| Intro | Kenyan visual artist |
| Is |
Artist Visual artist |
| From | Kenya |
| Type |
Arts Creativity |
| Gender | female |
| Birth | 1 January 1976 |
| Age: | 44 years |
Grace Ndiritu is an international visual artist. At the age of 22 she was taught art in Amsterdam by Hollywood film director Steve McQueen. In 2009 her art had entered into the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection in New York, gaining a place in Phaidon’s The 21st Century Art Book published in 2014. In 2014 she was named one of the ten most important and influential artists under 40 by Apollo Magazine. In 2012, she took the decision to spend time only 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 16 years ago. Ndiritu has also written an online book project on youth culture, Dissent Without Modification a Post-hippie, Skate, Surf, Street, Neo-Tribal Fashion book project.
Education
Grace Ndiritu (Kenya/UK) studied Textile Art at Winchester School of Art, UK and De Ateliers, Amsterdam 1998-2000. Her teachers included Marlene Dumas (painter), Steve McQueen (film director), Tacita Dean (artist) and Stan Douglas (artist). Afterwards she attended UK studio residency, Delfina_Foundation, London (2004-2006), previous participants included Kendell Geers, Anri Sala, Urs Fischer, Steve McQueen, Michel Majerus
Ellen Cantor, Susan Hiller, Keith Tyson, Mark Wallinger, Martin Creed, Ceal Floyer.
Personal
Ndiritu took the decision in 2012 to only 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 16 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 including the Burning Man in Nevada, a Hare Krishna ashram and the Findhorn New Age community in Scotland. A result of this research was her ambitious post-internet living research/live art project, The Ark: Center For Interdisciplinary Experimentation, that took place from 1 to 10 July 2017. Part scientific experiment and part spiritual experience, it focused on the role of art, science, spirituality and politics. In order to encourage creativity and vulnerability and to come up with radical, new ways of thinking about life and the problems of today’s world, The Ark had no audience for the first six days, so the 15 participants (scientists, artists, gardeners, economists, chef, spiritual workers) could go deeper into this process. The Ark aimed to firstly open a dialogue between its own participants through a multiplicity of themes including Plants, Biology, Shamanism, Meditation, Food, Philosophy, Communities, Education, Architecture, Future of Cities, Democracy and Activism; and secondly with a wider audience during the Public Weekend – performances, film screenings, BBQ party and Academic Roundtable..The Ark took place at Les Laboratories Aubervillers art space in Paris.
Work
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 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.
Painting
Ndiritu describes her method of painting as Post-Hippie Pop-Abstraction. It was used as the basis for her SWEATSHOP series of painting installations, which look at the idea of the sweatshop from three juxtaposing yet overlapping angles: Indigenous Tribes who are producing culture and spirituality to feed the New Age movement in the West; The Art Studio – artists who are making objects to feed the art market; Third World Countries – where poorly paid workers make products to feed the luxury, fashion, global consumer market.
Film/Video
Her archive of over forty ‘hand-crafted’ videos are largely held in the archive of LUX – British Artists Film/Video archive. Notably her video The Nightingale has been shown during the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) and is now housed the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Furthermore, her video Still Life White Textiles (2007) has been used as a reference in art appreciation and art history classes throughout colleges and universities since 2010. A World Of Art, 7th Edition-Henry M. Sayre – Question: What was the inspiration for Grace Ndiritu’s Still Life: White Textiles? Answer: a) traditional Yoruban rituals b) an exhibition of work by Henri Matisse in 2005 in London c) erotic puppet shows d) the action paintings of Jackson Pollock
Performance
Since 2013 Ndiritu has been doing shamanic performances as part of her visual art practice, as a result of her training in esoteric studies such as shamanism, which she began over 16 years ago. In 2017 she was invited to give a talk on her work at Fondation Ricard in Paris, alongside other renown speakers such as Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev – director of Documenta 13 art exhibition and Fabrice Hergott – director of Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris To date Ndiritu’s performances have taken place at Fundacion Tapies, Barcelona (2017), Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris (2016), Glasgow School of Art (2015), Galveston Artist Residency Garden, Texas (2015), Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2014), Musee Chasse & Nature, Paris (2013), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013).
