Artists selected for Engine Room programme and Herbert Art Gallery & Museum exhibition
13 December 2019
We are delighted to announce that the New Art West Midlands x Coventry Biennial artists selected for the Engine Room professional development programme and the forthcoming autumn 2020 exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum are: Hira Butt, Andreana Fatta, Navi Kaur, Shiyi Li, Farwa Moledina and Matías Serra Delmar.
The artists have been selected from this year’s cohort of exhibiting artists by Sylvia Theuri, Curator in Residence with New Art West Midlands and International Curators Forum. The themes central to the forthcoming exhibition, curated by Sylvia, emphasise notions of ‘decentering’ – that is, removing from the ‘centre’ a focus on subject matter and art historical narratives that prioritise Western and male perspectives, as well as challenging the traditional presentation of artwork in gallery spaces.
Installation view (detail), Andreana Fatta, ξεριζωμένη γενιά / An Uprooted Generation, copper pipes, Greek Orthodox candle wax, archived objects and publication at st. Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry, exhibition as part of New Art West Midlands x Coventry Biennial 2019. Photograph by Marcin SZ.
The premise of the exhibition will be for the Herbert to be interrupted, appropriated and transformed (as Edward Soja notes in his 1996 text Thirdspace) by the artworks, subject matter and forms that the artists explore.
The artists have been selected because they decentre a predominant white male European focus that has been historically central to art exhibitions, through a centering of the narratives of minoritised voices, perspectives and experiences, and/or because they decentre – through deconstruction and disorder – the ways in which audiences predominantly view artwork within a white cube space.
Sylvia and the teams at New Art West Midlands, the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and International Curators Forum look forward to working with the selected artists to profile and showcase this exciting art developing in the region.