PIETER HUGO – SOLUS VOL. 1
September 3, 2021 – October 30, 2021
„Südafrika ist so ein zerbrochener, schizophrener, verwundeter und problematischer Ort,“ sagt Pieter Hugo. Wie kann man dort leben? Er empfinde sich als ein Stück „koloniales Treibholz“. Es ist wohl dieses Bewusstsein, das ihm die Augen öffnet für die Widersprüche und Dissonanzen, für die Reibungszonen und Spannungsfelder innerhalb der (süd-)afrikanischen Gesellschaft. In seiner 2005-2007 entstandenen „The Hyena Men Series“ hat Pieter Hugo das Drama der postkolonialen Gesellschaft erstmals exemplarisch erfasst. In Nigeria fand er eine Gruppe junger Männer, die mit Hyänen, Pavianen und Schlangen leben. Einer Tradition folgend, ziehen sie mit ihren Tieren als Schausteller umher und verkaufen traditionelle Medizin. Ihre Auftritte gelten als Sensation und finden ein begeistertes Publikum. In seinen vor der Kulisse konturloser Shantytowns entstandenen Aufnahmen konzentriert sich Pieter Hugo auf das Verhältnis der Männer zu ihren Tieren. Die klar komponierten Fotografien sind verstörende Sinnbilder für die extreme Spannung zwischen Natur und Kultur, zwischen Mensch und Tier, Tradition und Moderne, Stadt und Wildnis, die das Leben in den Städten der Subsahara heute prägt.
Müllkippe Europas – auch das ist Afrika. So landet ein Großteil der im Westen ausrangierten Handys, Computer und Laptops in Ghana, wo sich der containerweise herbeigeschaffte Computerschrott zu riesigen Halden türmt. Die Deponien liegen nicht einfach brach, sondern sind zu einem prekären Arbeitsraum für Tausende von Menschen geworden, die hier als Metallsammler ihr Auskommen suchen. Zusammen mit ihren Kühen leben sie auf den hochgiftigen, schwelenden Abfallbergen und versuchen, durch Verbrennen der Geräte an verwertbare Metalle zu kommen. Pieter Hugo hat auf einer Mülldeponie am Stadtrand von Accra apokalyptische Szenarien fotografiert – bedrohliche Visionen einer Endzeit, in der Informationszeitalter und Steinzeit aufeinanderprallen und sich gegenseitig auszulöschen scheinen. In der Ausstellung wird die auf der Serie „Permanent Error” (2009-2010) basierende Videoinstallation gezeigt.
Zwischen 2006 und 2013 arbeitete Pieter Hugo an einem Projekt, das er „Kin“ (Sippe) nannte. Darin geht es um Heimat, Nähe, Identifikation und Zugehörigkeitsgefühl – etwas, das er in Südafrika von jeher als kritisch und konfliktgeladen erlebt hat: Wie kann man leben in diesem Land, das sein koloniales Erbe noch lange nicht hinter sich gelassen hat und geprägt ist von Rassismus und einer immer größer werdenden Kluft zwischen Arm und Reich? Hugo fotografierte zu Hause, in Townships und an historischen Plätzen, machte Porträts seiner schwangeren Frau, von Hausangestellten und Obdachlosen. Die ruhigen und klar komponierten Aufnahmen zeigen Schönheit und Hässliches, Reichtum und Armut, Privates und Öffentliches, Historisches und Aktuelles. Weder idealisierend noch dramatisierend entwerfen sie ein Porträt der komplexen Gesellschaft im heutigen Südafrika.
Denn die Einigkeit der so genannten Regenbogennation ist Wunschdenken. Auch zwanzig Jahre nach dem Ende der Apartheid sind Schwarz und Weiß in Südafrika noch lange nicht eins. In der 94 Platinum-Prints umfassenden Serie “There Is A Place in Hell for Me and My Friends” (2011-2012) beschäftigt sich Pieter Hugo mit den vermeintlichen Unterschieden der Hautfarben. Dafür hat er hat sich selber und südafrikanische Freunde porträtiert. Die in Nahaufnahme, zumeist als frontale Brustbilder aufgenommenen Farbfotografien wurden digital nachbearbeitet. Die Bildmanipulation, bei der die Farbkanäle in Grauwerte übersetzt wurden, betont die Pigmentierung der Haut und macht durch UV-Einstrahlung entstandene Hautschäden sowie kleine, direkt unter der Haut liegende Blutgefäße sichtbar. Das Ergebnis ist verblüffend: Auf diesen Fotografien sind alle Menschen farbig. Es gibt keine Unterschiede mehr zwischen „weißer“ und „schwarzer“ Haut, sondern nur noch eine Vielzahl individueller Tönungen. Die Porträts zeigen die kraftvolle Präsenz eines jeden Individuums und offenbaren zugleich die Verletzlichkeit aller Menschen, die Zartheit und Angreifbarkeit ihrer äußeren Hülle.
