If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. Parade of shadows , 2009. Manière noire stone lithograph, hand printed, hand coloured, signed, numbered and dated by the artist. Black lithographic ink and watercolour pigment on 285 gsm Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio paper, 80 x 156 cm. Edition 35. Courtesy of Art Source South Africa and Spier Collection If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future , Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 10 March – 20 June 2025 If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future highlights work from the Nando’s collection that was created in South Africa between 1948 and 2020. This exhibition underscores the collection’s extensive holdings in portraiture, cityscapes, landscapes, and abstraction. The artwork on view shapes an understanding of the South African milieu and its transformation over the last seventy years. They also offer insight into multi-generational views on life and placemaking. The paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and photography serve as visual documentation of forgotten images and histories in much the same way a journalist records and transmits stories to a reader. While they are bound by a specific time and place, they chronicle universal issues that touch us all: love, loss and the hope for a better future. Related content Exhibition ‘Transitions Multiples’, 23 – 25 September 2011 Exhibition ‘Transitions Multiples’, 8 September – 5 November 2011 Publication ‘Transitions Multiples’, 2011 Publication ‘Transitions Multiples’, 2011 Short film ‘3SAI: A Rite of Passage’, 2008 ←Previous Next→

Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts Opening Exhibition — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. Exhibition view of Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts Opening Exhibition , Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts Opening Exhibition , Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 March – 30 June 2019 Art collector and philanthropist Jack Ginsberg began collecting ‘artists' books’ (artwork in the form of books) in the early 1970s, and since then has amassed a world-renowned collection of more than 3,000 pieces, plus thousands of additional items related to this contemporary art form. Ginsberg recently donated his collection of artist's books to the Wits Art Museum (WAM), which has been accommodated in the newly dedicated Jack Ginsberg Centre of the Book Arts, a new addition to the WAM archives that will be a backdrop for future exhibitions. For three months WAM hosts the inaugural exhibition at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts, featuring a selection of the collection's standout pieces. Curated by Prof. David Paton, Jack Ginsberg and Rosalind Cleaver. Including works by: Walter Batiss, Kim Berman, Joseph Beuys, Belinda Blignaut, Willem Boshoff, Sara Bodman, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Alexander Calder, Sonia Delaunay, Francesco Clemente, Steven Cohen, Christine Dixie, Jim Dine, Max Ernst, Olafur Eliasson, Paul Emmanuel, Gilbert & George, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, William Kentridge, Atta Kwami, Sol LeWitt, Robert Motherwell, Gerhard Marx, Judith Mason, Man Ray, Edward Ruscha, Lucas Samaras, Robbin Silverberg, Joachim Schönfeldt, Durant Sihlali, Richard Tuttle, Diane Victor, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Alastair Whitton, among others. Cathexis (2003) and an untitled work contributed to Robbin Ami Silverberg's book object Uhanga Dihangara were selected by the curators for this exhibition. Related content Exhibition ‘After-image’, 3 – 26 August 2004 Exhibition ‘Pages from Cathexis’, 30 April – 27 May 2000 ←Previous Next→

Men and Monuments, a 2020–21 solo exhibition by Paul Emmanuel at Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. The Lost Men Mozambique , 2007, nine pigment-printed photographs on voile, 300 x 100 cm each Men and Monuments , Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa 3 – 18 March 2020 and 6 – 30 April 2021 For the past 16 years, in an ongoing project titled ‘The Lost Men’, Emmanuel has challenged conventions around war memorials. He has questioned which soldiers are memorialised and which erased, and the stereotypes around soldiers and masculinity. In contrast to accepted practices where war memorials are erected using robust, permanent and immovable materials such as granite, he commemorates the forgotten using his own transient and vulnerable body to transform himself into a living, but temporary war memorial. Artworks from all three iterations of ‘The Lost Men’ are featured in ‘Men and Monuments’. A monograph titled ‘Paul Emmanuel’, edited by Professor Karen von Veh and with writings by Professor emerita Annette Becker, Professor Karen von Veh and Associate Professor emerita Pamela Allara, was published by the museum. Related content Publication Paul Emmanuel, 2020. Texts by Annette Becker, Karen von Veh and Pamela Allara. Edited by Karen von Veh. Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg. Softback, 72 pp plus cover, 260 x 240 x 7 mm. ISBN 978-0-620-87116-7 Exhibition ‘Cartographies of Becoming’, Sylt Foundation, Germany. 24 December 2021 – 30 December 2022 Counter-memorial ‘The Lost Men France’, Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, France, 1 July – 1 October 2014 Counter-memorial ‘The Lost Men Mozambique’, Catembe Ferry Jetty, Maputo, Mozambique, 24 April – 12 May, 2007 Counter-memorial ‘The Lost Men Grahamstown’, 1820 Settler’s National Monument, Makhanda, South Africa, 1 – 10 July, 2004

