The V&A to showcase works by artist Thomas J Price throughout the museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum is collaborating with artist Thomas J Price to open a free sculpture display featuring eight of Price's works throughout the museum, including in the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Sculpture Galleries and the Europe 1600 – 1800 Galleries.

Image: Lay It Down (On The Edge Of Beauty), by Thomas J Price, 2018 . Photo: Ken Adlard. © Thomas J Price. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has announced the opening of an upcoming display, Thomas J Price at the V&A this July. The display will feature the works of Thomas J Price, a celebrated sculptor known for his thought-provoking sculptures of everyday individuals. Price's sculptures prompt viewers to reflect on their preconceptions about status and appearance, using his work to celebrate the connection and shared humanity between individuals. The free exhibition will showcase eight of Price's works throughout the museum, in dialogue with the V&A's historic collection.

Price's large-scale sculptures depict amalgams of ordinary people, carefully selected from different individuals he encounters in the streets of London. He subverts sculptural traditions by addressing issues of visibility, identity, and objectification of Black people in visual culture and the media. Price combines traditional processes of lost-wax casting with modern materials such as aluminium to challenge traditional holders of power and question provenance. His work is deeply rooted in empathy, celebrating the connections between individuals rather than honouring singular individuals.

Image: Signals (detail), by Thomas J Price, 2021 . Photo: Damian Griffiths. © Thomas J Price. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Highlights of the exhibition include Price's Lay It Down (On the Edge of Beauty), a larger than life-size sculpted head of a woman made of polished bronze that will sit among pre-Victorian busts, and Signals, a sculpture of a young man holding his phone up to the sky, searching for mobile connection, placed next to Vincenzo Foggini's Samson and the Philistines in Room 25 of the sculpture galleries. Three large marble and aluminium heads from Price's Numen (Shifting Votive) Series will also be on display in the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries. The Numen series, inspired by ancient sculptures, prompts viewers to consider who we look up to and who has become the object of the public's worship today.

Thomas J Price is thrilled to collaborate with the V&A, having grown up visiting the museum and recognising the importance ingrained within the collection. Melanie Vandenbrouck, the V&A's Curator of Sculpture 1900 - now, describes Price's work as asking pertinent questions about the nature of monuments and what these mean to us.

Price invites us to think about and celebrate what connects us as a society.

Date: 22 July 2023 – 27 May 2024. Location: Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL.Price: Free. Website: vam.ac.uk