H A L E s APOLLO THE INTER NAT IONA L ART MAGAZINE

FRANK BOWLING Keith Piper Special Relationships - Debates about black art in America influenced a later generation of black British artist’, Apollo, October 2017

EXHIBITIONS Special relationships Debatesabout black art in America influenceda later generationof black British artists, writes Keith Piper

(the focus of a recent displa y, 'The Place is embed their practi ce as a too l of actu al stru g­ Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age Her e', at the South Londo n Gallery) , Bowling gle, encoding th e politica l ideo logy of th e of Black Power provided a tangible link between two histori­ Black Panther Party into graphic form for the 12 J uly- 22 October ca l moments. His attenda n ce at t he Fir st Party newspaper from 1967 onwards (Fig. 3). A Tate Modern, National Black Art Convention, held in Wolver­ similar set of political alignments informs Dan hampton in 1982, put him int o contact with C. Chandler' s restru cturin g ofF red Hampton's Cata logue by Zoe Whitley and Mark the BLKArt Group, whose membe rs includ ed bullet-ridd led door as a gallery-based assem­ Godfrey myse lf, Marle ne Smith , Eddie Chambers , blage of fou nd and pa int ed objects . For Betye ISBN 9781849764636 (paperback ), £29 .99 , and Dona ld Rodne y, as Saar, assemblage is a crea tive strate gy in her (Tate Publishing) well as young UK-based artists such as Son ia subvers ive remodelling of the mammy figure Boyce, Lubaina Himid , and Rash eedAraeen. in Theliberation ofAuncJemima (1972;Fig. 1). Alm os t midway through the thoroughly In retrospect, the uni que pe rspective Bowling One of th e stre ngth s of this exhibition is researched and visually arrest ing 'Soul of a brought to that event based on sim ilar debates the way it clusters conne cted art ists and spe­ Nation ' hangs Middl e Passage (1970; Fig. 4) he encount ered in the US - wh ich are vividly cific geographic concerns into thematic spaces. by Frank Bowling . It's a piece that positions explo red in 'Soul of a Nation' - undoubted ly Saar's work is shown in a room dedicated to 'Los itse lf in dialog ue, not on ly with mu ch of the inform ed the development of the British Black Angeles Assemb lage', which link s her work to work alread y encountered in an exh ibition Arts Movement . that of Melvin Edwards, Noah Purifoy, and John that examines African -Ame rica n visual art We are first int rod uce d to the symbolic Outterbridge, all of whom used found objects across the two decades following th e 1963 mo noc hrom e used by the Spiral Group, in in response to political upheaval. The focus March on Washington , but also in rela tion­ whi ch Rom are Beard en drain s the colour then shift s to Chicago and the artist collective ship to a wider set of transnational and from his signature collage work and embrace s AfriCOBRA, formed in 1968. Here, a share d transgenerationa l traditions. For black British the then new technol ogy of the photostat. We vivid colour palett e and complex mon tage of artis ts who emerged during the ear ly 1980s see how Emory Douglas and Faith Ringgold iconograp hy, text , and patterns speak to th e

2. Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People- Bobby Seale} , 1969 , Barkley L. Hendricks (1945---2017), oil paint , acrylic paint and aluminium leaf on canvas, 15 1.1 x 121.9cm. Collection of Liz and Eric Lefkofsky

1. The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972, Betye Saar (b. 1926), wood, cotton, plastic, metal. acrylic paint, printe d paper and fabric, 29 8x 20.3 x 7cm University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

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EXHIBITIONS

conscious search for a coherent and politically and then over laid by a was h of pigment after this initial contact with Smith, to the engaged 'black aesthetic' in the work of Carolyn and painterly marks situates him alongs ide First National Black Art Convention hinted at Lawrence, Gerald Williams, and Wadsworth Jar­ Rauschenberg and Warhol. However, it is in the richness of practice within the US. Such rell. By focusing on the moment when Charles the heraldic use of colourthatMiddle Passage transatlantic dialogues have deepened over White and his student David Hammons exhib­ establishes an even wider set of aesthetic and subsequent decades , radicall y shaping black ited together with Timothy Washington in the concept ual connections. The predominant art practice both within the US and the UK. 1971exhibition 'Three Graphic Artists', room palette of green, yellow and orange/reds draws Barkley L. Hendricks ' self-portraitlconfor six reminds us that dialogue between artists on the flag of Bowling's native Guyana; they My Man Superman (1969; Fig. 2), the show 's can also be cross-generational. are the colours used on a number of postco­ signature piece, signa ls a refreshing confi­ The exhibition thenshiftsgeartoconsider lonia l African flags and by Pan-Afr ican ist dence in the reclaimed black image of the late 'East Coast Abstraction', where we find Bowl­ movements such as Rastafarianism , render ­ 1960s. Directly opposite is a quieter work by ing's vast Middl e Passage alongside canvases ing this colour scheme deep ly symbolic. It Bob Thompson . L eRoi Jones and his Famil y by Sam Gilliam, Jack Whirren and William also references the colours used in the work (1964) is intr iguing in its embedding of thi s T. Williams. Bowling's role as curaror and of AfriCOBRAartists Carolyn Lawrence and cultural figure into the domesticated setting contr ibutor to the seminal '5-1' exhibition Gerald Williams, who attempt to reconnect of his family, and in the semi-abstracted figure in 1969, as well as bis defence of abstractio n with an Africanist aesthet ic that unravels the at the bottom right of the canvas. According to as a viable creative language in the face of loss and violence of the 'midd le passage' of some, this is a representation of Kellie Jones , criticism from artists such as Chandler, place the Atlantic slave trade from which the title who emerged in the late 1980s as a key figure him at the centre of this moment. However, of Bowling's work is derived . in opening discussions between black British Middle Passage floats just outside the realm In his engagement with North American artists and their US counterparts through her of formal abstracti on. The show articulates critical debates, while nodding back to the curation of 'Interrogating Identit y' at New the extent to which these artists were not only Caribbean of his childhood and the wider arc York's Grey Art Gallery in 1991.I would argue in conver sation with each other, but were in of transat lant ic Pan-Africanist politics , Bowl­ that this portrait of a young KellieJones points active dialogue with - and integral to - main ­ ing is a pivotal transit ional figure - both in this to the extensi ve creative dialogues to come stream contem porary art. A work like Trane exhibition and beyond. When, a decade after between this exhibition - the most signifi­ (1969) by William T. Williams, for examp le, the completion of Middle Passage, Bowlingwas cant and informed contribution to debates has par allels with the work of Frank Stella; approac hed by Marlene Smith - at the time around black art to date - and a new genera­ Virgini a Jaramillo and Ed Clark are clearly a -based schoo l pupi l research ­ tion of UK artists. working within Post-Painterly Abstrac tion . ing an A-Level essay - it revealed how he was Bowling's arrangement of pho tographic one of only a handful of black art ists visible Keith Piper is an artist and Ass ociate Pro­ imagery silk-screened directly on to canvas in the UK. The insight that Bowling brought , fessor in Fine Art at Middlesex University.

4. Middle Passage, 1970, Frank Bowling (b. 1936) oil on canvas , 309.9x309.9cm . Menil Collection, Houston

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London, 7 Bethnal Green Road, El 6LA. + 44 (0)20 7033 1938 New York, 547 West 20th Street, NY 10011. + 1 646 590 0776 www.halesgallery.com f ,I l!!l @halesgallery