Exhibition: Lubaina Himid

Over four decades, Lubaina Himid’s powerful and poetic work has made her an increasingly influential figure in contemporary art – from her pivotal role in the British Black arts movement of the 1980s to winning the Turner Prize in 2017.

Tate Modern presents Himid’s largest solo exhibition to date, incorporating new paintings and significant highlights from across her remarkable career.

Taking inspiration from the artist’s interest in opera and her training in theatre design, the show will unfold across a sequence of scenes which put the visitor centre-stage. Through a series of questions placed throughout the exhibition, Himid asks us to consider how the built environment, history, personal relationships and conflict shape the lives we lead.

Presenting over 50 works that bring together painting, everyday objects, poetic texts and sound, the exhibition will offer a rare chance to experience the breadth of Himid’s influential career. Early installations including the well-known A Fashionable Marriage 1984 will enter into a dialogue with recent works such as her series of large format paintings Le Rodeur 2016-18, while new paintings created during lockdown go on public display for the first time.

An early fascination with pattern, influenced by her mother’s career as a textile designer, has always been central to Himid’s work. A series of suspended cloth flags inspired by East African kanga textiles will welcome visitors to the exhibition at Tate Modern, featuring evocative lines of poetry which address the kanga’s layered uses and meanings, as well as its associations with fashion.

A major highlight of the exhibition will be the presence of sound installations, including Blue Grid Test 2020, created by Himid in collaboration with artist Magda Stawarska-Beavan. Displayed in the UK for the first time, this 25-metre-long painting features 64 patterns from all over the world, each painted a different shade of blue on top of a variety of objects pinned to the gallery walls.

The show will culminate in a group of recent paintings and painted objects, which centre on extraordinary moments of everyday life which are rarely portrayed.