As a founding member of “tech-health artist group” NTU, South African artist Bogosi Sekhukhuni positions himself as a creative guru tackling the challenges of a society in which identity, technological progress and spiritual belief are in constant collision. In his US solo debut, Sekhukhuni employs video, digital media, painting, drawing and sculpture to examine how our relationships with each other—and with a world still rife racial and territorial conflict—are distorted by our aspirations to success, be it financial, social or ideological.
In Consciousness Engine 2: absentblackfatherbot (2013), for example, two digitally animated faces converse from opposing monitors. The images depict the artist and his estranged father, and their dialogue gives voice to the pair’s Facebook conversations, a highly mediated exchange that is at once banal and heartbreaking.
Another video, Thus Saith the Lord (Overunity) (2015), documents an interview with a businessman who attempts to reconcile his business ambition with his religious faith. Again the outcome is ambiguous. It’s hard not to admire the subject’s passion, but just where is his plan headed? While formally raw, Sekhukhuni’s show asks a raft of such urgent questions.