Delaine Le Bas at Tramway
Tramway, the south-side arts centre managed by charity Glasgow Life, working in partnership with Glasgow International is delighted to announce the next exhibition in our main gallery with Turner Prize nominated Delaine Le Bas. Le Bas was recently nominated for the Turner Prize 2024 for her presentation Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning at Secession, Vienna.
Open to the public 7 June–13 October
The announcement adds another layer of excitement to her imminent exhibition in Tramway’s main gallery Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding which will take the form of an expansive and layered installation which creates a dialogue between existing and new works. The exhibition is curated and co-commissioned by Tramway and Glasgow International Festival (7–23 June).
Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding is an exhibition of work by artist Delaine Le Bas (1965) presented within an immersive, textile installation. Delaine’s objects, environments, textiles, costumes and performances exist at the intersection of the personal and the political, aligning their experiences as a Romani person with perspectives on land, movement, gender, and discrimination.
Across the exhibition, Delaine evokes forms of social and psychological commentary through the incorporation of texts from her journals, personal ephemera and re-activations of her archive which draw on childhood memories, stories and mythologies of her Romani ancestry as well as classical mythology and popular culture. Delaine explores these mythologies through a feminist lens, manifesting them as a cast of extraordinary female figures such as goddesses, visionaries and witches that populate her installations.
Tramway was previously the Glasgow site of To Gypsyland (2013), a travelling research project by Delaine and collaborator Barby Asante that explored Romani, Gypsy and Traveller presence in cities across the UK. In the intertwining of elements from past projects with new figures and narratives, Delainia reflects the ongoing address in the work of the mythologisation and demonisation of Romani, Gypsy and Traveller peoples in the UK and Europe. These concerns are amplified within present-day contexts of housing crisis, border control, forced displacement and environmental breakdown. Delaine’s work activates and reclaims space for new rituals and imaginaries of resistance against historical and contemporary environments of hostility.
Delaine Le Bas has exhibited her works extensively both in the UK and abroad. In June 2007, her work was included in the first Roma Pavilion at 52nd Venice Biennale and the Prague Biennale. She has continued participating in international events, including the 11th Berlin Biennale (2020), Harbstsalon, Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin (2019, 2017), Roma Pavillion at 58th Venice Biennale (2019), ANTI Athens Biennale, Athens (2018), 9th Gwangju Biennale (2011), National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (2014), Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2015), and a number of UK venues including solo exhibitions at Transmission, Glasgow (2018), Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton (2014), Phoenix, Brighton (2014), Chapter, Cardiff (2010), Transition, London (2005).
‘St Sara Kali George’, Worthing Museum and Art Gallery (2021), ‘Beware of Linguistic Engineering’, Maxim Gorki Theater (2022). She created a commissioned work for a group exhibition ‘Radical Landscapes’ for Tate Liverpool (2021). She has curated ‘House of Le Bas’(2023) an exhibition overviewing the history of practice of herself and her late artist husband Damian Le Bas for Whitechapel Gallery in London and a a solo show for Secession in Vienna in the summer 2023 for which she was nominated for the Turner Prize 2024.
Delaine Le Bas, Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning, Ausstellungsansicht, Secession 2023, Foto: Iris Ranzinger
Delaine Le Bas, Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning, Ausstellungsansicht, Secession 2023, Foto: Iris Ranzinger
Delaine Le Bas The House of Le Bas, Whitechapel Gallery, 2023, Photo Alexander Christie.
Delaine Le Bas The House of Le Bas, Whitechapel Gallery, 2023, Photo Alexander Christie.
Image: installation view of Tutis A Rinkeni Moola, Abri at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix. Photo by Alexander Christie
Image: installation view of What We Know Won’t Hurt Us at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix. Photo by Alexander Christie
Festival opening week hours:
Press Preview: Wednesday 5 May, 12–5pm
Open to the public: Thursday 6 May, 11am–5pm
Open to the public: Friday 7 May, 10am–5pm
Preview & performance by Delaine Le Bas: Friday 7 May, 6–9pm
Opening hours during Glasgow International Festival:
Monday–Friday 12–5pm
Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday 11am–5pm
Late openings until 7pm during the festival: Wednesday 12 May and Friday 14 May
Opening hours after Glasgow International Festival:
From 24 June
CLOSED Monday and Tuesday
Open Wednesday–Friday 12–5pm
Saturday 12–6pm
Sunday 12–5pm
For press information contact Nicola Jeffs nj@nicolajeffs.com
Mobile: 07794 694 754
Tramway is funded by Creative Scotland
About Tramway
One of Scotland’s leading international art-spaces, the venue acts as a hub for creative excellence in contemporary visual art and performance by developing presentation and production opportunities supporting ambitious commissions and the production of new exhibitions by both Scottish and International artists.
Visit www.tramway.org
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