Art / Spike island
Spike Island 2024 summer exhibition programme features the late British artist Donald Rodney
Hot on the heels of their ever-popular Open Studios weekend, which took place across the early May bank holiday, Spike Island is launching its summer exhibition programme.
A major exhibition of kinetic and animatronic sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, oil pastels and digital media from the late British artist Donald Rodney will bring together all his surviving work, made across a 15-year period from 1982-1997.
The collection has been curated by outgoing Spike Island director Robert Leckie, and Nicole Yip, chief curator at Nottingham Contemporary who will take over Leckie’s post in June.
is needed now More than ever
Through the exhibition, the pair are hoping to introduce an important figure within British art to a new audience – by sharing not only his rich and varied work, but also insights into his personal life.
Rodney’s artistic inspiration ranged from explorations of racial identity to societal prejudice and injustice, Britain’s colonial past, Black masculinity and sickle cell – the chronic illness with which he lived throughout his 37 years.
Donald Rodney, In Retrospect – Installation view at Iniva, London view at Iniva, London, 2008 – photo: Thierry Bal
His personal experiences of living with pain and the challenges of decreasing mobility are reflected in his work, depicted metaphorically in works such as 1997s’s My Mother, My Father, My Sister, a model of a house formed of pins, and his own skin.
The exhibition title, Visceral Canker derives from a sculptural work of heraldic plaques linked by medical tubing, emblematic of the ways in which historical injustice has continued to infect the way in which contemporary society is structured.
Also included in the collection is Autoicon (1997-2000) a powerful interactive digital artwork conceived by Rodney and completed by his close friends following his death from sickle cell anaemia in 1998.
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker is at Spike Island from May 25-September 8 2024, Wednesday-Sunday 12-5pm (closed Monday and Tuesday). More information on the programme is available from www.spikeisland.org.uk. Gallery entry is free and you do not need to book.
There is an exhibition preview night on May 24 from 6-8pm; this event is free but booking is required (tickets from www.eventbrite.co.uk).
Main photo: Thierry Bal (Donald Rodney: In Retrospect – Installation view at Iniva, London, 2008, cropped)
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
