Lubaina Himid, Exhibition, Tate Modern, London: 25 November 2021-3 July 2022

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. This autumn Tate Modern will present 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 will go on public display for the first time. Himid says: “I have always thought of my work as starting when people get to see it. For me nothing starts until then.”

An early fascination with pattern, influenced by her mother’s career as a textile designer, has always been central to Himid’s work. “Patterns occur when I am talking to myself and trying to make visual the music, the sound, the noise and the poetry which underpins all of my work” says the artist. 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.

Throughout her career, Himid has explored and expanded the possibilities of storytelling, encouraging the viewer to become an active participant in her work.