John Akomfrah, Handsworth Songs, 1986. Image from hammer.ucla.edu
In 1982, at the very beginning of the most important decade for culture and politics in Britain, a group of art students came together with their many mediums to organise the first National Black Art Convention. Seeking to highlight the “form, functioning and future of contemporary art by black people”, the group questioned what black art was, bringing about awareness to the many talents within the community and challenging racial hierarchies in society. Currently on display at Nottingham Contemporary, “The Place is Here” is a celebration of the revolutionary political artists who captured the pivotal era.
Here, we highlight ten artists pioneering black art from the initial days of the BLK until today.
John Akomfrah. Handsworth Songs, Black Audio Film Collective, 16mm, 1986. Image from lightindustry.org
Black Audio Film Collective
Seven undergraduates from Portsmouth formed Black Audio Film Collective in 1982. Comprising John Akomfrah, Reece Auguis, Edward George, Lina Gopaul, Avril Johnson, David Lawson and Trevor Mathison, the group was created as a response to the social unrest in Britain at the time and concentrated on promoting a black cultural presence in the arts. Influenced by their backgrounds in sociology, fine art and psychology, the collective produced award winning documentaries, tape-slide installations and non-linear feature films that examined their experiences as members of the African and Asian diaspora in the UK. Newsreel footage highlighting the experiences of those involved in the 1985 race riots in Birmingham was used for their film essay Handsworth Songs, and was so impacting that it has led critics to label the piece as “the most important and influential art film to emerge from England in the last twenty years”.
Eddie Chambers. Destruction of the National Front, 1970-80. Image from eddiechambers.com
Eddie Chambers
Eddie Chambers was born in Wolverhampton, England to parents that were Jamaican immigrants. He studied fine art at Sunderland Polytechnic, where he met Keith Piper, Marlene Smith and Donald Rodney, who subsequently formed the BLK Art Group. The group quickly gained a reputation for producing boldly political conceptual art, with Chambers’ “Destruction of the National Front” receiving apt attention. The piece, which is made up of four frames, depicts the breakdown of a swastika made out of a union jack, and symbolises the appropriation of the British flag by a racist ideology in a time of enforced repatriation. Since the dissolve of the collective, Chambers has gone on to set up the African and Asian Visual Artists Archive (the first of its kind) and has progressed into curating and art-writing – always focusing on the history and work of black artists.
Donald Rodney. The House that Jack Built. Image from www.artworksconservation.com
Donald Rodney
Another leading figure in the BLK Group, Donald Rodney is known as one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation. Often incorporating images and texts from the media into his art, his work is marked by extreme intelligence and wit and is, of course, ever political. Referring to black history and the oppression of black people, Rodney’s most celebrated piece, “The House that Jack Built”, consisted of x-rays to deliver the subtle message of looking beneath the surface to discover how systems operate. As a sufferer of sickle-cell anaemia, the Caribbean’s most prevalent genetic disorder, this piece also refers to his ancestral history as well as serving as a metaphor to represent the “disease” of apartheid and racial discrimination in society.
Claudette Johnson. Trilogy 1983 -1986, Woman in black by Claudette Johnson 1983, Arts Council. Image from newartwm.org
Claudette Johnson
Also a member of the BLK Art Group in the 1980s, Claudette Johnson is known for her large-scale paintings of black women. Her work concentrates on making black women visible in society without objectification, exploring issues of both race and feminism. The oversized works demand the attention of the audience, and as Eddie Chambers one said, also demand respect. As well as continuing to produce work aimed at empowering black women, Johnson is also a founding member of the BLK Arts Research Group. Set up alongside other original members of the BLK Art Group, the new group aims to re-examine the initial collective’s body of work and historical legacy.
Ingrid Pollard. Pastoral Interludes. Image from www.vam.ac.uk
Ingrid Pollard
Born in Georgetown, Guyana, Ingrid Pollard uses photography as a tool to explore the social constructs of racial difference. She gained recognition in the ’80s for her series “Pastoral Interludes”, in which she posed her black subjects in typical rural English countryside in order to challenge the idea of black British people as urbanites, and question ideas of identity and ownership. Pollard highlights feelings of alienation often experienced by her subjects through her photographs captions, with titles like “…feeling I don’t belong. Walks through leafy glades with a baseball bat by my side…” portraying a sense of otherness she has stated herself as feeling in predominantly white districts.
Martina Attille. Dreaming Rivers. Image from hammer.ucla.edu
Martina Attille
Martina Attille is a founding member of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, which, similarly to Black Audio Film Collective, was set up as a means of underlining the importance of black art in society. Focusing on the politics and poetics of self-representation, depictions of black women remain a central narrative for the director from St. Lucia, most clear in “Dreaming Rivers”. In this film, Attille “illustrates the spirit of modern families touched by the experience of migration” and concentrates on the solitary present, the ambitious dreams and the fond memories of her Caribbean born female counterpart, Miss. T.
Gavin Jantjes . A South African Colouring Book. Image from tate.org.uk
Gavin Jantjes
South African painter Gavin Jantjes used his platform to speak out against the policy of apartheid in his home country. His best-known act of protest comes in the form “A South African Colouring Book”, which highlights the racial groups of South Africa’s Population Registration Act and the problems involved in classifying people by into such groups under apartheid. Illustrating the injustice of the regime using drawings, texts and even his own identity card photograph, Jantjes plays on the idea of the innocent colouring by numbers children’s game, indicating when to “Colour blacks white” Colour this Labour Dirt Cheap” and “Colour this Slavery Golden” as a demonstration against extreme racism.
Zarina Bhimji. Your Sadness is Drunk. Image from whitechapelgallery.org
Zarina Bhimji
Turner Prize nominee, Zarina Bhimji is an Ugandan Asian photographer and film maker recognised for her work surrounding both heritages. Travelling widely across India and East Africa, the artist concentrates on British power in those countries and also centres on immigration. Her most controversial photographic series focuses on the virginity tests forced upon Asian women entering the UK aimed at determining whether they were fit for marriage, while her most well-known work and the film that resulted in her shortlisting for the 2007 Turner Prize award illustrates the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by then president, Idi Amin.
Rasheed Araeen. Bismullah,1988. Image from tate.org.uk
Rasheed Araeen
Self described as “Afro-Asian”, Araeen moved from Pakistan to the UK in the ’60s, where he pioneered the minimalist movement. Originally an engineer, the multi-disciplinary artist creates paintings as well as sculptural pieces, and has carried on a career in writing alongside his movement into the curatorial world. Political overtones infiltrate all of his work, and he founded the critical journals Black Phoenix and Third Text on top of activist roles in organisations like the Black Panthers and Artists for Democracy. Araeen’s performance piece entitled “Paki Bastard” is a testament to his radical practice, showing him playing the part of an immigrant worker who becomes a victim to street violence, where his eventual murder goes completely ignored.
Sonia Boyce. Missionary Position II, 1985. Image from tate.org.uk
Sonia Boyce
Afro-Caribbean artist Sonia Boyce began her career by addressing issues of race and gender in the media through large pastel drawings. Since then, she has taken to many mediums to express the importance of the perception of black bodies and the concept of “the other”, expressing personal isolation that results from being black in a white supremacist society. Using collages, she alludes to a fragmented and complicated history of her people, and recent work focusing on audience interaction demonstrates how cultural differences might be articulated and appreciated. A professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London, Sonia Boyce explores critical debates that arise from art as a social practice.
“The Place Is Here” is on display at Nottingham Contemporary until 30 April 2017