Transitions, a 2009 exhibition by Paul Emmanuel at Albany Museum during the National Arts Festival, Makhanda, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Transitions 4, (detail), 2008. Original drawing hand-incised into exposed, colour photographic paper, 48 x 48 cm. Spier Collection. Courtesy of Art Source South Africa Transitions , Rhodes University Alumni Gallery, Albany History Museum, National Arts Festival, Makhanda (formerly known as Grahamstown), Eastern Cape, South Africa 2 – 11 June 2009 ‘Transitions’ documents shifting male identity. This was the 5th showing of this touring solo museum exhibition comprising an installation of 5 original drawings, courtesy of the Spier Contemporary Collection and the short film ‘3SAI: A Rite of Passage’ (2008). ‘Transitions’ premiered at The Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg South Africa in 2008 and debuted internationally at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA in 2010. Art Source South Africa are managers of Emmanuel's ‘Transitions’ project. Artists statement In late 2004 I was exploring how the military influenced and perpetuated notions of masculinity in South Africa. One morning, while thinking about moments of change, I decided to photograph an actual military recruit head shaving while it was happening – to witness to an unfolding drama. After some research, I discovered that there were only two remaining military bases in South Africa which still perform this obligatory ‘rite of passage’ on their premises, one in Oudtshoorn and the other, Third South African Infantry Battalion (3SAI) in Kimberley. I phoned the Kimberley base, spoke to the Officer-in-Command and arranged a visit to photograph head shavings from the January 2005 intake. I remember feeling apprehensive of what I would find. I did not do military service. I only had references to military experiences told to me by my older brother and friends, who described their head shaving experiences of the apartheid military regime of the 1980s – their stories of feeling dehumanised, lots of shouting, indifference, bigotry and fear. Instead, I found a very different setting ... quiet lawns with well tended flower beds full of roses. Lines of recruits waiting patiently. No shouting. No authoritarianism. No evidence of the violent breaking down of the human spirit. Compared with the horror stories related to South Africa’s past, the equanimity of the scene was arresting. I was spellbound. These liminal moments of transition, when a young man either voluntarily – or is forced to – let go of one identity and take on a new identity as State Property with an assigned Force Number, prompted me to ask many questions: What was I actually witnessing? What is a “Rite of Passage” and how have similar “rituals” helped to form and perpetuate identities and belief systems throughout history? Why was I so powerfully drawn to and transfixed by these dramatic spectacles of subtle change and moments of suspended possibility and impossibility? And so began an intensely reflexive outward and inward journey, in and beyond my studio, which was to last four long years ... Related Content Publication ‘Transitions’, Art Source South Africa, 2008 Short film ‘3SAI: A Rite of Passage’, 2008 Documentary ‘How the Transitions Drawings Were Made’, 2011 Exhibition ‘Transitions’, Apartheid Museum, 2008 Exhibition ‘Transitions’, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, 2010

