2015
A table avec Karl Gietl! Brasserie du Dôme, Montpellier, France
2013
Un Autre Monde, chapelle du quartier haut, Sète, France
2011
Somewhere over the rainbow, Afronova Gallery, Johannesbrug, South Africa
2009
Sète, girls & rock’n’roll, galerie Dock Sud, Sète, France
A Series of Travels, Afronova Gallery, Johannesbrug, South Africa
2008
One for the road, Afronova Gallery, Johannesbrug, South Africa
2007
Myths and memories, Villa Arcadia, Johannesburg, South Africa
2006
A search for Paradise, Afronova Gallery, Johannesbrug, South Africa
2005
City people mythologies, touring exhibition, Johannesburg, South Africa – Mbabane, Swaziland – Maputo, Mozambique – Cape Town, South Africa
2003
Bringing it All Back, Joao Ferreira fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa
2002
You can get There from Here, Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
I Lost my Heart in Troyeville, Spaza art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2001
There is no Place like Home, Sterkwerk gallery, Tilburg, Holland
Neither Here nor There, Gallery Doreen Dierckx, Antwerp, Belgium
2000
Body and Soul, Moba art gallery, Brussels, Belgium
1999
It’s a Small World after All, Joao Ferreira Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa
GROUP SHOWS
2014
Pêche à la Sirène, serigraphies, Dock Sud, Sète, France
2007
Afronism, Afronova Gallery, Johannesbrug, South Africa
Double 007, Polokwane art museum, Polokwane, South Africa
2004
Identity, Circus Theater, Bildenburg, Holland
2003
The Fun Never Sets, two man show with Wayne Barker, Everard Read contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa
Twenty Four Seven, residence Project, Johannesburg art gallery, South Africa
2000
Hanging Around, Kunstcentrum, Sittard, Holland
Dress Code, Gallery 1646, Den Haag, Holland
1999
Artol: Labor 6, Bedburg-Hau/Kleve, Germany
1998
A Day in the Life, Absa L’Atelier award, first prize, Polokwane art museum, South Africa
1996
One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety Six, installation piece, Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Marchons!, French Institute of South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
Unplugged, Rembrandt van Rijn gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1995
FIG Again, Famous international gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Four Rooms, The Johannesburg civic gallery, South Africa
Spring Time in Chile, Contemporary Museum of Modern Art, Santiago, Chile
Brown and Green, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa
BIENNALES
1997
Safe Passage, solo fringe exhibition, 2nd Johannesburg biennale, South Africa
All washed up, a forthcoming attraction with Billy!
Confined to his hotel room and « washed up » on the shores of his mind, Billy makes an extraordinary journey…
Written and Directed by Karl Gietl
Music by Rodolphe « Rotopo » Beauchamp
Produced by Karl Gietl
2011
Introducing Billy. The anti Hero. After a series of hedonistic misadventures, Billy decides to escape from the endless filthy city and tries to find that tropical island paradise…
Written and Directed by Karl Gietl
Music by Jeremy Franklin, Chengetai ‘ZimBlue’ and Rodolphe « Rotopo » Beauchamp
Produced by Total Eclipse in association with Jollywood pictures
2005
The anti hero Billy follows a post card invitation to a party in Paris.
Written and Directed by Karl Gietl
Music by Rodolphe « Rotopo » Beauchamp
Produced by Dancing Crab in association with Mad Pigeon
2006
In the early 1900’s a Spanish artist named Senor Pablo embarks on a trip to Africa to obtain artifacts that will change the future of art…
Written and Directed by Karl Gietl
Music by Cyril Dillard and Jeremy Franklin and the New World Radio
Produced by Karl Gietl
2006
The very first in a series of short travel films. Search for Paradise goes through the streets and bars of Johannesburg to the beaches of Maputo and Cape town. music by » courtesy Jeremy Franklin.
Written and Directed by Karl Gietl
Music by Philemon Zulu and the Jeremy Franklin Band
Produced by Total Eclipse
2005
Lives and works in France.
Karl Gietl was born in Worcester, in the Western Cape of South Africa in 1970. He grew up in the small mining town of Benoni on the East Rand and was schooled in the vibrant and turbulent city of Johannesburg during the ‘chaos’ of the mid eighties. Karl Gietl had his first solo exhibition of paintings in 1994.
In 1998 Karl Gietl won first prize in the national ABSA atelier art awards which gave him the opportunity to live and work at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris for six months during 1999. Gietl however remained in Europe for three years. He lived, traveled and exhibited in Holland, Germany, Belgium and France. After a short stay in Spain, Gietl returned to South Africa in 2001.
Back home Gietl again embarked on a travel spree through South Africa and her neighboring countries, which gave rise to his large city scape series of 2004. From portraits of ‘cracked up’ prostitutes in the dingiest brothels in Hillbrow, to the prehistoric forests of ‘The Rain Queen’ in Mpumalanga.
