Painter Meleko Mokgosi Joins The Yale School Of Art As Associate Professor In Painting And Printmaking

The Botswana-born, New York-based artist says he’s no academic, just a painter.

Meleo Mokgosi, a native of Botswana, will join Yale in July from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, where he is assistant professor. According to the release, his approach is “positioned between cinema studies, psychoanalysis, critical theory, and post-colonial studies.”

“As an artist and an educator, Meleko Mokgosi is dedicated to an expanded language of aesthetic and historical references while building on the necessary tools to build a sustainable and critical studio practice,” said Dean Marta Kuzma in a press release. “His regard for the larger political ramifications of techniques of production explore the conceptual foregrounding of painting and in doing so, his approach challenges the way in which many graduate students grapple with negotiating critical social questions within their artist practice.”

Mokgosi will have upcoming solo exhibitions at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, and the Perez Art Museum in Miami.

Installation view of Meleko Mokgosi’s “Democratic Intuition” (2016). Courtesy of the artist via Jack Shainman Gallery.
Installation view of Meleko Mokgosi’s “Democratic Intuition” (2016). Courtesy of the artist via Jack Shainman Gallery.
Installation view of Meleko Mokgosi’s “Democratic Intuition” (2016). Courtesy of the artist via Jack Shainman Gallery.