The Zanzibar-born, Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid, whose work focuses on colonial history and racism, will represent the UK at the 61st Venice Biennale next year.
One of the pioneers of the Black British Art Movement, Himid has curated significant group exhibitions, including The Thin Black Line at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London in 1985 (this summer she will present the exhibition Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985-2025 at the ICA). Her paintings, drawings, prints and installations focus on "the contribution Black people have made to cultural life in Europe for the past several hundred years”, she says.
The Art Newspaper's Ben Luke wrote after her Turner Prize win in 2017: “Her paintings and painterly sculptural tableaux, teeming with powerful political and social messages and no shortage of absurdity and wry humour, have been a consistent, if too little acknowledged, presence on the British art scene for decades.”
Lubaina Himid, Le Rodeur: The Captain and the Mate, 2017-18 Courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens. Photo: Andy Keate
Himid studied theatre design at Wimbledon School of Art in London; her early interest in the stage was threaded through an exhibition of her paintings and installations at Tate Modern in 2021-22. The largest solo show to date of Himid’s work unfolded as a sequence of scenes that placed visitors both in the wings and centre stage.
One of Himid’s most celebrated installations, The Fashionable Marriage (1986), is an elaborate stage set comprising plywood figures. The work references William Hogarth’s series of engravings, Marriage à la Mode (1743-45), delivering a critique of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
Other key projects include a commission by Liverpool’s Rapid Response Unit, which questioned The Guardian’s portrayal of Black people, and a commission for the UK’s Government Art Collection in 2021 (Old Boat, New Weather depicted a shack being carried on a sailing ship).
Lubaina Himid, Man in a Shirt Drawer, 2017-18 © Lubaina Himid
“Himid pushes the boundaries of painting practice through sound and sculptural installation, incorporating new materials, textures, narratives and formats in her work,” says Emma Dexter, the director of visual arts and the British Council Collection and commissioner of the British Pavilion, in a statement. Himid adds: “I laughed out loud with both disbelief and pleasure when I found out about this wonderful invitation to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2026.”
The filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, known for his video installations exploring issues such as climate change and post-colonialism, represented the UK at last year’s Venice Biennale. The UK representative at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Sonia Boyce, won the Golden Lion prize for Best National Participation.
Last year the Cameroonian Swiss museum director Koyo Kouoh was appointed the curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale, making her the first African woman to organise the event. The 57-year-old, who grew up in both Cameroon and Switzerland, has been the executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town since 2019.