(29 Nov 2021) LEAD IN:
A major retrospective, featuring Caribbean-British artists from four generations, is set to open at Tate Britain art museum in London.
The exhibit offers a variety of artworks representing, among others, the socio-economic and political struggles faced by the community.
STORY-LINE:
Steel pans at Tate Britain art museum.
This is a huge retrospective of Caribbean-British art from the 1950s to today.
Called "Life Between Islands," the exhibit offers a deep look into four generations of Caribbean-British artists, from paintings to photographs and installations.
For co-curator David Bailey, this branch of Caribbean art is British in its own right.
"This is British art. This isn't an art that's in a cul-de-sac somewhere in a different part of the world," he says.
"This project is about British art and also, it shows how Britain itself was and still is a home to some of the most innovative and progressive art that you could think about. Where else could you go, where you can make work that has a very didactic political nature, but at the same time could be poetic and also, can have a sensibility that links to almost 19th century, 18th century literature, but also to avant-garde propagandist work? It's only Britain that can do that, and it's only the fusion of this relationship between the Caribbean and Britain that can do that as well."
And, if one artwork could embody the entire exhibition, it would be the painting on the wall behind him.
"This painting, I really feel, is at the heart and the crux of the show. It's by Aubrey Williams, an artist who was very influential in relation to the Caribbean artist movement. One of the first art movements from the Caribbean in this country from the 1960s. And for me, the painting is symbolic of the whole show because it represents the old with the new and the fusion. What's really interesting about Aubrey Williams' work? People see him as an abstractionist, but actually the work is very figurative because he's referencing lots of kind of iconography, lots of images from the original Arawaks, who were the original kind of Caribbean inhabitants," says Bailey.
The artworks also address racial injustice.
The series of photographs "Go West Young Man" by Keith Piper is a patchwork of visual representations of the black male body throughout history, from slavery to migration and physical stereotypes.
Another striking artwork is "Destruction of the National Front" by Eddie Chambers.
It creatively takes a political stance against the eponymous far-right group, which used the Union Flag as a symbol of white supremacy — hence why Chambers reorganised torn pieces of the flag into a swastika.
Art critic Tabish Khan emphasises how current this exhibition is for the public.
"I mean, even before you come into this exhibition you know it's an important one to recognise the contribution of Black people and Black artists specifically to British society, especially at a time when we're talking about it in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and also, rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Britain with Brexit and so on. So, it's important to recognise what a contribution has been made by certain migrant populations in this case, the Black population to British art," says Khan.
One of his favourite artworks from the retrospective is a series of portraits by Barbara Walker.
"So, these works by Barbara Walker are looking at recruitment posters that were used to recruit soldiers from across the British Empire," says Khan.
"Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s - Now" runs at Tate Britain art museum December 1 until 3 April 2022.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: / ap_archive
Facebook: / aparchives
Instagram: / apnews
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
Информация по комментариям в разработке