Brussels · Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas
Kevin Conru
Over the past four decades, Kevin Conru has undertaken a sustained study of these artistic traditions and the cultures from which they emerge. Through extensive research, publication, and curatorial practice, he has contributed significantly to the understanding and appreciation of these works, presenting his findings in numerous exhibitions and scholarly publications.
Biography
Kevin Conru is known for his publications on Southern African art, the photographs of Hugo Bernatzik, and the arts of Oceania. He has travelled extensively in the Pacific and is a member of the Pacific Arts Association and the Oceanic Art Society. He has an Arts Policy MA from the University of London, and is an orchestral double bassist.
In addition to numerous inventory catalogues, Kevin published books on his collection of Southeast African art in 2002 and the Art of the Solomon Islands in 2008. In that same year, along with Frank Herreman, he organised the ING bank’s survey presentation of Oceanic Art at their exhibition space at Brussel’s Mont des Arts. He produced a major book on the art of the Bismarck Archipelago in Melanesia which was released in September, 2013 and that formed the basis of the Rotterdam Wereldmuseum’s Ring of Fire exhibition that took place in 2013-2014. He then curated an important exhibition of Papua New Guinea masterpieces from the Royal Museum for Central Africa, which was held in Brussels in 2014.
Along with Robert Hales, he published a comprehensive book on the archive of William Oldman in 2016, and later in 2021, the archive of the Belgian collector and dealer, Baron Freddy Rolin. He has curated and published on the arts of the Sepik/Ramu area of Papua New Guinea in 2019 and the arts of Polynesia in 2023. Both of these publications accompanied related exhibitions which were held at Lempertz Brussels. In 2024, he organised an Oceanic art exhibition that celebrated 100 years of Surrealism for the ARTONOV festival in Brussels. Recently, in 2025, he published the archive of the German collector, Ernst Heinrich, and a book based on the personal photographs of New Guinea artefacts taken by A. B. Lewis, the Chicago Field Museum’s early twentieth-century curator.
Kevin Conru is on the advisory board for the Wyvern Research Institute in London, with a brief for African and Oceanic Art. Beyond his curatorial and academic work, he produced two short films- ‘The Oldman Collection- Maori Art in London’ (2006), and ‘Ontong Java, Encounters and Observations’ (2023).