Standard Bank Gallery in Joburg's historic mining district hosts the critically acclaimed new exhibition <em>Lefa La Ntate</em> by Mohau Modisakeng. A trained sculptor turned photographer, Modisakeng was the 2016 winner of the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist award and his recent installation at the Venice Biennale saw international publications such as The New Yorker hail the Soweto-born artist as one of the most exciting new stars of the African art scene.<br /> <br /> In this exhibition, whose name translates as 'My Father's Inheritance', Modisakeng boldly engages with the lasting economic, political, spiritual and social impact that South Africa’s colonial and Apartheid past has had on black people, in particular the effects of rapid industrialisation and the relentless hunt for mineral wealth. In these self portraits Modisakeng is pictured walking and lying amid heaps of coal, occasionally wearing horse blinkers or a gas mask, carrying a panga or a whip, dressed variably in a smock or overalls, but always with his signature wide brimmed hat.<br /> <br /> The images evoke the darkness and pollution of the mines that surround Johannesburg and the trauma they have wreaked on black bodies through the generations, with the striking figure of Modiskaeng himself beaming brightly in the middle of it all. As gallerists Whatiftheworld put it; "His images are not direct representations of violence, but powerful yet poetic invocations where the body is transformed into a poignant marker of collective memory." Powerful and thought-provoking, this exhibition is not to be missed.