Description
Dan Halter (b. 1977) is based in Cape Town, South Africa.
From ArtThrob’s Art Bio by Sue Williamson, July 2007:
‘I don’t have a particular moral stance, or any over-riding beliefs. I am interested in people, in humanity as a whole. I am not religious. I am an observer of the world and the things I make offer a social commentary in a somewhat ambiguous way. Coming from Zimbabwe, I am no stranger to the corrupting effects of power and the irony that so few people or just one person can have a hold over or affect so many.
‘I also like to play with methods of production, preferring to appropriate styles and play down my “artist’s hand” in the creative process. I have taken typically Zimbabwean modes of art production, which in the case of Zimbabwe often tends towards the curio. I play with local sayings and expressions and also with meanings. Hopefully, the end products are potent combinations that are often open for interpretation’.
– Dan Halter
‘The Borges story, credited fictionally as a quotation from “Suárez Miranda, Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658″, imagines an empire where the science of cartography becomes so exact that only a map on the same scale as the empire itself will suffice’.
– Wikipedia
BIOGRAPHY_
Dan Halter’s artistic practice is informed by his position as a Zimbabwean living in South Africa. Using materials ubiquitous to South Africa and Zimbabwe Halter employs the language of craft and curio as a visual strategy to articulate his concerns within a fine art context. Through this, as well as through photography and video, Halter addresses notions of a dislocated national identity and the politics of post-colonial Zimbabwe within a broader African context.
Dan Halter was born in Zimbabwe in 1977. In addition to five solo exhibitions Halter has participated in numerous group shows including US at the South African National Gallery, curated by Simon Njami, Zeitgenössiche Fotokunst aus Südafrika at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK), 2009 Havana Biennale and Earth Matters at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC. He has completed four international residencies, in Zürich, Rio de Janeiro, Scotland and Turin. Recent exhibitions include the 7th Triennial of Contemporary Textile Arts of Tournai, Belgium and Dan Halter / Mappa Del Mondo at the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden Germany.
Halter’s also work appears in the a number of collections including, The South African National Gallery, UNISA (University of South Africa), University of Cape Town, Scheryn Collection, Artphilein Collection, Pigozzi Collection, SAFFCA Collection, Round About Collection, and the prestigious Rennie Collection
Dan Halter lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.
