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Marvin Touré
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Isla Hansen
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Andrea Peña
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Asim Waqif
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Shohei Katayama
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Doreen Chan
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The Mattress Factory is an artist-centered museum, international residency program and renowned producer and presenter of installation art. We say “yes” to artists, offering time and space to dream and realize projects in our hometown, Pittsburgh, PA. We invite audiences from around the world and around the corner to step inside, immerse and connect with the artistic process.

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Asanda Kupa

Denied

2018

This play is a reflection on the (im)possibility of accepting diversity and the other. The fragmented body of the neoplasm—the fruit of unstable conditions—overcomes barriers, loves and denies itself and others, wanders around, forgetting its profession. It frequently and with pleasure divides, goes through dangerous palpation, questions the possibility of contact with the experience of the other. Poorly brought up but very successful, it invites us to a trans-species transition.

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Asanda Kupa's art speaks directly to South Africa's dramatic socio-economic inequalities and troubled political landscape. His expressionist work on the Marikana mine massacre in South Africa's North West province began with a series of powerful oil paintings reflecting, in his words, "the rage of broken spheres, failing systems and cries for space and resources."

Kupa was born and raised in the Eastern Cape, where many of South Africa's mineworkers originate. He continues to engage with the dusty forsaken landscape of Marikana and power struggles among factions, exploring the meaning of freedom, aiming to give voice to "the voiceless."

In a political paradox, the current landscape of the US government keeps Kupa's voice from being heard at the opening of this show. He was denied entrance to the United States. The agent at the US embassy refused to look at his letter of invitation from the Mattress Factory once they learned that Kupa had just returned from an artist residency in Iran. We re-applied and the second application granted him access (although not for the opening).

Asanda will now be able to paint "the voiceless" on top of his first rejection letter.

Curated by Tavia La Follette

Exhibition

Civil Rights & Civil Wrongs: South Africa and US, May 25 - July 29, 2018
About The Artist

Asanda Kupa's works in painting and printmaking speak directly to South Africa's dramatic socio-economic inequalities, troubled political landscape and the atrocities of the mining industry.

More from this Artist

More from this Exhibition

Ancient Instincts

In The Red: Never Mine

the space I am in: CONJURING

Dreamland

WE ARE HERE: Finding Beauty In The Raw

Superhero Puppet Project: Cape Town, Baltimore & Pittsburgh

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