For four decades, Sonia Boyce DBE RA has cultivated a multidisciplinary practice that explores play, language and pattern, while questioning the nature of representation and authorship. For her first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth, she will present two new films. Inspired by Roy DeCarava’s ‘Dancers, New York’ (1956) and Adrian Piper’s ‘Funk Lessons’ (1983), two groundbreaking artists who centered Black culture, Boyce’s first film weaves together footage captured at a silent disco—a paradoxically hushed event, in which a roomful of dancers respond to music played over personal headphone sets. A key subject in Boyce’s latest body of work, the silent disco is not a party, but rather a framework for close listening, improvisation and collective performance. Boyce has taken still images from her film and arranged them into kaleidoscopic patterns to create wallpaper installations within the exhibition space, eroding distinctions between the artwork and its means of production and display. The second film on view delves into the life and career of trailblazing Guyanese British actress Carmen Munroe, who reshaped assumptions about Black life in the UK through her performances in West End plays such as Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ and her roles in popular television programs including ‘Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World’ (1967 – 1968) and ‘The Persuaders’ (1971 – 1972). Part portrait, part historical document, Boyce’s film traces Munroe’s impact as an artist and activist.