Mit seinen verschiedenen Bildserien hat Pieter Hugo in nur wenigen Jahren ein beeindruckendes Œuvre vorgelegt. Über die intensive Wahrnehmung der Körperlichkeit erfasst er in seinen Menschenbildern die Komplexität und Widersprüchlichkeit der Gesellschaft. Konstanten seines Werks sind Ernsthaftigkeit, Neutralität sowie ein grundsätzlicher Respekt vor seinem Gegenüber, dessen Würde stets gewahrt bleibt. Von diesem Ansatz her sind seine Arbeiten mit dem monumentalen Porträtwerk August Sanders vergleichbar, der mit seinem großangelegten Zyklus „Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts“ ein Zeitbild der Weimarer Republik geschaffen hat.
Einzelausstellungen (Auswahl)
2022 1994, Sorbonne Art Gallery, Paris, France
2022 Polyphonic, Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 Solus, Stevenson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2021 Pieter Hugo, Solus Vol. 1, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2021 Pieter Hugo, Being Present, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
2020 Pieter Hugo, La Cucaracha, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2019 Pieter Hugo, La Cucaracha, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2019 Pieter Hugo, La Cucaracha, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Pieter Hugo, Africa to China, Pékin Fine Arts, Hong Kong, China
2018 Pieter Hugo, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal
2017 Pieter Hugo, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
2017 Pieter Hugo, 1994 and Californian Wildflowers, Cokkie Snoei, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2017 Pieter Hugo, Peripheral Dispatches, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2017 Pieter Hugo, 1994, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2016 Pieter Hugo, Portraits: From the unsaid to the un-dead, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
2016 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany 1994, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Pieter Hugo, Thirteen Works, Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Ireland
2016 Pieter Hugo, In Focus: Pieter Hugo, as part of the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition,
2016 Pieter Hugo, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2015 Pieter Hugo, Corporeality, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2015 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France
2015 Pieter Hugo, In Focus: Pieter Hugo, as part of the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition,
2015 Pieter Hugo, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2014 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Fondació Foto Colectania, Barcelona, Spain
2014 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2014 Pieter Hugo, Rwanda 20 Years, The Hague, the Netherlands
2014 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Fundacão Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
2014 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Centro Atlántico De Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Canary Islands
2013 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2013 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary
2013 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Fotografiska Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
2013 Pieter Hugo, There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends, Rencontres d’Arles Festival, Arles, France
2012 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, The Hague Museum of Photography, the Netherlands
2012 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Musée de I’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
2012 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Stimultania Photographic Centre, Strasbourg, France
2012 Pieter Hugo, There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends, Extraspazio, Rome, Italy
2012 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Pataka, Pourirua, Wellington, New Zealand
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Cokkie Snoei, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Contact Photography Festival, Toronto, Canada
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, Italy
2011 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand
2011 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland, New Zealand
2011 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Théâtre de La Ville, Paris, France
2010 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
2010 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Photographic Centre Peri, Turku, Finland
2010 Pieter Hugo, On Reality and Other Stories, Forest Centre Culturel, BRASS, Brussels, Belgium
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2010 Pieter Hugo, On Reality and Other Stories, Le Chateau d’Eau, Toulouse, France
2010 Pieter Hugo, Pieter Hugo, Colette, Paris, France
2010 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2010 Pieter Hugo, BE PREPARED, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, Australia
2009 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Galleria Extraspazio, Rome, Italy
2009 Pieter Hugo, Pieter Hugo: Selected Works, Tinglado 2, Tarragona, Spain Nollywood, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, Australia
2009 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2008 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2008 Pieter Hugo, God’s Time is the Best, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2008 Pieter Hugo, Portraits, Fotogallery, Cardiff, Wales
2008 Pieter Hugo, Portraits, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, England
2008 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 Pieter Hugo, WORKS 2002-2007, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
2007 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2007 Pieter Hugo,Messina/Musina, Extraspazio, Rome, Italy
2007 Pieter Hugo, Messina/ Musina Standard Bank Young Artist 2009 exhibition, Monument Gallery, Grahamstown; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth; Durban Art Gallery, Durban; Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; Iziko South African National
2007 Pieter Hugo, Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 Pieter Hugo, Looking Aside, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2006 Pieter Hugo, Presence, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2006 Pieter Hugo, Looking Aside, Warren Siebrits Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa
2006 Pieter Hugo, Presence, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
2004 Pieter Hugo, The Albino Project, Fabrica Features, Lisbon, Portugal
2004 Pieter Hugo, The Albino Project, Museum of Modern Art, Rome, Italy
2004 Pieter Hugo, Rwanda 2004: Partial Remains and Personal Affects, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Gruppenausstellungen (Auswahl)
2023 Man & Mining, Museum der Arbeit, Hamburg, Germany
2023 INSIDE / OUTSIDE, PRISKA PASQUER PARIS, Paris, France
2023 The Artist List, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 You to Me, Me to You, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 New Horizons, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2023 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2023 Trace – Formations of Likeness, Photography and Video from The Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich,
Germany
2022 Our Time, Even in Dreams, Festival Jaou Photo, Tunisia
2022 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, Musei San Domenico, Forlì, Italy
2022 Labor&Materials, 21c Museums, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
2022 Parents, Fotomuseum Den Haag, the Netherlands
2021 Friendship. Nature. Culture, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2021 My whole body changed into something else, Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 Photographs in Our Mother Tongue, Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg
2021 Civilization – The Way We Live Now, Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseille, France
