Personal Affects: Power and Poetics in Contemporary South African Art is an exhibition that showcases artists on the cutting edge of contemporary South African production, most of whom have received little or no previous exposure in New York. 

A common thread running throughout the exhibition is the highly personal point of departure of the artists’ working methods, such as the use of the body, personal histories, and the construction of personal mythologies. Moving beyond the confines of identity politics towards subtler investigations of agency and affect, this exhibition looks at works of art as the powerful and poetic expressions that artists leave behind.

Personal Affects features an extraordinary line-up of seventeen artists working in diverse media, including sculpture, drawing, photography, painting, installation, video, performance and dance. The artworks represent artists’ responses to a weeklong stay in New York and visits with the international team of curators.

Organized by the Museum for African Art and presented September 23, 2004-January 3, 2005 at the Museum's temporary Long Island City Gallery and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, New York.

Personal Affects toured to the following venue: in 2006 at the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii.