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Judkis, M., The Washington Post,  Washington D.C. USA, May, 2025. Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art was originally scheduled to coincide with the worldwide Pride celebration in Washington. The museum postponed it until next year, citing a funding shortfall. Untethered/Retethered (detail) 2025, Decommissioned, model T-10, US military personnel parachute with severed suspension lines, detached harness with risers, 550 paracord, High-definition video projection, stereo soundtrack. This work is featured in Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art , National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Winter – summer 2026. Read the original article on washingtonpost.com Connect to the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art website

New academic journal article by Associate Professor Irene Bronner, University of Johannesburg published in De Arte , Taylor and Francis. 17 November 2025. Figure 1: Paul Emmanuel. Installation view of The Lost Men France . 1 July 2014 to 1 October 2014, on privately owned land adjacent to the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. Photographed by Colleen Costick, 2014. Courtesy of Paul Emmanuel. Abstract This article examines South African artist Paul Emmanuel’s The Lost Men France (2014), part of his ongoing Lost Men project, as a critical intervention into dominant forms of memorialisation and public art. Installed adjacent to the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme in Picardy, France, Emmanuel’s ephemeral installation challenges the nationalist ideologies and racialised exclusions of conventional war memorials, such as the erasure of Black South African servicemen from First World War histories. Drawing on Mechtild Widrich’s concept of performative monuments and on James E. Young’s framing of the counter-monument, The Lost Men France is interpreted as a work of art that resists permanence, instead activating memory through vulnerability, absence, and embodied witnessing. This article argues that Emmanuel’s installation establishes a dialogical relationship with the Thiepval Memorial, both supplementing and unsettling its monumental authority. The installation foregrounds haunting and witnessing not as passive acts of remembrance, but as active, critical modes of engagement with the historical violence embedded in memorial forms. In doing so, it offers a reparative aesthetic grounded in fragility and contingency, proposing new forms of commemorative practice beyond the logic of state-sanctioned heroism. While #RhodesMustFall frames recent calls to decolonise public monuments, Emmanuel’s long-standing performative interventions demonstrate a prescient critique, even with their ambivalences, of how patriarchal and racialised structures shape what and who is remembered. Read and download the article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00043389.2025.2563405

Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, Wisconsin, USA September 2024 – August 2026 The front cover of the final curriculum which has been specifically designed for veterans to teach other veterans. Paul Emmanuel collaborates on 'Talking With Monuments' discussion series. Talking With Monuments: Veteran Dialogues on Remembering is a 5-week public program that engages war memorials as powerful stages to recall and reflect on military service. Often, monuments tell one story, at the cost of omitting others. As a result, the experiences of diverse veterans and their stories become overlooked or forgotten. This ‘erasure’ can intensify veterans’ post-military reintegration challenges. Five veteran leaders will attend advanced training to lead difficult discussions around the topics of status and belonging, heroism, representation, exclusion, remembrance, and impermanence. Moral injury will be thread that weaves these discussions together. We visit 5 memorial sites, with historical mini lectures covering the Civil War, WWI and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and Pre-colonial Tribal Wars. Participants enact paired poetry and comics at these sites, activating remembrance and expanding cultural narratives around who serves and the stories that are untold. Through these site visits and veteran-led conversations, we cultivate dialogues around military service, public representation, and moral injury. Our aim is to acknowledge the stories that have not been told, or forgotten, and gain a deeper understanding of diverse veterans’ lives and service. 3 cycles of programming for veterans, veterans peer support specialists, and the public, will occur between September 2024 – August 2026. The Team from left to right: Yolanda Medina, Carlos Muñoz, Vera Reddy, Dan Kasza, Katinka Hooyer, Charlie Walton and Paul Emmanuel (front center) Photos documenting the initial lectures and discussions to introduce the curriculum to this group of veterans. This workshop included lectures on emotional intelligence, moral injury and monuments. This workshop was designed to equip this group of veterans to guide other veterans through the discussion series. PROJECT TEAM Katinka Hooyer, PhD, project director, is a cultural anthropologist with 12 years’ experience developing community-engaged programming and research with veterans and moral injury. As project director for two previous NEH Warrior’s Path grants, Hooyer serves as project director, program/evaluation design lead, leader trainer/mentor, and responsible for qualitative evaluation, reporting/dissemination. Leslie Ruffalo, PhD , statistical analyst and evaluator, is associate professor at MCW with experience implementing and evaluating multiple veterans’ outreach projects with VA and in Southeast Wisconsin. Laura Johnson is a community program coordinator at MCW, Department of Family and Community Medicine with expertise in managing multi-partner, educational projects, and financial aspects of grant awards. Johnson is project coordinator. Patricia Clason, MS is a Trauma Informed Instructor at UW-Milwaukee. She will provide advanced training in emotional intelligence and trauma informed facilitation for the Preparatory Training. Paul Emmanuel is a Fulbright Scholar and artist specializing in memorialization. His work explores the way mental and physical landscapes interact in their construction of memories and identity. Emmanuel will provide Preparatory Training on memorials and how they work to construct stories and histories. Sean Clark, MA, Army veteran, is an educator, director of programs at the War Memorial Center. He specializes in curriculum design, public programming of the War Memorial Center. He will provide historical overviews for each memorial site. Bryan Rindfleish, PhD is an assistant professor of history at Marquette University. He is an expert and teacher of indigenous history of urban spaces and will lead the history lecture at the Indigenous Burial Mound in site (300 BC - 400 AD). Otis Winstead is a veteran and President/CEO of Dryhootch Great Lakes, a veteran peer support organization. He initiated the design of the African American Memorial Wall and will provide history lectures for this site. Zeno Franco, PhD is a scholar of heroism and clinical psychologist at Veterans Affairs Franco will provide an overview of heroism as it relates to memorialization and moral injury for our Preparatory Training. Kyle Kummer: Kyle is our graphic designer and has worked with our team for 10 years doing veteran-led design including Warrior’s Path. Kyle will design all flyers, discussion guides and public facing reports. Yolanda Medina : U.S. Marine Corps 1981-1985. Yolanda is the Executive Director of the Military and Family Resource Center at UW-Milwaukee and advises veteran students. She is part of the Female Veteran exhibit, I am not Invisible. Discussion leader. Charlie Walton : U.S Marine Corps, 1968-1972. Charlie Walton is our elder, identifies as a Black Veteran, and is an experienced public speaker. He has 7 years-experience providing pastoral services through the Baptist Church serving the Milwaukee inner city. Discussion leader. Carlos Munoz II : U.S. Army 2002-2019. Carlos is an active member of the Milwaukee Hispanic community, and the Director of Veterans Upward Bound at UW-Milwaukee, supporting veterans in higher education application and attainment. Discussion leader. Daniel Kasza: U.S. Army 2003-2015. Dan is a community engaged researcher, and skilled public speaker, having presented at three national conferences. He is co-author of two peer reviewed articles on veteran engagement in programming and research. Discussion leader. Vera Roddy: U.S. Air Force/Air Force Reserves, 1977-1992. Vera is the founder and leader of the Artful Warrior’s, a grass-roots peer-lead group, for veterans and community partners to connect in creative endeavors. Discussion leader. Talking With Monuments is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities Images documenting moments during the veteran-to-veteran moral injury discussions at monuments in Milwaukee during June 2025.

Vault of Breath (detail) 2000. Manière noire stone lithograph on 250 gsm Arches paper, 34,5 x 280 cm. Edition 10 Making Waves: A Selection of Works from the SABC Art Collection , Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa, 3 November 2004 – 8 March, 2005 This was the second exhibition of artworks from the SABC art collection, primarily exhibiting works acquired since 1996. The show included Vault of Breath (2000) and was curated by Koulla Xinisteris and Graham Neame. Making Waves was also shown at Iziko Good Hope Gallery at the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town from September 6 to October 28, 2007 as well as The Grahamstown and Military Galleries, and The Albany History Museum from June 29 to July 8, during the 2006 Grahamstown National Arts Festival. Related content ←Previous Next→

