Chris Ofili: Joyful Sorrow
26 October–14 December 2024
Victoria Miro Venice
San Marco 1994, 30124 Venice, Italy
Tuesday–Saturday: 10am-1pm & 2-6pm
Monday by appointment
‘I’ve read Othello many times, and listened to recordings of the text; I’ve seen stage performances and onscreen adaptations, and I continue to discuss it. It doesn’t go away.’ — Chris Ofili, as quoted from the publication Joyful Sorrow, co-published by David Zwirner Books and Victoria Miro
Joyful Sorrow is a two-site exhibition by the acclaimed British painter Chris Ofili: new paintings at David Zwirner Paris and works on paper at Victoria Miro Venice continue the artist’s exploration of William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (1603–04). The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication in collaboration with scholar, poet and writer Jason Allen-Paisant.
Renowned for his rich, multilayered paintings, Ofili here expands his engagement with Othello in works that ask us to contemplate metamorphosis, love, the bearing of outside influences on our inner selves, and the force we exercise on the world. On view at Victoria Miro Venice is a series of watercolours titled Othello – Reflection, begun while the artist was in Venice. Their transmuting colours and forms reflect the character’s complex interiority – his vulnerabilities and his joyful sorrows. ‘Othello’ is inscribed along the bottom of each watercolour, the letters accompanied by diving and scrolling interlinked figures.
That the artist considers these works to be partly self-portraits does not imply that he somehow sought to cast himself as Othello as he made them. Instead, self-portraiture here is explored as a movement of imaginative empathy – an open-ended impulse to turn towards the other in the mind’s eye, in the fullness of one’s own subjectivity. This project of approaching the other through the self is, however, undertaken in the knowledge that acts of representation can never fully capture either self or other.
Each watercolour is encased within an artist’s frame of carved and charred wooden shutter doors that have mirrored interior surfaces, which in their opening bring into being moments of protection, reflection and revelation, and a play between inner and outer selves.
CO944
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More info‘These weather-beaten carapaces of blackened wood, vibrating with absorbed energy, bear carved representations of the faces within.’ — from the publication Joyful Sorrow
‘On the opening of a shutter, as light, rushing in, bounces off surfaces, we meet an exposed, eloquent gaze and at the same time find that our own reflection swims away in a play of double mirrors, one attached to each of the interior doors.’
‘Outer portraits, inner portraits – faces brought into being, irreducibly multiple.’
Chris 6 (face detail)
Jason poem
‘In the nervous system / of the bridge – Rialto – / I sound my cells’
— Jason Allen-Paisant, from ‘Self-Portrait as Othello III’, originally published in his collection Self-Portrait as Othello, Carcanet, 2023, and reproduced in the publication Joyful Sorrow
Chris grid 1
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More info
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More info
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More info
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More info
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More info
Watercolour and charcoal on paper in hinged artist frame of carved and charred American black walnut with 'Antique bronze' mirror insets
Closed: 44.5 x 30.8 x 6.5 cm
17 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 2 1/2 in
Open: 44.5 x 60 x 11.5 cm
17 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 4 1/2 in
Chris Ofili, Othello – Reflection, 2018–2024
More infoJason quote
‘I think the telling of Othello’s story seemed unfinished or rather that it generates endless narratives to be talked about. I felt that Othello was still with us here, very much present, not just as a paradigm but also as an experience.’
— Jason Allen-Paisant, as quoted from the publication Joyful Sorrow
Chris 5 (text detail)
‘The face of Ofili’s subject – so joyfully, repeatedly named, as though a name could be only a portal to limitless wonder rather than an imposition – splits and metamorphoses with each representation, disturbed by ripples.’ — from the publication Joyful Sorrow
Joyful Sorrow publication
Published on the occasion of this two-site exhibition staged by David Zwirner Paris and Victoria Miro Venice, the joint publication Joyful Sorrow includes a text from Ofili’s studio and a selection of poems by scholar, poet and writer Jason Allen-Paisant from his 2023 collection Self-Portrait as Othello.
Chris Ofili: Joyful Sorrow at David Zwirner Paris
About the artist
Chris Ofili explores the intersection of desire, identity, and representation in his work, which merges abstraction and figuration; vibrant, symbolic, and often mysterious, his paintings and works on paper incorporate a range of aesthetic and cultural sources. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at venues including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2017–2019); National Gallery, London (2017); New Museum, New York (2014–2015); The Arts Club of Chicago (2010); Tate Britain, London (2010 and 2005); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2006); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2005); and Serpentine Gallery, London (1998). Ofili represented Britain in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and won the Turner Prize in 1998. He lives and works in Trinidad.
Exhibition views
