Before we talk, Alvaro Barrington gives me a tour of his expansive studio in Whitechapel, east London. It stands on the site of one of the country’s first free schools for the poor, founded in 1860. As we climb the stairs to the top floor of an ornate two-story neo-Jacobian building that was once an auditorium and gymnasium, he talks animatedly about the waves of migrant workers who settled and transformed the area, from French Huguenots in the 17th century to the Jewish, Irish and Bengali communities that followed in their wake.
“I consider myself essentially a working-class immigrant and Whitechapel agrees with that,” he says. “The long history of this planet is one of migration and exchange. That’s what has given me the most freedom in conceptualizing myself and my journey, so I feel a bit at home here.”
At the age of 41, Barrington’s own experience of migration and exchange is embedded in his vividly expressive paintings, which have made him one of the stars of the modern art scene. In a few weeks, after first capturing the attention of London’s art connoisseurs with his MFA graduate show at the Slade School of Art in 2017, he will present what is perhaps his most important exhibition to date. After being awarded the Tate Britain Commission, he follows in the footsteps of established artists such as Mike Nelson (2019) and Hew Locke (2022).
“It’s a big deal for every artist,” says London gallery owner Sadie Coles, who has organized four solo exhibitions of Barrington’s work since 2019. “No gallery exhibition will ever receive the level of attention or critical attention that a mega-platform like the Tate provides.”
In a paint-stained sweatshirt, baggy shorts, white socks and sandals, Barrington exudes a sense of easy calm that stands in stark contrast to the buzz of activity around him. Spread over several floors in a building adjacent to the old schoolhouse, there are rooms filled with paintings in progress, art materials and piles of multicolored fabrics, while a small army of youthful studio assistants flutter around with purpose.
In a press release from Tate Britain, the upcoming Duveen installation is tantalizingly described as “a major new work that addresses themes of place and belonging.” It’s taking shape in the school’s former gymnasium, but Barrington couldn’t discuss the details before the official opening. Instead, we head to a quiet attic room and talk about everything else under the sun, from the importance of community to the origins of New York hip-hop.
I feel honored, but I see it [the Tate commission] more like an opportunity than a tribute
Barrington was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to a Grenadian mother and a Haitian father, and raised in Grenada by his grandmother before moving to Brooklyn at the age of eight. His work is packed with memories of his Caribbean childhood landscape – blood-red hibiscus flowers are a recurring motif – as well as references to pop culture and art history. His conversation is also free-flowing and peppered with names that don’t often appear in the same sentence – Willem de Kooning and Tupac Shakur, Joseph Beuys and Marcus Garvey, Claude Monet and Miles Davis – but together form a kind of cultural map of his countless influences.
“Alvaro exists and draws from different communities that don’t often come together in the art world,” says Coles. “There’s his extended Caribbean community, the New York hip-hop community he immersed himself in in Brooklyn, but also his sense of self. belonging to an art community, whether it is Louise Bourgeois or his young friends who are also artists.”
Although Barrington defines himself as a painter, his materials speak to a similarly diverse approach to image-making, from the thread he sometimes stretches across his canvases in a kind of tribute to his grandmother’s sewing skills to the concrete on which he transcribes fragmented texts writes his canvases. the rich oral history of hip hop culture. He describes his approach as a kind of visual ‘creolization’.
After funding himself through university in New York, Barrington arrived in London as a relative unknown in 2017, but his Slade graduation show changed all that. “There was a shared feeling that this was a very powerful and dynamic new voice,” says Coles. “The fact that he was older than most of the other students meant that his work had highly developed autobiographical content, as well as a unique formal signature to reflect that.”
Shortly afterwards he got his first solo show at MoMA PS1 in New York. “It was offered to me via a DM on Instagram,” he says, still amazed. He responded by recreating his London studio in its entirety in the New York gallery. His iconoclastic approach to exhibiting continued with a 2019 show at Thaddaeus Ropac in London. Provocative title Artists I Steal From, it featured a single painting of his, nestled among a constellation of his influences, including works by Philip Guston, Agnes Martin and Robert Rauschenberg.
“That was probably the most important show of my life,” he says. “It was really about contextualizing myself in terms of all these other artists. One of the things I’m interested in is how artists throughout the long history of painting struggle to make painting meaningful. By studying their work, I may be able to borrow and transform some of their solutions.”
Since graduating, Barrington has walked at his own pace, creating elaborate floats and stages for the Notting Hill Carnival, and funding associated community projects. “Carnival is inclusive,” he says. “It’s a celebration of community. I put my paintings on a float and a million people get to see them.” He has plans to turn the old school building into a hub for emerging artists and a place where the local community can feel welcome and involved.
Even more intriguing, Barrington also boldly redefined the usually monogamous relationship between artist and gallery owner. He currently has nine galleries representing him worldwide, including three in London and three in New York. “His approach is aimed at maximizing all the opportunities available to him,” says Coles, “but there is also a strategy at work, with each gallery dealing with a different aspect of his work. I’ve had his hibiscus and carnival paintings, while Blum in Los Angeles is mostly about his urban, hip-hop influenced content.
Hip-hop, Barrington says, was the soundtrack of his young life and remains his most important formative influence. For his debut show at Blum, he had one of his heroes, Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan, perform on a pop-up stage. The title of Ghostface’s song All That I Got Is You is tattooed on his left hand.
“Growing up in Brooklyn, hip-hop let me know that what I was going through, others were going through too,” Barrington says, visibly animated. “Biggie, Tupac, Ghostface – those guys saved my life. They are my North Stars and there is a part of the Tate Britain show where I acknowledge that. That’s all I can say about it.” He pauses for a moment, as if lost in thought. “I remember hearing Slick Rick’s Children’s Story as a child and I can truthfully say that there wouldn’t be a Tate Britain show if he hadn’t made that record.”
When I ask Barrington how he felt when he secured the Tate commission, his answer is characteristically thoughtful. “I felt honored, but I saw it more as an opportunity than as a tribute. And on every occasion there is also the bigger question: What does this mean?”
So what does it mean for him? He pauses for a long moment. ‘Well, I’ve lived in London for almost ten years, but I consider myself an American. Then there’s the fact that I grew up in Grenada, which is part of the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom. I remember seeing the Queen’s face on a banknote for the first time when I was five years old. So the first question is: what is my relationship to all of this and how can I explore this? The Tate show is a great opportunity to think about that. That’s the exciting part.”