2022 Bermuda Biennial
We are thrilled to be preparing for the 2022 Bermuda Biennial as it is our 30th anniversary and the 15th iteration of this exciting exhibition. The theme, A New Vocabulary: Past. Present. Future, was born out of the challenges and changes that we have all been through over the past two years.
In recognition of the Biennial in this anniversary year, we have also taken the opportunity to expand the submissions to include a poetry category to accompany the visual art submissions and we are excited to see how our island’s poets interpret this.
The 15th Bermuda Biennial will be juried by Claire Gilman, Chief Curator at The Drawing Center in New York and Alexandria Smith, Head of Painting at the Royal College of Art in London.
Richard Georges, the first Poet Laureate of the British Virgin Islands, will be the juror for the poetry component.
As with every Biennial, the caliber of our international jurors is one of the key components that stands this exhibition apart, and we look forward to welcoming them to Bermuda and introducing them to our island’s artists.
The deadline for entry is Monday, January 31. Application details can be found here.
Claire Gilman, Chief Curator of the Drawing Centre, New York
Claire Gilman is Chief Curator at The Drawing Center in New York. Over the past ten years, she has overseen the museum’s curatorial program, organizing more than forty exhibitions and public programs and authoring nearly as many catalogues.
She has organized projects that range from the first solo museum shows of artists like Huguette Caland (first US museum show), Torkwase Dyson, Natalie Frank, Eddie Martinez and Curtis Talwst Santiago, to new considerations of work by established artists such as Cecily Brown, Rashid Johnson, and Terry Winters, as well as conceptually-driven group shows including 100 Drawings From Now (2020), The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists (2019) (both co-organized with The Drawing Center’s curatorial team), and For Opacity: Elijah Burgher, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, and Toyin Ojih Odutola (2018).
Gilman holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and has taught art history and critical theory at Columbia; the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; the Corcoran College of Art and Design; The Museum of Modern Art; and the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in addition to lecturing on modern and contemporary art throughout the U.S.
She has written for Art Journal, CAA Reviews, Documents, Frieze, and October and has authored numerous essays for art books and museum exhibitions. Her book Drawing in the Present Tense, co-authored with Roger Malbert, is forthcoming from Thames and Hudson.
Alexandria Smith, Head of Painting at the Royal College of Art, London
Alexandria Smith is a mixed media visual artist based in London and New York. She earned her BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University; MA in Art Education from New York University; and MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design.
She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Queens Museum/Jerome Foundation Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship, the Virginia A. Myers Fellowship at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship.
She has been awarded residencies including Civitella Ranieri, MacDowell, Bemis, Yaddo and LMCC Process Space. Smith’s recent exhibitions include her first solo museum exhibit, Monuments to an Effigy at the Queens Museum and a site-specific commission for the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.
Smith has forthcoming solo exhibits at the Currier Museum (NH) and Gagosian Gallery (NYC). Alexandria is currently Head of Painting at the Royal College of Art in London.
Richard Georges, Poet Laureate, British Virgin Islands
Richard Georges is a writer of essays, fiction, and three collections of poetry. His most recent book, Epiphaneia (2019), won the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and his first book, Make Us All Islands (2017), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His second book, Giant (2018), was highly commended by the Forward Prizes and longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize.
Georges is a recipient of a Fellowship from the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study and has been listed or nominated for several other prizes, including the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, the Wasafiri New Writing Prize, and a Pushcart Prize.
He is a Founding Editor of Moko, an online publication focused on Caribbean art and literature. In 2020, Georges was appointed the first Virgin Islands Poet Laureate. He works in higher education and lives on Tortola with his wife and children.
Click here for details on how to apply for the 2022 Bermuda Biennial.