One of Britain’s most important and celebrated artistsand curators,Turner Prize WinnerProfessorLubainaHimidCBEhas spent decades exploring the politics ofrace, gender and class.Early works like sculptureWe Will Be(1983) or muralJustice, Unity, Equality, Freedom(1985) proclaim confident Black figures in dialogue with Black history, culture and resistance movements:mixing togethervisions of the past andpotentialfutures to proclaimin a vital vision.ᾱ’spractice is keenly attuned to the ways in which contemporary politics continue to be shaped by or draw energy from colonialism and struggles for liberation. In the sculptureToussaint’Oٳܰ(1987), a portrait of the 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution leaderis collaged together withcurrent-daynewspaper coverage ofracist violence– accompanied by the caption: ‘this news wouldn’t be news if you had heard ofToussaint’Oٳܰ’.Alongside her artmaking,ᾱ’scuratorial practice also had a huge impact on art history: exhibitions includingFive Black Women(1983) at the Africa Centre,Black Woman Time Now(1983) at Battersea Art Centre,andThe Thin Black Line(1985) at the ICA.
In her paintingBetween the Two My Heart is Balanced(1991),two Black women sit in a boatwith a stack of navigation charts between them.The work reimagines James Tissot’sPortsmouth Dockyard(c.1877) in which a Highland Sergeant sitsbetween twowhitewomen he is picking for a romantic partner.Inᾱ’sreinterpretation, her figures tear up the navigational charts and throw the pieces overboard,in what the artist described as a “call to arms”.The artist’s revolutionary images are also accompanied by and interlinked with demands for historical justice.Her sculptural installation,Naming the Money(2004) responds to theseventeenth- and eighteenth-centurypractice of wealthy white portraits accompanied by Blackservants or enslaved people.InNaming the Moneythese figures are stripped of their white masters, and together form an army or a collective imaginatively standing together.Portraits of enslaved people also adornᾱ’sseries of painted antique porcelain,Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service(2007), exposinghowthe economics of slavery underpinned British societyand culture.
ᾱ’spractice insists that racism is not just the preserve of theconservativeright, butis as much a part of liberalism:her seriesNegative Positives: The Guardian Archive(2007-15),paintednewspaper pagesdraw attention to the portrayal of Black people in theBritish press.Consideringhowthelegacies of slavery and colonialism are still ongoing in the present, historical violence sometimes hauntsᾱ’ssubjects.Her workLeRodeur: The Exchange(2016)responds to the murder of enslaved people on a French slave ship in 1819 – drowned because they were considered no longer profitable after contracting an eye disease.Thepainting portrays a series of Black figures, one with a bird’s head, who gather in an abstract interior overlooking the sea: asurreal and speculative vision of otherworldly times and places or possible futures to come.Following exhibitions at Modern Art Oxford,Spike Island and Nottingham Contemporary,Himidwon the 2017 Turner Prize, andwill be holding a major retrospective at TateModernin 2021.
ProfessorLubainaHimidCBE(b. Zanzibar, 1954) lives and works in Preston, UK, and is Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. She is the winner of the 2017 Turner Prize.Himidhas exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad. In 2021Himidwill present a major monographic exhibition at Tate Modern, London. Significant solo exhibitions include Spotlights, Tate Britain, London (2019); The Grab Test, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands (2019); LubainaHimid, CAPC Bordeaux, France (2019); Work From Underneath, New Museum, New York (2019); Gifts to Kings, MRAC Languedoc Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées,éԲ(2018); Our Kisses are Petals, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2018); The Truth Is Never Watertight,BadischerKunstverein, Karlsruhe (2017); Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol (2017); and Invisible Strategies, Modern Art Oxford (2017).
Selected group exhibitions include Frieze Sculpture, London (2020); Risquons-Tout, WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels (2020); Slow Painting, Hayward Touring UK travelling exhibition (2020); EnPlein Air, The High Line, New York (2019–2020); Sharjah Biennial 14, UAE (2019); Glasgow International (2018); Berlin Biennale (2018); The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2017); Keywords, Tate Liverpool (2014); and Burning Down the House, Gwangju Biennale (2014). Her work is held in various museum and public collections, including Tate; British Council Collection; Arts Council Collection; UK Government Art Collection; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Museums Liverpool; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. A monograph, titled LubainaHimid: Workshop Manual, was released in 2019 from Koenig Books.
Organised by Edwin Coomasaru (The Courtauld) and Rachel Warriner (The Courtauld)