Manchester Art Gallery hosts British artist Sonia Boyce first major retrospective, revisiting the past three decades of Boyce’s solo and collaborative work. The gallery has also commissioned a new work, in which Boyce invites collaboration from gallery staff, drag artists from Family Gorgeous, and writer/performance artist Lasana Shabazz. Elsewhere, Sonia Boyce’s work is inspired by her professorship in Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Her art often draws upon feminism and ideas of Black British identity, especially in the 1980s, when divisive racial politics were at a peak. Using an array of media, including print, photography, video, and sound, her art seeks to open up questions about sound and memory, and the relationship between the spectator and the artwork. Boyce’s work has been exhibited at the Tate galleries, the Ruskin School in Oxford, as well as abroad in the US and Europe, including the 2015 Venice Biennale. As an academic, she has taught Art and Art History at universities all over the country for over 30 years.
Fri 23 Mar – Sun 2 Sep, Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL. Tel: 0161 235 8888, times vary, FREE www.manchesterartgallery.org
Image: Sonia Boyce Crop Over, 2007, 15′, two-channel video (production still: Mother Sally), collection: Barbados Museum and Historical Society
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- Words:
- William Felix Robinson
- Published on:
- Wed 30 May 2018
