Kapwani Kiwanga | Rudiments

Goodman Gallery is pleased to present ‘Rudiments’, a new solo exhibition by Kapwani Kiwanga, marking her return to the London gallery following 2024 Venice Biennale Canada Pavilion solo presentation ‘Trinket’ and her travelling 2023 mid-career retrospective, ‘The Length of the Horizon’ at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and Copenhagen Contemporary

Often, Kiwanga focuses on the body as the primary receptor, drawing attention to the unique bodily sensations and perceptions experienced within specific environments she creates. Through this approach, she engages our perception and interactions with the world around us, challenging the accepted systems embedded within structures built throughout time. Although the works in the show are less overtly somatic, they remain sensorial, stimulating perception through line, colour, shape, and form, emphasising basic rhythms and tectonic scales. 

The exhibition draws attention to the essential elements that seem foundational to world-building. The materials in the exhibition subtly point to the primacy of earth, rock, fire and water, meditating on their role in shaping the physical environment. Be it hand-made ceramic tiles that resonate with the solidity of earth, gold leaf that evokes histories of extraction, the pliability of rope and its reference to maritime history as connecting various communities, or metal characterised by its strength, durability, and malleability. 

The structure of ‘Rudiments’ is such that each level of the gallery addresses two distinct ideas, each explored through the thoughtful use of materials and the precise arrangement of objects. Works on the upper level of the gallery, ‘A Coincidence of Wants’ — made with glass beads, and metal leaf and wood— Kiwanga draws attention to the historical and ongoing impact of transoceanic trade exchanges. By highlighting these materials, she gestures to how the movement of goods across continents has shaped our contemporary world, influencing economic systems, cultural exchanges, and material culture. The work not only reflects on the legacy of trade but also invites us to consider how such historical processes continue to resonate in our current global landscape. The works in the lower level of the gallery — made from handmade ceramic tiles, acrylic paint, rope, metal leaf and wood frame — take the notion of the natural environment as an element in the construction of worlds and cosmogonies, evoking imagined landscapes. Kiwanga nudges towards these elements in both form and title; ‘Magma’, ‘Rift’, ‘Cascade’, ‘Dune’, ‘Canopy’, ‘Astres’ (translated as stars in English). 

Notions of utopia, which course through the exhibition, challenge and expand our knowledge of possibility (and possibilities of knowledge). By suggesting the possibility of new worlds, ‘Rudiments’ reflects the limitless potential of existence—spaces that exist alongside our present reality, yet reveal the complex facets of human experience and suggest alternative possibilities.