Join us for a conversation between Tracey Rose, Christian Haye and Tumelo Mosaka on the opening weekend of Tracey Rose: Shooting Down Babylon. The conversation will explore Rose’s decades-long career with Christian Haye, a writer, poet and critic who represented Rose as her first US gallerist at The Project, and Tumelo Mosaka, a Johannesburg born New York City based independent curator.

Registration is encouraged, RSVP here.

Speaker Bios:

Christian Haye is a writer, poet and critic who lives in New York. In 1998 after seven years of publishing criticism, reviews and essays predominantly for London-based Frieze magazine he opened a gallery in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. In addition to presenting American audiences with artists such as Kimsooja, Elmgreen/Dragset, Minerva Cuevas, Romuald Hazoumè, Aernout Mik, Tracey Rose, Jose Damasceno, Monica Bonvincini, Elodie Pong and Yoshua Okon, the gallery also introduced (and sometimes re-introduced) American artists to the world including Barkley Hendricks, Coco Fusco, Paul Pfeiffer, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Julie Mehretu, Shu Lea Cheang, Kori Newkirk, William Pope.L and Camille Norment. Recently Haye has published criticism in the journals May, Atlantica, and Art Against Art. He is currently working on a book about the tenets, exigencies, polemics and perils of internalized racism within Black art and cultural expression. 

Tumelo Mosaka is a Johannesburg born New York City based independent curator. He has worked within and outside museums exploring global transnational artistic practices especially from Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. He has curated numerous exhibitions including, Usha Seejarim, A Solo Exhibition (2020) at Kunstinstituut Melly (Formerly known as Witte de With) in Rotterdam, Turning Tide, at the Mémorial ACTe Museum, Guadeloupe (2017), Andrew Lyght: Full Circle, Dorsky Art Museum, New York (2016), Poetic Relations, Perez Art Museum, Miami (2015), and Otherwise Black at the 1st edition of International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Martinique (BIAC) 2014. Mosaka is the project director for the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University and the resident curator for the Opa-locka Community Development Corporation in Miami. Previous positions include Chief Curator for Investec Cape Town Art Fair, South Africa. (2016-19), curator at the Krannert Art Museum (KAM) in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois where he curated several exhibitions including Blind Field (2013), OPENSTUDIO (2011), and MAKEBA! (2011). Before joining KAM, Mosaka was the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, NY where he curated Infinite Islands: Contemporary Caribbean Art (2007), and Passing/Posing: Kehinde Wiley (2004) among others. 

Tracey Rose (b. 1974, South Africa) is best-known for her evolutionary performative practice which often translates to and is accompanied by photography, video, installation, and digital prints. Often described as absurd, anarchic and carnivalesque, Rose’s work explores themes around post-coloniality, gender and sexuality, race, and repatriation. Rose was born in Durban, South Africa. In 1990, she joined the Johannesburg Art Foundation before obtaining a B.A. in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1996. In 2004, Rose attended The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance and later obtained her Master of Fine Arts, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK in 2007. She currently lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. Rose has taken part in several residencies including the Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, UK (2014); DAAD, Berlin, Germany (2012/13); Fresh, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2001); and ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas, USA (2000). She has exhibited widely internationally, most notably, May You Live in Interesting Times, South African National Pavilion, 58th La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2016); False Flag, Art Parcours, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2016); Toro Salvaje, Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2016); Reina Sof­ia Museum, Madrid, Spain (2014); Waiting for God, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa and Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden (2011); Rose O’Grady (with Lorraine O’Grady), Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2011); Performa 17, New York, USA (2017); Documenta14, Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany (2017); A Terrible Beauty is Born, 11th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France (2011); Africa Remix, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France (2005); and Africaine, The Studio Museum, New York, USA (2002), to name a few.