Email
no.ism.no.skism@gmail.com
EMPLOYMENT
Chief Curator, ARAK Collection. December 2024 – present, Doha, Qatar
Curator, NIROX Foundation and the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture. February 2022 – December 2024, Johannesburg, South Africa
Editor of Museum Publications, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA). June–December 2018, Cape Town, South Africa
Assistant Curator, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA). June 2017 –June 2018, Cape Town, South Africa
Assistant Editor, ART AFRICA magazine. June 2015–May 2017, Cape Town, South Africa
Founder, Ism-Skism. 2013–15, Clarens, South Africa
EDUCATION
MA in Contemporary Curatorial Practices, 2019–20. History of Art Department, Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Supervisors: Nontobeko Ntombela and Tegan Bristow.
Bachelor of Fine Art, 2008–2011. Fine Art Department, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa.
EDITORIAL PROJECTS
FORM JOURNAL: Issue 2: Matter [Forthcoming]. Christian, S. (ed.). Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and University of Johannesburg Press.
Richard John Forbes: Praxis [Forthcoming]. Christian, S. (ed.). Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and University of Johannesburg Press.
Walter Oltmann: In Time [Forthcoming]. Christian, S. (ed). Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and University of Johannesburg Press.
FORM Journal. Issue 1: Time. Christian, S. (ed.). Publisher: Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and University of Johannesburg Press.
Bruce Murray Arnott: Into the Megatext. Lecanides-Arnott, M., and Christian, S. (eds.). Into the Megatext. Publisher: Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and Print Matters Heritage.
Black Self. Jamal, A., and Christian, S. (eds.). Black Self. University of Johannesburg: The Thinker, May 2022.
Strange Cargo: Essays on Art. Ashraf Jamal. Strange Cargo: Essays on Art. Edited with a foreword by Sven Christian. Milan: Skira, 2022.
Coral Bijoux, Dreams as R-evolution. Jamal, A., and Christian, S. (eds.). Dreams as R-evolution. Cape Town: Print Matters Heritage, 2020.
William Kentridge, Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work. Christian, S., and McIlleron, A. (eds.). William Kentridge, Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work. Cape Town: Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, 2019.
Five Bhobh: Painting at the End of an Era. Dhlakama T., and Christian, S. (eds.). Five Bhobh: Painting at the End of an Era. Cape Town: Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, 2018.
EXHIBITIONS
Small Things [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, 17 November 2024 – 16 March 2025
Willem Boshoff: Assemblage and Collage [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture
Johan Thom: Grasp [Curator] NIROX and the Hub, Johannesburg
Relief [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, at NIROX, Sculpture Park, with Dada Khanyisa, Collen Maswanganyi, Simon Moshapo Jnr, Johann Moolman, John Nkhoma, Usen Obot, and Ben Tuge
Totems: Johann Moolman [Curator] Kromdraai Impact Hub, Johannesburg
Abdus Salaam: Insaan, Chapters 1 – 3 [Curator] NIROX Covered Space, Screening Room, and Residency Workshop, 27 April – 26 June 2024
Lines of Sight: Serge Alain Nitegeka: BLACK SUBECTS [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture.
Lines of Sight: Tumelo Mtimkhulu, One final act of love [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture
Richard John Forbes: Praxis [Curator] NIROX Sculpture Park
Serge Alain Nitegeka: Structural Response IV [Curator] NIROX Covered Space
Sean Blem: Resonance [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture
Walter Oltmann: In Time [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture
Joseph Awuah-Darko: Soft Landing [Curator] NIROX Covered Space, 21 October – 30 November 2023
Stefanie Koemeda: In My Brutish Breast [Curator] NIROX Cool Room, 30 September – 30 October 2023
Farieda Nazier: The Spectacle Lure [Curator] NIROX Screening Room, 24 June 2023
A Quiet Focus [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, with Usha Seejarim, Walter Oltmann, and Chris Soal
Sea: A Boiling Vessel [Curator] NIROX Sculpture Park, Covered Space, with Reshma Chhiba and Kamyar Bineshtarigh
Layers: Rock Art Across Space and Time [Curator] NIROX Sculpture Park; Brundyn; Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, 2022 – 2024, with Willem Boshoff, Coral Bijoux, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Joni Brenner, Jenna Burchell, Alinka Echeverria, Ângela Ferreira, Richard John Forbes, Stefanie Koemeda, Cameron Platter, Inga Somdyala, and Diana Vives.
Bruce Murray Arnott: Into the Megatext [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture
Cleave: An Alphabet of Form [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture.
Carving X. [Curator] Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, with Richard Chauke, Amorous Maswanganyi, Collen Maswanganyi, and Ben Tuge
Brett Rubin: Alter Nature [Curator] NIROX Covered Space, 20 August – 1 October 2023
Jonathan Freemantle: Spirit Matter. [Curator] NIROX Sculpture Park, November – December 2022
Indifference. [Co-curator] NIROX Sculpture Park, a subsidiary of Good Neighbours, Winter Sculpture Exhibition 2022.
