Iris Kensmil Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition

Iris Kensmil, Audre Lorde, The New Utopia Begins Here #2, Biennale Art Venice

Kensmil, Audre Lorde Iris Kensmil presents her works at the Netherlands Pavilion in “The Measurement of Presence” exhibition.

Iris Kensmil is an artist born in 1970 in Amsterdam who focuses her work on the place of blacks in Dutch society.

Her feminist discourse highlights black women in her exhibition at the Netherlands Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Art Biennale.

Iris Kensmil’s works presented at the Venice Biennale of Art trace the history of feminism through portraits of black intellectual women: artists, philosophers, writers and musicians.

Iris Kensmil “The New Utopia Begins Here #1”

Iris Kensmil, Hermina Huiswood, The New Utopia Begins Here #1, Biennale Art Venice

Hermina Huiswood On three walls are presented 7 portraits of famous black feminists and intellectuals.

These portraits were made from photographs and are painted so that a glow illuminates them from the inside as if this light came from the back of the portrait.

We see the black feminist Bell Hooks (born in 1952), the Pan-African Ashwood Garvey (1897-1969), the singer and DJ Sister Nancy (born in 1962), the activist and journalist Claudia Jones (1915-1964), Hermina Huiswood, communist and activist for the independence of Suriname (1905-1998), Suzanne Césaire, surrealist and anti-colonial writer as well as feminist and science fiction short story writer Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006).

The black abstract shapes on the white background of the walls are inspired by the works of Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich.

Iris Kensmil, The New Utopia Begins Here #1

Iris Kensmil, portrait of the black feminist Bell Hooks, The New Utopia Begins Here #1, Biennale Art Venice

Iris Kensmil, Bell Hooks

Amy Ashwood Garvey

Hermina Huiswood

Iris Kensmil, portrait of journalist and activist Claudia Jones, The New Utopia Begins Here #1, Biennale Art Venice

Kensmil, Claudia Jones

Iris Kensmil, portrait of the singer and DJ Sister Nancy, The New Utopia Begins Here #1, Biennale Art Venice

Kensmil, Sister Nancy

Octavia E. Butler

Iris Kensmil, portrait of Suzanne Césaire surrealist and anti-colonialist writer, The New Utopia Begins Here #1, Biennale Art Venice

Kensmil, Suzanne Césaire

Iris Kensmil “Audre Lorde, The New Utopia Begins Here #2”

Painting - Acrylic on Wall (580 x 390 cm) 2019 Biennale Art Venice

This is a large mural portrait of the activist writer and poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992).

A woman who defined herself this way: “I am a black feminist lesbian, a warrior poet, a mother, strong in representing all my identities, and I am invisible.”

Kensmil, Audre Lorde

Iris Kensmil “Beyond the Burden of Representation”

Painting - Acrylic on Wall, Oil on Canvas (580 x 390 cm) 2019 Biennale Art Venice

Iris Kensmil