Announcing the Serpentine’s exhibition programme from January 2019 to September 2019, including Grace Wales Bonner, Hito Steyerl, Emma Kunz, Faith Ringgold and Luchita Hurtado.
Read less
GRACE WALES BONNER
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
19 January – 16 February
This is the first in a new series of short presentations of unique, interdisciplinary commissions by leading voices in the creative fields. Born in London to an English mother and Jamaican father, Grace Wales Bonner sees fashion as an intuitive means to understanding her own heritage. Each of her collections are a meditation on cultural narratives, full of literary references and explored through exceptional craftsmanship and carefully considered scenography. Writing, research and performance are important aspects of Wales Bonner’s oeuvre. By applying her nuanced consideration of visual aesthetics and academic theory to zines and art performances, she has quickly achieved a reputation as a cultural polymath. This will be her first multidisciplinary show in an institutional space and continues the Serpentine’s engagement with her practice following the artist’s participation in the 2015 Transformation Marathon.
HITO STEYERL
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
6 March – 6 May 2019
The Serpentine presents Power Plants, a new project by Hito Steyerl, German filmmaker, visual artist, writer and innovator of the essay documentary. The project explores ideas and predictions at the meeting point of artificial intelligence and human testimony. This project kicks off with Actual Reality OS, a collectively produced digital commission and Power Walks, a series of guided neighbourhood walks, leading to the exhibition opening of Power Plants on 6 March 2019, with new video work co-commissioned with The Store X. Drawing on topics such as media, technology and the global circulation of images, Steyerl sharpens the viewer’s perception through moving-image works that combine found, filmed and digitally animated footage.
EMMA KUNZ
Serpentine Gallery
23 March – 19 May 2019
The first UK solo exhibition by the late Swiss healer, researcher and artist Emma Kunz (1892–1963) is conceived with artist Christodoulos Panayiotou. Kunz never received a formal arts education, yet from 1938 she produced hundreds of geometric drawings which were first exhibited posthumously in the early 1970s. Her work was inspired by spiritualism and constructed using radiesthesia – a technique using a pendulum to plan the structure of her drawings, each of which were completed in a single session. Kunz considered these drawings as images of energy fields from which she would formulate diagnoses for her patients or answers to questions she posed to her pendulum. Engaging with these varied phenomena, Kunz’s work explores philosophical and scientific themes which were not only rooted to her own times but also for the future; she predicted that her drawings were destined for the 21st Century.
LUCHITA HURTADO
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
23 May – 8 September 2019
The first exhibition of work by Luchita Hurtado in an institution. Born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1920, Hurtado moved to the United States in 1928 and later travelled extensively in Mexico. Her approach to painting and drawing over the course of her long career is characterised by continuous experimentation, ranging from abstract, at times surreal geometries to biomorphic landscapes and striking patterns, yet all united by a compelling sense of colour, light and movement. Unexpected perspectives – looking straight down or across her own body, or straight up to a glimpse of sky – offer a view of the world that is both grounded and transcendental. For Hurtado, the interconnectivity between human beings, nature and the cosmos was heightened after seeing the first images of Earth from space in 1946, and her work since has continued to propose all life forms as part of a single, living entity. The Serpentine exhibition will trace the trajectory of Hurtado’s expansive career, who at 98, has produced a rich oeuvre with a continued relevance to contemporary environmental and political issues.
FAITH RINGGOLD
Serpentine Gallery
6 June – 8 September 2019
Faith Ringgold (b. 1930, Harlem, New York) is an artist, activist, educator and author whose work consistently challenges the perceptions of American identity and gender inequality through the lenses of the feminist and civil rights movements. Working prolifically since the early 1960s, Ringgold is recognised for her politically charged paintings, story quilts, prints, children’s books, soft sculptures, masks and performances. She draws upon a wide range of visual and cultural sources, from the traditions of quilt making and its position within the history of slavery to early European Modernism, tankas – richly brocaded Tibetan paintings – and African masks. Focusing on different series that she has created over the past 50 years, this Serpentine survey will include paintings, story quilts, tankas and political posters. It will be the first solo exhibition of Ringgold’s work in a European public institution.