Lubaina Himid
The Operating Table, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 152 cm
The Operating Table, is a continuation of a body of work comprising Six Tailors and Three Architects, (both 2019). In this painting, three women of colour are depicted in action, working together but not necessarily in agreement. As with Six Tailors and Three Architects, this work engages with the tradition of history painting in the Western canon, a genre in which epic and heroic scenes of European men are predominant. Himid’s work in this series ushers in diverse, active protagonists, expanding the gamut of narratives in painting.
From left: Three Architects, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 197 x 271 cm; Close Up – Ideas for Development, 2019, acrylic on canvas,100 x 100 cm, installation view, Lubaina Himid: Work From Underneath, New Museum, 2019. Photo: Dario Lasagni
From left: Close Up – Materials for Change, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm; Six Tailors, 2019, acrylic on canvas,197 x 271 cm, installation view, Lubaina Himid: Work From Underneath, New Museum, 2019. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Metal Handkerchief – Saw/Flag, 2019, acrylic on metal, 49 x 53.5 cm
Metal Handkerchief – Hinge/Hook, 2019, acrylic on metal,
49 x 53.5 cm
Metal Handkerchief, 2019, installation view, Lubaina Himid: Work From Underneath, New Museum, 2019. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, 32 painted wood planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm each, installation view, Lubaina Himid: Work From Underneath, New Museum, 2019. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, 32 painted wood planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm each, installation view, Lubaina Himid: Work From Underneath, New Museum, 2019. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, 32 painted wood planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm each [detail]
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, 32 painted wood planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm each [detail]
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, 32 painted wood planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm each [detail]
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, is an installation of 32 leaning wooden planks in varying shades of grey. The ship-like arrangement and the painted cowry shells evoke histories of the transatlantic slave trade, and more broadly the invisible legacies of colonial exploitation that remain inscribed in art and architecture.
Five Conversations, 2019. Part of En Plein Air. A High Line Commission. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of Friends of the High Line.
Five Conversations, 2019. Part of En Plein Air. A High Line Commission. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of Friends of the High Line.
Five Conversations, 2019, acrylic on found wooden doors, installation view, Frieze Sculpture 2020, London
Five Conversations, 2019, acrylic on found wooden doors, installation view, Frieze Sculpture 2020, London
Five Conversations, 2019, acrylic on found wooden doors, installation view, Frieze Sculpture 2020, London
Le Rodeur: The Exchange, 2016, acrylic on canvas,183 x 244 cm
47 x 37.5 x 20 cm
Man in A Shirt Drawer, 2017-2018, acrylic on wood, 47 x 37.5 x 20 cm, installation view, Tenderness Only We Can See, Hollybush Gardens, 2018
So Many Dreams, 2018, acrylic and pencil on paper, 72 x 102 cm
How Do You Spell Change?So Many Dreams, 2018, acrylic and pencil on paper, 72 x 102 cm, 2018, acrylic and pencil on paper, 72 x 102 cm
Man Overboard (Freedom), 2016, acrylic on paper, 72 x 102 cm
Take the Freedom Ride Home, 2016, acrylic on paper, 72 x 102 cm
Dreaming Has a Share in History, 2016, acrylic on paper, 72 x 102 cm
Himid’s Kanga series draws from kangas—vibrant cotton rectangular fabric traditionally worn by East African women as a shawl, head scarf, baby carrier, and many other ways. Addressing the kanga‘s association with identity and personal styling, Himid’s works are emblazoned with evocative slogans, bold patterns and vibrant colours.
Gangs Are Getting Younger, from Negative Positives: The Guardian Series, 2007 – 2016, acrylic on newspaper,
46.7 x 31.5 cm
Woes Grow, from Negative Positives: The Guardian Series, 2007 – 2016, acrylic on newspaper, 46.7 x 31.5 cm
Third World War: Male and Female, from Negative Positives: The Guardian Series, 2007 – 2016, acrylic on newspaper, 46.7 x 31.5 cm
New Curbs on Extremism, from Negative Positives: The Guardian Series, 2007 – 2016, acrylic on newspaper,
46.7 x 31.5 cm
Drowned Orchard: Secret Boatyard, 2014, 16 hand-painted wooden planks
Drowned Orchard: Secret Boatyard, 2014, 16 hand-painted wooden planks [detail]
Drowned Orchard: Secret Boatyard, 2014, 16 hand-painted wooden planks
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain [detail]
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain [detail]
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain [detail]
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Naming the Money, 2004, is an installation composed of 100 cut-outs—figurative paintings created on freestanding, shaped board that allow viewers to walk among them. The cut-out figures in this work represent African slaves in the royal courts of 18th century Europe, put to work in such roles as ceramicists, herbalists, toy makers, dog trainers, shoemakers, map makers and painters. A soundtrack gives voice to the figures, which relay their fluid identities shaped by, and formed in reaction to, global political and economic powers.
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
Himid’s installation A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, is based on British artist William Hogarth’s 1734 satirical work Marriage a la Mode, which attempted to expose the greed, fashionable excesses and exploitation of affluent 18th century London life. With equal wit, Himid’s installation quotes the compositions in Hogarth’s work to deliver a critique of London’s art scene of the 1980s.
EXHIBITIONS
EXHIBITIONS AT HOLLYBUSH GARDENS
If a Circle Meets Itself
Peles Empire, Esther Ferrer, Sunil Gupta, Lubaina Himid, Fred Lonidier, Eline McGeorge, Ruth Proctor, Joachim Schmid
30 January – 7 March 2015
Lubaina Himid
11 October – 9 November 2013
TEXTS
Lubaina Himid: Labor and the Art of Becoming
By Antwaun Sargent, The New York Review of Books online, 27 December 2019
Review: Lubaina Himid at Frans Hals Museum
Artnet.com, 26 November 2019
Theatricality and Satire in Lubaina Himid’s A Fashionable Marriage
Essay by Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, Burlington Contemporary Journal, Issue 2, 2019
Profiles: Lubaina Himid
Frieze online, 2 June 2018
Review: Lubaina Himid at Modern Art Oxford
Artforum, May 2017
Lubaina Himid: Revision
Essay by Hannah Black, Afterall, Spring/Summer 2017
Lubaina Himid’s Conversations and Voices
Essay by Griselda Pollock, Afterall, Spring/Summer 2017
Influences: Lubaina Himid
Frieze, January/February 2017
Interview
APOLLO, January 2017
Lubaina Himid at Modern Art Oxford and Spike Island
Artnet, 24 January 2017
British Artist Lubaina Himid
Financial Times, 20 January 2017
How the Works of Lubaina Himid Speak to Trump’s Times
The Guardian, 18 January 2017
A Fashionable Marriage
By Lubaina Himid, from The Other Hogarth: Aesthetics of Difference, edited by Bernadette Fort and Angela Rosenthal (Princeton University Press, 2001)
BIOGRAPHY
Lubaina Himid (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.
Himid has exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad. In 2021 Himid will 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); Lubaina Himid, CAPC Bordeaux, France (2019); Work From Underneath, New Museum, New York (2019); Gifts to Kings, MRAC Languedoc Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées, Sérignan (2018); Our Kisses are Petals, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2018); The Truth Is Never Watertight, Badischer Kunstverein, 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); En Plein 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 Lubaina Himid: Workshop Manual, was released in 2019 from Koenig Books.