Samson Kambalu

Samson Kambalu (born 1975) is a Malawi-born artist and author who trained as a fine artist and ethnomusicologist at the University of Malawi's Chancellor College. He lives and works in London.

Life and work

Samson Kambalu was born in Malawi, where he attended Kamuzu Academy, the so-called "Eton of Africa".[1] He graduated from the University of Malawi's Chancellor College, Zomba in 1999. Kambalu completed his MA in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University in 2003 and wrote his PhD at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Kambalu’s work originates from the Protestant tradition of inquiry, criticism, and rebellion that he inherited from a rapidly Christianising contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa of his childhood. Manifesting in various media, from drawing, painting, installation, video to literature and performance the work playfully employs excess, transgression, humour and wit to test the boundaries of received ideas regarding history, art, identity, religion and individual freedom.[2]

One of his most well known artworks is Holy Ball, a football plastered in pages of the Bible.[3] Kambalu held an exhibition of 24 "Holy Balls" at Chancellor College in 2000 at which he invited the visitors to “exercise and exorcise”.[4] He has since shown his work internationally.[5] In 2015 he was included in Okwui Enwezor's All the World's Futures at the 56th Venice Biennale.[6] In November 2015 a judge in Venice dismissed a complaint[7] filed by the Italian situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti against the Venice Biennale and Kambalu with regard to one of his installations, Sanguinetti Breakout Area.[8]

Kambalu's Nyau Cinema is a series of short film clips of psychogeographical performances, shared as interventions on social networking sites and as installations in galleries.[9] These have been described as "cinematic fragments that blend slapstick and spiritual ritual".[10]

His first book, an autobiographical narrative entitled The Jive Talker or How to Get a British Passport, was published by Jonathan Cape (Random House) in July 2008, and in August 2008 by Free Press (Simon & Schuster).[11] Kambalu lives and works in London.

Kambalu is represented by Kate MacGarry[12] in London.

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions

2015, The Unbearable Lightness of Nyau Cinema, Gallery U Mloka, Olomouc, Czech Republic

2015, Double Feature: Nyau Cinema, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany

2014, Sepia Rain, Stevenson Johannesburg, South Africa

2012, Tattoo City: The First Three Chapters (with guests), Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK

2000, Holyball Exercises and Exorcisms, Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi

Selected group exhibitions

2016, Liverpool Biennial, UK

2016, Dakar Biennale, Senegal

2016, Lost & Found, Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2015, Embodied, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark

2015, 50/50, New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa

2015, Transformation Marathon, Serpentine Galleries, London

2015, Schema, Stevenson Cape Town, South Africa

2015, All The World's Futures, Venice Biennale, Italy

2014, Chroma, Stevenson Cape Town, South Africa

2014, Dakar Biennale, Senegal

Bibliography

Books

2012 – Uccello's Vineyard. ASIN: B009Z48N2Y

2008 – The Jive Talker or, How to Get a British Passport. ISBN 0-224-08106-3

Articles

2014, Great African Minds: Dr Charles Chanthunya, Peter Hammer Verlag

2013, The Museum and the Individual, essay on Meschac Gaba's Museum of Contemporary African Art, Tate Modern[13]

2011, Der skurrile Diktator, Kulturaustausch, IFA, Germany

2010, Dr Albert Schweitzer's Troublesome Young Brother, Kulturaustausch, IFA, Germany

2010, Windmill Jive, Salz Magazine, Austria

2009, Action Bitte - Malawians at Leisure, Kulturaustausch, IFA, Germany

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Kamuzu Academy
  2. ↑ Blouin ArtInfo art listing
  3. ↑ Play and the Profane in Samson Kambalu's Holyballs, Holyballism and (Bookworm) The Fall of Man
  4. ↑ Virtual Museum of Contemporary African Art
  5. ↑ Kate MacGarry: Samson Kambalu biography
  6. ↑ Biennale Arte 2015: Samson Kambalu
  7. ↑ "Gianfranco Sanguinetti contro la Biennale di Venezia", Artribune, 28 December 2015
  8. ↑ "L’écrivain italien Sanguinetti porte plainte contre la Biennale de Venise", Le Monde, 19 October 2015
  9. ↑ "Samson Kambalu, souverain du cinéma «nyau»", Cafe des Images, 8 September 2015
  10. ↑ "Venice Biennale: highlights and best of the rest", The Telegraph, 29 May 2015
  11. ↑ Bookforum Review
  12. ↑ http://www.katemacgarry.com/artists/samson-kambalu/ Kate MacGarry]
  13. ↑ Tate: Viewpoint: Samson Kambalu

External links

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