Noria Mabasa: Shaping Dreams. [Curator] NIROX Sculpture Park and the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, 2022.
Afropolitanism. [Co-curator] NIROX Sculpture Park, a subsidiary of Good Neighbours, Winter Sculpture Exhibition 2022.
Good Neighbours. [Co-curator] NIROX Winter Sculpture Exhibition 2022.
‘You wouldn’t know God if he spat in your eye’: Impressions from Dumile Feni’s Scroll.’ [Curator] 2020. Ellipses Journal (online), with contributions by Stacy Hardy, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Atiyyah Khan, Phumlani Pikoli, and Wairimu Muriithi.
Rita Mukebo: Conversations Ancestrale. [Co-curator] The Point of Order (TPO), Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2019.
Artist Unrecorded. [Co-curator] Wits Art Museum (WAM), Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2018.
Publishing Against the Grain. [Organising curator] A travelling exhibition conceived and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. Inaugural iteration at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town, 2017–18.
Edson Chagas: Luanda, Encyclopeadic City. [Assistant curator] Curated by Paula Nascimento and Stefano Rabolli Pansera, Zeitz MOCAA, 2017–18.
Mathias Chirombo: Sacred Spaces. [Curator] Ism-Skism, Clarens, 2014.
Flatlands Tour. [Curator] Ism-Skism, Clarens, 2014, with Skubalisto, Mr Migo, Martin Lund, Mook Lion, and Sakhile Mhlongo.
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
“[Inaudible]: The Politics of Silence in the work of Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Gabrielle Goliath.” In Santos, L (ed), Cultures of Silence: The Power of Untold Narratives. London and New York: Routledge (2023): 115–127.
“Hieroglyphics of the Flesh: Revisiting the work of Vusi Beauchamp”. Christian, S., and Jamal, A. (eds.). Black Self. Johannesburg: The Thinker (special edition), May 2022.
“Access and Preservation in the Digital Age: The Case of Dumile Feni’s Scroll”. In Vlad Strukov (ed.). Transitory Parerga: Access and Inclusion in Contemporary Art. Moscow: The Garage Journal: Studies in Art, Museums & Culture, Iss. 1 (November 2020).
“Tomorrow There Will be More of Us: Art as a Contact Zone.” In Kolb, R., Patel S.A., and Richter, D. (eds.). Contemporary Art Biennales: Our Hegemonic Machines. Zurich: OnCurating, 2020.
You Wouldn’t Know God if He Spat in Your Eye: Impressions from Dumile Feni’s Scroll”. In Stolp, M., and Bristow, T. (ed.). Embodied Methodologies: Creative Research in the Global South. Johannesburg: Ellipses: Journal of Creative Research, Iss. 3, 2019–20.
CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS / SEMINARS / PANELS
Co-conspirators: Solidarity in Practice [ONLINE DISCUSSION] Nairobi Print Project and wherewithall, initiated and supported by OtherNetwork., 10 – 11 October 2024.
“Distance and Proximity”: Future Worldlings [CONFERENCE} Emily Carr University and Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, Canada, 28 September 2024
“Keeping Company”: 32 East / ARAK Art Writing Workshop [WORKSHOP Facilitator] 32 East, Kampala, Uganda, 13 – 15 August 2024, in conjunction with KLA ART 2024.
Transcience and the Image [CONFERENCE] Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, 19 – 20 August 2022.
Writers’ Workshop [WORKSHOP] Co-convened with Thulile Gamedze. NIROX Sculpture Park, 2022.
Black Self [CONFERENCE] NIROX Foundation, Johannesburg, 5–7 November 2021.
Art and Politics #3: Containment [WORKSHOP] Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 21 June–9 July 2021.
Independent Curators International (ICI): Curatorial Intensive [WORKSHOP] Cape Town: University of Cape Town, November 2019.
Encounters with the [Im]material [SYMPOSIUM] One-day international symposium. Johannesburg: Wits Art Museum, 6 August 2019.
Made in China: Globalisation, Seascapes and Theatricality [PANEL] Dialogue with Sean Metzger about the work of Isaac Julien and William Kentridge, Zeitz MOCAA, 11 May 2018. Transcript available on request.
Runaways [LECTURE] Delivered on the work of Glenn Ligon, Zeitz MOCAA, 28 March 2018.
Unfinished Business [PANEL] Dialogue with Ashraf Jamal on the work of Mary Sibande, Zanele Muholi, and Thania Petersen, Zeitz MOCAA, 28 March 2018. Transcript available on request.
