New Directions in Black British Art History Some Considerations Eddie Chambers ime was, or at least time might have been, when the writing or assembling of black British art histories was a relatively uncom- Tplicated matter. Historically (and we are now per- haps able to speak of such a thing), the curating or creating of black British art histories were for the most part centered on correcting or addressing the systemic absences of such artists. This making vis- ible of marginalized, excluded, or not widely known histories was what characterized the first substantial attempt at chronicling a black British history: the 1989–90 exhibition The Other Story: Asian, African, and Caribbean Artists in Post-War Britain.1 Given the historical tenuousness of black artists in British art history, this endeavor was a landmark exhibi- tion, conceived and curated by Rasheed Araeen and organized by Hayward Gallery and Southbank Centre, London. Araeen also did pretty much all of the catalogue’s heavy lifting, providing its major chapters. A measure of the importance of The Other Story can be gauged if and when we consider that, Journal of Contemporary African Art • 45 • November 2019 8 • Nka DOI 10.1215/10757163-7916820 © 2019 by Nka Publications Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/nka/article-pdf/2019/45/8/710839/20190008.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Catalogue cover for the exhibition Transforming the Crown: African, Asian, and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966–1996, presented by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, New York, and shown across three venues between October 14, 1997, and March 15 1998: Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. Cover reproduced with the permission of Mora Beauchamp-Byrd Chambers Nka • 9 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/nka/article-pdf/2019/45/8/710839/20190008.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Poster for the exhibition The Other Story: Asian, African, and Caribbean Artists in Post-War Britain, Manchester City Art Gallery, May 5–June 10, 1990. Photo: Eddie Chambers before the arrival of the exhibition at the Hayward Center) curated the exhibition, and hers was, like Gallery (then touring to galleries in Wolverhampton Araeen’s before it, an ambitious and comprehensive and Manchester), there was no perceptible sense undertaking. Transforming the Crown brought to- within either academia or the art world that black gether a large number of artists, all of whom had con- British artists had any sort of history. At the present nections to the United Kingdom, either by birth or time, Lucy Steeds, Central Saint Martins, University by residence, permanent or temporary. Refreshing, of the Arts London, is undertaking fascinating and perhaps, there was little in the way of overlap be- important work on revisiting the exhibition and, in tween the exhibitions’ two bodies of practitioners.3 part, seeing to it that this significant curatorial un- The sort of work undertaken by Steeds with dertaking is introduced to generations born since respect to The Other Story has yet to be done for the mid- to late-1970s.2 Transforming the Crown, though the latter is, Within a decade of The Other Story, another in many respects, deserving of an equally close curated overview of black British art history was un- and fruitful reading. Apart from representing an dertaken by Mora Beauchamp-Byrd. Transforming American attention that would in time assume the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in limited, but nevertheless important, academic di- Britain 1966–1996 was an exhibition presented by mensions, Transforming the Crown had the vision the Caribbean Cultural Center, New York, which and presence of mind to include in its roster Yinka was shown across three venues in the city from fall Shonibare, who was already on his way to taking up 1997 to spring of the following year. Beauchamp- the dominant art-world position he went on to oc- Byrd (who was at the time curator and director of cupy and maintain. The exhibition’s catalogue also special projects at New York’s Caribbean Cultural pointed to other important developments in black 10 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 45 • November 2019 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/nka/article-pdf/2019/45/8/710839/20190008.