Lubaina Himid (b. 1954, Zanzibar; lives and works in Preston, UK) is the recipient of the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize, which is envisioned as a transformative award for the artist and the community in Austin.
Lubaina Himid, Pointless Heroism, 2023. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 183 x 183cm. Courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London. Image courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photographer: Andy Keate.
Over a four decades-long career, Himid has explored and expanded the possibilities of painting and storytelling to depict contemporary everyday life and to fill in gaps within art history through the depiction and centring of Black figures and experience. Self-described as a painter, cultural activist, witness, storyteller, and historian, Himid has been an especially influential figure within the British Black arts movement in the 1980s and a champion of women artists through her role as a teacher, curator, critic, and organiser. ‘Lubaina Himid: Make Do and Mend’ debuts two new bodies of work created specifically in response to the context of the Jones Center at The Contemporary Austin.
‘Lubaina Himid: Make Do and Mend’ is organised at The Contemporary Austin by Alex Klein, Head Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs, and Julie Le, Assistant Curator. The exhibition will travel to The FLAG Art Foundation, New York in September 2024. An exhibition catalog co-published by The Contemporary, FLAG, and Dancing Foxes Press is forthcoming in 2025.
The exhibition is on view from the 1st of March until the 21st of July, 2024. For more information, please visit The Contemporary Austin.