‘Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art’, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C., USA, 2026 ‘If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future’, Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 10 March – 20 June 2025 ‘MICA Grad Show 3’, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 12 – 28 April, 2024 ‘In Uncertainty We Trust’, Sheila and Richard Riggs and Leidy galleries, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 27 September – 13 October 2023 ‘Cartographies of Becoming’, The Sylt Foundation, Sylt Island, Germany. 24 December 2021 – 30 December 2022 ‘Holding Tension’, Sheila and Richard Riggs and Leidy galleries, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 2 – 10 December 2022 ‘Reviewing the Past’, Carol Schlosberg Alumni Gallery, Montserrat College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 18 January – 19 March 2022 ‘Cure’, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa 14 September 2020 – ‘Bag Factory 30 Years: So Far, The Future’, FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, 30 June – 4 July 2020 ‘Ampersand Foundation 21 Years Celebration Exhibition’, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa 11 September – 9 October 2019 ‘Regards: Photographie Camerounaise / Digital Africa’ – Casablanca Biennale Internationale de Casablanca Project Space, Morocco. 18 April – 15 June 2019 ‘Sway: A Photographic Exhibition’, Now Gallery, The Open Window, Irene, South Africa, 27 March – 30 June 2019 ‘Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts Opening Exhibition’, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 March – 30 June 2019 ‘Wounds and Relics’, Gallery 2, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1 – 22 September 2018 ‘Turbine Art Fair 2018’, Art Source South Africa Booth GH4, Turbine Hall, Johannesburg, South Africa, 12 – 15 July 2018 ‘Recent Acquisitions: UNISA – University of South Africa Permanent Art Collection’, UNISA Art Gallery, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa, 5 – 31 August 2017 ‘Material Gains: Contemporary Art from the Spier Collection’, Stellenbosch University Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 25 July – 15 November 2018 ‘The Art of Reading from William Kentridge to Wikipedia’, Meermanno Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands, 18 November 2017 – 5 March 2018 ‘I Am Because You Are: A Search for Ubuntu with Permission to Dream’, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa. 2 February – 31 March 2018 ‘International Printmaking Alliance Exhibition’, Taimiao Art Gallery, Imperial Ancestral Temple, Beijing, China 25 September – 10 October 2017 ‘Rethinking Kakotopia’, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa, 6 September – 4 October 2017 ‘Booknesses: Artists’ Books from the Ginsberg Collection’, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 25 March – 5 May 2017 ‘In Plain Sight: Social Life in South Africa and Romania Before and After 1989’, ApARTe Gallery of George Enescu University of Arts & Borderline Art Space, Iasi, Romania 25 November – 8 December 2016 ‘Foundations and Futures: Celebrating 25 Years of the Bag Factory’, Fordsburg Artists’ Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa, 28 October – 10 December 2016 ‘Rites of Passage: Between Light and Shadow’, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa, 11 – 18 June 2016

Air on the Skin , (detail), 2002. Incised original drawing, shoe polish, acrylic on 285 gsm Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio paper. 70 x 304 cm. Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection The Art of Banking: Celebrating Through Collections , Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 16 October – 1 December 2012 The exhibition marks Standard Bank's 150th year in banking. Works on the exhibition are drawn from the Standard Bank Corporate Art Collection, taking viewers on a decade by decade journey through South Africa's history over the 150 years of the bank's existence. It includes works by renowned South African artists such as John Mohl, Gerard Sekoto, Jacob Hendrik Pierneef, Brett Murray, Johannes Phokela, William Kentridge, Durant Sihlali, Sam Nhlengethwa, Trevor Makhoba, David Goldblatt, Alexis Preller, Penny Siopis and Wim Botha. A display drawn from the rich archival and artefact collection of the Standard Bank Heritage Centre focuses on the 150-year history of Standard Bank. It comprises three components: The first covering the period up to 1987 traces the institution's history and growth into a major financial services organisation; the second describes the bank's expansion into Africa and other parts of the world, and tells the story of the journey to self-service banking through technological innovations; a third component includes an old banking hall, showcasing furniture and equipment used in previous eras. Air on the Skin (2002) was selected by the curators from the Standard Bank Collection for this exhibition. Related content ←Previous Next→