2021Transformation, Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, USA
2020 Dancing with the Dead, The Lock-Up, Newcastle, Australia
2020 Through an African Lens: Sub-Saharan Photography from the Museum’s Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, USA
2020 Civilisation, Photography, Now, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand
2020 Five Stories, One Point of View: MUSAC Collection, Museo de Arte Contermporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain
2020 Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA
2019 Unseen, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
2019 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2019 African Spirits, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2019 IncarNations: African Art as Philosophy, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium
2019 Here We Are Today, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, Germany
2019 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2019 The SuperNatural, 21c Museum Hotel, Nashville, USA
2018 Recent Histories / Contemporary African Photography and Video Art from The Walther Collection, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2018 About Face, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Evoking Reality, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2018 Hacer Noche (Crossing Night), Oaxaca, Mexico
2018 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
2018 Confusing Public and Private, 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial, China
2018 In This Imperfect Present Moment, Seattle Art Museum, Washington, USA
2018 Both, and, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins, Barbican Art Gallery, London, England
2017 Dangerous Art, Haifa Museum of Art, Israel
2017 AFRICA. Telling a world, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
2017 Up to Now. Fabrica Photography, Fondazione Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia, Italy
2017 A Short History of South African Photography, Fotografia Europea 2017: Time maps. Memory, archives, future, Chiostri di San Pietro, Reggio Emilia, Italy
2017 10 Years Old 2007-2017: A History of the World Told Through the Images of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena Collection. Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Foro Boario, Italy
2017 Good Hope. South Africa and The Netherlands from 1600, Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands Lavoro in Movimento/Work in Motion, MAST Foundation, Bologna,
2016 Regarding Africa: Contemporary Art and Afro-Futurism. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
2016 A Closer Look: Portraits from the Paul G Allen Family Collection, Pivot Art + Culture, Seattle, USA
2016 After Eden/Après Eden – The Walther Collection, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2015 Strange Worlds, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Foro Boario, Modena, Italy
2015 Beastly/Tierisch, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
2015 Spatial Stories: Topographies of Change in Africa, at the Center for Visual Arts, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA
2015 I will go there, take me home, MAC Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
2015 Representations of Otherness and Resistance, Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Bloemfontein, South Africa
2015 Prix Pictet: Disorder, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Somerset House, London; and other venues
2014 Prospect.3: Notes for Now (P.3), New Orleans Biennial, USA
2014 T.R.I.P. Travel Routes In Photography, Terme di Diocleziano, Rome, Italy
2014 Animalis, Fundación Forvm per la Fotografia, Tarragona, Spain
2014 From Sitting to Selfie: 300 Years of South African Portraits, Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014 Between Subject and Object: Human remains at the interface of art and science, Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Here Africa, Château de Penthes, Geneve-Pregny, Switzerland
2014 Present Tense, Galeria Municipal Almeida Garrett, Porto, Portugal
2014 Apartheid and After, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2014 Public Intimacy: Art and Social Life in South Africa at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2014 Chroma, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Art and Textile: Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art from Klimt to the Present,
2013 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
2013 Present Tense, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal; Fundação Calouste
2013 Gulbenkian – Délégation en France, Paris
2013 Transition: Social Landscape, Rencontres d’Arles festival, Arles, France
2013 Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive, The Walther Collection,
Ulm, Germany
2013 The Glorious Rise and Fall … (and so on), Groot Ziekengasthuis, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands
2013 Some Views of Africa, Studio la Città di Verona, Italy
2013 Either/Or, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Denmark
2013 Landmark: The Fields of Photography, Somerset House, London, UK
2013 Nothing to Declare?, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany
2013 The Loom of the Land, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive Part II: Contemporary Reconfigurations, Walther Collection Project Space, New York, USA
2012 Africa: Photographs and video from the Martin Margulies Collection, Bob Rauschenberg
Gallery, Edison State College, Florida, USA
2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012, The Photographers Gallery, London, UK
2012 Transitions – Social Landscape Project, Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Africa, There and Back, Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
2012 Photography of The Rainbow Nation, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague, the Netherlands
2012 Qui Vive? 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia
2012 International Art Exhibition, Rwesero Arts Museum, Nyanza, Rwanda
2012 Moscow Photobiennale, Moscow Multimedia Art Museum, Russia
2012 FotoTriennale.dk, Funen, Denmark
2012 Lima Biennale, Peru
2011 What we talk about when we talk about love, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Paraty em Foco photography festival, Brazil
2011 Urban Lives, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, California, USA
2011 All Cannibals, Me Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany
2011 Beguiling: The Self and the Subject, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Contact Photography Festival, Toronto, Canada
2011 Il corpo metafora di un’esperienza, CIAC Centro Italiano Arte Contemporanea, Foligno, Italy
2011 Lens: Fractions of Contemporary Photography and Video in South Africa,
2011 Stellenbosch University Art Museum, South Africa
2011 ARS 11, Kiasma, Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
2011 Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography,
V&A Museum, London, UK
2011 Possible Cities: Africa in Photography and Video, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery,
Haverford College, Pennsylvania, USA
2011 The Eye is a Lonely Hunter: Images of Humankind, Fotofestival Mannheim
Ludwigshafen Heidelberg, Germany
2011 The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989, ZKM Center for Art and
Media Karlsruhe, Germany
2011 For a Sustainable World, Les Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial, Mali
2010 Breaking News: Contemporary photography from the Middle East and Africa,
2010 Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio Provincia di Modena, Italy
2010 Fototage Trier, Berlin, Germany
2010 A Celebration of 20 Years, Hereford Photo Festival, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
2010 Angkor Photo Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia
2010 Disquieting Images, Triennale di Milano, Italy
2010 PEEKABOO: Current South Africa, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
2010 This is Our Time, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity, Walther Collection,
Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Southern Germany
2010 After A, Photo Notes on South Africa, Atri Reportage Festival, Atri, Italy
2010 Lie of the Land, Iziko Old Town House Museum, Cape Town; Sanlam Gallery, Bellville, South Africa
2010 1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, UK
2010 Halakasha!, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Sharon Stone in Abuja, Location One, New York, USA
2010 Counterlives, Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, USA
2010 Room for Justice, Avocats Sans Frontières, Antwerp Court House, Belgium
2009 Creating Identity: Portraits today, 21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
2009 A Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK
2009 The Endless Renaissance, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, USA
2009 Animalism, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
2009 Three Stories, CNA (Centre National de l’Audiovisuel), Luxembourg
2009 Unbounded: New Art for a New Century, The Newark Museum, New Jersey, USA
2009 Photo Beijing, China
2009 Les Rencontres de Bamako Biennial of African photography, Mali
2009 Stigmata, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, at the International Red Cross and
Red Crescent Museum, Geneva, Switzerland
2009 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Hoffman Gallery, Lewis and Clark College,
2009 Portland, OR; Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
2008 A Look Away, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany
2008 Room for Justice, Palais de Justice, Brussels; Les Rencontres de la Photographie,
Arles, France
2008 Street & Studio: An urban history of photography, Tate Modern, London, UK
2008 The Tropics: Views from the Middle of the Globe, Berliner Festspiele, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
2008 Make Art/Stop AIDS, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
2008 Presumed Innocence: Photographic perspectives of children, DeCordova Museum
and Sculpture Park, Massachusetts, USA
2008 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, Michigan, USA; Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art; Miami Dade Community College, Florida, USA
2007 Lumo ’07 – ‘us’, 7th International Triennial of Photography, Tampere, Finland
2007 Contemporary Photography from South Africa – Part 1, Hereford Photography Festival, Hereford, UK
2007 An Atlas of Events, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
2007 In Your Face, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
2007 Family Relation, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Faccia A Faccia: Il nouvo ritratto fotografico, FORMA, Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Milan, Italy
2007 Reality Check: Contemporary Art photography from South Africa 2007, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
2007 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Art Institute of Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2007 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, USA
2006 South African Art Now, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2006 How to Live Together, 27th São Paulo Biennale, Brazil; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Santiago, Chile
2006 Street: Behind the Cliché, Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2006 Pingyao International Photographic Festival, China
2006 Tour – Cape Town to Miami, Hilger Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
2006 Black, Brown and White, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2006 Nie Meer, De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium
2006 Rivers of Suffering, Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, USA
2005 re:Generation: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
2005 re:Generation: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Aperture Gallery, New York, USA
2003 Staged Realities – The Studio in African Photography, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2003 From Chaos to Order and Back, DDD Gallery, Osaka / Ginza Graphic Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2002 Margin, The Cold Room Photographic Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2002 Positions of South African Photography – Today, OMC Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany
2001 New South African Art, JAK Gallery, London, England
Auszeichnungen
2015 First prize, PDN Photo Annual Award, USA
2015 Shortlisted for Prix Pictet, Geneva, Switzerland
2012 Shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
2011 Seydou Keita Award, 9th Recontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial, Mali
2011 FOTOGRAFIA – The Road to Contemporary Art, Rome
2011 Young Director Award, Cannes Lions Festival
2008 Discovery Award, Rencontres d’Arles Festival
2008 KLM Paul Huf Award, Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam
2007 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art
2006 First prize, Portraits section, World Press Photo
2006 Getty Images Young Photographer Award
Sammlung
21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Auckland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Bass Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, USA
Bass Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, Germany
Deutsche Börse Group, Frankfurt, Germany
Ethnologische Museum, Berlin, Germany
FNAC, Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Modena, Italy
FRAC Réunion, Reunion Island, France
Fundación Forvm per a la Fotografia, Tarragona, Spain
Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, the Netherlands
Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
LaSalle Bank, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France
Margulies Collection, Miami, Florida, USA
Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, USA
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts, USA
MUDAM, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain
Museum Fünf Kontinente, München, Germany
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Museum of Fine arts, Houston, Texas, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA
Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA
Progressive Art Collection, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, USA
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
The Walther Collection, Burlafingen, Germany
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
The Guardian, February 2, 2020
The New York Times, January 9, 2020
Atelier Besuche, November 2019
Fotomagazin, October, 2019
Another Man, October 10, 2019
Stadtzauber Kunstmagazin, September-October 2019
Sunday Times, September 15, 2019
Wall Street International, August 2, 2019
The Guardian, July 19, 2018
Kunstforum October-November 2017
Zeit Magazin, 21 September, 2017
Kunstforum, May 2017
art, March 2017
ARD – ttt, February 2017
Monopol, July 2016
Weltkunst, May 2016
KSTA, March 2016
Photonews, April 2015
Journal de la Photographie, January 2013
KSTA, January 2013
Le Monde, January 2013
Le Figaro, January 2013
KSTA, December 2012
“South Africa is a fractured, schizophrenic, wounded and troubled place”, says Pieter Hugo. How can one live there? He feels like a “piece of colonial driftwood”, which is arguably what opens his eyes to the contradictions and conflicts, for the areas of friction and tension that exist within (South) African society. In “The Hyena Men Series” (2005-2007), Pieter Hugo exemplified the innate drama of post-colonial society for the first time. In Nigeria, he found a group of young men living with hyenas, baboons and snakes. Following a tradition, they travel around as actors with their animals and sell traditional medicine. Their performances create a sensation and enthral audiences. In his shots, taken against the backdrop of contourless shanty towns, Pieter Hugo focuses on the men’s relationship with their animals. The clearly composed photographs are unsettling images that symbolise the extreme tension between nature and culture, between humans and animals, tradition and modernity, city and wilderness that characterises urban sub-Saharan life today.
