Installation view of Xenolith (Letsema), 2024, in UNDERSTUDIES, a solo exhibition by Nolan Oswald Dennis at Zeitz MOCAA
Installation view of Xenolith (Letsema), 2024, in UNDERSTUDIES, a solo exhibition by Nolan Oswald Dennis at Zeitz MOCAA
Image: Dillon Marsh

Exhibiting in a museum for the first time in SA, Nolan Oswald Dennis is no stranger to the art world. However, as a creative who started out with an interest in architecture, he describes himself as a reluctant artist learning to create a space of dialogue for audiences to grapple with notions of power and authority.  In the exhibition, “UNDERSTUDIES”, presented at the Zeitz MOCAA Museum of Contemporary Art, Dennis charts a path of reckoning with the past, present and future.

He does this by engaging the museum staff — those who are often unnoticed, despite playing a pivotal role in the colossal work of assembling exhibitions and assisting curators and artists in the creative process. Through the work titled “Xenolith: Letsema”, he encourages a unique language beyond exhibition-making and renders a moment of learning from those who work in the museum every day.

This particular stance on his process of making art is exemplary of a thinker whose core interest is to disrupt the direction of knowledge and its circulation.

“Letsema” is a Setswana word meaning to work together, collaboratively or in a community. In the context of Dennis’ installation, “Xenolith: Letsema”, denotes a moment that the exhibition curator, Thato Mogotsi, describes as “removing the expectation of having an exhibition”, though creating a kind of survey of the artist’s work.

Critical to his research-intensive presentation at Zeitz MOCAA is a shift in the curatorial processes that often create an unspoken discomfort with the handling of artworks by individuals who may not otherwise see themselves as artists, but as mere workers or labourers. This preoccupation of not including the curatorial team in the formation of “Letsema” meant that his entire exhibit pointed to this idea of what he describes as “one foot in the scientific, one foot in the world”.

Nolan Oswald Dennis, A Model for Theia (black), 2021
Nolan Oswald Dennis, A Model for Theia (black), 2021
Image: Anthea Pokroy

A reckoning is described as a new platform for new things to take place and allow for the old to fall away or to be done with. It also could mean that a time has come to deal with unpleasant events or situations — and perhaps attempt to make sense of past events. Mogotsi, a curator based at the museum, has worked on several successful projects and has had a great deal of experience in working with artists with a peculiarity to engage space in an enigmatic manner and Dennis is no different.

“The exhibition shifted my sense of curatorial responsibility,” said Mogotsi, when asked about the decision taken by the artist to not include the curatorial team in the making of “Letsema”. As an institutional critique, it meant that in their artist-curator working relationship, Mogotsi and Dennis had to create a new way of navigating the questions of authorship and agency, very carefully.

“UNDERSTUDIES” is on show at the Zeitz MOCAA Museum of Contemporary Art until May 25 2025

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