How was the Marginalization of British: African, Caribbean, and Asian Modern Art Addressed by ‘The Other Story’ Exhibition (Hayward Gallery 1989)?
There is a void in art history surrounding modern ‘Black’ British artists. This has been the case since modernism was born; through its depiction as a white-Western movement, it fell victim to Eurocentricity. Due to a failure to document the true diversity of British modern art, our understanding of the multicultural and multiracial nature of British society has been jeopardized, thus our understanding of that history has become incorrect. Rasheed Araeen, and numerous other artists decided to address the absence of African, Asian, and Caribbean modern art in British history. They attempted to do so through ‘The Other Story’, an exhibition of ‘Black’ (African, Asian, and Caribbean) art, which took place at the Hayward gallery in 1989. This essay will explore how the exhibition as a body of work, and some of the participants’ art within it, demonstrated the marginalization and suppression of ‘Black’ art in Britain.
Of the 24 artists involved in ‘The Other Story’ Exhibition, many were members of the British Black Arts movement (BAM). The exhibition was a culminating moment for the movement, thus through looking at the aims of the BAM, one can draw an insight into the motivation behind the exhibit and how it addressed the marginalization of ‘Black’ art. Founded in 1982, the British Black Arts movement strived to change the portrayal and understanding of British culture. The movement looked at the politics of representation, alongside the problems of gender and race, as being pivotal to their artistic purpose. The philosophies of Stuart Hall were also central towards the inspiration for BAM. Hall’s analysis of the social alienation and black subjectivity are key to ‘The Other Story’ exhibition. The curators and the artists wanted to demonstrate the suppression of modern ‘Black’ art, drawing direct parallels to Hall’s exploration of institutional racism leading to the academic (and artistic) exclusion of talented ‘Black’ students. So, this brings us to the defining aim of the exhibition: to show what had been institutionally removed from mainstream modern British art history. But how does the exhibition address this aim and tackle the marginalization of British Afro-Asian art? ‘The Other Story’ was the first exhibition of British ’Black’ modernism, and took Rasheed Araeen (the curator and participant artist) ten years to persuade the Hayward gallery to host. This gives one a clear idea of what a monumental achievement the mere existence of such an exhibition was for modern African, Caribbean, and Asian artists as it gave them attention, something they has all previously been denied. As writer Gilane Tawadros put it: ‘The Other Story’ was “to be a prologue to a more detailed examination by our art institutions of the careers of… British artists who had been inexplicably neglected”. The exhibition was to be the first step towards integrating all artists into British art history, thereby attending to the marginalization of ‘Black’ art by forcing the art world to take notice.
‘The Other Story’ exhibition was split into two different sections, representing two different generations of Afro-Asian artists. Upon entering the exhibition, the viewers were faced with the art of the first generation, those who came to Britain to aid their modern artistic endeavors. Artists such as Uzu Egoun and Aubrey Williams attended top British art schools among their white counterparts and thus were properly literate in the complexities of modernism, yet nonetheless ignored by the art world. The art of this first generation of ‘Black’ artists were constantly viewed under a lens of primitivism, preventing those in the established art world to accept their art as being anything other than ‘primitive’. The concept of abstraction in modernism was not one of unfamiliarity to the artists who came to Britain; colonialism had brought modern ideas to these African, Caribbean, and Asian countries, thus the artists arrived to Britain already dedicated to modernity. Some of these artists were professionally successful, yet none of their work was documented, despite them being pivotal to the way British modernism developed. Rasheed Araeen devoted his efforts to documenting as much about these postcolonial artists as he could, and included all his findings in the exhibition and the exhibition catalogue. By displaying these artist’s work, ‘The Other Story’ exhibition began to write the older generations of ‘Black’ art into British history, when it could have just as easily focused on the emerging young artists of Afro-Asian descent. This is significant towards answering the essay question as it shows that the exhibition addressed marginalization from where it began – migration; while it offered the research to correct and implement the aspects of British art history that had been institutionally ignored.
Of the elder generation of artists in the exhibition, Ronald Moody was the most prolific. Moody was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1900 and came to Britain to study dentistry in 1923. Inspired and moved by the Egyptian sculptures, Moody decided to explore sculpture and by the end of the 30s became a professionally successful artist. In this time, he was instrumental in the ‘League of Coloured Peoples’ which aimed to have equality for all people all over the world, a potent theme in Moody’s art. ‘Johanaan’ (sometimes known as ‘John the Baptist’) was a pivotal piece in ‘The Other Story’ alongside Moody’s own body of art, and incorporates this theme of equality. Rasheed Araeen explains how society enabled Moody’s desires and “the repressed desires of the colonized to be expressed as the universal human predicament”. ‘Johanaan’ is a prime example of this desire, as is a combination of several ethnic types, thus a depiction of universal humanity and a protest piece against marginalization. ‘The Other Story’ opens with Moody, thus forcing the viewers to consider the concept of universalism upon entering the exhibition. When on a plinth, the sculpture is taller than a person. Such an epic scale, combined with the undirected, large open eyes, causes one to feel as if ‘Johanaan’ is gazing within them, creating an overwhelming experience. The complexity of universalism and this Buddha-like expression illustrates Moody’s interest in time, space and identity; all of which are concepts associated with the philosophies of metaphysics. These modern themes and skilled craftsmanship made Moody’s art internationally recognized as examples of Jamaican modernism. There is no racialized imagery in Moody’s work, showing how modernism was the primary aspect of his art. There is no doubt that Moody is a modernist artist, and with the critical acclaim given to his works (‘Johanaan’ being a prime example) he should be more documented throughout British art history. This demonstrates the destructive power of marginalization, and by including it in the exhibition encourages the art world to make amends.
