About Grace Ndiritu
NEWS UPDATE:
The Guardian - 4 star review of solo show Labour at Kate MacGarry, London (2023)
Louisiana Channel - In-depth interview on the prestigious arts channel (2023)
Art Monthly - Review of mid-career survey at SMAK, Ghent (2023)
The Guardian - Profile of winner of Jarman Film London Award (2022)
Monographic Publication: Healing The Museum (2023) is the first monograph looking at Grace Ndiritu’s diverse practice over the last twenty years, published on the occasion of her mid-career exhibition at S.M.A.K. Ghent. Please order book at Koening Books or SMAK or Motto
Book Excerpt:
Being Together: A Manual For Living (2021) a book based on group experiments in Ndiritu's practice, a free excerpt can be read here while the book is being reprinted.
ARTISTS BIO:
Grace Ndiritu is a British-Kenyan artist whose artworks are concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world. Her archive of over forty 'hand-crafted' videos; textiles, photography, performances, paintings and architectural spaces have been widely exhibited, most recently, in her mid-career survey entitled Healing The Museum at SMAK, Ghent in 2023. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Art Review, The Guardian, TIME Magazine, The Financial Times, Elephant, BOMB, Mousse, Art Monthly, Metropolis M, Phaidon: The 21st Century Art Book, Apollo Magazine 40 under 40 list, and BBC Radio 4, Woman's Hour.
Her films Black Beauty and Becoming Plant have been selected for prestigious film festivals including 72nd Berlinale (2022) FIDMarseille (2021) and BFI London Film Festival (2022). She is a member of BAFTA and also the winner of The Jarman Award in association with Film London (2022).
Her work is also housed in museum collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), LACMA (Los Angeles), Migros, (Zurich), Foto Museum (Antwerp), The British Council (London) and The Modern Art Museum (Warsaw) and private collections such as the King Mohammed VI, Morocco and Walther Collection, New York and Germany. Her experimental art writing and images have been published Migros Museum, Bergen Kunsthall, Whitechapel Gallery: Documents of Contemporary Art, The Paris Review, Le Journal Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Animal Shelter Journal Semiotext(e) MIT Press, Metropolis M art magazine and Oxford University Press.
Influencing Museum Policy:
Whether its presenting at Palais de Tokyo (2023), or at the United Nations (2022), Open Museums (2021) or Centre for Cultural Value (2020); her essays on museum cultural politics being read by the German Federal Foreign Office in 2020, for their Benin Report published in 2022, her dedication to changing museum policy has paid off. The change by ICOM in 2022 their definition of what a musuem is, was influenced by her presentation The Museum of The Future at their annual COMCOL conference in 2021, in which she outlined what museums need to do if an organisation wants to positively influence the social field around them and practice a lack of self interest. Her unique vision reveals her dedication to change museums both practically and energetically as an artist, as Ndiritu firmly believes 'healing' is a type of institutional critique as reported in ABC News. Currently, she is testing her hypothesis out further through an invitation by SMAK, Ghent to be their artist in residence for one year, as the institution works towards building a new museum in 2030.
RECENT EXHIBITIONS:
Recent solo exhibitions and projects include Kate MacGarry, London (2023), S.M.A.K, Ghent (2023), Fotomuseum, Antwerp (2023), Wellcome Collection, London (2023), LUX, London (2022), FlatTime House, London (2022), Kunsthal Gent (2021), Bluecoat, Liverpool (2019), Glasgow School of Art (2015), La Ira De Dios, Buenos Aires (2014), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2005). Recent performances and screenings include RAMM, Exeter (2022), Nottingham Contemporary (2021), Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (2021), S.M.A.K. & M.S.K., Belgium (2019), Africa Museum, Tervuren, Belgium (2019), Fundació Antoni Tà pies, Barcelona (2017), Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Paris (2016), Glasgow School of Art (2015), Galveston Artists Residency, Texas (2015), Museum Modern of Art, Warsaw (2014), Musee Chasse & Nature and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013).
Recent group shows include Kettles Yard (2023), Migros, Zurich (2023), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2022), British Art Show (2021 - 2023), Coventry Biennial (2021), Nottingham Contemporary (2021), Museum Arnhem, Netherlands (2020), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (2020), Freelands Foundation, London (2019) Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2018), Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (2017), CAMH, Houston Texas (2015), MAC International Art Prize, Belfast (2014), 9th Bamako Biennale (2011), International Center of Photography, New York (2009), 8th Dakar Biennale (2008). Her work has been commissioned by British Art Show (2021), Coventry Biennial (2021), Nottingham Contemporary (2021), Lubumbashi Biennale (2019), CAG Vancouver (2018), Glasgow School of Art (2015), MACBA, Barcelona (2014), Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (2010) and Glynn Vivian Gallery, Wales (2006).
Grace Ndiritu studied Textile Art at Winchester School of Art, UK; De Ateliers, Amsterdam: guest tutors included Marlene Dumas (painter), Steve McQueen (film director), Tacita Dean (artist) and Stan Douglas (artist); UK studio residency, Delfina Studio Trust, London (2004-2006), International Residency, Recollets, Paris (2013), MACBA & L'Appartement 22, Rabat, international residency (2014), Galveston Artists Residency, Texas (2014 -2015), Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Paris (2016-2017), Thalie Art Foundation, Brussels (2017-2018), SMAK, Belgium (2022/2023)
RECENT PROJECTS:
Ndiritu took the radical decision in 2012 only to spend time in the city when necessary, and to otherwise live in rural, alternative and often spiritual communities, while expanding her research into nomadic lifestyles and training in esoteric studies such as shamanism, which she began over 18 years ago. Her research so far has taken her to both Thai and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, permaculture communities in New Zealand, forest tree dwellers in Argentina, neo-tribal festivals such the 'Burning Man' in Nevada, a Hare Krishna ashram and the 'Findhorn' New Age community in Scotland. Her research into community life has so far resulted in the founding of The Ark: Center For Interdisciplinary Experimentation.
In 2012 Ndiritu began creating a new body of works under the title Healing The Museum. It came out of a need to re-introduce non-rational healing methodologies such as shamanism to re-activate the 'sacredness' of art spaces. Ndiritu believes that most modern art institutions are out of sync with their audiences’ everyday experiences and the widespread socio-economical and political changes that have taken place globally in the recent decades, have further eroded the relationship between museums and their audiences. Museums are dying. Ndiritu sees shamanism as a way to re-activate the dying art space as a space for sharing, participation and ethics. From prehistoric to modern times the shaman was not only the group healer and facilitator of peace but also the creative; the artist. Her most ambitious shamanic performance to date A Meal For My Ancestors: Healing The Museum: included staff members of the U.N. NATO & EU parliament, activists, and refugees at Thalielab, Brussels (2018). A briefing paper on climate change and refugees directly inspired by the performance, written by one of the participants, has now been published by the EU Parliament Research Services (updated 2019).
COVERSLUT© is a fashion and economic research project launched in 2018 by Grace Ndiritu, which focuses on dealing with issues of race, gender and class politics. It incorporates PAY WHAT YOU CAN into its economic framework. The first edition of the project was done in association with Manoeuvre artists-run textile studio, Ghent. To date COVERSLUT© pop-up stores and events have taken place at Freelands Foundation, London (2019), Minus One, Ghent (2019); Poppositions artfair, Brussels (2019); Eastside Projects, UK (2018); De Koer, Ghent (2018 & 2019), collection available at CAG Vancouver (2018), Wiels Art Centre (2019) & Bergen Kunsthall (2020/2021) Furthermore, Ndiritu's use of PAY WHAT YOU CAN in her own art practice has influenced several art institutions to adopt a PAY WHAT YOU CAN policy inspired by Ndiritu's ideas on institutional critique and structural change. These include Eastside Projects - Artists Led Multiverse Summit; Kunsthal Gent's admission fee and Coventry Biennale public programme. Ndiritu curated the world's first PAY WHAT YOU CAN: THE NEW ART ECONOMY conference (2019). COVERSLUT© clothing can be bought at De Appel webstore.
WRITING:
Ndiritu's essays on exhibition making and contemporary culture; Healing The Museum (2016); Ways of Seeing: A New Museum Story for Planet Earth (2017), Institutional Racism & Spiritual Practice in the Art World (2019) and Shoddy Journalism and the Rise of Conservative Politics in the Art World (2023) can be read alongside her political essays; A Call To White America: A Response to Donald J. Trump (2016), Notes To a White Left World: Activism in this Current Political Crisis (2017) and Love in The Time of Trump: The Problematics of Kanye West (2018); The Healing of America (2020).
Books:
NEW BOOK!!!: Grace Ndiritu's second book Being Together: A Manual For Living is out now. Ndiritu's first book Dissent Without Modification: The 1990's about radical women, is still available.
Grace Ndiritu is represented by Kate MacGarry in London.
