Mokgabudi Amos Letsoalo

Biography

Mokgabudi Amos Letsoalo has been working at the Polokwane Art Museum in Polokwane – South Africa since 2007 as an Art Expert Officer (Art Curator). The Polokwane Art Museum is a local Municipal entity which means that Amos is the custodian of all the Polokwane Municipal Art Collection; this includes all public art; statues and sculptures across the city, the landscape and the art collection that is housed in the Polokwane Art Museum.

Amos previously worked as a Curatorial Museum Assistant at the Wits University Art Museum (2000-2007), in Johannesburg South African before he moved to the Polokwane Art Museum in Polokwane, South Africa. His key responsibilities included: documentation work such as accessioning, research and physical verification; planning and curating art exhibitions; organising and running educational workshops, seminars and other events related to the art collection, exhibitions and the role of the museum in the community.

Since the ITP summer programme Amos has organised and curated a number of art exhibitions including amongst others; Koma+Visual Visual Negotiations, The New Jerusalem (a retrospective art exhibition of one of the pioneers of wood carving in South Africa – Jackson Hlungwani), an art exhibition of Chinese art prints from Shanghai and many more. Amos also attended a workshop at the Canadian Institute of Conservation in Ottawa in 2008 to learn about the conservation challenges on different types of medium in heritage and art objects.

Amos has served in the South Africa National Art Council as part of the Application Review Committee and was recently appointed to serve in the Acquisition Committee of the newly formed Art Bank of South Africa.

At the British Museum
During his time on the International Training Programme in 2008, Amos was based in the Department of Africa Oceania and the Americas and his partner placement was spent at Manchester Museum, Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth Art Gallery.

Amos’s participation on the International Training Programme in 2008 was supported through a partnership between the Department for Culture Media and Sport (UK) and the Department of Arts and Culture (RSA).

Legacy Projects
In December 2017 Amos attended the ITP+ course on Photography and Documentation. In a series workshop, spread over a 5-day period, fellows attended seminars, creative workshops, hand-on session and practical group work with colleagues from the British Museum. The aim of the programme was to further the professional development and reconnect the alumni from the summer programme.