The Aspen Art Fair 2025

The gallery’s multidisciplinary presentation will feature painting, photography, sculpture and collectible design by artists including Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Ange Dakouo, Cheick Diallo, Andile Dyalvane, Jozua Gerrard, Chuma Maweni, Mmangaliso Nzuza, Zanele Muholi and Zizipho Poswa. The focal point of Aspen Art Week, the fair’s immersive format, encompasses a programme of visits to local collectors’ homes, panel discussions, artist residencies, performances and outdoor activities.

Southern Guild will present a lightbox and several photographs from the Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series by Muholi, who was the fair’s 2024 artist-in-residence; new large-scale figurative paintings by Nzuza and Gerrard; a commanding ceramic and bronze sculpture by Poswa; hand-crafted seats by Diallo and Maweni; a ceramic sculpture by Dyalvane; and an abstract mixed-media work by Bineshtarigh, among others. The gallery’s presentation explores themes of agency, kinship and cultural lineage in rich and multifarious ways. The body – the literal and metaphorical site of engagement with the politics of place – is a recurring thread, from Muholi’s powerful invocations of Queer Black visibility and Poswa’s anthropomorphic totems, to Gerrard’s elegantly languorous subjects and the weighted presence of Nzuza’s figures.

Southern Guild brings a unique perspective to the event, ensuring that art from the African continent is represented within the intimate context of this high-altitude hub for contemporary art. The exhibiting artists’ work has continued to grow in international stature, particularly since the gallery’s participation in the fair’s debut edition and the opening of Southern Guild Los Angeles in Melrose Hill in early 2024.

Over the past year, renowned South African visual activist Muholi has held solo survey shows at Tate Modern (London), Serralves Museum (Porto), Instituto Moreira Salles (São Paulo) and SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah), and recently opened a new solo exhibition Faces and Phases 19at Southern Guild Los Angeles, marking the global expansion of this prolific portrait project.

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Dyalvane and Poswa, both leading ceramic artists on the continent, featured in a number of important institutional exhibitions in the US and Europe, including Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors and Radical Black Joy at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and the Michelangelo Foundation’sHomo Faber biennial in Venice. Works by Muholi and Poswa were also included inImagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, while Poswa is currently exhibiting inBetween Distance and Desires at The Soloviev Foundation in Manhattan.

Malian design pioneer Diallo held a major retrospective at Southern Guild Los Angeles, titled Taama – his first solo exhibition in the US – and exhibited with Dyalvane in By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects at the Denver Art Museum, which has work by both artists in its permanent collection. Diallo also recently had work acquired by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Multidisciplinary artist Bineshtarigh will hold his second solo exhibition with Southern Guild in Cape Town this fall, made using a unique process of extracting layers and found marks from the walls of artists’ studios. His work was recently acquired by the Jorge M. Pérez Collection in Miami and featured in Vitamin Txt: Words in Contemporary Art, published by Phaidon. Ivorian artist Dakouo, known for his textile-like woven sculptures inspired by traditional Malian amulets, participated in signifying the impossible song at Southern Guild Los Angeles in 2024. He received the SEED Award from the Prince Clause Fund and was a finalist of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, also in 2024. This year he has been selected for a fellowship at Civitella Ranieri in Umbria, central Italy.

Early-career painters Nzuza and Gerrard have both grown a loyal collector following over the past few years. Nzuza’s recent debut solo with Southern Guild, An Open Letter, further developed his distinct approach to figuration, exploring themes of community and metaphoric harvestusing a richly allegorical language. His work was recently acquired bythe Taguchi Art Collection in Japan.Gerrard’s 2024 solo at Southern Guild Cape Town, In the Present Tense, featured large-scale enamel-on-glass paintings whose radical flatness and confectionery colours belie their subjects’ solitary orientation and interiority. His works were also exhibited in a dual show at Southern Guild Los Angeles earlier this year and were recently acquired by the Jorge M. Pérez Collection.

During Aspen Art Week, two paintings by Gerrard will be included in a group show at Hexton Gallery, In Plain Sight, alongside works by Eric Fischl, Andy Warhol, Arcmanoro Niles, Scott Avett, Liz Markus, and Nancy Friedland. Gerrard will be the featured artist at an event on Wednesday, 30 July from 8-11 pm at Hexton Gallery, 447 E Cooper Ave, Aspen, CO 81611.

Jozua Gerrard will be present at The Aspen Art Fair and is available for interviews.