Studio grant holder in Stockholm 4 June – 29 August 2022

Dan Halter is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. His artistic practice is informed by his position as a Zimbabwean currently living in South Africa. His work deals with a sense of dislocated national identity, human migration and the dark humour of present realities in Southern Africa. This is largely a backlash from the history of oppression that continues to manifest today. He uses ubiquitous materials and engages with local popular visual strategies as a form of expression. His work often exploits the language of craft and curio in a conceptual art context. Halter explores various techniques of fabrication and frequently involves collaboration, usingmaterials that resonate with meaning. There is a narrative element to his art. He engages with history from a contemporary perspective and with the technology of today.

Photo: Dan Halter

Dan Halter graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BAFA in 2001. His solo exhibitions include Take Me to Your Leader, 2006 (João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town), Mafuta Farm, 2017 (Dillon + Lee, New York),Zimbabwean Traffic, 2017 (Skövde Konstmuseet, Skövde, Sweden) and Patience Can Cook a Stone, 2018 (Whatiftheworld / Gallery, Cape Town). Group shows include Energy Flash – The Rave Movement, M HKA (Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen), the 16th and 17th VideoBrasil (São Paulo) in 2007 and 2011, the 10th Havana Biennale in 2009, the Dakar Biennale in 2010 and Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. He has been an artist in residence in Zürich, Cologne, Turin, Rio de Janeiro and Dufftown in Scotland.