RMCA Occitanie Highlights Turner Prize Winner Lubaina Himid at Age 65

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RMCA Occitanie highlights Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid at age 65 by smArty The title of this first exhibition in France by Lubaina Himid at the invitation of Sandra Patron, director of the RMCA Occitanie,"Gifts to Kings" refers to the installation that serves as the pivot of the whole, named"Naming the Money" (2004) based on a process borrowed from the theatre of painted plywood figures referring to those workers and small craftsmen from the contingents of slaves who paid their tribe throughout the British nation. This principle which also suggests a physical implication of the spectator had appeared in a previous and decisive play of 1986 " Un mariage à la mode " taken from the satirical vein of William Hogarth. the course starts from the enigmatic painting " Le Rodeur " of 2016 which instils a sort of unease in front of a group of 5 characters strangely disconnected from each other, of which one carries the mask of a bird. If everyone looks in a different direction, it is because this organ is the key to the story inspired by a dark news item, the tragic event that occurred on board the slave ship Rodeur in 1819, where some 160 slaves were deprived of their sight. Under a very refined aspect of colors and treatment, Lubaina Himid gives life to these hidden and violent parts of the great story, as with"Cotton.com" of 2002 where from the decorative ornamental and feminine motif, it is a question of the episode of Lubaina Himid, a French premiere at Mrac Occitanie the famine of cotton when in solidarity with the African- American slaves, the workers of Manchester went on strike during the Civil War. For the artist, this conversation between two continents is decisive in the approach to dialogue she proposes, from her first painting in 1984 to her most recent works. With the series of portraits"The Map Man" of 2010, once again the textile motif serves as a metaphor, the clothes developing their own language as in West Africa where pomp plays on appearance with the figures of the"Striker" (the striker) who takes the risks for his fellow wrestlers or"The Map Man" in the tradition of the public writer, the one who predicts the future from the present situation. We move on to a more acerbic critique with the re-reading of the Guardian that Lubaina collected during 10 years to better discern the conspiracy towards the African figure systematically attached to a negative textual message (episodes of dramas, crises, despair...). She then repaints certain parts of the page to better highlight the editor's lack of objectivity. The extreme coherence which emerges from these different corpus covering more than thirty years of practice, does not pass voluntarily by the chronological filter but rather by a game of sound and visual associations which plunges the spectator in opposite feelings between fear and empathy. Beyond the political aspect, it is about hope and redemption, to use the artist's words. Everyone according to her has the power to change things in the exhibition space and beyond. A gift that needs to be fully understood. Laureate of the prestigious Turner Prize 2017, Lubaina Himid (born in 1954 in Zanzibar) also curator and writer, pursues a questioning around colonialism, the slave trade and the lack of representation of the African body in culture and media. She is currently pursuing as a professor at the University of Lancashire, a research project entitled"Making Stories Visible", one of the keys to understanding her work Practical Info : Gifts to Kings Musée Régional d'art contemporain Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée 146 avenue de la Plage, Sérignan until September 16 14 Aug 2018 #Lubaina Himid #Occitanie #Serignan

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