Current and Upcoming Exhibitions:

27 January 2024 - 7 April 2024
35th Bienal de São Paulo - choreographies of the impossible, MAM, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Solo Exhibitions:

2023
SANTU MOFOKENG | Billboards, Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne, Germany

2022
Santu Mofokeng: Stories. Kunsthaus Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

2019
Santu Mofokeng: Stories. foam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2018
Santu Mofokeng: Stories. Kliptown Community Centre, Soweto, South Africa

2016
Santu Mofokeng. A Silent Solitude. Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Modena Foro Boario, Italy

2012    
Chasing Shadows/Santu Mofokeng, thirty years of photographic essays, Bergen Kunsthall, the Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011    
Chasing Shadows/Santu Mofokeng, thirty years of photographic essays, Jeu de Paume, Kunsthalle Bern. 

2010    
Let’s Talk, Arts on Main, Johannesburg, South Africa
Remaining Past, Minshar Art Institute, Tel Aviv, Israel
Chasing Shadows, Anne Arbor Institute of Humanities, Michigan, USA

2009
Mofokeng survey exhibition, Autograph ABP, London, UK

2008
Santu Mofokeng’s Landscapes, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa
Homeland Security, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa 

2007    
Invoice Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa 

2006    
Invoice Iziko, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 

2004    
Rethinking Landscape, Centre of Photography D'Ille-De-France, Pontault-Combault, Paris, France
Santu Mofokeng, Gallery Momo, Johannesburg
Santu Mofokeng, David Krut Projects, New York

2003    
Chasing Shadows, Memling Museum, Brugge, Belgium

2000    
Sad Landscapes, Camouflage Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Chasing Shadows, Transparencies International, Berlin

1999    
Black Photo Album/ Look At Me (photos), FNAC Montparnasse, France 

1998    
Lunarscapes, Nederland Foto Instituut, Rotterdam, Holland
Chasing Shadows, Nederland Foto Instituut (NFI), Rotterdam, Holland
Black Photo Album/ Look At Me (slides and text slides), NFI, Holland

1997    
Chasing Shadows, Gertrude Posel Gallery, Wits University, South Africa 

1995    
Distorting Mirror/Townships Imagined, Worker´s Library, Johannesburg, South Africa

1994    
Rumours / The Bloemhof Portfolio, Market Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa

1990    
Like Shifting Sand, Market Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa

Select Group Shows:

2024
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern, London, UK

2023
Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, The Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland

EXPOSED, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

Trace - Formations of Likeness - Photography and Video from the Walther Collection, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany

Beyond the Binary: Santu Mofokeng and David Goldblatt, The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany

Everybody Talks About the Weather, Fondazione Prada, Venice, Italy

35th Bienal de São Paulo - choreographies of the impossible, São Paulo, Brazil

Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, UK

2022-23
Hollow Earth: Art, Caves & The Subterranean Imaginary, Nottingham Contemporary, United Kingdom

2022
Africa. The Ecstatic Religions, Chemins du patrimoine en Finistère, France

The Show is Over, South London Gallery, United Kingdom  

2020-21
African Cosmologies: Photography, Time and Other, Fotofest Biennal, Houston, USA 

2019
Apologia della Storia - The Historian’s Craft, ICA Milano, Italy 

2018-2019
Crossing Night, Idris Niam Foundation, Mexico City
Afrique. Les religions de l’extase, Musée d’ethnographie de Genève, Switzerland 

2018
Days Without A Night, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018, Fort Kochi, Kerala 

2017
Space and Photography, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria

2016
Festival Internacional de Fotografia, SCAN, Tarragona
Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan
Home Truths, IZIKO South African National Gallery, South Africa
Dubai Photo 2016 Exhibition, Dubai
South Africa, The British Museum, UK

2015    
Álbum de Família, Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro
Between States of Emergency, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Johannesburg
The Problem of God, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein - Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Looking Back/Looking Forward, FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Spatial Stories: Topographies of Change in Africa, Center for Visual Art, Metropolitan State University of Denver, USA

2014-15
INPUT / OUTPUT, Interface Worpswede, Worpswede die Museen, Germany

2014    
Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Apartheid and After, Huis Marseille Museum door Fotografie, Amsterdam
8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin
SITE: Photography and National Trauma in South Africa, GUS University Stellenbosch Art Gallery, South Africa