The Art of Reading from William Kentridge to Wikipedia — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. The Lost Men Project (Grahamstown) , 2004. Digital program, touch screen, headphones, pedestal. Dimensions variable. Edition 3 The Art of Reading from William Kentridge to Wikipedia , Meermanno Museum, The Hague, The Netherlands, 18 November 2017 – 5 March 2018 This exhibition organised by The House of the Book (a collaboration of Museum Meermanno and the National Library of the Netherlands). The exhibition will elucidate the reading process. The six rooms each have a theme that is linked to the physical process of reading: leafing through, touching, looking, remembering, focussing and reacting. Most of our senses are involved in the process, as are many areas in the brain. Questions about the process will help the visitor formulate some answers: How does the reading brain work? What types of reading should be distinguished? How to deal with multi media books – sound, image, typography? How to experience works on paper versus digitised works? The show unites works that are multi-sensorial or pluriform (video/paper, sound/image etc). There will be no books in cases, all works can be touched by the visitors. Selected artists: Scott Blake, Amaranth Borsuk & Brad Bouse, Jan Dirk van der Burg, Marinus van Dijke, Paul Emmanuel, Eyejack, Juan Fontanive, Carina Hesper, Mirabelle Jones, William Kentridge, Kraak & Smaak, Michael Mandiberg, Simon Morris, Didier Mutel, Rick Myers, Heidi Neilson, Joyce Overheul, Sebastian Schmieg & Silvio Lorusso, Rebecca Sutherland, Elisabeth Tonnard. The Lost Men Project, Grahamstown (2006) was selected by the curators for this exhibition. Related content Exhibition ‘Navigating the Bookscape: Artists’ Books and the Digital Interface’, 25 – 30 September 2006 Counter-memorial ‘The Lost Men Grahamstown’, 1 – 10 July 2004 ←Previous Next→

Official website of Paul Emmanuel, South African artist working across drawing, installation, photography, film, public art and counter-memorial projects. Untethered/Retethered (تائه في العدم/مستعيد جذوره ) (detail) 2025, featured in Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art , Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, 23 January – 23 August 2026. See more→ Untethered (detail) 2024, featured in MICA Grad Show III , Maryland Institute College of Art, 27 September – 13 October 2024. See more→ Parade of shadows featured in If You Look Hard Enough You Can See Our Future, Newcomb Art Museum, 10 March – 20 June 2025. See more→ Substance of Shadows, University of Johannesburg Art Gallery. 11 September – 2 October 2021. See more→ The Lost Men Mozambique featured in Cartographies of Becoming, The Sylt Foundation, 24 December 2021 – 30 December 2022. See more→ Rising-falling, General Louis Botha Monument, 15 June 2021. See more→ Paul Emmanuel, published by Wits Art Museum, 2020. See more→ Men and Monuments, Wits Art Museum, 3 – 18 March 2020 and 6 – 30 April 2021. See more→ Impermanence, Fried Contemporary Gallery, 8 March – 7 April 2018. See more→ The Lost Men France, Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, 1 July – 1 October 2014. See more→

Representations of Otherness and Resistance — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. Still from 3SAI: A Rite of Passage , 2008. High-Definition, single-channel video, stereo soundtrack, 13 min 58 sec Representations of Otherness and Resistance , Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, 20 May – 19 June 2015 The Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery presents the exhibition Representations of Otherness and Resistance in collaboration with the Centre for Africa Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS) from the 20th of May to 19th of June 2015. The exhibition is part of a five year multi-disciplinary project that seeks to capture the mult-layered nuances of spatial, temporal and sonic dynamics within the context of Africa (and more specifically South Africa) as these relate to the core pillars of various artistic and alternative creative forms of representation of otherness and resistance. The exhibition runs together with a colloquium, seminars and the Africa Day Memorial Lecture by Prof Alcinda Honwana planned for the week of the 20th of May. A critical dialogue session on the exhibition also takes place on the 21st of May, facilitated by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. The exhibition is co-curated by Annali Dempsey from the UJ Art Gallery and Angela de Jesus (UFS). It includes a selection of works from institutional collections namely, the Oliewenhuis Art Museum, William Humphrey's Art Gallery, University of Johannesburg and University of the Free State collections. The exhibition is presented with an exhibition catalogue which includes academic articles by Prof Heidi Hudson (UFS), Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (UFS), Landi Raubenheimer (UJ) and Wilhelm van Rensburg (UJ). 3SAI: A Rite of Passage (2008) was selected by the curators for this exhibition. Related content Short film ‘3SAI: A Rite of Passage’, 2008 Exhibition ‘Transitions’, 27 September – 31 December 2008 ←Previous Next→

