Portrait of Tau Lewis by Marquale Ashley
Night Gallery is thrilled to announce Tau Lewis’ invitation to the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani. The Biennale Arte 2022 will run from April 23 - November 27, 2022 with pre-opening days April 20 - 22.
The 59th International Art Exhibition is titled “The Milk of Dreams,” inspired by the book of the same name by the Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. As Alemani explains, the show will center around three primary areas of inquiry: “the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; and the connection between bodies and the Earth.”
Tau Lewis’ monumental sculptures and thoughtful installations forge material invocations of collective identities, attesting to the energetic resonance of shared belongings and cultural signifiers of community within the Black diaspora. The artist’s practice is rooted in a process of collecting found objects with direct ties to her personal relationships and lived experiences. From these materials—which often hold connotations with the domestic space—Lewis looks to the lineaged hand-crafting practices of quilting, sewing, and dyeing. The resulting works invoke the fantastical and the familiar as viewers are immersed in an alternate realm of Lewis’ own creation, where linear time is transcended and history continuously unfurls.
Tau Lewis (b. 1993, Toronto, ON) has exhibited in museums and institutions including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, presented as part of the fifth iteration of Prospect New Orleans, Louisiana; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; MoMA PS1, New York; New Museum, New York; Hepworth Wakefield, United Kingdom; College Art Galleries, Saskatoon; Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston; Art Gallery of Mississauga, Ontario; and the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto. Lewis has also shown work in numerous galleries, such as Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Sadie Coles HQ, London; Chapter NY, New York; Jeffrey Stark, New York; Oakville Galleries, Ontario; Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles; and Shoot the Lobster, New York, among others. Her work belongs in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library Collection, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; and Grinnell College Museum of Art, Iowa. In 2022, she will present a solo show at 52 Walker, New York. Lewis lives and works in Brooklyn.