This week’s selection of recommended shows includes: An exploration of folklore and the occult at Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, Faith Ringgold’s painting and quilts at Pippy Houldsworth, London, and a group show exploring Gypsy, Roma and Traveller lives at g39, Cardiff.
Lubaina Himid has approached the fanfare surrounding her Turner Prize win with characteristic low-key charm and generosity. Sonya Dyer hails her influence and achievements and hopes she will now be properly recognised as a contemporary artist making vital work today.
To coincide with Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern, US writer Claudia Rankine presented a reading from her new play, which explores racism in the art world and beyond. Sonya Dyer found it a powerful vehicle for exploring the intersections of capitalism, race, empathy and resistance – particularly in light of the Dana Schutz Whitney Biennial controversy and a renewed focus on depictions of the Black body.
Covering two decades of an essential period of black empowerment in American civil rights history, Tate Modern’s ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power’ is provocative and powerful. Fisun Güner reports.
