Image: Swiss Institute, New York City
Swiss Institute has announced the publication of ‘Nolan Oswald Dennis: Ecliptics’, the first monograph devoted to the Lusaka-born, Johannesburg-based artist. Published jointly by Swiss Institute, Zeitz MOCAA and Walther König, the 330-page volume examines Dennis’s investigation of what the publication describes as a “black consciousness of space.” The book is available for purchase through Swiss Institute.
Dennis’s practice brings together cosmological diagrams, scientific models, formal poetics and social critique. The monograph traces the artist’s engagement with fiction, linguistics, metaphysics, astronomy, mathematics and technology, alongside Black, Indigenous and anti-imperial intellectual traditions. These fields are brought into relation with questions about planetary conditions and the possibility of a decolonized future.
The publication presents Dennis’s work as “para-disciplinary,” a term used to describe an approach that moves across established areas of knowledge rather than remaining within a single medium or academic field. Its essays examine the political histories, scientific frameworks and critical theories informing the practice, positioning the artist’s visual language within a wider inquiry into space, power and liberation.
‘Ecliptics’ includes newly commissioned writing, reprinted texts and a conversation, with contributions from artists and theorists based across different regions and intellectual traditions. Contributors named by the publishers include KJ Abudu, Renée Green, Thato Mogotsi, Zoé Samudzi, Sylvia Wynter, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Calvin Warren, J. Kameron Carter, Panashe Chigumadzi, Santu Mofokeng, Sabelo Ndlovu Gatsheni, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Karen Barad, Mogobe Ramose, Selby Mvusi, Raafat Majzoub, Masande Ntshanga, Alice Sparkly Kat, la paperson, Quito Swan, Luciana Parisi and Ezekiel Dixon Román.
KJ Abudu, Alison Coplan and Thato Mogotsi are listed as the book’s editors. Coplan is also identified in Swiss Institute’s institutional materials as a curator associated with the organization’s exhibition programme. Swiss Institute describes itself as an independent nonprofit contemporary-art institution focused on experimental art making through exhibitions, education and public programmes; its current New York location is listed at 250 Bowery, with reopening planned for spring 2027.
The softcover edition measures 8.5 by 11 inches and contains 130 color images and 20 black-and-white images. Its ISBN is 9783753308524. The publication extends the institutional engagement with Dennis through a sustained collection of visual and critical material rather than a single exhibition presentation, bringing together the artist’s references to scientific and cosmological systems with debates around decolonial thought and planetary futures.
