LUBAINA HIMID: A Fashionable Marriage

Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris
Presented as part of Festival d'Automne
On view through January 10, 2027

On the occasion of Paris's annual Festival d'Automne, the Musée d'Art Moderne presents Lubaina Himid's renowned installation A Fashionable Marriage (1986). Composed of numerous life-size cutouts, paintings, and drawings, the installation calls forth both Himid's training as a theatrical set designer and her important role in the UK’s Black Arts Movement. Himid recasts Hogarth’s Countess as Margaret Thatcher, who falls into the arms of her lover—here, Ronald Reagan. Hogarth’s castrato singer becomes an art critic who, business as usual, babbles on. Himid re-casts the Black figures in Hogarth’s composition as agents of social change—artists and unifiers amidst political turmoil. A key artwork from Himid’s early career, A Fashionable Marriage has become thoroughly relevant again in a moment when our world leaders resemble ever more closely those of the 1980s.

Curated by Clément Dirié, with Odile Burluraux for the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.

As part of the Festival d'Automne, Lubaina Himid and collaborator Magda Stawarska also present Attendre ensemble, a monumental installation spanning painting, sculpture, textile, and sound at the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, Paris, on view through December 20, 2026.

For more information, please visit the Musée d'Art Moderne's website.