Kapwani Kiwanga: The sum and its parts

Born in Hamilton, Canada and based in Paris, Kapwani Kiwanga produces works across installation, performance, and video that marry her training in anthropology and comparative religions with her interests in history, memory, and mythology.

For her first solo exhibition in the United States, Kiwanga presents a site-specific installation, video, and prints that draw on her research into the design of institutional spaces. Across Kapwani Kiwanga: The sum and its parts, the artist deconstructs the physical and psychological qualities of different built environments including schools, prisons, hospitals, and mental health facilities. In the main gallery, Kiwanga brings together architectural elements from historical and contemporary versions of these spaces including wall sections, lighting fixtures, and surface treatments creating a spatial collage that escapes the sum of its fragments. For these works, Kiwanga has drawn from her extensive research into disciplinary architectures throughout time, extracting specific details from the designs of late 19th century workhouses and reformatory schools in Britain and France respectively.

A distinctive feature of the exhibition is Kiwanga’s transposition of two-tone color palettes, often used in the interior of institutional spaces, onto the gallery walls. Social hygiene movements and hospital reforms at the turn of the 20th century inform the artist’s selection of colors as well as the work of Chicago-born color consultant and color theorist Faber Birren. A student in the College at the University of Chicago in the early 1920s, Birren later established a consulting company, advising on the use of color in industry and the workplace. Informed by color design studies by Faber Birren and Company held at the University’s Special Collections Library, Kiwanga recalls the application of color theory to the conditions of work, learning, surveillance, healing, and care.

Also on view is a selection of prints and the newly commissioned film A primer (2017) that delve deeper into the spatial histories of different building typologies. A primer is co-produced by Logan Center Exhibitions and The Power Plant, Toronto.

Kapwani Kiwanga: The sum and its parts is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Yesomi Umolu, Exhibitions Curator. Major support is provided by Etant Donnés Contemporary Art, a program of FACE Foundation, developed in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, with lead funding from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication and Institut Français-Paris. Additional support from the France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago.

Related programming

Opening and artist talk
January 20, 6pm

Please join us for an in-gallery talk with artist Kapwani Kiwanga followed by a reception celebrating the opening of Kapwani Kiwanga: The sum and its parts.

All events are free and open to the public.

About the artist
Kapwani Kiwanga (b. 1978) studied Anthropology and Comparative Religions at McGill University, Canada. Kiwanga was the 2016 Commissioned Artist at the Armory Show, New York and recently presented her work in solo exhibitions at The Power Plant, Toronto; La Ferme de Buisson, Noisiel; South London Gallery, London; and the Jeu de Paume, Paris. Recent group exhibitions include EVA biennial, Limerick; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; SALT, Istanbul; and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon. She has been artist-in-residence at L’Ecole National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Le Fresnoy: National Contemporary Art Studio, Tourcoing; MU Foundation, Eindhoven; and Le Manège, Dakar. Kiwanga lives and works in Paris, and she is represented by Galerie Poggi, Paris and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin.

Logan Center Exhibitions​
Logan Center Exhibitions presents international contemporary art programming at the Logan Center Gallery and throughout the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Reflecting the sprit of inquiry at the university, Logan Center Exhibitions focuses on open, collaborative, and process-based approaches to cultural production.