SOLO SHOWS
2021
The Free State University Gallery, Bloemfontein, South Africa
2008
Fortune Telling in Black, Red and White, Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007
Players of Colour, National Tour of Alliances Francaises in major South African cities –
Gallery Demosniel 89, Paris, France
Hierarchy of colour, Absa Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Impossible Monsters, Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2020
Matereality, Iziko National South African Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
La peur au Ventre, Jerome Poggi Gallery, Paris France
2019
Hier est la mémoire d’aujourd’hui , Espace Commines, Paris, France
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London, UK
I was born a Foreigner, les Abattoirs Contemporary Art Program in the Occitan Region,
Couvent des Minimes, Perpignan, France
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Industria, New York, USA
2018 – 2019
Fikra Graphic Design Biennial, Sharjah, UAE
In This Imperfect Present Moment, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA
Deviations, International Festival of Extraordinary Textile s, FITE, Bargoin Museum, Clermont
Ferrand, France
2018
Ravelled Threads, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, USA
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Pioneer Works, New York, USA
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town, South Africa
2017-2018
A Change in the Narratives, Absa Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2017
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London, UK
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Pioneer Works, New York, USA
Etre là, Art/Afrique, Le Nouvel Atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France
Le jour qui vient, La Galerie des Galeries, Paris, France
Tous des sang-mêlés, MAC VAL, Vitry sur Seine, France
2016
1:54 African Contemporary Art Fair, Afronova, Somerset House, London, UK
The Art of Disruptions, IZIKO, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Social Fabrics: African Textiles Today, William Morris Gallery, London, UK
Art Textiles, The whitworth, Manchester, UK
1:54 African Contemporary Art Fair, Afronova, Pioneer Works, New York, USA
2015
1:54 African Contemporary Art Fair, Afronova, Somerset House, London, UK
1:54 African Contemporary Art Fair, Afronova, Pioneer Works, New York, USA
2014
1:54 African Contemporary Art Fair, Afronova, Somerset House, London, UK
2013 – 2014
My Joburg, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France – Kunsthalle, Dresden, Germany
Some Views of Africa, Studio La Città, Verona, Italy
2012
Me 3, Fried Contemporary Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
2011
(Re)constructions, Contemporary Art from South Africa, Museu de Arte Contemporânea
de Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Synthetic Ritual, Pitzer Art Galleries, Claremont, USA
2010
PEEKABOO – Current South Africa, Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
TXT artists investigating language, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, USA
Ampersand – A Dialogue of Contemporary Art from South Africa & the Daimler Art
Collection, Daimler contemporary, Berlin, Germany
ATOPIA – Art and the City in the 21st Century, CCCB, Centre de Cultura Contemporània
de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
2009
Dystopia, Museum Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa
Adding Substractions, Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa
Dystopia, Unisa Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
Self/Not-self, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
Beauty and Pleasure South African Contemporary Art, Stenersenmuseet, Oslo, Norway
2007
Positive: Pulse Art Show, Hall of Treasures, Sun City Sun International, South Africa
Exhibition | Bazobuya: Township architecture and Jazz clubs: Lawrence Lemaoana, SABC News, February 2024
My Own Sanity Within That Madness, Hypocrite Reader, July 2023
The Contemporary South African Artist as Global Citizen, International Journal of African Renaissance Studies – Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, March 2022
Plongée dans le bouillonnant marché de l’art contemporain africain, Le Point, November 2021
