KATES-FERRI PROJECTS: Turiya Magadlela “In Our Barren Womb Boys Weep”

KATES-FERRI PROJECTS is proud to present our first solo exhibition from contemporary South-African artist Turiya Magadlela titled “In Our Barren Womb Boys Weep”. On view will be a survey of mixed media artworks from the 2018-2024 period. The exhibition will run from September 9 to October 5, 2024, with a reception on Friday, September13th from 6pm to 9pm.
Born in Johannesburg in 1978, Turiya Magadlela employs art-making techniques historically associated with women, utilizing sewing and embroidery on a range of conceptually charged fabrics, from pantyhose to correctional service uniforms. These materials are transformed into abstract compositions through cutting, stitching, folding, and stretching, ultimately affixed to wooden frames. Magadlela's subject matter oscillates between articulations of personal experiences of womanhood and motherhood and narratives stemming from the fraught history of black South Africans. Her oeuvre engages in an ongoing dialogue regarding the colonization of black bodies and women, a theme that is particularly resonant in her use of materials with a capitalist character, a pertinent consideration in an era where commodification is increasingly relevant.
Asked about the title of the exhibition on view at KATES-FERRI PROJECTS - “In Our Barren Womb Boys Weep” – Magadlela says that “womb” was the first word that came to her mind when looking at the artworks presented and reflecting on what tied them together. Womb evokes the notion of birth, intended both as the first act of creation and the first place of creation, the beginning of life, or the coming back to life from death. The womb is mother earth. In that sense, it is also a metaphor for the artist’s act of creating things from nothing, piecing things together, which, in the case of Magadlela, literally becomes laboriously sewing things together, until a new life is born out of nothing. The barren womb also evokes motherhood and its struggles in our societies – a recurring, powerful theme in Magadlela’ oeuvre. Another theme in her work is the eroticization of, and violence on, women’s bodies, reflected in the symbolic use of pantyhoses and their stitches. The title of this survey of Magadlela’s work hints at a more complex way men (or, better, the “boys weeping in the barren womb”) relate to women: not just a desire to return into women’s bodies via intercourse to seek pleasure, but, rather, a deeper, more unconscious, and spiritual need to return to the place of creation.
Magadlela’s work offers a unique and compelling vision that is both aesthetically and intellectually arresting, which firmly established her as a leading artist in the contemporary art world.In recognition of her exceptional talent, Magadlela was awarded the prestigious FNB Art Prize in 2015, was shortlisted for the Jean-François Prat Prize, and has been featured in the list of the “top 10 African artists to invest in now" by the TimesLive in 2018. Magadlela has garnered significant attention both nationally and internationally, including the presentation of a solo exhibition at The Armory Show in New York City in 2017, as well as participating in numerous group exhibitions such as Blue Black, curated by Glenn Ligon at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation; Simple Passion, Complex Vision: The Darryl Atwell Collection at the Gantt Centre; The Past is Present at Jack Shainmann Gallery; and Blackness in Abstraction at Pace Gallery. Her academic background includes study at the University of Johannesburg and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.


Museums & Collections: Kunsthalle Krems, Brooklyn Museum, LACMA Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art, Studio Museum Harlem, NY, UMOCA Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Sugar Hill Museum, Harlem, NY, UT Black Arts and Studies, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Hearst Collection, Amir Shariat Collection, Adjmi Collection, Roux Art Collection, Princeton University Art Museum, African Art Museum, MOCAK Krakow, Poland.