LONDON.- Internationally renowned artist Wangechi Mutu is to receive the second Contemporary Fellowship, awarded by the National Gallery, and supported by Art Fund and delivered in partnership with the Whitworth, The University of Manchester.
Wangechi Mutu (born 1972) is a Kenyan/American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work. Born in Kenya, Mutu now divides her time between her studios in Nairobi and in Brooklyn, New York, where she has lived and worked for over 20 years.
The National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund is a pioneering, peer-to-peer collaboration with a non-London collecting institution, which this year is the Whitworth, a leading university art gallery in the north of England with exceptional collections of art and design. The Fellowship, which is awarded to an artist of international standing and renown with a major body of work that has significantly contributed to 20th and 21st century art, is part of the National Gallery’s Modern and Contemporary Programme, and a partnership with the Art Fund. The two-year programme will allow Mutu to work in close collaboration with the National Gallery and the Whitworth to study their collections to create new art work during 2026–28 for her first UK institutional exhibition. The Fellowship will be documented in a publication.
In collages, films, sculptures and installations Mutu reflects on a broad range of subjects that explore and reshape the narratives of womanhood, challenging misogynist tropes and violent representations of women, especially of Black women, that persist in the contemporary world. The images of women across art history, from mothers, virgins and goddesses, provide Mutu with potent source material for her work, reflecting cultural references as broad as science-fiction, mythology and Afro-futurism. More recently, Mutu has been producing images of worlds within worlds, populated by powerful female figures that represent the relationship to an ailing planet and ever-resilient ecosystems. Her practice has been described as engaging in her own unique form of myth-making, in which fact and fiction interweave to open up possibilities for another group of symbolic female figures, distinct from those that appear in either classical history or popular culture. Mutu was honoured by the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution in 2019 and by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2017. Her work will feature in the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh.
The National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship is supported by Art Fund, which enabled an open call to public collecting institutions outside London to become the partner institution. The National Gallery’s Modern and Contemporary Advisory Panel selected the Whitworth as the partner institution in recognition of the quality and international ambition of its programmes and collections. The Fellowship will culminate in an exhibition at the National Gallery in October 2027 and at the Whitworth, in Spring 2028. Following its UK run, the exhibition will be available to tour internationally.
Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London, says: ‘I am delighted that Wangechi Mutu is the recipient of the National Gallery’s second Contemporary Fellowship. This appointment reflects the Gallery’s longstanding commitment to contemporary artists. We look forward with great excitement to working with Wangechi, Art Fund and our partner institution in this year’s Fellowship, the Whitworth in Manchester.’
Dr Sook-Kyung Lee, Director of the Whitworth, The University of Manchester, says: ’We’re delighted that the National Gallery has recognised the ambitious transnational programme at the Whitworth and we’re delighted to be partnering on this project. Like the National Gallery, the Whitworth is committed to engaging new audiences by building bold exhibitions and creating new perspectives on our collections, centred on the voices of leading contemporary artists. We’re incredibly excited to see what Wangechi Mutu develops and presents for all our audiences.’
Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund, says: ‘Wangechi Mutu is a remarkable artist whose powerful work fascinates audiences around the world, and we are delighted she’s been selected for the second National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund. Inviting living artists to create work in conversation with public collections is an opportunity for the artist, the institution and the public to gain new perspectives on the art of the past and the present. I can’t wait to see what Mutu will create over the next two years as she works closely with the inspiring collections in the Whitworth in Manchester and the National Gallery in London.’
Wangechi Mutu is the second artist to be chosen for this Fellowship which has been created as part of the Gallery’s Modern and Contemporary Programme. The inaugural Fellowship was awarded to Nalini Malani who had exhibitions of new work at the National Gallery and its partner for that Fellowship, the Holburne Museum, Bath. Malani’s exhibition was one of the most visited in the National Gallery’s history.
