The singers are tentative at first, letting the sound out softly and gently. There are three of them, headphones on, leaning into microphones in London’s Abbey Road recording studios. They are guided in their efforts by the composer Errollyn Wallen. “Imagine you’re lions,” she tells them. The three Black women vocalists growl into the microphones.
Sitting on crystal-shaped golden blocks in the first, largest room of Sonia Boyce’s installation, the art-world audience in the British pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale has never witnessed a spectacle like this. As the three singers – Poppy Ajudha, Jacqui Dankworth and Tanita Tikaram – build to a climax on their video screens, the audience has unwittingly become part of the performance: protagonists on the stage that the artist has set, enveloped in glistening, tessellated wallpaper she has designed and surrounded with more of the crystal-like gold blocks, some arranged as seats, others cascading from above.
Much has been said about Boyce’s selection as the first Black woman to represent the UK at the world’s leading international art festival in its 113-year history – so much that it has threatened to eclipse discussion of her work as one of the most important artists working in the UK today. That status is still higher since she became the first British artist to be awarded the Golden Lion for the best national contribution to the festival since Bridget Riley won the accolade in 1968.
