Hammer Museum

The paintings and multimedia installations of Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi (b. 1980, New York City) offer a meticulous interplay of line and color as they delve into the dynamics of identity, race, patriarchy, and power. Born to activist parents, including a father who endured a thirty-year exile as a South African freedom fighter, Nkosi spent her formative years between the Zimbabwean capital of Harare and the South African city of Johannesburg, where she currently lives and works. Nkosi’s artistic practice meditates on these Afro-diasporic lines of flight, with her conceptual and formal lexicon attuned to modes of abstraction and assemblage that are always changing. In Nkosi’s Gymnasium (2019–22) series, gymnasts, scorekeepers, judges, and spectators inhabit pared-down spaces characterized by sleek geometric abstraction. Notably, the figures are flattened, and their faces are devoid of distinguishing features. Throughout the series Nkosi skillfully captures emotional moments of humanity and tenderness rarely attributed to gymnasts—bodies stretching, embracing, and sitting in quiet contemplation between floor exercises.

In her most recent work, ARENA V (2024), Nkosi extends her study of the social and psychological experiences of Black gymnasts. In her view, these individuals often grapple with maintaining their personal identities amid public scrutiny as symbols of excellence. Yet the gymnast is not alone in this balancing act; Nkosi draws parallels between the athlete and the artist, both facing the challenges of performing, flailing, failing, being judged, and ultimately seeking freedom from these assumptions. She initiated this introspective process in her Arena (2021–) series, close-cropped paintings that contemplate line, form, geometry, and architecture. ARENA V synthesizes these concepts beyond the canvas into a multimedia installation, with Nkosi extrapolating her experimentation into the built environment. She employs her familiar visual language of geometric abstraction, measured figuration, and a softened yet rich color palette to explore the inner lives of subjects at the threshold of performance. The true allure is in the way ARENA V transforms the Hammer’s lobby into an architectural portal, prompting questions about the subtle gains achieved by manipulating the details of people and places. In 2012 the Nigerian novelist Ben Okri delivered a lecture in South Africa in which he compared the quest for freedom to playing a game that isn’t ours but rather the game of others. One way to get free, Okri argued, is by telling of “the real magical Africa that we don’t see unfolding through all the difficulties of our time, like a quiet miracle.” ARENA V, in this context, offers glimpses of that untold story.

Hammer Projects: Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi is organized by Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, curatorial associate, with Connie Butler, director at MoMA PS1 and former Hammer Museum chief curator.