Kettle’s Yard is pleased to present Howardena Pindell: A New Language, the artist’s first solo institutional exhibition in the UK. The exhibition comes to Kettle’s Yard from Fruitmarket, Edinburgh before travelling to Spike Island, Bristol. The exhibition brings together work from Pindell’s six decade long career including paintings, works on paper and video. The exhibition tracks the development of Pindell’s artistic language, and examines her work as exemplary in articulating empowerment.
Howardena Pindell (b.1943, Philadelphia, PA) works across painting and film. She is an activist, critic and teacher who spent over a decade working at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as one of the institution’s first Black curators. Largely known for her monumentally scaled abstract canvases, Pindell has expanded the definition of what abstract painting can be through her inclusion of glitter, paper circles made from punched holes, and the layering of mixed media and scent. She rose to prominence through the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a major solo exhibition at the Studio Museum, Harlem in 1986.
Throughout her career Pindell has exhibited extensively. Notable solo and group exhibitions include: the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Whitney Museum of American Art; PS1, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Museum Brandhorst, Munich. In 2020, an exhibition of new work at The Shed, New York articulated Pindell’s response to racism and white supremacy against the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement and growing international outrage at anti-Black state violence in the US and elsewhere, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
Exciting to see how paper can be transformed to become sculptural
interesting exploration of materiality - looking at surface texture such as in paper pulp - layering of papers - physical disruptions such as tearing and shredding.
Very minimal works - interesting how the process links with the context of whitewashing through literally painting white over the papers.
From a curatorial perspective, the display was very minimal - series of works were group together which explored similar themes or shared a similar colour palette.
This is a useful reference to consider how the processes and materials I use can directly reference the context I am exploring
The Fizwilliam Museum
Useful reference for media archaeology - considering objects as artefacts
In my own work I take reference to the materials use and ancient construction processes like stone carving and casting.
Use as visual reference for my own work - considering the broken fragmented forms.
Reference for curation - considering a museological format of presenting work - such as utility hooks, vitrines, shelves as well as display cases with archival platforms and lights.
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