Athi-Patra Ruga

Athi-Patra Ruga creates videos, photographs, and costumes that confront and critique the colonial history of South Africa. Imagining a utopian future free of social norms, his vibrant works feature highly constructed environments and glamorous avatars that are an amalgam of spiritual figures and celebrities. Ruga’s status as one of South Africa’s preeminent artists was cemented in 2013 with his inclusion in the country’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He has also had solo exhibitions at the Bass Museum of Art —which presented “The Future White Women of Azania,” his multimedia series that explores the possibility of a truly free, decolonized Africa —and Performa 11 and 17. Engaging with themes of queerness, generational trauma, and liberation, Ruga’s work is included in collections like the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.