SAMMY BALOJI

Sammy Baloji was born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, in the mineral-rich Katanga province of Democratic Republic of Congo. He studied Computer and Information Sciences and Communication at the University of Lubumbashi. With a borrowed camera, he began photographing scenes as sources for his cartoons. He soon enrolled in photography courses in DRC, and continued with photography and video at Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, in Strasbourg, France. Raised in Lubumbashi, Sammy Baloji was sensitized to the colonial history and the postcolonial decline of the once-prosperous mining region of DRC, which Chinese companies exploit today. Baloji juxtaposes photographic realities, combining past and present, the real and the ideal, to illicit glaring cultural and historical tensions. He explores architecture and the human body as traces of social history, sites of memory, and witnesses to operations of power.

Baloji has had solo exhibitions at: Musée du quai Branly, Paris; MuZee, Oostende, Belgium; Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren; and Museum for African Art, NY. In March 2016 he will have a solo show at WIELS, Contemporary Art Center Brussels. Widely collected, Baloji has featured in numerous group exhibitions worldwide. Currently he is featured in “la vie modern” curated by Ralph Rugoff, in the 2015, 13th Biennale de Lyon, “All the World’s Future’s” curated by Okwui Enwezor, the 56th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, and “Personne et les autres”, curated by Katrina Gregos, the exhibition for the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He is also featured in “Africa” at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, “Beauté Congo”, Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris,and “Tech4Change”, curated by Mari F. Sundet, at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including, the 2014 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative award, partnering with Olafur Eliasson. He was nominated a Prix Pictet finalist in 2009, received the Prince Claus Award in 2008, and two awards at the 2007 African Photography Biennial in Bamako, Mali.