2013-14
Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, International Centre of Photography (New York), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea (Milan) and Museum Africa (Johannesburg)
Biographical Forms, Construction and Individual Mythology, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, Smithsonian, Washington DC 

2013    
German Pavilion, 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
African Photography from The Walther Collection Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive, The Walter Collection, Ulm, Germany
Umhlaba Wethu This is Our Land: 100 year commemoration of the 1913 Land Act, South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg
A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, Centre Pompidou - Cinema 2, Paris, France
African Photography from East, West and South Africa, The National Gallery of Nyanza, Rwanda
My Joburg: Short Change, a photography exhibition of work by students and alumni of the Market Photo Workshop, La Maison Rouge, Paris

2012-13
Household Narratives. Beyond the Family Album, Diputación de Huesca, Spain
Poetry and Dream Collection Display, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom

2011  
Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity, The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany
(Re)construções: Arte Contemporânea de África do Sul, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói

2010
Darkroom: Photography and New Media in South Africa since 1950, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia, USA
Animism, Extra City/M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium; Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Generali Foundation, Vienna, Austria
Apartheid - Widerstand - Freiheit: Südafrikanische Fotografie 1950-2010, Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin, Germany

2009
The Symbolic Efficiency of the Frame, T.I.C.A.B. Tirana International Contemporary Art Biannual, Albania
Imaginar_historiar, XVI Jornadas de Estudio de la Imagen, Madrid, Spain
Joburg Art Fair, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa 
Urban Reflections, Stills Scotland's Centre for Photography, Edinburgh, Scotland

2008
Home Lands - Land Marks: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Haunch of Venison, London, UK
Rationalism of Nationalism, Warren Siebrits, Johannesburg, South Africa

2007
52nd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Climate Change, Ruth First Fellowship Award Conference, Atlas Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa
Apartheid – The South African Mirror, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain 
Uniform: South Africa's New Clothes, Spanierman Modern, New York, USA
Reality Check: Zeitgenössische Fotokunst aus Südafrika, Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany; Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany; Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen, Germany; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 

2004-7 
Afrika Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldof, Germany; Hayward Gallery, London, UK; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden

2006  
Exorcising Exoticism, International Contemporary Art Exhibition Taipei, Taiwan
1a Trienal de Luanda, Angola
Black, Brown + White, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria

2005-6 
Unsettled, Durban Art Gallery, South Africa; Reykjavik Museum of Photography, Iceland; Kristanstads Konsthall, Sweden; National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, Denmark

2005    
10 years 100 artists: Art in a Democratic South Africa, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2004    
Post! Contemporary South African Photography, Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo, Japan 
Forbidden City International Photography Festival, Beijing, China
New Identities: Contemporary South African Art, Bochum Museum, Germany; Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa;  Pretoria Art Museum, South Africa
Ralentir vite, le Plateau/Frac Ile-de-France, Paris
Photography from South Africa, Christine Koenig Galerie, Vienna, Austria

2003    
5es Recontres de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako, Mali
6th Sharjah International Biennial, United Arab Emirates

2002     
Documenta11, Kassel, Germany
25a Bienal de São Pãolo, Brasil 
African Advertising Art, Iwalewa House, University of Bayreuth, Germany 
Surviving Apartheid, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France
Dislocation: Installations from South Africa, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain; Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain 

2001
The Short Century, Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994, Museum Vialla Stuck, Munich, Germany; Haus der Kulturen der Welt/Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany; MoMa/PS1, New York, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA
Africas: The Artist and the City, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain

2000    
Unplugged V, Market Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa
Man + Space, Gwangju Biennale, South Korea
Translation/Seduction/Displacement, White Box Gallery, New York, USA; Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, Portland, USA
The Song of the Earth: Biennials in Dialogue, Fridericianum Museum, Kassel, Germany
Positions Attitudes Actions, 4th Photo Biennale Rotterdam, Netherlands
L´etat des Choses, Kunst-werke Berlin, Germany
Rhizomes of Memory, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway

1999    
Africa by Africa: A Photographic View, Barbican Centre, London, UK 
Identity and Environment, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary 
A South Photographs Collective Exhibition, Area Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

1998    
Blank__Architecture, Apartheid and After, Nederlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, Netherlands
3es Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako, Mali 
Dreams and Clouds, KulturHuset, Stockholm, Sweden 
Democracy´s Images, BildMuseet, Umea University, Sweden; Atlas Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa

