Samson Kambalu (born 1975) is a Malawi-born artist, academicProfessor Samson Kambalu: Magdalen University and author who trained as a fine artist and ethnomusicologist at the University of Malawi's Chancellor College.

Life and work Kambalu was born in Malawi, where he attended Kamuzu Academy, the "Eton of Africa".Kamuzu Academy He graduated from the University of Malawi's Chancellor College, Zomba in 1999. Kambalu completed his MA in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University in 2003 and wrote his PhD at Chelsea College of Art and Design, looking at how the problematic of the gift and the general economy animates various aspects of his art practice.

Kambalu's work, which references Situationism and the Chewa Nyau culture of his native Malawi,Aloisia Leopardi, Game Changers: Samson Kambalu and his idea of play in art and life, Griot, 31 March 2016Roxana Azimi, L’Afrique à Venise (3) : sombres et majestueux « futurs » d’Okwui Enwezor, Le Monde, 7 May 2015 manifests in various media, from drawing, painting, installation, video to literature and performance.

One of his most well known artworks is Holy Ball, a football plastered in pages of the Bible.Massa Lemu, Play and the Profane in Samson Kambalu's Holyballs, Holyballism and (Bookworm) The Fall of Man Kambalu held an exhibition of 24 "Holy Balls" at Chancellor College in 2000 at which he invited the visitors to “exercise and exorcise”. He has since shown his work internationally. In 2015 he was included in Okwui Enwezor's All the World's Futures at the 56th Venice Biennale. In November 2015 a judge in Venice dismissed a complaintRaffaella Pelligrino, "Gianfranco Sanguinetti contro la Biennale di Venezia", Artribune, 28 December 2015 filed by the Italian situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti against the Venice Biennale and Kambalu with regard to the unauthorised and wholescale appropriation of Sanguinetti's entire archive for one of Kambalu's installations, Sanguinetti Breakout Area.Roxana Azimi, "L’écrivain italien Sanguinetti porte plainte contre la Biennale de Venise", Le Monde, 19 October 2015

Kambalu's Nyau Cinema is a series of short film clips of psychogeographical performances, shared as interventions on social networking sites and as installations in galleries.Eric Loret, "Samson Kambalu, souverain du cinéma «nyau»", Cafe des Images, 8 September 2015 These have been described as "cinematic fragments that blend slapstick and spiritual ritual".Louisa Buck, "Venice Biennale: highlights and best of the rest", The Telegraph, 29 May 2015

His first book, an autobiographical narrative entitled The Jive Talker or How to Get a British Passport, was published by Jonathan Cape (Random House) in July 2008, and in August 2008 by Free Press (Simon & Schuster). His second novel, Uccello's Vineyard, published in 2012, is in The Book Lovers, a collection of artist novels at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp.M HKA Ensembles: Uccello's Vineyard

Kambalu is represented by Kate MacGarry in London and Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm.

Kambalu’s sculpture Antelope was installed on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth from September 2022 to September 2024. The work restages a 1914 photograph of Baptist preacher and pan-Africanist John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley. In the image, Chilembwe wears a hat in an act of defiance, as it was illegal at the time for an African to wear a hat in front of a white person. The Guardian described the sculpture as “powerful and affecting,” noting how it highlighted histories of colonial resistance, while The Art Newspaper called it “a striking meditation on visibility and erasure in British history.”

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions 2017 – Red Barn Farm, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden 2015 – The Unbearable Lightness of Nyau Cinema, Gallery U Mloka, Olomouc, Czech Republic 2015 – Double Feature: Nyau Cinema, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany 2014 – Sepia Rain, Stevenson Johannesburg, South Africa 2012 – Tattoo City: The First Three Chapters (with guests), Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK 2000 – Holyball Exercises and Exorcisms, Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi

Selected group exhibitions 2016 – Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK 2016 – Dakar Biennale, Dakar, SenegalL’exposition internationale 2016 – Lost & Found, Paradiso, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2015 – Embodied, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark 2015 – 50/50, New Church Museum, Cape Town, South AfricaThuli Gamedze, Giving renewed attention to old voices?, Arthrob, 1 February 2016 2015 – Transformation Marathon, Serpentine Galleries, London 2015 – Schema, Stevenson Cape Town, South Africa 2015 – All The World's Futures, Venice Biennale, ItalySean O'Toole, Africa from afar, Contemporary And, 29 May 2015 2014 – Chroma, Stevenson Cape Town, South Africa 2014 – Dakar Biennale, Dakar, Senegal 2004 – Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Liverpool, UK

Bibliography

Books 2012 – Uccello's Vineyard. ASIN: B009Z48N2Y 2008 – The Jive Talker or, How to Get a British Passport.

Articles 2015, Entering the Arena: All the World's Futures, Art in Culture, South Korea, and Contemporary And 2014, Great African Minds: Dr Charles Chanthunya, Peter Hammer Verlag 2013, The Museum and the Individual, essay on Meschac Gaba's Museum of Contemporary African Art, Tate Modern 2011, Der skurrile Diktator, Kulturaustausch, IFA, Germany 2010, Dr Albert Schweitzer's Troublesome Young Brother, Kulturaustausch, IFA, Germany 2010, Windmill Jive, Salz Magazine, Austria 2009, Action Bitte – Malawians at Leisure, Kulturaustausch, IFA, Germany

Residencies, fellowships and awards 2015, Research fellowship, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA 2014, Research fellowship, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA 2013, AHRC PhD Research Award, UK 2005–10, The Fire Station Residency, ACME, London, UK 2004, Decibel Visual Arts Award, Arts Council 2000, Thami Mnyele Artist Residency, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Notes and references

External links

Kate MacGarry: Samson Kambalu Random House Simon & Schuster Contemporary And: Samson Kambalu Giles Foden, "Good news from Africa", review of The Jive Talker, The Guardian, 23 August 2008. Susan Williams, "The Jive Talker, by Samson Kambalu – Portrait of the artist as a young African" (review), The Independent, 4 July 2008. Aminatta Forna, "Review: The Jive Talker by Samson Kambalu", The Telegraph, 10 August 2008. Massa Lemu, "For the ranter, the whole world is a playground. In conversation with Samson Kambalu", Contemporary And, 13 February 2014.