety of artistic mediums to explore the plurality of histories.

Exhibition 24 February - 23 July 2023. Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, 158 Sterling Road - Toronto Ontario M6R 2B7 (Canada). T +1 416 530 2500. Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 11am–6pm, Friday 11am–9pm.