For the past four decades, British artist Lubaina Himid has focused on key issues. How can the world take the African diaspora more seriously? What are the lasting effects of colonialism and slavery? What can we do about hunger, prisons and war?
For such a serious subject, Himid’s work is often laced with humor, and his ballads are rendered in bright, saturated colors. His paintings and installations bring viewers closer. “We invite you to take part in the conversation,” Himid, 70, told me.
A leading figure in the British Black Arts movement of the 1980s and 1990s, Himid has exhibited widely and received numerous prestigious awards, including the Turner Prize in 2017 and a CBE appointment in 2018. Most recently, she received the Suzanne Deal Booth/FLAG Art Foundation Award, which led to Lubaina Himid: Making Do and Repair, currently on display at the FLAG Art Foundation in New York. (The show is co-sponsored by Contemporary Austin and was staged earlier this year.)
“Making and Repairing” includes two new works: a suite of what she calls strategic paintings, and a sculptural series of 64 colorful anthropomorphic wooden panels called “Aunties.” The latter is installed along FLAG’s walls, surrounded by the city’s gleaming architecture and poignant natural light.
“When I was young, my life was surrounded by women coming in and out of the house, whether they were my real aunts or my mother’s friends,” said Himid, whose mother is a textile designer. “They are the women who have opinions on what you wear, who you go out with, what you should do with the rest of your life.”
As she grew up, Himid lost several of her childhood aunts and gradually found herself adapting to this role. “Now I try to make a meaningful contribution to other people’s lives,” she said. This reflection inspired her to create elaborate versions of past wood installations, including the 2014 16-panel Sunken Garden: Secret Dockyard and the 2019 32-panel piece Old Ships/New Money.
Each of her 64 mousies has a unique personality: “My team and I collect wood from everywhere — garages, basements, studios, workshops,” Himid says. Once the boards are assembled from leftover pieces, Himid begins painting them and adding ribbons, fabric, text, and even toy scraps. (At least one badminton bird caught my eye.)
“Anyone I talk to about this project, you can see that they want to see their aunt in this piece of art, which is quite remarkable,” she said.
Himid’s strategic paintings depict a group of black men and women trying to solve the world’s problems, or at least discuss them, by using everyday objects as metaphors. “I’m depicting the moment between the question and the answer,” Himid said. “But of course when people try to solve big problems, bigger problems arise between them.”
“At Flora Botanica, three women sat in front of different parts of a plant,” Himid explains, “trying to understand what caring is.” How do we improve caring, from the big systems to the small interpersonal ways in which we care for each other?
Himid takes up more mundane concerns in “A True and Perfect Plot.” “They are interested in how we feed ourselves and maintain the planet,” Himid said. While the three men sat in front of a diorama of forests and farmland, the view outside the window was of lakes and mountains. The decision-makers maintain a certain distance from the reality of the problem.
“I try to make art about the strange and the unsolved,” says the artist. There’s always something going wrong. It could be an incongruous pairing (a metal teapot and a beautiful glass from “Split Loyalty”), a not-so-ideal angle, a slightly blotchy color. The symbols she uses can be unexpected. In The Bitter War, 11 lemons represent monuments: what are they for? Who do they honor? “I tell these people to use lemons to solve this problem because the best thing about lemons is that you can do so many things. You can put a slice of lemon in a beautiful drink, or you can squeeze lemon on fish, or it can be used in cooking. Sometimes it makes something sweet, otherwise it makes something very sour, sour and bitter.” She painted the fruit pieces in the open air, in cages and on bases.
It’s clear that Himid has thought deeply about each of the issues raised in these strategic illustrations. “Our effort is always to treat everyone at the table equally. You have to listen because sometimes that’s the only way.”
Himid received early training in theatre design and has long been interested in the politics of performance. After earning a BA from Wimbledon College of Art, she earned an MA in cultural history from London’s Royal College of Art in 1984. As part of the British Black Arts Movement, she supported other artists of colour as a teacher and curator.
His 2004 masterpiece, “Name Money,” consists of 100 life-size wooden sculptures depicting slaves “gifted” by the King of Spain to the King of France. Himid once told T Magazine that the work changed his direction: “It helped me understand that, on my own, I was capable of deciding to do things that seemed almost impossible. Yes.”
He said, “Making art is making a decision.” He decided to move forward one step at a time, continuing to create art that explored the nearly impossible – whether it was solutions to global challenges or intricate shapes of aunties carved from scrap wood. His work has a quiet power that inspires not only contemplation but optimism. His art suggests that perhaps the answers to our questions are all around us, provided we listen.
“Lubaina Himid: Making Do and Repair” will be on display at the Flag Art Foundation until February 8, 2025.
