Her works resemble gigantic masks or monuments: Canadian artist Tau Lewis sews, carves and makes plaster casts. Her artworks, often made from found or discarded materials, can be seen at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston from August 29.
Tau Lewis is in search of materials that carry meaning. She collects driftwood, conch shells, photographs and discarded clothing and leather remnants from her birthplace Toronto, her home in New York or when visiting her family in Negril, Jamaica. Lewis' upcycling technique is closely linked to the prehistory of the objects, especially the handmade ones. These are surrounded by an aura of their own, consisting of the energy a person invested in making them and the emotions they felt in the process. Lewis transfers this aura into her artworks, which become a unique expression of different social and cultural histories. The self-taught artist's first US museum exhibition opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, for which she created new works especially: Tau Lewis: Spirit Level runs from August 29, 2024 to January 20, 2025. The catalog published to accompany the exhibition is the first monograph on Lewis.
With her sewing and quilting work, Lewis (*1993) draws attention to the historically female-connoted craft work that was and still is judged as artistically secondary. Her aim is to address personal and collective traumas and to work on overcoming them. Lewis has exhibited primarily in New York and Canada, in addition to presentations at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami. In 2022, she was represented at the 59th Venice Biennale with her work series Divine Giants Tribunal (2021).
As part of the InterNationalgalerie series, the Alte Nationalgalerie invites other institutions to exhibit in its own spaces. Kicking off the series on June 18 is the National Museum in Warsaw with the exhibition Inventing Myths.
Through June 27, Elvira Flamm is showcasing three works from her series Ikonen ohne Namen (Icons without Names) in the Made in Berlin Art Award 2026 exhibition. She was selected as one of 20 artists for the show at the BBA Gallery.
