Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night

Fly In League With The Night presents 67 paintings spanning two decades of work by the British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b. 1977, London). A painter and a writer, Yiadom-Boakye is celebrated for her enigmatic oil paintings of fictitious people.

The figures in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings feel both familiar and mysterious. Each of her works is created from a composite archive of found images and her own imagination, raising questions of identity and representation. Her paintings are created in spontaneous and instinctive bursts, revealing expressive, short brushstrokes and a distinctive palette of dark, dramatic tones contrasted with flashes of brightness. By stripping away the signifiers of any particular era, her figures seem to exist outside of a specific time or place, inviting viewers to project their own narratives, memories and interpretations. This major exhibition surveys the development of Yiadom-Boakye’s unique formal language from 2003 to the present day. 

Writing is central to Yiadom-Boakye’s artistic practice, as she has explained: “I write about the things I can’t paint and paint the things I can’t write about.” Her paintings are coupled with poetic, seemingly unrelated titles, and the exhibition is titled after a poem written especially for this occasion. 

The exhibition is organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, and Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.

Publication
Fly In League With The Night is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue including texts by Yiadom-Boakye, the exhibition curators, and the American poet and writer Elizabeth Alexander (Tate Publishing, 2020). Available at the Mudam Store and on mudamstore.com

Curators
Andrea Schlieker, Director of Exhibitions and Displays, and Isabella Maidment, Curator of Contemporary British Art, assisted by Aïcha Mehrez, Assistant Curator, Contemporary British Art, Tate Britain
Curator for the presentation at Mudam: Clément Minighetti, assisted by Sarah Beaumont

Also on view 
Zoe Leonard. Al río / To the River through June 6, 2022
Isamu Noguchi / Danh Vo: a cloud and flowers through September 19, 2022
Martine Feipel and Jean Bechameil. Garden of Resistance through January 9, 2023
Nedko Solakov: A Cornered Solo Show #1 through April 18, 2022
mirror mirror: cultural reflections in fashion through April 24, 2022
25 years of the Mudam Collection through April 18, 2022

Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean promotes creativity, visionary thinking, openness and cultural participation for all. Like Luxembourg itself, Mudam is situated in Europe but has a global and outward-looking vision. Mudam is committed to a more inclusive, more tolerant and more responsible world in which museums play a leading role in the transmission of our cultural heritage to future generations.

Our mission is to collect, conserve and present the most relevant contemporary art of our time and make it accessible to a wide audience. Through its exhibitions, publications, and artistic and educational programmes, Mudam fosters research and dialogue while giving special attention to the changing nature of art and its production across the world.