Africa also serves as a rubbish dump for Europe. Many of the mobile phones, computers and laptops discarded in the West end up in Ghana, where container-loads of computer scrap are piled up high. The deposits are not simply left idle, but rather serve as a precarious working environment for thousands of people who earn a living collecting metal here. Together with their cows, they live on the highly toxic, smouldering mountains of waste, burning appliances in search of reusable metals. Pieter Hugo photographed apocalyptic scenarios on a rubbish dump on the outskirts of Accra – ominous visions of an endgame in which the Information Age and the Stone Age collide and appear to eliminate one another. The exhibition also features the video installation based on the series “Permanent Error” (2009-2010).
Between 2006 and 2013, Pieter Hugo worked on a project that he called “Kin”. This deals with home, proximity, identification and a sense of belonging – something that, in South Africa, he has always experienced as being critical and riddled with conflict: How can one live in this country, which only shed its colonial heritage relatively recently, and which is plagued by racism and a growing chasm between rich and poor? Hugo shot photos at home, in townships and at historical sites, taking portraits of his pregnant wife, of domestic servants and of homeless people. The calm and clearly composed shots show beauty and ugliness, wealth and poverty, private and public, historical and topical. Without either idealising or dramatizing the subject matter, they paint a portrait of the complex society in South Africa today.
This is because any notion of harmony in the “Rainbow Nation” is wishful thinking. Even twenty years after the end of apartheid, black and white South Africans are still very much divided. In the series of 94 platinum prints “There Is A Place in Hell for Me and My Friends” (2011-2012), Pieter Hugo explores the supposed differences between skin colours. To do so, he took portraits of himself and South African friends. The close-ups, generally in the form of frontal head and shoulder portraits, were digitally processed afterwards. The image manipulation, whereby the colour channels were translated into grey tones, emphasise the pigmentation of the skin, using UV irradiation to render visible skin damage and small blood vessels directly beneath the skin. The results are quite astounding: on these photographs, all people are coloured. There is no longer a difference between “white” and “black” skin, but rather a variety of individual shades. The portraits show the powerful presence of each individual and, at the same time, the fragility of all people and the softness and utter vulnerability of their outer shell.
With his various photo series, Pieter Hugo has put together an impressive body of work in the space of just a few years. Through this intense perception of corporeality, he captures the complexity and inconsistency of society. Constants in his work include seriousness, neutrality and an underlying respect for his protagonists, whose dignity always remains intact. In this regard, his works are comparable with the monumental portrait works of August Sanders, who created a contemporary picture of the Weimar Republic with his large-scale cycle “Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts” (People of the 20th Century).
