Notes

Artist's Bio

Berco Wilsenach received a BA (1996) and MA Degree (2002) in Fine Arts at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He furthered his studies at the Accademia di Belli Arte in Genova, Italy (2004) and thereafter at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany (2005-2006), with governmental bursaries from the respective countries. In 2022 he completed a PhD in Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria.

He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in South Africa and abroad in prominent galleries and museums such as the Pretoria Art Museum, Oliewenhuis Museum in Bloemfontein, Palazzo Ducale and Villa Croce Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Genoa, Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna, Austria, the Smithsonian Institute's Museum for African Art in Washington D.C., and the Newark Museum, N.Y.

He received a grant from the Spier Arts Trust Patronage Program (South Africa) to complete his large-scale Project for the Blind Astronomer (2009-2013), which was exhibited at the Museum of African Design in Johannesburg.

Apart from various merit awards, Wilsenach won the PPC Young Sculpture's Award (1997) and the ABSA L'Atelier (2005). In 2014 he received an artist’s residence from the Ampersand Foundation in New York and during that time he was invited by the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of African Art to present a lecture.

Currently, Wilsenach teaches as a part-time lecturer at the University of Pretoria and presents workshops on a regular basis at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf.