No. 1 – Lubaina Himid
Representing “Team GB” at the 61st Venice Biennale is Turner Prize-winning artist, curator, educator and cultural activist Lubaina Himid (it’s “a big deal”, she told Channel 4 News). Her commission for the British pavilion, titled Predicting History: Testing Translation, continues her lifelong quest to understand the meaning of belonging, and tackles questions of racial and cultural identity. Featuring large, multi-panel paintings in dazzling colours (boats feature prominently) alongside a warped bucolic soundscape co-created with her wife and frequent collaborator Magda Stawarska, the installation examines the tensions and possibilities we experience when navigating life far from our roots.
No. 2 – Bugarin + Castle
“Uneasy and passionate duo” Davide Bugarin and Angel Cohn Castle are flying the flag for Scotland in Venice this year with a project called Shame Parade that brings together architecture, moving image, sculpture and performance. The commission reimagines the historical concept of “shaming rituals’’ through a queer and trans lens, examining how sound and costume shape social control and communal identity. “We make the work in a context today where the lives of those such as trans people and sex workers are being debated and impacted in courts and parliaments, often without those people being heard,” the duo explain. “The work does not tidy shame away, nor does it cling to it. Instead, we lean into complexity and stickiness.”
No. 3 – Alvaro Barrington
Born in Venezuela and raised between the Caribbean and Brooklyn, London-based Alvaro Barrington primarily considers himself a painter but takes an expansive approach to materials, incorporating burlap, yarn, concrete and everyday objects in his work. In the biennale’s special projects section, he is presenting a vivid outdoor installation on a truck that draws on West African material culture, Caribbean syncretism and his memories of Brooklyn street parades. Personal memories and the cultural exchanges of his youth are common themes in the artist’s work, along with those of migration, community and the physical expressiveness of Carnival. “You've got to give them something special,” Barrington has explained. “You got to give them you, what you do, what you represent.”
Venice Biennale runs until November 22.
