Kim Berman is Professor in Visual Art at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Executive Director of Artist Proof Studio (APS), a community-based printmaking centre. She co-founded APS with the late Nhlanhla Xaba in 1991 which provides training and promotion of talented artists. She has lectured and exhibited widely in South Africa and internationally. Holder of a C2- rating, she is active in research. She is committed to engaging arts for social change through her activism and teaching. Her book, Finding Voice: A visual approach to engaging change (2017), published by the University of Michigan Press values the notion of voice as key to agency and the responsibility to act. Her claim is that the arts can serve as a non-threatening way to examine deep injustice, and to allow creativity and vision inform ways to construct new personal, organizational and communal relationships.
An additional thread running through her visual and practice based research is the notion of co-creation. As a printmaker, collaboration is integral to the process which informs activism. This is evident in the various campaigns and community engagement interventions she has founded including Phumani Paper, a government funded project establishing 20 poverty alleviation projects across the country; The Paper Prayers and HIV/Aids Awareness campaign: and more recently was one of the co-founders of ‘The Lockdown Collection”, an artist-led project raising over R3.5million for over 500 vulnerable artist grants and art student bursaries. Together with Art therapy specialists in the field, she has established the first academic qualification in a Masters of Art Therapy at the University of Johannesburg. She is an active printmaker and her art works are included in international and local collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in NY, The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, Wits Art Museum and others.
Timeline
1960s
1960 - Born in Johannesburg
1980s
1982 - Obtained a BA Fine Arts, Wits University, Johannesburg
1984-1989 - Worked as a ‘Master Printer’ editioning colour etchings, Mixit Studios, Cambridge, Mass, USA
1989 - Obtained a Master’s in Fine Art (MFA), from School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University, Boston, Mass, USA
1989 - MFA Thesis exhibition, South Africa Under Siege, Gallery Eleven, Tufts University, Medford, Mass, USA
1989-1997 - Taught printmaking at the SMFA at Tufts, Boston, and was an Associate Faculty Instructor during summer workshops
1989-1993 - Served as Development and Field Coordinator for the KUSOMA Women’s Training Programme through the Fund for a Free South Africa and World Education
1990s
1991 - Co-founded Artist Proof Studio (APS) - a community printmaking centre in Newtown - with the late Nhlanhla Xaba
1994 - APS participated in the Johannesburg Africus Biennale and moved into the Electric workshop, Newtown
1994 - Solo Exhibition, Rediscovering the Ordinary, Berman Gallery, Johannesburg
1995 - Appointed Senior Lecturer and Head of Division Printmaking, Visual Art Department, (former Technikon Witwatersrand TWR) (UJ)
1996 - Received the first grant to initiate Paper Prayers AIDS Awareness Arts Faculty at UJ and APS
1997 - Co-produced the artists' book Emandulo Re-Creation with Robbin Silverberg at APS
1997 - Residency and exhibition: Kim Berman and Volatile Alliances Print Exchange, Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium
1998-1999 - Awarded the1999 Overseas Fellowship to fund a research visit to Ecuador to research papermaking to set up papermaking technology stations in South Africa which led to the starting up of Phumani Paper
1999 - Residency where Playing Cards of the Truth Commission: an Incomplete Deck was created, Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium
1999 - Solo Exhibition, Kim Berman: A Decade of Works, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
1999 - The panels of Fires of the Truth Commission acquired by the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Johannesburg
2000s
2000-2005 - Established Phumani Paper, a hand-papermaking poverty relief programme, UJ, Johannesburg
2001- Solo exhibition, Testimonies of the Truth and Reconciliation, Cultural Centrum, Sint Niklaas, Belgium
2002 - Solo Exhibition, Kim Berman: New Works, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
2003 - APS tragically burnt down with the loss of co-founder Nhlanhla Xaba
2003 - Solo Exhibition, On Their Own: Kim Berman: Recent Work, The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Mass, USA
2004- Launched the new Artist Proof Studio, a year after the fire at the Bus Factory
