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Lubaina Himid’s British pavilion at the Venice Biennale review – alienation in a green and pleasant land

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H ome comforts aren’t always all that comfortable. Here at the Venice Biennale , Lubaina Himid paints an awkward, tense, uncomfortable portrait of our damp old home nation. Her installation of monumental paintings and a wall of painted oars at the British pavilion is full of tailors and cooks and architects, the people who shape the country, keeping it fed, clothed and sheltered. An audio piece burbles through the space with the sound of bucolic country life: seagulls, rigging slapping on masts, bird calls and buzzing flies. How lovely Great Britain is, how welcoming and kind and accepting. They exchange sideways glances … Tailors by Lubaina Himid. Photograph: Eva Herzog But is it? The black figures at the heart of each painting don’t look as if they feel particularly welcomed and accepted. They exchange sideways glances as they cook and sew; they pause in moments of shared discomfort.…

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