‘The Poets Are Working’
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A landmark group exhibition situating Southern African art within a global Surrealist lineage
Southern Guild is pleased to present The Poets Are Working , a major group exhibition curated by Anna-Michelle Roux, and presented in collaboration with Strauss & Co and the Kilbourn Collection. Bringing together historical works by Frederick Hutchison Page (1908–1984), Alexis Preller (1911–1975), Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010), Helmut Starcke (1935–2017), Keith Alexander (1946–1998), and Penny Siopis (b. 1953), alongside contemporary artists from Southern Africa, the exhibition places past and present in dynamic dialogue through key works from the Kilbourn Collection.
Emerging from the upheaval of the early twentieth century, Surrealism rejected rationality in favour of dreams, the subconscious, and alternative realities. Marked by a similar sense of uncertainty and fragmentation, the present moment renews the urgency to imagine alternative realities, making the Surrealist impulse to challenge rational thought and turn toward the subconscious feel both relevant and necessary.
The Poets Are Working explores how contemporary artists reinterpret Surrealist strategies – from dislocation and symbolism to automatism and the uncanny – within distinctly Southern African contexts. Historical works are situated in conversation with exhibiting artists Zander Blom, Louise Bourgeois, Dominique Cheminais, Stuart Dods, Andile Dyalvane, Manyaku Mashilo, Zanele Muholi, Thando Phenyane, Thebe Phetogo, Mankebe Seakgoe, Usha Seejarim, Helmut Starcke, Marlene Steyn, and Paul Wallington. The exhibition also includes specially commissioned works by Kamyar Binestharigh, Jozua Gerrard, Justine Mahoney, and Nandipha Mntambo, each extending Surrealism’s material and psychological concerns through distinct practices.
Binestharigh’s glue-based paintings unfold through gravity and chance, while Mntambo’s treated cowhide sculptures render the body as an uncanny, hybrid form. Gerrard’s enamel-onglass works evoke a sense of disquiet through staged scenes of masked figures, long shadows, and intimate detachment, and Mahoney’s new painting and collage work draws on a lineage of women Surrealists to explore the fragmented, entangled body. Seejarim contributes Ceci n’est vraiment pas une pipe (This is Definitely Not a Pipe) (2019), a playful engagement with Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (1929) using found materials. Its inclusion coincides with her forthcoming solo exhibition, Used, inaugurating Southern Guild’s New York gallery from 24 April to 17 May 2026.
Across painting, sculpture, and photography, the exhibition considers how the subconscious continues to shape artistic production, whether through dream imagery, embodied transformation, spiritual transmission, or material experimentation. Iconic surrealist motifs are reimagined, while broader themes of identity, memory, landscape, and resistance emerge.
The Poets Are Working situates Southern African Surrealism within a global lineage while asserting its ongoing relevance. In his Surrealist Manifesto, French poet and artist André Breton references the poet Saint-Pol-Roux, who would place a sign on his door each evening reading: “THE POET IS WORKING.” Here, that work continues.
Running concurrently are two focused solo presentations by Southern Guild associated artists: Gold Ships by Daniel Levi (16 April – 23 May 2026), followed by How to Like It by Lucy Robson (28 May – 9 July 2026), extending the exhibition’s engagement with contemporary practices across the gallery’s programme.
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