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Andrew da Conceicao, a founding director of Stevenson, one in every of South Africa’s first main industrial galleries, has died at 53. The gallery introduced his dying on Friday, the day of his passing.
With Michael Stevenson and Kathy Grundlingh, da Conceicao based Stevenson in Cape City in 2003 underneath the identify Michael Stevenson Modern. It was on the time one in every of only a few industrial artwork areas in South Africa, and it stays some of the high-profile galleries not solely within the nation however in all of Africa, making common appearances at worldwide artwork festivals.
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Its roster now features a host of artists primarily based in Africa or from the continent initially, amongst them Edson Chagas, who received the Golden Lion on the Venice Biennale in 2013 for his Angolan Pavilion, and Jo Ratcliffe, a broadly acclaimed South African photographer. Additionally represented by the gallery are Odili Donald Odita, Bronwyn Katz, Paulo Nazareth, Robin Rhode, Simphiwe Ndzube, Meleko Mokgosi, Barthélémy Toguo, and Portia Zvavahera.
On the time of his dying, da Conceicao was one in every of 13 administrators who owned the gallery, which additionally has areas in Johannesburg and Amsterdam.
When the trio of sellers based the gallery 20 years in the past, they did so with the purpose of enhancing the standing of African artists. That they had attended curator Okwui Enwezor’s Documenta 11 the 12 months earlier than, in 2002, and located inspiration in his give attention to modern African artwork, which at the moment was hardly ever given pleasure of place in worldwide biennials.
“We checked out our native state of affairs and questioned the way it might be that Goodman was the one gallery which took an curiosity in modern artwork along with the artwork of the 20th century,” da Conceicao stated in an interview. “We needed to know why so many good artists are represented in Europe however not regionally. So we needed to vary this.”
He conceded that it “took loads of grit” to get the gallery off the bottom, provided that the legacy of apartheid continued to influence South Africa, the place, he stated, white college students nonetheless far outnumbered Black ones in artwork faculties on the time.
Stevenson has earned a fame for exhibiting rigorous work and launching many careers. Photographer Zanele Muholi has had 12 exhibits with the gallery; Nicholas Hlobo, recognized for his large-scale sculptures, has had 7 Stevenson displays, together with his debut solo present in 2006.
Born on October 22, 1969, da Conceicao was a curator on the Arts Affiliation of Bellville in South Africa earlier than becoming a member of Stevenson. When Stevenson opened in 2003, ArtThrob reported that de Conceicao had been “largely chargeable for the upsurge in exercise and pleasure” on the Bellville gallery.
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