Solo exhibitions (selection)
2022 1994, Sorbonne Art Gallery, Paris, France
2022 Polyphonic, Stevenson Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2022 Solus, Stevenson Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2021 Pieter Hugo, Solus Vol. 1, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2021 Pieter Hugo, Being Present, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
2020 Pieter Hugo, La Cucaracha, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2019 Pieter Hugo, La Cucaracha, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2019 Pieter Hugo, La Cucaracha, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Pieter Hugo, Africa to China, Pékin Fine Arts, Hong Kong, China
2018 Pieter Hugo, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal
2017 Pieter Hugo, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
2017 Pieter Hugo, 1994 and Californian Wildflowers, Cokkie Snoei, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2017 Pieter Hugo, Peripheral Dispatches, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2017 Pieter Hugo, 1994, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA 2016
2016 Pieter Hugo, Portraits: From the unsaid to the un-dead, Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Port Louis, Mauritius
2016 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany 1994, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa Pieter Hugo, Thirteen Works, Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Ireland
2016 Pieter Hugo, In Focus: Pieter Hugo, as part of the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition,
2016 Pieter Hugo, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2015 Pieter Hugo, Corporeality, Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany
2015 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France
2015 Pieter Hugo, In Focus: Pieter Hugo, as part of the 2015 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition,
2015 Pieter Hugo, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2014 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Fondació Foto Colectania, Barcelona, Spain
2014 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2014 Pieter Hugo, Rwanda 20 Years, The Hague, the Netherlands
2014 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Fundacão Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
2014 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Centro Atlántico De Arte Moderno, Las Palmas, Canary Islands
2013 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 Pieter Hugo, Kin, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2013 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary
2013 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Fotografiska Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
2013 Pieter Hugo, There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends, Rencontres d’Arles Festival, Arles, France
2012 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, The Hague Museum of Photography, the Netherlands
2012 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Musée de I’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
2012 Pieter Hugo, This Must Be the Place, Stimultania Photographic Centre, Strasbourg, France
2012 Pieter Hugo, There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends, Extraspazio, Rome, Italy
2012 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Pataka, Pourirua, Wellington, New Zealand
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Cokkie Snoei, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Contact Photography Festival, Toronto, Canada
2011 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, Italy
2011 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand
2011 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland, New Zealand
2011 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Théâtre de La Ville, Paris, France
2010 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Pieter Hugo, Permanent Error, Brodie/Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
2010 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Photographic Centre Peri, Turku, Finland
2010 Pieter Hugo, On Reality and Other Stories, Forest Centre Culturel, BRASS, Brussels, Belgium
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2010 Pieter Hugo, On Reality and Other Stories, Le Chateau d’Eau, Toulouse, France
2010 Pieter Hugo, Pieter Hugo, Colette, Paris, France
2010 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2010 Pieter Hugo, BE PREPARED, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2010 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, Australia
2009 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Galleria Extraspazio, Rome, Italy
2009 Pieter Hugo, Pieter Hugo: Selected Works, Tinglado 2, Tarragona, Spain Nollywood, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, Australia
2009 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2008 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2008 Pieter Hugo, God’s Time is the Best, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2008 Pieter Hugo, Portraits, Fotogallery, Cardiff, Wales
2008 Pieter Hugo, Portraits, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, England
2008 Pieter Hugo, Nollywood, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 Pieter Hugo, WORKS 2002-2007, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
2007 Pieter Hugo, The Hyena and Other Men, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2007 Pieter Hugo,Messina/Musina, Extraspazio, Rome, Italy
2007 Pieter Hugo, Messina/ Musina Standard Bank Young Artist 2009 exhibition, Monument Gallery, Grahamstown; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth; Durban Art Gallery, Durban; Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein; Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; Iziko South African National
2007 Pieter Hugo, Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 Pieter Hugo, Looking Aside, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2006 Pieter Hugo, Presence, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2006 Pieter Hugo, Looking Aside, Warren Siebrits Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa
2006 Pieter Hugo, Presence, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
2004 Pieter Hugo, The Albino Project, Fabrica Features, Lisbon, Portugal
2004 Pieter Hugo, The Albino Project, Museum of Modern Art, Rome, Italy
2004 Pieter Hugo, Rwanda 2004: Partial Remains and Personal Affects, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
Group exhibitions (selection)
2023 Man & Mining, Museum der Arbeit, Hamburg, Germany
2023 INSIDE / OUTSIDE, PRISKA PASQUER PARIS, Paris, France
2023 The Artist List, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 You to Me, Me to You, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 New Horizons, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2023 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2023 Trace – Formations of Likeness, Photography and Video from The Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich,
Germany
2022 Our Time, Even in Dreams, Festival Jaou Photo, Tunisia
2022 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, Musei San Domenico, Forlì, Italy
2022 Labor&Materials, 21c Museums, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
2022 Parents, Fotomuseum Den Haag, the Netherlands
2021 Friendship. Nature. Culture, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2021 My whole body changed into something else, Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 Photographs in Our Mother Tongue, Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg
2021 Civilization – The Way We Live Now, Museum of Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseille, France
