Winner of the British Book Awards 2021 in the Exhibition Catalogue category. To celebrate, Autograph has made limited stock available in our online shop, alongside a small number of exhibition posters signed by the artist.

Accompanying Autograph’s critically-acclaimed Lina Iris Viktor exhibition, this is the first comprehensive monograph showcasing the British-Liberian artist’s work.

Published in a limited print run of only 750 copies in 2020, Some Are Born To Endless Night — Dark Matter is a beautifully produced, deluxe artist book with cloth cover, gilded page edges, embossed lettering in gold foil, and gloss varnished black-on-black endpapers. The book’s design reflects the artist’s intricate, labyrinthine patterns, her playful emphasis on different tonalities and densities of black, and ritualistic use of 24-karat gold.

Bringing together a curated selection of Viktor’s exquisite black, gold and ultramarine blue colour works, Some Are Born To Endless Night — Dark Matter  is enriched with photographs documenting Autograph’s exhibition, and written contributions by Christina Sharpe, Emmanuel Iduma, Yrsa Daley-Ward and curator Renée Mussai. An in-depth conversation between the artist and Mussai is included in three parts.

In Viktor’s artistic universe, black is conjured as a deeply generative force – the proverbial materia prima, the source, the dark matter that birthed everything. Her extraordinary figurative works – based on photographs, then painted over and gilded – are infused with the cultural, historical and material implications and multifaceted notions of ‘blackness’: as colour, value and socio-political consciousness.

The core of the publication comprises 48 works from Viktor's Dark Continent series, an imaginary riposte to the nineteenth-century myth of Africa as the ‘dark continent’. In these works, a solitary female figure – naked, shrouded in black paint, her hair golden – inhabits an imaginary monochromatic landscape, its lustrous darkness punctuated by solar and lunar symbols. Each image is accompanied by a narrative title that collectively forms an extended poem.

This book invites you to become immersed in Viktor’s meticulously crafted, bold visual cosmology – centring the black figure as the universal human form through which narratives are woven, histories entwined, and possible futures imagined.

Published to accompany Autograph's exhibition Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born to Endless Night — Dark Matter  (12 September 2019 – 25 January 2020).

Unfortunately, we are temporarily unable to accept orders through our online shop for delivery to the EU, please email info@autograph-abp.co.uk you located in the EU and wish to purchase this item.

Published by Autograph, 2020

Edited and introduced by Renée Mussai

Designed by Typographics EDT

Pages: 224

Images: 88

Dimensions: 280mm x 230mm portrait

Hardcover (black cloth)

Texts in English

ISBN: 978-1-899282-77-7 RPP: £55

With kind support by Mariane Ibrahim Gallery

Autograph is a charity run by a small team. Due to social distancing, our staff are still working remotely at times. This means it may take longer than usual for you to receive your order. We will ship items once a week, on Thursdays. You will be sent an email when your order has shipped, and we will also email you if it is delayed. Thank you for your patience and for supporting Autograph.

Collection of orders at Autograph’s gallery are available the Thursday after you place your order. You will receive an email when your order is ready for collection.

We’re happy to help if you have any questions, get in touch at info@autograph-abp.co.uk

EU Delivery

Unfortunately, we are temporarily unable to accept orders through our online shop for delivery to the EU, please email info@autograph-abp.co.uk you located in the EU and wish to purchase this item.

International delivery

If your delivery address is not within the United Kingdom, you may be subject to import duties, taxes and delivery service charges, which are levied once a shipment reaches your country. Any such additional charges for customs clearance must be borne by you. You should note that customs policies vary widely from country to country; you should contact your local customs office for further information. Please be aware that cross-border shipments are subject to opening and inspection by customs authorities. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, your order may take longer than usual to arrive.