Kapwani Kiwanga
Lives and works in Paris
Kapwani Kiwanga (b. Hamilton, Canada) is French and Canadian, she lives and works between Paris and Berlin. Kiwanga studied Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal and Art at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Kiwanga has been shortlisted for the 2025 Joan Miró Prize. In 2022, she received the Zurich Art Prize (CH). She was also the winner of the Marcel Duchamp Prize (FR) in 2020, Frieze Artist Award (USA) and the annual Sobey Art Award (CA) in 2018. She represented Canada at the 60th International Venice Art Biennale in 2024.
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Solo exhibitions include Copenhagen Contemporary (DK); Serralves Foundation, Porto (PT); Bozar, Brussels (BE); Remai Modern, Saskatoon(CA); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (DE); Capc, Bordeaux (FR); MOCA, Toronto (CA); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH) ; New Museum, New York (USA); State of Concept, Athens (GR); Moody Center for the Arts, Austin (USA); Haus der Kunst, Munich (DE); Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (CH); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (USA); Albertinum museum, Dresden (DE); Esker Foundation, Calgary (CA); Power Plant, Toronto (CA); Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (USA); South London Gallery, London (UK) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (FR) among others.
She is represented by Galerie Poggi, Paris; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Cape Town and London and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin.
Kiwanga’s work traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historic narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrow’s possibilities. Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalised or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. Kiwanga co-opts the canon; she turns systems of power back on themselves, in art and in parsing broader histories.
In this manner Kiwanga has developed an aesthetic vocabulary that she described as “exit strategies,” works that invite one to see things from multiple perspectives so as to look differently at existing structures and find ways to navigate the future differently.
Works
News & Press

![Vue d’installation de l’exposition Kapwani Kiwanga : Trinket [Pacotille], 2024, Pavillon du Canada, 60e Exposition d’art internationale – La Biennale di Venezia. Une commande du Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, avec le soutien du Conseil des arts du Canada. © Kapwani Kiwanga / Adagp Paris / CARCC Ottawa 2024. Photo : Valentina Mori](https://galeriepoggi.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Kapwani-Kiwanga-22Trinket22-Pavilion-of-Canada-La-Biennale-di-Venezia-2024-5-1024x683.jpg)




” KIWANGA’S PRACTICE IS SUCH THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PREDICT WHAT SHE WILL DO NEXT “
Exhibitions at the Gallery
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The Last Museum
May 16 - August 2, 2025
The First Stone
October 13 - December 2, 2023
Ecce Homo
02 Jul. – 13 Aug. 2022
L’Obscur vient au Jour, Group Show
24 Jun. – 30 Jul. 2022
Kapwani Kiwanga, Nations
Oct. 10 - Nov. 20, 2020
Rainbow Gravity
June 20 – July 18, 2020
La Peur au Ventre
Jan. 25 – March 14, 2020
The Border is a State of Mind
October 13 – November 16, 2018
Kapwani Kiwanga, Surface Tensions
June 16 - July 28, 2018
Witness
February 4 – March 4, 2017
Kapwani Kiwanga, Continental Shift
October 22 - November 28, 2015
Matérialisme Hystérique
October 18 - November 29, 2014