James Cohan is pleased to present Hurukuro, a two-person exhibition curated by Augusto Arbizo, featuring the work of Anthony Bumhira and Virginia Chihota, on view from March 1 through April 5, 2025, at the gallery’s 52 Walker Street location. This marks the first gallery exhibition in New York for both artists. James Cohan will host an exhibition walkthrough with Virginia Chihota and Augusto Arbizo on Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 3:30 PM, followed by an opening reception from 4-6 PM.
Hurukuro (the Shona word for “conversation”) brings together the work of Anthony Bumhira and Virginia Chihota to establish a personal and quietly potent dialogue. Bumhira and Chihota reflect on themes of intimacy, domesticity and the body, using the language of the everyday to pose broader existential questions. Both artists draw from their biographies, using their upbringing, family, religion, and community as foundational lenses to explore the intersections of personal and collective histories.
Hurukuro showcases large-scale, wall-based works that incorporate a variety of materials including fabric, thread, blankets, and paper doilies in Bumhira’s work; and printing inks, acrylic paint, and canvas in Chihota’s paintings. During the artists’ time at the National Gallery School at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, the curriculum emphasized commercial art techniques and ideas, such as multiples of genre pictures of street life and market scenes. These technical and formal ideas—which includes printmaking processes and the serial use of forms—would become instrumental in the early development of both artists. Bumhira and Chihota’s practices incorporate these core precepts as a point of departure to materially and compositionally innovative ends.
