Sabelo Mlangeni

Working largely in black and white format, Sabelo Mlangeni has built his practice around intimate photographs that draw out the inherent beauty in the ordinary. Mlangeni is driven by his interest in the notions of community and communing where a central part of his process requires him to spend significant time —weeks, months, sometimes years—with those he chooses to photograph; sharing intimately in their thoughts, feelings, stories and everyday lives. His practice is a continuous survey of the most challenging, beautiful and confounding aspects of the human experience. He states: “I have been moving around Johannesburg and its closest suburbs as someone interested in story-telling about everyday life. In my early walks, I found myself in many spaces where the situation and the living conditions were impossible to look at and to photograph. Then I started wondering, what to frame? Soon another side of the hardships emerged, and I attempted to capture that hidden beauty, that ordinary peace.”

Mlangeni has had numerous solo exhibitions to date, including most recently Imvuselelo: The revival at Cantor Arts Center in Stanford (2023) and Ngiyabona Phambli at the Institute of Ideas & Imagination in Paris (2023). His work has been widely exhibited both locally and internationally, including at The 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2024), A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town (2023), Haus der Kunst / The Walther Collection in Munich (2023), Para Site in Hong Kong (2022), Huis Marseille in Amsterdam (2022), K21 in Düsseldorf (2022), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2021), Frestas Triennial of São Paulo (2021), Lagos Biennale (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2019), Huis Marseille Museum of Photography (2019), Wits Art Museum (2018), Savvy Contemporary (2018), Kunsthal KAde (2018), Museum Africa (2015), Liverpool Biennale (2013), Lubumbashi Biennale (2012), Lagos Photo Festival (2011), V&A Museum (2011), Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (2010), and Johannesburg Art Gallery (2010).

Mlangeni has been awarded several prizes including the Columbia University II&I fellowship and artist residency (Paris, 2022), Africa MediaWorks Photography Prize (London, 2018), POPCAP’16 Prize for Contemporary African Photography (2016), and the Tollman Award for Visual Arts (2009). He has also had residencies at A4 Arts Foundation (Cape Town, 2018), Centre de Art Waza (Lubumbashi, 2017), Walther Collection (Neu-Ulm, 2017), Akademie der Künste (Vienna, 2014), Akademie der Künste (Berlin, 2013) and Centre for Contemporary Art (Lagos, 2010). His work is represented in several institutional collections, including the Tate Modern, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Walther Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, KADIST, and CNAP - French national collections.