Cathy Wilkes will represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2019. The Belfast-born, Glasgow-based installation artist, who has long established the human mannequin as a reoccurring motif, recently closed a much-lauded solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 in New York. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008 and won the inaugural Maria Lassnig Prize in 2016.
In a new development, the British Council announced that for each biennial it will appoint a UK-based mid-career curator to curate the pavilion. Zoe Whitley, curator, international art at Tate, will work with Wilkes on her presentation in 2019.
Hugh Mulholland, senior curator at The Mac, Belfast and member of the pavilion’s selection committee, noted ‘Cathy Wilkes is a deeply thoughtful artist; central to her practice is a desire to give voice to an inner world, to understand the human condition and to address an emotional deficit at the core of society, a preoccupation which could not be more apt for the current world order. Her presence at the Biennale Arte 2019 is a fitting acknowledgement of her considerable achievements to date.’
9 April 2018