2005 - Solo Exhibition, Kim Berman, Art on Paper, Melville, Johannesburg
2006 - Received EPIIC Alumni Award, Tufts University, Mass, USA
2006 - Participated in a multi-venue exhibition organised by Ellzenveld Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
2006 - Solo exhibition, Resistance and Renewal: Selected work from 1985-2005, Slater Concourse Gallery, Tufts University, USA
2007 - Keynote lecture: Can Art Change Lives? at the Post-Hurricane Katrina Summit: Educating Women for a World in Crisis, Newcomb College Institute, Tulane University, USA
2007 - The documentary film about Berman’s work Ripple in the Water: Healing Through Art, produced by P Piroh and E Foti won a gold award at a Film Festival in Dargle, KZN
2008 - Visiting Scholar, University of Michigan, USA
2009 - Visiting Artist/Scholar, Boston, included presentation of the 2009 Annual Beckwith Lecture at SMFA at Tufts, Boston, Artists as Activists: How can art transform lives? and participation in a panel discussion, Mass College of Art, Boston, USA
2009 - Obtained PhD, Wits School of Arts, Thesis title: Agency, Imagination and Resilience: Facilitating Social Change through the Visual Arts in South Africa
2010s
2010 - Promoted to Associate Professor at UJ, coordinating Honours and Master’s programmes
2010 - Solo Exhibition: Dislocated Landscapes Art on Paper, Auckland Park, Johannesburg
2012 - Co-curated: Coming of Age: 21 years of Artist Proof Studio, Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) - an exhibition in 16 galleries, with 6 guest curators and over 100 artists
2012 - Joint Exhibition: Duets with Egon: An exhibition of multi-types in collaboration with Egon Guenther, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg
2012 - Received National Research Fund (NRF) Research Rating: C-2
2013 - Joint Exhibition: Kim Berman: South African Landscapes, Jacques Gorus Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
2013-2014 - Awarded a fellowship through the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies (PWAIS) to travel to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver
2014 - Keynote lecture: Stories of Change, 16th ACASA Triennial Symposium on African Art, Arts Council of the African Studies Association, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA
2014 - Amy Marie Sears Visiting Artist, St. Catherine University, Department of Art and Art History, St Paul, Minnesota, USA
2015 - Visiting artist, Marymount Loyola University, Los Angeles, CA - ran workshops, gave lectures, and was the opening speaker for Laband Gallery Exhibition: Artist Proof Studio: A Journey of Reconciliation
2015 - Awarded a fellowship at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS)
2017 - Published monograph: Finding Voice: A Visual Arts Approach to Engaging Social Change, Series: New Public Scholarship, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor
2017 – UJ (AAMP) Mentorship research funding for an artist residency in Ireland, The Cill Rialaig Project, produced a print portfolio and group exhibition
2018 - Awarded a Wallenberg Fellowship over 3 years from the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies (PWIAS) at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS) 2015-2018. This included co-convening two symposia named Being Human in the 21st Century: Arts and Social Transformation
2018 - Appointed as Professor, Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Art Design and Architecture (FADA), UJ
2019 - Co-curator: Artist Proof Studio: A Journey in Co-creation, FADA Gallery, UJ
2019 - Awarded an Ampersand Foundation Fellowship for a month in New York which facilitated an artist-residency to collaborate on the artist’s book Walls of Kakatocracy with Robbin Silverberg and two USA book launches of Finding Voice: A Visual Arts Approach to Engaging Social Change at SMFA at Tufts, Boston and at the University of Michigan
2020s
2020-2021- Co-founded The Lockdown Collection (TLC) to establish a Vulnerable Artists Fund (VAF) for visual arts students
2020 - Together with South African Art Therapists, helped establish the first postgraduate Art Therapy training in Africa at UJ
2022 – Received GES 4IR funding for an Arts Therapy programme including the launch of the Arts Therapy Journal and website, and the establishment of the South African Journal of Arts Therapy training at UJ
2023 - Co-curated Ntlo E Etsamayang (The Walking House) by Mmakgabo Sebidi, UJ Art Gallery
2024 – National Research Fund (NRF) Achievement Award: Public Engagement with Research Award
2024 - Curated 30 Years of Democracy exhibition, FADA Gallery, UJ
2025 - Solo Exhibition, Remembering and Forgetting: Landscapes in Dialogue, UJ Art Gallery
2026 - Retirement from UJ