The Maria Lassnig Foundation awarded the prestigious Maria Lassnig Prize to Lubaina Himid, marking the fourth edition of this mid-career artist award.
Along with a monetary prize of EUR 50.000 the award includes an exhibition at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, which serves as the collaborating institution for this year’s edition.
The Maria Lassnig Prize was originally envisioned by Maria Lassnig before her death in 2014 at the age of 94, at height of her artistic powers. Having achieved recognition only later in life, she hoped to encourage the efforts of fellow career artists not yet familiar to the public.
In just a few short years, the Maria Lassnig Prize has emerged as a prestigious award that honors artists in the midst of their careers, recognizing their exceptional talent and the need for greater recognition, according to the esteemed jury. The ongoing partnerships with internationally renowned institutions that usually help artists to get attention early on, contributes a lot to the award’s global impact. As a result, we are enormously proud to announce that this exceptional artist Lubaina Himid, with a diverse cultural background, will be undertaking a project at UCCA Beijing. It’s the first major presence for the artist in Asia. We eagerly anticipate the outcome of this award edition and extraordinary collaboration.
noted Peter Pakesch, Chair of the Maria Lassnig Foundation.
Lubaina Himid CBE RA (born in 1954 in Zanzibar) is a renowned British artist, curator, and Emeritus Professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. With a career spanning since the 1980s, her work has delved into themes of colonialism, slavery, history, identity, and gender long before they became central to contemporary discourse.
In 2017, Himid made history by becoming the first Black woman to win the Turner Prize. She was subsequently elected as a Royal Academician and was honored with a CBE for her remarkable contributions to the field of art in 2018. Following numerous exhibitions in the United Kingdom and around the world, including a solo show at Tate Modern in 2021, Himid’s presentation at UCCA will mark her first solo exhibition in Asia. She also serves on the boards of trustees for esteemed institutions such as The Lowry in Manchester and the Arts Council England (Visual Arts).
The jury, consisting of Maria Lassnig Foundation Chair Peter Pakesch, UCCA Director Philip Tinari, Hans Ulrich Obrist (Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, London), Matthias Mühling (Director, Lenbachhaus, Munich), Cao Fei (artist), Guo Xi (Director of Exhibitions, UCCA), and Patrick Rhine (Director of Research, UCCA), played a crucial role in the selection process.
The Maria Lassnig Prize has recognized outstanding artists in previous editions, including Cathy Wilkes (2017, MoMA PS1, New York), Sheela Gowda (2019, Lenbachhaus, Munich), and Atta Kwami (2021, Serpentine Galleries, London).
Lubaina Himid’s bold formal innovations and trenchant historical explorations have established her as one of the most important voices in global contemporary art. UCCA is honored and thrilled to be able to present her work to audiences in China for the first time
commented UCCA Director Philip Tinari.
MORE: marialassnig.org/en/preis/
About the artist
Lubaina Himid (b. 1954, Zanzibar) lives and works in Preston, UK, and is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. She is the winner of the 2017 Turner Prize and the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth | Flag Art Foundation Prize.
Himid has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. Her upcoming solo exhibitions include Sharjah Art Foundation; The Contemporary Austin; Greene Naftali, New York; The FLAG Art Foundation, New York; and Hollybush Gardens, London. Significant solo exhibitions include: What Does Love Sound Like?, Glyndebourne, Lewes (2023); So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, (2022); Water Has a Perfect Memory, Hollybush Gardens, London (2022); Lubaina Himid, Tate Modern, London (2021); Spotlights, Tate Britain, London; The Grab Test, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; Lubaina Himid, CAPC Bordeaux; Work From Underneath, New Museum, New York (all 2019); Gifts to Kings, MRAC Languedoc Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées, Sérignan; Our Kisses are Petals, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (all 2018); The Truth Is Never Watertight, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol; and Invisible Strategies, Modern Art Oxford (all 2017).
Selected group exhibitions include: A Tall Order! Rochdale Art Gallery in the 1980s, Touchstones Rochdale; Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now, The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Leeds; Being and Belonging, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Divided Selves: Legacies, Memories, Belonging, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry; Le Retour, MRAC Languedoc Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées, Sérignan; Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present; uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things, Liverpool Biennial (all 2023); Rewinding Internationalism, Scenes from the ‘90s, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; When We See Us, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town; In the Heart of Another Country, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Globalisto, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez; Human Conditions of Clay, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (all 2022); Happy Mechanics, Hollybush Gardens, London; Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 50s-Now, Tate Britain, London; Lubaina Himid – Lost Threads, The British Textile Biennial, The Great Barn, Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham; Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London; Relations: Diaspora and Painting, Esker Foundation, Calgary; Invisible Narratives 2, Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London; Unsettled Objects, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (all 2021); Frieze Sculpture, London; Risquons-Tout, WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; Slow Painting, Hayward Touring UK travelling exhibition (all 2020); En Plein Air, The High Line, New York (2019–2020); Sharjah Biennial 14 (2019); Glasgow International (2018); Berlin Biennale (2018); The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary (2017); Keywords, Tate Liverpool; and Burning Down the House, Gwangju Biennale (all 2014).
Her work is held in various museum and public collections, including Tate, London; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sharjah Art Foundation; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne; Rennie Collection, Vancouver; British Council Collection; Arts Council Collection; UK Government Art Collection; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Museums Liverpool; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.
