Southern Guild Launches New York Gallery with US. Debuts by Nzuza and Seejarim
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Southern Guild will open its first New York gallery on April 24 in a landmarked cast-iron building on Leonard Street in Tribeca, launching with the U.S. solo debuts of South African artists Mmangaliso Nzuza and Usha Seejarim. Their exhibitions, Ballad of the Peacock and Used, will run concurrently through May 17.
The 4,000-square-foot space features 17-foot-high pressed tin ceilings and an 1886 Italianate façade, and includes two exhibition galleries, a viewing room, and offices. It is housed in a building originally developed for the dry goods trade. The New York opening follows the gallery’s expansion to Los Angeles in 2024, where it established a growing network of collectors and institutional engagement on the West Coast.
“New York feels like it’s been a long time coming, and Usha and Mmangaliso are exactly who we want to arrive with. Their practices embody everything Southern Guild stands for,” says Trevyn McGowan, who co-founded the gallery in 2008. “The past few years have pushed us to think expansively, and New York gives us the stage to bring that vision to life. After multiple presentations at fairs like The Armory Show and Frieze New York, and successful collaborations with partner galleries here since 2013, we’re thrilled to establish a lasting presence in Tribeca. The city’s pace, ambition, and radical imagination mirror the energy of the work we represent.”
The inaugural exhibitions reflect the gallery’s focus on practices grounded in material experimentation, identity, and cultural perspective.
Ballad of the Peacock marks Nzuza’s first solo exhibition in the United States and his second with the gallery. Working from his studio in Cape Town, he creates psychologically charged figurative paintings built around a recurring cast of subjects. These figures, rendered with a strong sense of presence and self-possession, occupy interiors, landscapes, and fashion-inflected settings that balance intimacy with archetype.
Drawing on references from Western art history, contemporary Black portraiture, and fashion imagery, Nzuza uses patterned garments as “second skins,” turning clothing into a visual language of performance, adornment, and self-fashioning. His work engages the politics of looking while positioning his practice within a broader lineage of painters rethinking representation.
Running concurrently, Used marks Seejarim’s first solo presentation in the United States and extends a practice spanning more than three decades. Known for working with everyday domestic materials, she constructs wall-based and sculptural works from repurposed irons, wooden clothespins, and related objects.
The exhibition examines how repetition, pressure, and care become inscribed in materials and the bodies that use them. Influenced in part by Sara Ahmed’s writing on “use,” Seejarim frames the domestic sphere as a site where labour, intimacy, and social expectation converge. Through accumulative arrangements, she transforms tools associated with maintenance into structures that reflect endurance, inheritance, and the subtle tensions embedded in routine.
Works such as A Persistent Wound (2025), A Deep Wound (2024), and A Soft Word (2025) extend these concerns, while also introducing care as a structuring force, drawing on bell hooks’ understanding of love as an active ethical practice.
Together, the two exhibitions mark Southern Guild’s entry into New York as an extension of its existing programme, bringing its roster of more than 30 international artists into a new context while maintaining its artist-led approach.
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