Milk Fever [PANEL] Poetry reading and conversation with Megan Ross and Francine Simon, which took place alongside the installation of Wangechi Mutu’s three-screen video installation The End of Carrying All (2015) at Zeitz MOCAA, 18 May 2018. Footage available on request.
Alternate Voices: Exhausted Geographies [PANEL] Discussion with Ilze Wolff, Shahana Rajani, and Zahra Malkani at Zeitz MOCAA, 24 January 2018.
Alternate Voices: Makhzin [PANEL] Discussion with Mirene Arsanios, Palesa Motsumi, and Nick Mulgrew at Zeitz MOCAA, 13 January 2018.
Alternate Voices: Pages [PANEL] Discussion with Tazneem Wentzel, Ashley Walters, and Babak Affrassiabi at Zeitz MOCAA, 16 December 2017.
Alternate Voices: Our Literal Speed [PANEL] Discussion with Matthew Jesse Jackson, John Spelman, Mitchell Messina, and Emily Robertson at Zeitz MOCAA, 9 December 2017. Transcript available on request.
A More Human Face [LECTURE] Delivered as part of Grahamstown National Arts Festival’s “Think!Fest”, Makhanda, 2015.
ESSAYS / REVIEWS / INTERVIEWS
“Bearing Witness”. Catalogue essay in Lines of Sight, Part II: Tumelo Mtimkhulu, One final act of love (2024).
“Precedent: A backstory”. Self-published. March 2024.
“A Place to Daydream”. In Visite: Amine el Gotaibi. MCC Gallery, Morocco.
“The Man in the Hat: A View from the Radical Centre”. In Lecanides-Arnott, M. And Christian, S (eds.). Bruce Murray Arnott: Into the Megatext. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture and Print Matters Heritage.
“Ataraxia Revisisted”. ART AFRICA Magazine, 2021. https://artafricamagazine.org/ataraxia-revisited-sven-christian-reflectson-the-work-of-christiaan-conradie/.
‘Yto Barrada’; ‘Mouna Karray’; ‘Misheck Masamvu’; ‘Sabelo Mlangeni’; ‘Sam Nhlengethwa’ [BIOGRAPHICAL ENTRIES] Christian, S. “Yto Barrada”; “Mouna Karray”; “Misheck Masamvu”; “Sabelo Mlangeni”; “Sam Nhlengethwa”. African Artists: From 1882 – Now. London and New York: Phaidon, 2021, 47; 161; 209; 218; 246.
“The Illusion of Origin: Performance and the Power of Association.” Ntombela, N. (ed.). Curating Exhibitions 2019. Johannesburg: Wits School of Arts, 2019, 52–59.
“The grass is always greener on the other side: the photography of Johno Mellish”. SA Art Times (2020), https://arttimes.co.za/the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side-the-photography-of-johno-mellish/.
“The Machine in My Head: Byron Eksteen”. ART AFRICA (2019), https://artafricamagazine.org/the-machine-inmy-head-byron-eksteen/.
“Samuel Fosso: An African Odyssey.” Co-authored with Nwagbogu, A. Lagos: Lagos Photo Festival, 2017.
“Towards Collective Action”. RT AFRICA (March 2017): 230–37.
“Sacred Spaces: Mathias Chirombo”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/june-2016-mathiaschirombo/.
“The Red Death: Boetie is Verlore”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/march-2016-josephcoetzee/2016.
“‘Nothing Personal’.” ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/nothing-personal-a-group-exhibition-at-smacgallery-stellenbosch/.
“Paying Attention to the Person: Carthage Film Festival”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/paying-attention-to-the-person-carthage-film-festival/.
Nzewi, U. S., and Christian, S. “Spaces of Familiarity: Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi at the Hood Museum”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/in-conversation-withkemang-wa-lehulere/.
Tshabangu, A., Goniwe, T., and Christian, S. “Footprints: In Conversation with Andrew Tshabangu and Thembinkosi Goniwe”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/footprints-inconversation-with-andrew-tshabangu-and-thembinkosi-goniwe/.
Jaar, A., and Christian, S. “‘In Context: Africans in America:’ In Conversation with Alfredo Jaar”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/in-conversations-with-alfredo-jaar/.
Mehretu, J., and Christian, S. “‘In Context: Africans in America’: In Conversation with Julie Mehretu”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/in-context-julie-mehrethu/.
Masamvu, M., and Christian, S. “Still Still: In Conversation with Misheck Masamvu”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/still-still/.
Kariuki, I., and Christian, S. “Isaac Kariuki: Kampala Biennale | Artist in Residence”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/isaac-kariuki-kampala-biennale-artist-inresidence/.
Roussillon, A., and Christian, S. “Je Suis Le Peuple: Anna Roussillon”. ART AFRICA (2016), https://artafricamagazine.org/je-suis-le-peuple-anna-roussillon/.