Eddie Chambers: ‘Problems and Progress’
ML: I’d like to begin with Joseph Johnson[i]
from your book, Black Artists in British Art, which documents the history of Black
artists in this country. I wonder if you could speak a bit about how you
feel we're progressing with the task of reinserting ourselves into history?
Documenting that people like Johnson existed, had an
impact, were part of the infrastructure and the importance of us knowing that
for ourselves?
EC: What I would
say about Joseph Johnson and that wider history that you just touched upon is I
think that raising awareness is an ongoing project. There has been, relatively
speaking, a fairly large amount of scholarship researching Black British history
so I think that the challenge is making that known to a wider public. There
hasn’t been that much in relation to the visual arts although the wider
histories are now fairly substantially documented but somehow that material has
not yet made its way into a wider consciousness; it exists in its own space. Some
publications have come into existence recently, wonderful new material such as
the Oxford Companion to Black British
History but they need to be more widely known.
ML: Yes, and
we’re talking today because of the new art exhibition being held by the Huntley
Archives and, now that the Black Cultural Archives are in their new
home in Brixton, I wonder what role they might have in terms of trying
to disseminate this knowledge to a wider audience?
EC: It’s probably
too early to say for definite what contribution the Black Cultural Archives
might make but I’m hoping that it will become an established fixture. I’m
hoping that one of the contributions it might make is to attract schools, not
only in Lambeth or London but across the country. It should be a destination in
the same way as the V&A might be or the British Museum; I think it has the
potential to make those kinds of contributions. Because once that history can
enmesh itself within the school curricula, there’s much more chance of it being
normalised and accepted as being part and parcel of British history. I’d love
to see schoolchildren from all across the country, of all backgrounds, being
taught and learning about the wonderful richness of history including, of
course, its black dimensions.
One thing I should also say is that the issue of archiving
and collecting material is such a fragile enterprise because it’s very time
consuming and it’s very costly to collect material, to assemble it and also to
make it available to the wider public. There have been many projects that have
come and gone for the want of resources. So this is a major issue because, within
Britain, funding is such a major issue. So something can come into existence,
it can operate for a couple of years and then it can whither for the want of more funding.
 |
| How Much Longer You Bastards, 1983, mixed media on board, Museums Sheffield (on loan to No Colour Bar) © Eddie Chambers, 2012. |
ML: And the lack
of that type of sustained support is also an issue for many of the artists
featured in your book; I was impressed by their sheer resilience during much of
the time you document.
EC: Yes,
absolutely. I think in some ways one of the strongest eras of Black artists’
activity was around the early 60s. But we’re talking about quite sporadic
exposure. Frank Bowling was probably one of the most energetic and active artists
and by 1963-64 he found his career stymied somewhat and his work not being
accepted for a couple of important exhibitions. So this thing about one step
forward and two steps back, it’s been a feature because we can roll that forward
to the 80s where we have a period of astonishing activity in many respects with
lots of exhibitions happening around the country but where are those artists
now? Several of them are still around but a great number of them have
essentially disappeared. So when one hears about exposure for an artist at the
present time, it’s quite tempting to wonder how long this exposure will last.
Because there is a pattern of certain artists being allowed to have some
exposure but that can very rapidly become an historical thing.
ML: I did get the
sense when I read your chapter on some of the more prominent Black British
artists working today that you felt some doubt as to whether this signalled
lasting change.
EC: Yes, and I
think it’s too early to say. In some ways the omens for the favoured few are
quite good, particularly if one looks internationally. Chris Ofili[ii]
recently had a very successful retrospective at the New Museum in New York and
just this week Hew Locke[iii]
received quite a lot of press coverage for his commissioned work to commemorate
the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. He was born in Edinburgh
and raised in Guyana and here he is, an artist selected for quite a major
commission. I think the work was unveiled in the presence of the Queen and the Prime
Minister, and so on. And so if you’re minded to respect those types of
initiatives, then in some ways they can be seen as quite important pointers to
some artists at least having a sustained success.
Black Artists in
British Art: A History from 1950 to the Present by Eddie Chambers was published
in July 2014 by I.B. Tauris
[i]
Joseph Johnson was an African seaman in the Merchant Navy century until he was
injured and subsequently discharged. Ineligible for assistance because he was
not British, he took to busking on the streets of London, where he was drawn
with an intricate model of the ship Nelson on his cap in 1815, thus potentially
becoming the first Black British visual and performance artist.
[ii]
Chris Ofili’s Night and Day
retrospective was on exhibit at the New Museum in New York from October 2014 to
February 2015.
[iii]
Hew Locke’s The Jurors is a permanent
artwork that stands at Runnymede and was unveiled by Prince William on 15 June
2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment