Alberta Whittle is an artist, researcher and curator. She was chosen for the Margaret Tait Award for 2018/9, the Turner Prize 2020 bursary, the Henry Moore Foundation artist award 2020 and the Frieze Artist Award 2020.
Her creative practice is motivated by the desire to manifest self-compassion and collective care as key methods in battling anti-blackness. Oscillating between cutting humour and sensitive poetics her work ranges across media and across continents.
Recent projects include deep dive (pause) uncoiling memory, Venice Biennale, Scotland Pavilion, Venice (Italy), create dangerously, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One), Edinburgh (UK), and Black Venus, The Museum of the African Diaspora, San Fransisco, California (USA), curated by Aindrea Emelife.
For her most recent group exhibition with the gallery please click here.
Her creative practice is motivated by the desire to manifest self-compassion and collective care as key methods in battling anti-blackness. Oscillating between cutting humour and sensitive poetics her work ranges across media and across continents.
Recent projects include deep dive (pause) uncoiling memory, Venice Biennale, Scotland Pavilion, Venice (Italy), create dangerously, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One), Edinburgh (UK), and Black Venus, The Museum of the African Diaspora, San Fransisco, California (USA), curated by Aindrea Emelife.
For her most recent group exhibition with the gallery please click here.
Alberta Whittle, Installation view of How Flexible Can We Make the Mouth at Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2019
Alberta Whittle, Between a Whisper and a Cry, 2019, Single-channel video, 37'16''
Alberta Whittle, Celestial Meditations II, 2017, C-Type print, Dia-sec mounted on aluminium, 61 x 91.4 cm
Alberta Whittle, Installation view of How Flexible Can We Make the Mouth at Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2019
Alberta Whittle, Mammmmmmmmywata Presents Life Solutions International, 2016 HD video, 3'57''
Alberta Whittle, Secreting Myths, Woodblock print, 2019
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Dipping below a waxing moon, the dance claims us for release’, Holburne Museum, Bath, UK Black Venus, The Museum of the African Diaspora, San Fransisco, California, USA, curated by Aindrea Emelife 2022 Hope and Glory: Encountering Welcome, Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, UK Respectability won't save you: a Caribbean haunting, Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York, USA 2021 Right of Admission Retrospective, joint solo with Farieda Nazier, University of Johannesburg Gallery RESET, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, UK business as usual: hostile environment, Glasgow Sculpture Studios (Part of Glasgow International 2021) 2020 No Mudder Country Here, Grand Union, Birmingham, UK 2019 Business as Usual, Tyburn Gallery, London, UK How flexible can we make the mouth, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee, UK Useless (with Emilio Bianchi), Pig Rock Bothy, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland 2016 The Polity of Φ (with Deniz Uster), Glasgow Project Room and Intermedia, the CCA, Glasgow, Scotland 2015 The Cradle (with Dean Hutton), Goethe On Main, Johannesburg, South Africa 2014 Right of Admission (with Farieda Nazier), ROOM Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa 2010 badmanabadman, Bridgetown Gallery, Barbados Group Exhibitions 2023 Women to Watch UK: New Worlds at Christie’s, Christie’s, London, UK 2022 deep dive (pause) uncoiling memory, Venice Biennale, Scotland Pavilion, Venice, Italy Scottish Women Artists Transforming Tradition, Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK AfroScots: Revisiting the Work of Black Artists in Scotland through New Collecting, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, UK Twilight Land, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden Moving Bodies, Moving Images, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK ROCK MY SOUL II (Stockholm), Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, Swenden, curated by Sir Isaac Julien Black Melancholia, CCS Brad Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA Devenir isla, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain 2021 Fragments of Epic Memory, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada Sex Ecologies, Kunsthall Trodheim, Norway Life between islands: Caribbean British Art 1950s-Now, Tate Britain, London, UK New Arrivals, Modern One, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, UK We Are History, Somerset House, London, UK The Ghost Ship and the Sea Change, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Göteborg, Sweden Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism, Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow, UK British Art Show 9, Aberdeen Art Gallery (10 Jul – 10 Oct 2021); Wolverhampton Art Gallery & Wolverhampton School of Art (22 Jan – 10 Apr 2022); KARST, MIRROR , Plymouth College of Art, The Box, Plymouth & The Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth (8 Oct – 23 Dec 2022) An Infinity of Traces, Lisson Gallery, London, UK A Miraculous Noise, Viborg Kunsthal, Viborg, Denmark Miraculous Noise: Artists’ Moving Image from Glasgow’, Viborg Kunsthal, Viborg SuperRoom: Ecosystems of Relations’, SUPER DAKOTA, Brussels, Belgium The Portrait in Focus’, Alma Zevi, Venice, Italy Jupiter Rising, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, UK Right of Admission, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Art Night London, London, UK In The Castle Of My Skin, MIMA, Middlesbrough, UK Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK Glasgow International (2021); An Infinity of Traces, Lisson Gallery, London, UK An apology, a pill, a ritual, a resistance, Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada SuperRoom: Ecosystems of Relations, Superdakota, Brussels 2020 Here be Dragons, Copperfield, London, UK In the Castle of My Skin, Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK Kaleidoskop, Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria Glasgow Short Film Festival, Glasgow, Scotland 2019 LUX, London, UK The Imagined New, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa Without Tides, an invitation, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop, Scotland 13th Havana Biennial, Wilfredo Lam Center, Havana, Cuba Displaced’, Travelling Gallery, Scotland 2018 Another Country, The City Arts Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland Stalking the Image: Margaret Tait and Her Legacy, GoMA, Glasgow, Scotland TRANS’, University of Johannesburg Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa there’s something in the conversation that’s more interesting than the finality of (a title), The Showroom, London UK Inner city, GOMA, Glasgow, UK REGURGITATE, [SPACE], London, UK Another Country, Alice R Rogers & Target Galleries, St. John’s University, Minnesota, USA WOMXN, De Balie, Amsterdam 2017 You never stand in the same water twice’, ROOM 113, Newcastle, UK Self Service, CCA Glasgow, UK You never stand in the same water twice, ROOM 113, Newcastle, UK ANTE, Suede Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland 2016 Between democracies 1989-2014: Memory and commemoration’, Kunsthalle Bratislava, Slovakia Rum Retort, The Tobacco Warehouse, Greenock, UK Hidden Door Festival, Hidden Door, Electric City, Edinburgh, Scotland 2015 Between Democracies 1989-2014: Memory and Commemoration, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa Embodied Spaces’, FRAMER FRAMED, Amsterdam, Netherlands Johannesburg Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy Finite Project Altered When Open, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland 2014 Resident 14, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK Where We’re At! Other Voices on Gender, BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium International Artist Initiated, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland Transforming Spaces, National Art Gallery, Bahamas STOP MAKING SENSE, The Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa 2013 women.object.corpse, Centre for African Studies, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa CARIFESTA XI, CARIFESTA XI, Paramaribo, Suriname 2012 Streets of Gold, Museum of London, London, UK LOOPING, Greatmore Studios, South Africa 2011 Split, Arratia Beer and Sommer und Kohl, Berlin, Germany Pop Up Cocktail Bar and Love Club, The Motorcycle Showroom, Bristol, UK 2010 The Secret Confession, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, UK NWSP 10 years, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, UK Solo Screenings 2022 Lagareh – The Last