East Africa meets Western Europe as Michael Armitage takes on Venice's Palazzo Grassi

Artist Michael Armitage is the subject of a major monographic exhibition, The Promise of Change, opening at Venice’s Palazzo Grassi with 46 large paintings and nearly 100 sketches surveying the past decade of his work. Palazzo Grassi, rebuilt in the mid-1700s and owned by François Pinault since 2005, has previously hosted monographic shows of artists including Albert Oehlen, Luc Tuymans, and Marlene Dumas; at 42, Armitage is notably younger than many predecessors. Born in 1984 and raised in Kenya to a father from Huddersfield and a mother from Nairobi, Armitage describes early exposure to East African art and later encounters with Western art during his foundation year at the Byam Shaw School of Art. The article also recounts his career acceleration after White Cube’s Irene Bradbury visited his studio in 2015, leading to a 2016 London exhibition that propelled his international profile.

Read the full article at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events