Photography
Since 2010 Ndiritu has been creating an encyclopedic archive of images, entitled A Quest For Meaning (AQFM). It is a universal narrative, a creation story from the beginning of Time. Told through photography it tells ‘stories’ between similarly disparate objects and events from the Big Bang until now, by conjuring up and making new connections between them. Abstract photography allows Ndiritu to explore the formalism of the still life genre in such a way that what appears in the microcosm of the photograph is a reflection of what occurs in the macrocosm of the universe. Closely connected to her interests in the moving image, the various themes in AQFM perpetually expand to create photographic constellations.
Writing
Aged 14 Ndiritu was published by Oxford University Press. More recently Ndiritu’s experimental art writing has been published by Animal Shelter Journal Semiotext(e) MIT Press.
Her political essays A Call To White America: A Response to Donald J. Trump (2016) and Notes To a White Left World: Activism in this Current Political Crisis (2017) and essays about museums and exhibition making Healing The Museum (2016) and Ways of Seeing: A New Museum Story for Planet Earth (2017) are published online.
Her online book Dissent Without Modification is a critical theory book, made up of research interviews with interesting, radical, progressive, forward thinking women who started their careers in the 1990s. A mixture of known and unknown American, European and African women working as painters, photographers, performance artists, hackers, activists, and educators. What joins these brilliant women together, aged from their late thirties to their sixties is a sub-textual theme that the decade of the 90’s had a culturally significant impact on their politics, creativity, career and personal life choices. It was a creative coming of age period that changed their life’s trajectory forever.
Press Reviews
In April 2017, Grace Ndiritu was interviewed for The Most Amazing People with a candid and revealing interview about death, love, art, grief and River Phoenix.
In September 2014, Apollo Magazine published 40 Under 40, an annual magazine dedicated to the ten most important and influential artists under 40. The first edition was for artists in Europe, in which Ndiritu was included alongside Idris Khan, Danh Vō, Ryan Gander, Cyprien Gaillard, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Adrian Ghenie, Ed Atkins, Lucy McKenzie, Ragnar Kjartansson. In 2015 Apollo published their second edition which listed artists in the USA. It included Rashid Johnson, Tauba Auerbach, Kevin Beasley, Cory Arcangel, Diana Al-Hadid, Camille Henrot, Ryan Trecartin, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Walead Beshty, Dana Schutz.
In 2011 Ndiritu’s video Desert Storm (2004) was also compared to Titian’s The Rape of Europa (1562), Delacroix’s painting Death of Sardanapalus (1827), Goya’s Disasters of War series of drawings and Gentileschi’s painting Susanna and the Elders (1610), by Caroline Bagenal for Afterimage Magazine.
Exhibitions
Her archive of over forty ‘hand-crafted’ videos; experimental photography, painting and shamanic performances have been widely exhibited. Recent solo exhibitions included Klowden Mann in Los Angeles (2016), Glasgow School of Art (Turner Prize fringe season 2015) La Ira De Dios, Buenos Aires (2014), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007), the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2005). Recent solo performances and screenings include Museum Modern of Art, Warsaw (2014), Musee Chasse & Nature and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013), ICA Artist Film Survey, London (2011), Artprojx at Prince Charles Cinema London (2009).
Recent group shows included CAMH Houston (2015), MAC International Art Prize, Belfast (2014), Kulte Gallery, Casablanca (2014), MACBA, Barcelona (2014), 9th Bamako Biennale (2011), International Center of Photography, New York (2009), 8th Dakar Biennale (2008), Amnesty International (2005).She was awarded 1st Prize for Landscape Video and Photography, at the Centre for Art and Nature, Spain (2010). Her work has been commissioned by Glasgow School of Art (2015), MACBA, Barcelona (2014), Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (2010), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2007) and Glynn Vivian Gallery, Wales (2006).
Ndiritu’s work is also housed in museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Modern Art Museum, Warsaw and private collections and private collections such as the King Mohammed VI, Morocco and The Walther Collection.