‘The Other Story’ exhibition acknowledged that women artists were also being written out of history, thus strived to include their art in the exhibit. Amongst the women artists in the exhibition, Lubaina Himid, born in 1954 in Zanzibar, was from the older generation who migrated to Britain. Himid describes herself as a “political strategist using visual language”, and incorporates the idea of reclaiming identities throughout her art work. ‘Freedom and change’ was one of her pieces that featured in the exhibition and is a fine example of activist art. Through it being a recreation of Picasso’s ‘Two Women Running on the Beach’ (1922), Himid is deconstructing the issue of primitivism. Modernist artwork often incorporated ‘primitive’ art within it, example of such can be found in Picasso’s appropriations of African masks. Himid takes a post-modern approach towards exposing and reversing the issues caused by cultural appropriation in the modern art world. By taking such a firm political and social standpoint towards sensitive issues such as representation, Himid opens possible discussions surrounding these subjects, hence its importance when looking at marginalization. Through recreating a Picasso painting, Himid is drawing similarities between herself and the famous modernist artist. This can be interpreted as a suggestion of her own importance, and that of black female artists in modern art history. Himid reworks the eroticization of the black female nude in ‘Freedom and Change’ through the black women being watched by the white men in the sand. The running women appear to be leaving the men behind, further suggesting a change in the notion of white male power. In the context of the exhibition, Himid’s depictions of ‘black’ people affronts the issue of marginalization by showing there is a change of their positions in modern society, leading us to question why this is not represented in modern art.
The second section of ‘the Other Story’ exhibition marked a shift in artistic purpose, separating the first from the second generation of ‘black’ artists in Britain. This new young generation of artists grew up surrounded by racism, thus they “replaced the visual imagery of the earlier modernist paintings with those of anger and protest” (Stuart Hall). It was upon realizing that they were being taught art with racist undertones, that caused young ‘black’ artists to group together and create their ‘black’ art. In the late 70s, and early 80s, art groups such as the ‘BLK’ and the British ‘Black arts movement’ were created out of these students to raise questions on the identity of black art and to empower artists of African, Asian and Caribbean decent. During this period, there was significant influence from what was happening in America and from the black arts movement that was present there. Besides the struggles in America, there was also a strong sense of racism in Britain, which was undoubtedly the pivotal source of inspiration and drive for this young generation of ‘black’ artists. The anger these artists felt from marginalization and the other forms of prejudice they had to endure is evident in their works, which have more political and activist undertones than those of the latter generations; thus, when questioning how ‘the Other Story’ exhibition addressed marginalization of Afro-Asian art, many of the individual artist’s work cannot go unmentioned. Additionally, as this generation of artists were all born in, and grew up living in Britain, there is no excuse for their work not being represented in modern British art history. By merely including their art in the exhibition is a display against marginalization and racism. In contrast to ‘The Other Story’ exhibition there was a major show of the Young British Artists in 1988 called ‘Freeze’ which gained much critical acclaim. The lack of diversity in the show, combined with its association with the ‘British’ artists only emphasized the exclusion of Afro-Asian art in Britain, thus creating more of a stigma around the 1989 exhibition resulting in people paying more attention to it.
Sonia Boyce was one of the female artists of the younger generation included in the exhibition. Her art is mainly autobiographical and explores the identity as a black person living in Britain. All of Boyce’s work in the exhibition revolved around the theme of domesticity. One piece of her work focused her theme of domesticity on domestic relationships and the power dynamics that exist within them. ‘Lay Back, Keep Quiet, and Think About What Made Britain so Great’ consists of four panels, all of which are linked with the same wallpaper design. The paper was designed to celebrate the 50th year of Queen Victoria’s reign; however, Boyce appropriates it through the addition of black roses. By covering the original red roses, England’s national flower, with the back ones, symbolic of ambivalence, Boyce is commenting on the controversial nature of Britain’s colonial past. Within the composition of the piece, there are crosses displaying the resistance of non-Europeans against colonialism. This is suggestive of how European modernity is a result of the knowledge and power that came from slavery. The mix of cultures that came from imperial exploitation was pivotal to modernism, hence why ‘lay Back, Keep Quiet, and Think About What Makes Britain so Great’ is such an important work to recognize when talking about an institutional removal of diversity in British modernism.
Irrefutably ‘The Other Story’ was, what seemed at the time, a very important exhibition for ‘black’ artists in Britain. However, the exhibition received much criticism, for the lack of vernacular cultures and the inclusion of the new genre called ‘black’ art, of the younger generation of artists. Having said this, the emphasis of the exhibit was on the post war generation’s art, not that of the British black art movement, something critics and historians often overlook. Very few of the artists involved were as successful as the YBAs, thus it is worth questioning the success of the exhibition at integrating the Afro-Asian art into the history books. ‘The Other Story’ was, however only intended as a first step in implementing change, yet many argue that not enough on the marginalization of minority groups art has been done since, there is still a resentment to any fundamental change in the system. Despite the exhibition not having the effect it aimed for, it did raise awareness on some of the individuals’ art and, large impact or not, did address marginalization in a variety of ways. Appropriation, symbolism and representation were some of the most effective ways the younger artists demonstrated racial issues in modern art world. The effort gone into understanding and displaying the first generation of British ‘black’ modernist artists was also significant in depicting the multiracial modernism that Britain accommodated.