Rites of Passage: Between Light and Shadow — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. Number 05000674PV , 2009. Manière noire stone lithograph, hand printed, hand coloured, signed, numbered and dated by the artist. Black lithographic ink and watercolour pigment on 285 gsm Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio paper. 80 x 156 cm. Edition 35. Courtesy of Art Source South Africa Rites of Passage: Between Light and Shadow , Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa, 11 – 18 June 2016 Rites of passage are experiences that mark the transition from one phase of life to another; we are wanderers constantly travelling between passageways of light and darkness. These unfolding linear progressions bound to time, or fluid journeys from a past to future-nows, can be understood through Arnold van Gennep’s tripartite pattern of human transitions; ‘detachment’ (movement away from a previous state of being), ‘liminality’ (journeying through a state of ambiguity) and ‘re-aggregation’ (realigning oneself with the shifts and reintegrating into society). These fleeting moments become the markers of living, birth rites, religious or cultural initiation rites, mortuary rites and everything in between, first words, birthdays, educational milestones, and adolescence to adulthood. In contemporary society some of these ceremonial devices, once shared through communal ritualistic practices, have been abandoned, and others transformed to reflect contemporary conditions. Artists extend these rituals into modern life, articulating rites of passage through their practice. They bring our awareness back to these moments of release, transgression and transformation, by documenting, reenacting or translating rites of passage in various mediums. Like the chapters of our stories, these junctures in life are momentous ceremonies that are performed and remembered, or the intimate shifts that silently go unnoticed. We become the product of these experiences. These attuning practices that we design and ascribe meaning to, rights that are scripted and imposed upon us or granted to us, shape our sense of identity. Number 05000674PV (2009) and Parade of Shadows (2009) were selected by the curators for this exhibition. This exhibition was organised by Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery. Related content Exhibition ‘Transitions Multiples’, 2011 Exhibition ‘Transitions Multiples’, 2011 Publication ‘Transitions Multiples’, 2011 Publication ‘Transitions Multiples’, 2011 ←Previous Next→

The Ampersand Foundation — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. The Lost Men , 2003. Copperplate mezzotint etching on 300 gsm. Somerset paper. Image 16 cm diameter. Edition 30 The Ampersand Foundation , Warren Siebrits Modern and Contemporary Art, Johannesburg, South Africa, 13 November – 13 December 2003 The Ampersand Foundation is a non-profit, equal-opportunity Trust promoting the fine arts in South Africa. The foundation recognises and rewards excellence and encourages potential in the arts by granting fellowships to artists. This fellowship includes a residency programme in New York, the first of which was awarded to Paul Emmanuel in March 1997. This was the second exhibition of works by Ampersand Foundation Fellows and included The Lost Men (2003) Related content Exhibition ‘After-image’, 5 – 29 April 2005 ←Previous Next→

Transitions, a 2009 solo exhibition by Paul Emmanuel at Spier Gallery, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa. Transitions 3 (detail), 2007 Original drawing hand-incised into exposed, colour photographic paper 48 x 48 cm Spier Collection. Courtesy of Art Source South Africa Transitions , Spier Old Wine Cellar Gallery, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa 26 November 2009 – 15 February 2010 and 25 February – 31 March 2010 ‘Transitions’ documents shifting male identity. This was the 6th showing of this touring solo museum exhibition comprising an installation of 5 original drawings, courtesy of the Spier Contemporary Collection and the short film ‘3SAI: A Rite of Passage’ (2008). ‘Transitions’ premiered at The Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg South Africa in 2008 and debuted internationally at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA in 2010. Art Source South Africa are managers of Emmanuel's ‘Transitions’ project. Artists statement In late 2004 I was exploring how the military influenced and perpetuated notions of masculinity in South Africa. One morning, while thinking about moments of change, I decided to photograph an actual military recruit head shaving while it was happening – to witness to an unfolding drama. After some research, I discovered that there were only two remaining military bases in South Africa which still perform this obligatory ‘rite of passage’ on their premises, one in Oudtshoorn and the other, Third South African Infantry Battalion (3SAI) in Kimberley. I phoned the Kimberley base, spoke to the Officer-in-Command and arranged a visit to photograph head shavings from the January 2005 intake. I remember feeling apprehensive of what I would find. I did not do military service. I only had references to military experiences told to me by my older brother and friends, who described their head shaving experiences of the apartheid military regime of the 1980s – their stories of feeling dehumanised, lots of shouting, indifference, bigotry and fear. Instead, I found a very different setting ... quiet lawns with well tended flower beds full of roses. Lines of recruits waiting patiently. No shouting. No authoritarianism. No evidence of the violent breaking down of the human spirit. Compared with the horror stories related to South Africa’s past, the equanimity of the scene was arresting. I was spellbound. These liminal moments of transition, when a young man either voluntarily – or is forced to – let go of one identity and take on a new identity as State Property with an assigned Force Number, prompted me to ask many questions: What was I actually witnessing? What is a “Rite of Passage” and how have similar “rituals” helped to form and perpetuate identities and belief systems throughout history? Why was I so powerfully drawn to and transfixed by these dramatic spectacles of subtle change and moments of suspended possibility and impossibility? And so began an intensely reflexive outward and inward journey, in and beyond my studio, which was to last four long years ... Related Content Exhibition ‘Transitions’, Apartheid Museum, 2008 Publication ‘Transitions’, Art Source South Africa, 2008 Short film ‘3SAI: A Rite of Passage’, 2008 Documentary ‘How the Transitions Drawings Were Made’, 2011