Born, Scotland+Venice Cinema Tour, Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow; Eden Court, Inverness; Mareel, Lerwick; Belmont Filmhouse, Aberdeen; Broadford Town Hall, Skye; Ayr Town Hall, Ayr The Axe Forgets But The Tree Remembers’, EartH, Hackney (7 September), The Rio Cinema, Hackney (21 September), National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (26 September) and Queen’s House, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (26 September) (commissioned as part of the Hackney Windrush Public Programme, curated by Create London in partnership with Hackney Council and funded by the Freelands Foundation) Group Screenings 2020 Glasgow Short Film Festival, Civic House, Glasgow, UK Kaleidoskop, Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria 2017 Self-Service, CCA, Glasgow Projects 2022 Congregation (Creating Dangerously), Grand Union, Birmingham, UK 2019 Without Tides, An Invitation, Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, UK Talks 2020 AfroScots: Revisiting the Work of Black Artists in Scotland through New Collecting, GOMA, Glasgow, UK Awards 2022 Represented Scotland at the 59th Biennale di Venezia. 2020 Turner Prize Bursary Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award Frieze Artist Award 2018 Margaret Tait Award RAW Academie Fellow at RAW Material, Dakar Press 2023 Jones, Jonathan: ‘Bath’s slavery past, an exiled Iraqi and Britain’s first celebs – the week in art’, The Guardian, 30/01/2023 Tewkesbury, Lydia;: ‘Shine a Light’, Bath Life, 27/01/2023 Clugston, Hannah: ‘A twisted tale of sugarand slaves: AlbertaWhittle uncoversawkward truths in UK show’, The Art Newspaper, 06/01/2023 2022 Heinrich, Kathrin: ‘Discover the Kabinett sector at Art Basel MiamiBeach’, Art Basel, 28/11/2022 ‘A lineup without limits: the Jarman awardson tour – in pictures’, The Guardian, 22/09/2022 CSS Bard: ‘Black Melancholia’, CSS Bard, 25/06/2022 Beth Colocci & Nina Pearlman: ‘New Worlds / Women to Watch 2024’, UK Friends of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 01/03/2022 Patrick Kurth: ‘Sex Ecologies’ Imagines Life in the Debris of Imperialism, Frieze, 226 22/02/2022 2021 e-flux: ‘Sex Ecologies’, e-flux, 02/12/2021 Lauren Dei: ‘Inside a new exhibition joining the dots between art, colonialism and the climate crisis’, gal-dem, 10/11/2021 Precious Adesina: ‘The art exploring the truth about how climate change began’, BBC Culture, 25/10/2021 Inês Geraldes Cardoso: ‘Interview with Alberta Whittle: ‘RESET’’, this is tomorrow, 09/10/2021 Ben Luke: ‘A brush with... Alberta Whittle’, Art Newspaper, 11/08/2021 Ocula: ‘An Infinity of Traces’, Ocula, 13/04/2021 Gareth Harris: ‘Britishness, belonging and Blackness: artists reflect on complexities of cultural identity in new London show’, Art Newspaper, 08/02/2021 2020 Taylor Le Melle: ‘Playing (With) Ghosts’, Frieze Week, 10/2020 Anna McNay: ‘Alberta Whittle – interview: ‘No one can find Barbados on a map, whereas everyone can find the UK. That level of inattention galvanises so much of my work’’, Studio-International.co.uk, 05/09/2020 Gabriella Angeleti: Alberta Whittle named the winner of this year’s Frieze Artist Award, Art Newspaper, 25/08/2020 Sarah Cascone: ‘10 Artists Will Each Get £10,000 Grants in Lieu of This Year’s Cancelled Turner Prize. Here’s a Look at Each of Them’, artnet, 02/07/2020 Ed Pavlic: ‘ALBERTA WHITTLE Business As Usual’, Source, 2020 Exhibition Reviews 2023 Westall, Mark: ‘Alberta Whittle, Dipping below a waxing moon, the dance claims us for release’, FAD, 27/01/2023 2022 Cotter, Holland : ‘For Black Artists, the Motivating Power of Melancholia’, The New York Times, 23/06/2022 Harris, Gareth; McGivern, Hannah; da Silva, José and Seymour, Tom: ‘Venice Biennale 2022: themust-see collateral exhibitionsaround the city’, The Art Newspaper, 21/04/2022 2021 Morris, Kadish : ‘Grief, loss and resurrections at Edinburgh art festival – review’, The Guardian, 05/08/2021 Cornwell, Tim: ‘Black Lives Matter resonates throughout Edinburgh Art Festival’, The Art Newspaper, 02/08/2021 Collections The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow Museums Collections The UK Arts Council Collection, St Andrew's University The Contemporary Art Research Collection at Edinburgh College of Art McManus Museum in Dundee. Publications MAP magazine Visual Culture in Britain Visual Studies Art South Africa Critical Arts Academic Journal |