Hidden Messages, Repeating Patterns, Futuress, August 2021
‘Freedom is a Stone’s Throw Away’: Lawrence Lemaona’s perversions of power, News 24, November 2020
An Appreciation Of One of Africa’s Most Formidable Art Dealers, True Africa, September 2020
Art World Power Couple Mary Sibande and Lawrence Lemaoana Flying SA Flag High, Wanted, May 2020
Lawrence Lemaoana: Threaded Histories, Textual Subversions, Artskop, April 2020
Lawrence Lemaoana’s Cloth Banners: In This Imperfect Present Moment, Seattle Art Museum Blog, October 2018
Artists and African Textiles – the Use and Meaning of Textiles in Contemporary African Art, TL Magazine, September 2018
Graphic Fabric Artworks by Lawrence Lemaoana, African Digital Art, July 2018
Textual Textiles: Gender and Political Parodies in the Work of Lawrence Lemaoana, Issue 4: Intertextual Textiles: Parodies and Quotations in Cloth, July 2017
La Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris célèbre l’Afrique, Le Monde, April 2017
L’art africain s’expose, dans sa singularité et son universalité, Le Monde, April 2017
Lawrence Lemaoana | Paris’Louis Vuitton Foundation showcases contemporary African art, France 24, April 2017
Lawrence Lemaoana, Apogee Issue 09 Visual Arts Preview, May 2017
Subversive stitching: ’Art_Textiles’ at The Whitworth, Manchester, Wallpaper, May 2017
En Afrique du Sud, les artistes sont-ils condamnés à être des agents provocateurs ?, Le Monde Afrique, May 2017
Johannesburg, le nouveau spot arty, Madame Figaro, October 2016
The New Wave: The Local Appetite for Art Buying in SA is Gaining Momentum, Wanted Magazine, November 2016
The World’s Largest Contemporary African Art Fair Comes to Brooklyn, Vice Magazine, May 2015
Post-apartheid masculinity reviewed through the lens of Christian iconography: The work of Conrad Botes and Lawrence Lemaoana, South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, September 2012
Displacing and deflecting otherness: the subversion of the dichotomised framework of self and other in Lawrence Lemaoana’s Last Line of Defence, South-North Cultural and Media Studies, December 2010
In Conversation with Lawrence Lemaoana, Art Africa, June 2014
Lemaoana’s fabric of life, Mail and Guardian, October 2008
A COMPANION TO FEMINIST ART
English
Published by John Wiley & Sons
2019
IDEA #386
English and Japanese
Published by Seibundo Shinkosha
2019
BEING THERE
Published by Louis Vuitton Fondation
2017
ART_TEXTILES
Published by Whitworth Art Gallery
2015
MY JOBURG
Published by Fage
2013
SYNTHETIC RITUAL
Published by Pitzer College Art Galleries
2011
PEEKABOO- CURRENT SOUTH AFRICA
Published by Helsinki City Art Museum’s Publications
2010
AMPERSAND – A DIALOGUE OF CONTEMPORARY ART FROM SOUTH AFRICA & THE DAIMLER
ART COLLECTION
Published by Hirmer Munich
2010
SOUTH AFRICAN ART NOW
Published by Harper Design
October 2009
Born in Johannesburg in 1982. Lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Lawrence Lemaoana critically engages with mass media in present-day South Africa. Seeing the relationship between media and the ‘people’ as inherently problematic, he identifies and repurposes existing control apparatuses using his trademark cynicism. Lemaoana’s embroidered works are emblazoned with appropriated political dictums woven in kanga fabric – a material with its own complex ancestry. Here, Lemaoana wages criticism on the agency of local media, and its ability to shape social consciousness: the result turns didactic and propagandistic tools on their head.
In residence at La Cité des Arts in Paris as early as 2005, he regularly exhibits in France, most notably in the context of memorable
exhibitions at Fondation Louis Vuitton, La Maison Rouge – Antoine de Galbert Foundation, MAC-VAL, Les abattoirs, Toulouse but also in the United States, Norway, Italy, and of course, in South Africa, at the IZIKO South African National Gallery and Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa.
His work features in prominent local and international collections, including Sindika Dokolo Fondation, Luanda, IZIKO South African National Gallery , Cape Town, Louis Vuitton Fondation, Paris, Lafayette Anticipation, Paris, Collection Léridon, Paris…
KANGA TEXTILES
LAST LINE OF DEFENCE
