Hamba Nhliziyo Yami, Uye eZulwini (Song for a Loved One Who’s Departed Bidding Them Farewell as They Go to Heaven)
Sethembile Msezane
About the SessionHair Matters: A Selection of Works from the Georgina Jaffee Collection is a tightly focused, thematic auction that initiates a critical dialogue on the profound significance of hair in contemporary artistic practice. Featuring a cohort of accomplished contemporary artists, primarily those working from the African continent or within the global African diaspora, this selection of works is guided by a singular conceptual mandate: every work turns to hair as a powerful nexus, serving as medium, metaphor, or focal point of exploration.
Hair Matters illuminates the diverse interpretations and artistic vocabularies through which hair shapes identity, memory, and meaning across cultures, nations, and histories. Featuring artists such as Léonce Raphaël Agbodjélou (Benin), Ifeoma U. Anyaeji (Nigeria), Sethembile Msezane (South Africa), and Hank Willis Thomas (United States), the auction examines the aesthetics, politics, and sociology of hair, with particular emphasis on African perspectives and the connective threads that link the continent and its global diasporas.
Curatorial Voices: Natasha Becker, Jared Leite, Vida Madighi-Oghu and Sihle Motsa.
About this Item
Exhibited
Bkhz by Banele Khoza, Johannesburg, Liguqubele iZulu, 15 April to 20 May 2023.
Notes
“In charting this slow, painful and meandering journey of death, grief and rebirth, Msezane’s interweaving of cloud-like hair tufts and snuff on this porous canvas calls into being a spirit that is insistently and materially present. In so doing, she complicates and collapses the boundaries between spirit and matter, surface and material, memory and present reality, fragmentedness and repair. Interweaving the celestial and the terrestrial through these materials, Msezane reflects her grappling with complex and conflicting physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual states during painful seasons of transformation.”—Xola Nhliziyo
Xola Nhliziyo (2023) Bkhz by Banele Khoza, Liguqubele iZulu exhibition text, online, accessed 27 November 2025.
Provenance
Bkhz by Banele Khoza, Johannesburg.
The Georgina Jaffee Hair Matters Collection.
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