Old news?

It seems odd to be talking about archives on the third day of civil unrest where the ‘London riots’ are no longer just London’s problem. Yet at NWN’s weekend of Adhocracy Marlene Smith, director of The Public gallery, artist, exhibition organizer, co-instigator with Eddie Chambers, Keith Piper and Claudette Johnson of the Pan-Afrikan Connection, mentioned the riots of the early ’80s as she mapped the growth of the BLK Arts Group and its connection to a broader “political awakening” of that era. I intended to blog about Marlene’s presentation anyway because it reinforced for me the importance of creating aspirational archives. As events unfold though, and the discourse around the rioters becomes increasingly racialised, I’ve been thinking more and more about the issue of context and wondering whether the socio-economic conditions, the issues around identity, the implications of endemic racism within our institutions that politicized a generation of black artists back in the ’80s have really changed that much for the better?

The BLK Arts Group was formed circa 1980 by black art students on the Art Foundation at Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry (Marlene was clear to point out this was her version of events and there are others) and was active during the early ’80s. As she perceives it, the group comprising “children of the Windrush era,” had a fluid approach to membership. At 18, she was the youngest member (the others were 21 or 22) and joined in the summer of ’82, before her Foundation course began. She was ‘recruited’ by Keith Piper at the opening of a group show at Birmingham’s Ikon gallery and he invited her to attend a convention [The First National Black Convention, Open Exhibition of Black Art, The Gallery, Faculty of Art and Design, The Polytechnic, Wolverhampton?] where Sonia Boyce and Lubaina Himid were speaking. She recalled how inspirational it was to be sat on a panel alongside them, how students were organizing themselves. As Marlene talked, she showed slides from her archive: a “scrapbook” they used to send to galleries to introduce themselves; one of her sculptures depicting a bust of a woman tearing her clothes, inspired by her readings of Sojourner Truth (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/truth/1850/1850.html); charcoal drawings by Claudette Johnson and others. There were more boxes in her attic, she said.

What struck me most about her recollections was how difficult it was for her to be the only black student in art college, and the only black woman at that; how when she told a tutor she was going to write about black artists, she was told “there aren’t any;” how hard it was to make work with an overtly political theme around the condition of blackness as this was something the liberal left were “really uncomfortable with,” presumably because they felt class (not ethnicity, not gender) was the primary issue. Marlene also recalled artist and writer Rasheed Araeen’s (whose 1982 ‘Project MRB: Art Education in Multiracial Britain’ led to his curation of The Other Story at the Hayward Gallery in 1989) position that Black art should be political; Himid’s curation of the seminal 1985 exhibition The Thin Black Line at the ICA (a notorious example of an institution’s tokenist approach). At the same time there was a resistance to ghettoization (which some might argue persists in events such as Black History Month). Whilst these may appear to be polarized positions, Marlene pointed out they did not feel incompatible at the time; it was having Araeen’s textbook in her bag [Making Myself Visible London: Kala Press, 1984?] along with the writings of Sojourner Truth that gave her the encouragement to persist. “I do remember putting my armour on going in to that college,” she said. Those of us who work in education admitted we do not know enough about the experience of black students studying art or art history today.

There is a perception that the visibility of black artists has improved. Chris Ofili and Steve McQueen won the Turner Prize in 1998 and 1999 respectively. In 2007 Barbara Kruger nominated Kara Walker as one of the 100 Most Influential People in The World, Artists and Entertainers for Time magazine. The internet has facilitated research so when I teach Abstract Expressionism I can refer to African American artists like Norman Lewis (who initially had to sustain his practice by gambling because he just wasn’t getting the same opportunities as Pollock et al; read his interview here: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-norman-lewis-11465).

The BLK Arts Group hasn’t exhibited since 1984. (There was no great falling out.) Jason E Bowman (Co-director NWN) asked Marlene whether it was still appropriate to curate an exhibition of young black artists. She seemed unsure but suggested it would have to happen organically. Members of the BLK Arts Group in the Adhocracy audience were divided (and this was a debate that deserved more time). My own feeling is we need more shows, more talking. More re-writing of set text books, less laziness among art historians. Keep the role models visible. Keep dragging things out of the archive to create historical connections and plot legacies. As Marlene says, the archive is “food for the people coming next” and whether it nourishes us or gives us indigestion, it needs to get to the table.