Alexander Opper is an artist, educator, writer, professional architect, designer, and curator. He completed his undergraduate studies in architecture at the University of Cape Town in 1993. Working in Berlin between 1995 and 2005, he completed a master’s in architecture, titled ‘Scloß als Materie’ (The Matter of the Castle), at the University of the Arts in 2001. He settled in Johannesburg in 2006. Since 2007, he has taught in UJ’s Department of Architecture, where he designed and led the department’s first-ever master’s programme between 2011 and 2014. Opper’s artistic practice and primary research interests are rooted in a radical disciplinary shift from making architecture towards its unmaking. From an earlier practice base of ‘doing’ architecture, a new critical practice of a type of ‘architecture-in-reverse’ has emerged – an approach Opper refers to as ‘Undoing Architecture’. His projects are situated in the productive field of tension between art and architecture. Opper’s work manifests through a wide range of media, including installation, sculpture, drawing, photography, collage, artist’s books, and video. As an academic, Opper regularly presents and publishes on the productive frictions between art and architecture, guided by a desire to contribute to the discourse of decolonisation in the field of architecture (see https://johannesburg.academia.edu/AlexOpper for a selection of his writing). Opper has achieved a C-2 rating with the National Research Foundation (NRF) for two consecutive cycles (2017-22 and 2023-28). He is currently registered for his PhD at the University of Bayreuth’s Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS).

Opper’s work is held in the following collections: Johannesburg Art Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Jack Ginsberg Centre for the Book Arts, Modern Art Projects (MAP), Richmond, and in numerous private collections locally and abroad. As an artist, Opper is represented by Graham Contemporary in Johannesburg (see: https://grahamsgallery.co.za/alexander-opper/).