2021Transformation, Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, USA
2020 Dancing with the Dead, The Lock-Up, Newcastle, Australia
2020 Through an African Lens: Sub-Saharan Photography from the Museum’s Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, USA
2020 Civilisation, Photography, Now, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand
2020 Five Stories, One Point of View: MUSAC Collection, Museo de Arte Contermporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain
2020 Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA
2019 Unseen, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
2019 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
2019 African Spirits, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA
2019 IncarNations: African Art as Philosophy, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium
2019 Here We Are Today, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, Germany
2019 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2019 The SuperNatural, 21c Museum Hotel, Nashville, USA
2018 Recent Histories / Contemporary African Photography and Video Art from The Walther Collection, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2018 About Face, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Evoking Reality, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2018 Hacer Noche (Crossing Night), Oaxaca, Mexico
2018 Civilization: The Way We Live Now, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
2018 Confusing Public and Private, 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial, China
2018 In This Imperfect Present Moment, Seattle Art Museum, Washington, USA
2018 Both, and, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins, Barbican Art Gallery, London, England
2017 Dangerous Art, Haifa Museum of Art, Israel
2017 AFRICA. Telling a world, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
2017 Up to Now. Fabrica Photography, Fondazione Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia, Italy
2017 A Short History of South African Photography, Fotografia Europea 2017: Time maps. Memory, archives, future, Chiostri di San Pietro, Reggio Emilia, Italy
2017 10 Years Old 2007-2017: A History of the World Told Through the Images of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena Collection. Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Foro Boario, Italy
2017 Good Hope. South Africa and The Netherlands from 1600, Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands Lavoro in Movimento/Work in Motion, MAST Foundation, Bologna,
2016 Regarding Africa: Contemporary Art and Afro-Futurism. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
2016 A Closer Look: Portraits from the Paul G Allen Family Collection, Pivot Art + Culture, Seattle, USA
2016 After Eden/Après Eden – The Walther Collection, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2015 Strange Worlds, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Foro Boario, Modena, Italy
2015 Beastly/Tierisch, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
2015 Spatial Stories: Topographies of Change in Africa, at the Center for Visual Arts, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA
2015 I will go there, take me home, MAC Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
2015 Representations of Otherness and Resistance, Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, Bloemfontein, South Africa
2015 Prix Pictet: Disorder, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Somerset House, London; and other venues
2014 Prospect.3: Notes for Now (P.3), New Orleans Biennial, USA
2014 T.R.I.P. Travel Routes In Photography, Terme di Diocleziano, Rome, Italy
2014 Animalis, Fundación Forvm per la Fotografia, Tarragona, Spain
2014 From Sitting to Selfie: 300 Years of South African Portraits, Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014 Between Subject and Object: Human remains at the interface of art and science, Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Here Africa, Château de Penthes, Geneve-Pregny, Switzerland
2014 Present Tense, Galeria Municipal Almeida Garrett, Porto, Portugal
2014 Apartheid and After, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2014 Public Intimacy: Art and Social Life in South Africa at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA
2014 Chroma, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Art and Textile: Fabric as Material and Concept in Modern Art from Klimt to the Present,
2013 Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
2013 Present Tense, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal; Fundação Calouste
2013 Gulbenkian – Délégation en France, Paris
2013 Transition: Social Landscape, Rencontres d’Arles festival, Arles, France
2013 Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive, The Walther Collection,
Ulm, Germany
2013 The Glorious Rise and Fall … (and so on), Groot Ziekengasthuis, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands
2013 Some Views of Africa, Studio la Città di Verona, Italy
2013 Either/Or, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Denmark
2013 Landmark: The Fields of Photography, Somerset House, London, UK
2013 Nothing to Declare?, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany
2013 The Loom of the Land, Stevenson, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive Part II: Contemporary Reconfigurations, Walther Collection Project Space, New York, USA
2012 Africa: Photographs and video from the Martin Margulies Collection, Bob Rauschenberg
Gallery, Edison State College, Florida, USA
2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2012, The Photographers Gallery, London, UK
2012 Transitions – Social Landscape Project, Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Africa, There and Back, Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
2012 Photography of The Rainbow Nation, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague, the Netherlands
2012 Qui Vive? 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia
2012 International Art Exhibition, Rwesero Arts Museum, Nyanza, Rwanda
2012 Moscow Photobiennale, Moscow Multimedia Art Museum, Russia
2012 FotoTriennale.dk, Funen, Denmark
2012 Lima Biennale, Peru
2011 What we talk about when we talk about love, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Paraty em Foco photography festival, Brazil
2011 Urban Lives, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, California, USA
2011 All Cannibals, Me Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany
2011 Beguiling: The Self and the Subject, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2011 Contact Photography Festival, Toronto, Canada
2011 Il corpo metafora di un’esperienza, CIAC Centro Italiano Arte Contemporanea, Foligno, Italy
2011 Lens: Fractions of Contemporary Photography and Video in South Africa,
2011 Stellenbosch University Art Museum, South Africa
2011 ARS 11, Kiasma, Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
2011 Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography,
V&A Museum, London, UK
2011 Possible Cities: Africa in Photography and Video, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery,
Haverford College, Pennsylvania, USA
2011 The Eye is a Lonely Hunter: Images of Humankind, Fotofestival Mannheim
Ludwigshafen Heidelberg, Germany
2011 The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989, ZKM Center for Art and
Media Karlsruhe, Germany
2011 For a Sustainable World, Les Rencontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial, Mali
2010 Breaking News: Contemporary photography from the Middle East and Africa,
2010 Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio Provincia di Modena, Italy
2010 Fototage Trier, Berlin, Germany