1997    
Alternating Currents, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa

1996    
In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present, Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
Images of Africa Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark
Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa 
Colours: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin, Germany

1995    
Transitions: Contemporary Art from South Africa, F-Stop Gallery, Bath, UK 
3rd International Photography Biennale Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands
Panoramas of Passage: Changing Landscapes of South Africa, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa
Les assises de l´Afrique, UNESCO, Paris, France 

1994    
1es Recontres de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako, Mali
This Land is our Land, Bloemfontein, South Africa

1993    
FNAC - Mother Jones Award winners 1992, Light Factory, North Carolina, USA
Happy Sad Land, Internationale Fototage Herten, Germany 
Montage ´93, International Festival of the Image, Rochester, USA
In Transit, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA

1991    
AA Vita Art Now, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa 
Alltag schwarz–weiss: Fünf Fotografinnen und Fotografen aus Südafrika, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin, Germany

1990    
Zabalaza Cultural Festival, London, UK 
History Workshop Open Day Festival, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa 
Women´s Exhibition, Malibongwe Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands 
Going Home, Canon Image Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands

1989    
Black Sash Human Rights Exhibition, Market Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa

Collaborations:

2000    
Rhizomes of Memory with David Goldblatt and George Hallett - Henie Onstad    Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway

1995    
South African Photography with Peter Magubane - Institut Für Auslandsbeziehungen Gallery, Bonn, Germany 

1990    
Going Home with Paul Weinberg - Canon Image Centre, Amsterdam, Holland 

Teaching:

2004   
Master Class - Market Gallery Photography Workshop 
Resident Artist at University of the Witwatersrand

1989    
Total Photography Experience for Beginners" - The Market Gallery Photography Workshop, Johannesburg, S.A. 

Curating:

2001    
Compound to Kraal: Salvaging and Refiguring the Duggan-Cronin Collection, with Thierry Secretan.
The Workers´ Library and Museum, Newtown, Johannesburg.

1997    
Fin de Sieclè, (Naivety in SA documentary Photography - Andrew Tshabangu and Lien Botha.) Nantes Festival, France

1996    
2nd Recontre de la Photographie Africaine, with Marilyn Martin. Bamako, Mali

Awards and fellowships:

2016
Honorary Doctorate, WITS University, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016
International Photography prize, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Modena Foro Boario, Italy

2009    
Prince Claus Lauriat, Netherlands

2007    
Ruth First Fellowship, Johannesburg, South Africa

2001    
DAAD Fellowship, Belin, Germany 

1999    
Contre Jour Residency, Marseille, France 

1999    
DAAD Fellowship, Worpswede, Germany

1998    
Künstlerhaus Worpswede Fellowship, Germany

1997    
Short-listed for the FNB Vita Award for the Visual Arts, Johannesburg, South Africa

1992    
1st Mother Jones Award for Africa

1991    
Ernest Cole Scholarship to study ICP, New York, USA

1990    
AA Vita Award Nomination for Like Shifting Sand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Seminars, symposiums and panel discussions:

1999   
"The Black Photo Album" Slide presentation - FNAC Montparnasse, Paris, France (March)

1999    
"Trajectory of a Streetphotographer:1973-1998" Panel discussion and slide presentation on Taxonomy of African Art - College Arts Association Convention Centre, Los Angeles, Ca. (Feb)

1998    
"3rd Recontre de la Bamako" Symposium"- Bamako, Mali (Dec)

1998    
"Democracy´s Images" Symposium - BildMuseet, Umea, Sweden (October)

1998    
"Images and Dreams" Symposium - KulturHuset, Stockholm, Sweden (October)

1995    
"Transitions: Contemporary Art from South Africa", Panel Discussion and slide presentation - Green Park Station Brasserie, Bath, United Kingdom (May)

1993    
"The Soweto Project" Lecture and slide presentation, Herten Fotofestival -Herten, Germany (October)

1992    
"New Photography in a changing" Guest Lecture, Institute for Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities - North Western University, Chicago, U.S.A. (March)

1989    
"Photography My Way" Slide presentation, Department of Journalism - Rhodes University, Grahamstown, S.A. (May)

Select photo-essays:

"End of the Line/ Where did the road lead when it lead nowhere (Auschwitz)"

"Shebeen"

"On the Tracks/ New York Underground"