Adding Subtractions — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. Twelve Phases of Orange , 2002. Manière noire stone lithograph watercolour pigments on 285 gsm Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio paper. 56 x 76 cm. Edition 35 Adding Subtractions , Fordsburg Artists’ Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa, 18 June – 10 July 2009 Visiting curator Daniella Géo invited twenty five South African and international artists to participate in this exhibition. South African visual art shows a noteworthy prevalence of found footage, assemblage, collage, series, sequencing, weaving and sampling. If, on the one hand, these artistic strategies may reflect scarce economic resources, on the other, they symbolise the gathering of history's fragments – whether private or collective. Older and younger generations alike rearrange analog or distinct elements in order to reinforce or subvert a certain reality, thereby creating new socio-political and time-space relations. Art is construction, but by adopting the above practices, artists highlight the gestures of de- and re-constructing. These acts evoke not only criticism, questioning and the search for meaning, but also stimulate memories of what has been left behind. Most works relate, even if indirectly, to their historical and cultural framework. Subjects and approaches vary – from personal to universal issues, and from emotional to logical viewpoints – as do artists' trajectories. In a rather improbable combination, the Adding Subtractions exhibition brings together works of diverse media, concepts and aesthetics, following a collage-like perspective, proposing a revisitation of South African contemporary art production. – (Fordsburg Artists Studios) Twelve Phases of Orange (2002) was selected for this exhibition. Related content Exhibition ‘After-image’, ←Previous Next→

Booknesses: Artists’ Books from the Ginsberg Collection — archive entry documenting Paul Emmanuel’s participation and work. Cathexis , 2003. Hand printed, hand bound artists’ book with slip case, 36 x 26,5 x 3 cm. Edition 3 Booknesses: Artists’ Books from the Ginsberg Collection , University of Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa, 25 March – 5 May 2017 Curated by Prof. David Paton, assisted by Annali Dempsey, Roselind Clever and Jack Ginsberg. An exhibition of 258 book objects, historical and contemporary, by South African and International artists, showcased in one of the most comprehensive exhibits of artists' books ever to have been held internationally. Incuding works by: Walter Batiss, Kim Berman, Joseph Beuys, Belinda Blignaut, Willem Boshoff, Sara Bodman, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Alexander Calder, Sonia Delaunay, Francesco Clemente, Steven Cohen, Christine Dixie, Jim Dine, Max Ernst, Olafur Eliasson, Paul Emmanuel, Gilbert & George, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, William Kentridge Atta Kwami, Sol LeWitt, Robert Motherwell, Gerhard Marx, Judith Mason, Man Ray, Edward Ruscha, Lucus Samaras, Robbin Silverberg, Joachim Schönfeldt, Durant Sihlali, Richard Tuttle, Diane Victor, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Alastair Whitton, among others. Emmanuel's artists' book Cathexis (2003) was selected by the curators for this exhibition. Related content Exhibition ‘Pages from Cathexis’, 30 April – 27 May 2000 Exhibition ‘After-image’, 5 – 29 April 2005 ←Previous Next→