Pieter Hugo's new series, Kin, confronts complex issues of colonization, racial diversity and economic disparity in Hugo's homeland of South Africa. These subjects are common to the artist's past projects in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Botswana; however, this time Hugo's attention is focused on his conflicted relationship with the people and environs closest to home through portraits, landscapes and still life photographs. Encompassing both intimate and broad perspectives on South Africa's post-apartheid democracy, as well as their points of intersection, Kin is the artist's effort to locate himself and his young family in a country with a fraught history and an uncertain future.
A mid-career survey of Hugo's photographs, This Must Be the Place: Selected Works 2003-2011, is traveling in Europe and is currently on view at the Ludwig Musuem, Budapest. Previous venues include the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Hague Museum of Photography, The Netherlands; and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon. His work is held in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among others. The artist's books include Looking Aside: South African Studio Portraits 2003-2006 (2006) and Messina/Musina (2007) both published by Punctum; The Hyena & Other Men (2007), Nollywood (2009), Permanent Error (2011) and This Must Be the Place (2012) published by Prestel; and There's a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends (2012) published by oodee, London. Pieter Hugo was born in South Africa in 1976 and currently lives near Cape Town.