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Ronald Moody, The Onlooker, 1958. Teak, 65 x 32 x 38 cm. Installation view of The Other Story: Asian, African, and Caribbean Artists in Post-War Britain exhibition, Cornerhouse, Manchester, May 5–June 10, 1990. Photo: Eddie Chambers British art histories, including scholarly attention struggles of immigrant communities in Britain, par- by Beauchamp-Byrd, Okwui Enwezor, Kobena ticularly during the 1960s to 1980s, but also some of Mercer, Gilane Tawadros, Anne Walmsley, Deborah the manifestations of these struggles such as black Willis, and Judith Wilson, their texts copyedited by bookshop and black British publishing initiatives. Franklin Sirmans. Since The Other Story, art-world attention to indi- In keeping with shifts in curatorial strategies, vidual black British practitioners and scholarship only one broad, generalized, gallery-based inves- has increased exponentially, and it is this that has, tigation of black British art histories has been pre- necessarily and importantly, led to the emerging of sented since Transforming the Crown—London’s expansive, deeply nuanced histories that resist easy Guildhall Art Gallery’s 2015–16 exhibition No commodification.5 Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990. Three decades after Araeen’s endeavor, however, This was a sizeable exhibition and archive project, complications abound when it comes to the writing the centerpiece of which was a six-month show or assembling of black British art history. The casual that took place at Guildhall Art Gallery from July observer might perhaps be struck by the extent to 10, 2015, to January 24, 2016.4 The exhibition was which, within Britain, a number of the artists in the broad in its historical scope (its span of 1960–90 above-referenced exhibitions have been conspicu- close to that of Transforming the Crown, which had ously brought into the fold of British art by way of been 1966–96). Beyond that similarity, both exhi- honors awarded by Her Majesty the Queen or the bitions presented work by familiar, as well as less bestowal of Royal Academician status by that au- familiar, names. No Colour Bar aligned itself to, gust institution. Saleem Arif, Frank Bowling, Sonia and had a pronounced interplay with, not only the Boyce, Sokari Douglas Camp, Lubaina Himid, and Chambers Nka • 11 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/nka/article-pdf/2019/45/8/710839/20190008.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Left: Sonia Boyce, She Ain’t Holdin’ Them Up, She’s Holdin’ On (Some English Rose), 1986. Crayon, chalk, pastel, and ink on paper, 218 x 99 cm. Right: Sonia Boyce, Rice n Peas, 1982. Oil on canvas. Installation view of No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990 exhibition, Guildhall Art Gallery, London, July 10, 2015–January 24, 2016. Courtesy Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London, 2015 Yinka Shonibare have all made a trip, or several number of names of other black British artists, pho- trips, to Buckingham Palace to collect awards such tographers, filmmakers, and arts workers, upon as (in ascending order of status and importance) whom honors have been similarly conferred. This Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British ever-growing list includes John Akomfrah, David Empire (MBE), Officer of the Most Excellent Order A. Bailey, Gus Casely-Hayford, Deirdre Figueiredo, of the British Empire (OBE), or Commander of the Isaac Julien, Steve McQueen, Mark Sealy, and Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE). Barbara Walker. Though it appeared that among people from an eth- Within the context of such recognition, it might nic minority background accepting such honors the perhaps be the case that systemic absences of black majority were given the MBE, David Adjaye, the artists from British art are no longer an absolute architect and sometime collaborator with painter given.6 Or, at least, the lavish and conspicuous em- Chris Ofili, was awarded one of the supreme (male) bracing of certain favored black British artists has “gongs”: a knighthood, entitling him, as a knight of effectively masked the wholesale and widespread the realm, to be referred to and addressed as “Sir marginalizing of far greater numbers of practitio- David.” Added to the above are the not insignificant ners, languishing in what I would describe as a type 12 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 45 • November 2019 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/nka/article-pdf/2019/45/8/710839/20190008.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Denzil Forrester, Witch Doctor, 1983. Oil on canvas, 240 x 360 cm. Installation view of No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990 exhibition, Guildhall Art Gallery, London, July 10, 2015–January 24, 2016. Courtesy Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London, 2015 of functional obscurity. Might the late twentieth and traditionally associated, or not associated at all, with early twenty-first century recognition of a clutch of communities of color. (There are well established cu- favored black British artists have opened the way for ratorial pathologies that have often “justified” black newer and different types of scholarship on these artists’ exhibitions in certain galleries by said gal- and perhaps also other practitioners? leries’ proximities to visible or notable communities The major galleries of London, such as the of color. Needless to say, within such problematic Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Serpentine, gallery mindsets, artists’ perceived ethnicity was/ and Whitechapel, have now hosted main-space solo is privileged way above the artistic content of their shows of black British artists’ work.