Representation as 'an act of agency' marks Southern Guild's debut at Frieze New York

Southern Guild marks its first appearance at Frieze New York with a curated presentation of sculpture, painting, tapestry and photography by Kamyar Bineshtarigh, Alexandra Hedison, Bonolo Kavula, Roméo Mivekannin, Zanele Muholi, Zizipho Poswa and Dominique Zinkpè.

Following the launch of its US space in Los Angeles in early 2024, the art gallery has rapidly expanded its presence at major international fairs. This year’s programme includes FOG Design+Art in San Francisco, the Frieze fairs in LA, London and now New York, in addition to returns to Expo Chicago, The Armory Show, Aspen Art Fair and more.

"We are committed to spotlighting the practices of our artists and ensuring deeper representation of African perspectives in global art contexts. Being at Frieze New York, one of the most important art fairs in the world, is a major affirmation of their work’s unique relevance," says Trevyn McGowan, co-founder of Southern Guild.

From May 7 - 11, 2025, the presentation on view at Booth A6 in The Shed, Manhattan, New York, features artists who deploy 'representation as an act of agency'—interrogating Western visual histories and asserting contemporary visibility, memory and heritage. As the gallery's press release puts it, "Their works respond to the need for contemporary visibility, documentation, preservation of cultural heritage and memorialisation within today’s fractured socio-political climate."

Visual activist Muholi presents new lightboxes from Being (T)here, Amsterdam (2009) and the ongoing Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series (2014-), with photographs exploring the politics of identity, visibility and self-representation. "Being (T)here, Amsterdam documents an intervention in which Muholi posed as a sex worker wearing umutsha (an isiZulu beaded waistbelt) and a black satin corset in a window in the Red Light District. The series captures the hazy silhouettes of onlookers, the artist’s alluring presence and the moments of exhaustion at their performed exoticism. Somnyama Ngonyama, an ever-expanding oeuvre of black-and-white images, presents the artist as a shifting vessel for different characters and archetypes. The series responds to the near-invisibility of Black women and non-binary bodies as subjects of representation in the history of Western painting and portraiture prior to the 20th century," the press release states.

Poswa will unveil two new bronze and ceramic sculptures from her Magodi series at the art fair, which honours African hairstyling traditions. “Each sculpture in this series is either titled after the group of people and geographical region the hairstyle originates from, or the name of a hairstylist or woman who famously wore the style,” the contemporary art gallery mentions. One piece pays tribute to the late Miriam Makeba, a South African singer and former New York City resident, “as a symbol of resistance, pride and African unity”, they continue.

Bineshtarigh showcases abstract paintings created through a unique wall-extraction technique, preserving the traces and textures of architectural surfaces, foregrounding “his interest in mark-making and the memorialisation of space”. These panels, sourced from fellow artists’ studios, evoke memory and material transformation. As the gallery reiterates, “His panels for Frieze New York are remnants of a slightly different kind…in particular, the spectral abstractions left behind by South African artist Alka Dass in making her cyanotype works.”

At the art exhibition, Zinkpè presents a large standing bronze sculpture composed of Ibéji figures, “materialising the dualism and inter-connection between the self and society. Originally hand-carved in wood, the statuettes represent a channel to the Yoruba orisha (deity) of fertility and prosperity and are linked to the spiritual veneration of twins in Benin,” the release mentions.

Mivekannin subverts a historical European painting, titled Le Billet (1851), by French artist Armand Cambon, a protégé of Ingres, by inserting his image into reworked compositions to reclaim narrative agency in his large-scale canvas. His work critiques colonial-era portraiture and explores identity through disruption and substitution. “As with most of the works that Mivekannin chooses to revisit, he is interested in the way in which the viewer is led to project ideas and suppositions onto the depicted subject. Through a simple game of substitution and re-contextualisation, he unsettles the narrative by assigning the subject a sense of agency, inserting his own face and meeting the audience with his questioning gaze,” as stated in the press release.

Hedison contributes photographs to the upcoming art event that navigate the boundaries between presence and absence, merging formal composition with quiet introspection. The LA-based artist and filmmaker’s work is “committed to the decisiveness and precision of working with large- and medium-format film as well as digital technology, [where] she addresses the interstices between tradition and novelty by exploring transitions between the two. Each photograph is a direct encounter between the individual and the immensity of the landscape, both architectural and natural,” they continue.

Kavula presents two wall-hangings, intricate fabric works composed of stitched shweshwe discs, a meditative process rooted in personal heritage and collective memory. “The process is that of excessive repetition, each dot with its landscape of minutiae, telling of the meditative action of labour and the creation of new meaning through deconstruction and transformation,” the release mentions.