2010 A Celebration of 20 Years, Hereford Photo Festival, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
2010 Angkor Photo Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia
2010 Disquieting Images, Triennale di Milano, Italy
2010 PEEKABOO: Current South Africa, Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
2010 This is Our Time, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity, Walther Collection,
Neu-Ulm/Burlafingen, Southern Germany
2010 After A, Photo Notes on South Africa, Atri Reportage Festival, Atri, Italy
2010 Lie of the Land, Iziko Old Town House Museum, Cape Town; Sanlam Gallery, Bellville, South Africa
2010 1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, UK
2010 Halakasha!, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Sharon Stone in Abuja, Location One, New York, USA
2010 Counterlives, Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
North Carolina, USA
2010 Room for Justice, Avocats Sans Frontières, Antwerp Court House, Belgium
2009 Creating Identity: Portraits today, 21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
2009 A Life Less Ordinary: Performance and display in South African art, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK
2009 The Endless Renaissance, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, USA
2009 Animalism, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
2009 Three Stories, CNA (Centre National de l’Audiovisuel), Luxembourg
2009 Unbounded: New Art for a New Century, The Newark Museum, New Jersey, USA
2009 Photo Beijing, China
2009 Les Rencontres de Bamako Biennial of African photography, Mali
2009 Stigmata, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, at the International Red Cross and
Red Crescent Museum, Geneva, Switzerland
2009 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Hoffman Gallery, Lewis and Clark College,
2009 Portland, OR; Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
2008 A Look Away, Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany
2008 Room for Justice, Palais de Justice, Brussels; Les Rencontres de la Photographie,
Arles, France
2008 Street & Studio: An urban history of photography, Tate Modern, London, UK
2008 The Tropics: Views from the Middle of the Globe, Berliner Festspiele, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
2008 Make Art/Stop AIDS, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
2008 Presumed Innocence: Photographic perspectives of children, DeCordova Museum
and Sculpture Park, Massachusetts, USA
2008 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, Michigan, USA; Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art; Miami Dade Community College, Florida, USA
2007 Lumo ’07 – ‘us’, 7th International Triennial of Photography, Tampere, Finland
2007 Contemporary Photography from South Africa – Part 1, Hereford Photography Festival, Hereford, UK
2007 An Atlas of Events, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
2007 In Your Face, Galerie Bertrand & Gruner, Geneva, Switzerland
2007 Family Relation, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 Faccia A Faccia: Il nouvo ritratto fotografico, FORMA, Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Milan, Italy
2007 Reality Check: Contemporary Art photography from South Africa 2007, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
2007 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Art Institute of Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2007 reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, USA
2006 South African Art Now, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2006 How to Live Together, 27th São Paulo Biennale, Brazil; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Santiago, Chile
2006 Street: Behind the Cliché, Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2006 Pingyao International Photographic Festival, China
2006 Tour – Cape Town to Miami, Hilger Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
2006 Black, Brown and White, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2006 Nie Meer, De Warande, Turnhout, Belgium
2006 Rivers of Suffering, Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, USA
2005 re:Generation: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
2005 re:Generation: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Aperture Gallery, New York, USA
2003 Staged Realities – The Studio in African Photography, Michael Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2003 From Chaos to Order and Back, DDD Gallery, Osaka / Ginza Graphic Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2002 Margin, The Cold Room Photographic Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2002 Positions of South African Photography – Today, OMC Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany
2001 New South African Art, JAK Gallery, London, England
Awards
2015 First prize, PDN Photo Annual Award, USA
2015 Shortlisted for Prix Pictet, Geneva, Switzerland
2012 Shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
2011 Seydou Keita Award, 9th Recontres de Bamako African Photography Biennial, Mali
2011 FOTOGRAFIA – The Road to Contemporary Art, Rome
2011 Young Director Award, Cannes Lions Festival
2008 Discovery Award, Rencontres d’Arles Festival
2008 KLM Paul Huf Award, Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam
2007 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art
2006 First prize, Portraits section, World Press Photo
2006 Getty Images Young Photographer Award
Collections
21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Auckland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA Bass Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, USA
Bass Museum, Miami, Florida, USA
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, Germany
Deutsche Börse Group, Frankfurt, Germany
Ethnologische Museum, Berlin, Germany
FNAC, Ivry-sur-Seine, France
Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio, Modena, Italy
FRAC Réunion, Reunion Island, France
Fundación Forvm per a la Fotografia, Tarragona, Spain
Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, the Netherlands
Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
LaSalle Bank, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France
Margulies Collection, Miami, Florida, USA
Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, USA
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts, USA
MUDAM, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain
Museum Fünf Kontinente, München, Germany
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Museum of Fine arts, Houston, Texas, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA
Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey, USA
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA
Progressive Art Collection, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, USA
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
The Walther Collection, Burlafingen, Germany
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
The Guardian, February 2, 2020
The New York Times, January 9, 2020
Atelier Besuche, November 2019
Fotomagazin, October, 2019
Another Man, October 10, 2019
Stadtzauber Kunstmagazin, September-October 2019
Sunday Times, September 15, 2019
Wall Street International, August 2, 2019
The Guardian, July 19, 2018
Kunstforum October-November 2017
Zeit Magazin, 21 September, 2017
Kunstforum, May 2017
art, March 2017
ARD – ttt, February 2017
Monopol, July 2016
Weltkunst, May 2016
KSTA, March 2016
Photonews, April 2015
Journal de la Photographie, January 2013
KSTA, January 2013
Le Monde, January 2013
Le Figaro, January 2013
KSTA, December 2012
PIETER HUGO – La Cucaracha
Sep 6, 2019 – Nov 23, 2019
Pieter Hugo
Peripheral Dispatches
Feb 11 – Apr 15, 2017
PIETER HUGO, KIN
Jan 30 – Apr 9, 2016
PIETER HUGO, CORPOREALITY
Jan 30 – Apr 25, 2015