Jane Alexander

Working in figurative sculpture, photography, and video, Jane Alexander examines imbalances of power using eerie imagery. Alexander gained prominence early in her career for the work Butcher Boys (1985–86), a seated trio of nude, mutilated hybrid creatures made while studying at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Created during a year of protest and violence under apartheid in South Africa, the sculpture has been widely exhibited, including at the 1994 Havana Biennial and the 1995 Venice Biennale. Alexander has continued to produce cryptic but provocative figures that seem partially beastial, inviting conversations on the dichotomies between vulnerability and aggression and apathy and action. In 2013, a major traveling exhibition organized by the Museum for African Art in New York homed in on the site-specific aspect of Alexander’s practice, underscoring the universality and mutability of her ultimate subject matter: the human condition.