Ethnicity and Identity

Question 1

Key Points

Answer 1

• BLK Art Group black art initiative in Britain - form of politically driven artistic practice in 1980s Britain.
• Key: attempt to change British visual culture – announced new visual arts agenda –criticism of racial exclusion of British art world at the time
• Also critical in igniting debates about the meaning of ‘black art’ that emerged since the 1980s
• Postcolonialism: shaping of new identities, and political and cultural practices in former colonies, and body of theory that deals with the cultural, social and political dynamics of colonial and post-colonial societies

Question 2

‘Visceral Canker’ (1990) by Donald Rodney

• Who is Donald Rodney?
• Description of the artwork
• ‘Blood’ connects coats of arms of John Hawkins (first slave trader) and to the coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth I

Answer 2

Who? Donald Gladstone Rodney was a British artist. He was a leading figure in Britain’s BLK Art Group of the 1980s and became recognised as “one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation.
What? Visceral Canker consists of two wooden wall plaques displaying heraldic images, each linked to a system of tubes and electrical pumps which circulate imitation blood, of the kind used for medical demonstrations. The ‘blood’ connects the coats of arms of John Hawkins, the first slave trader to sail from Plymouth, to the coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1567, Hawkins was granted the use of a large ship of Elizabeth’s fleet, for the purpose of enslaving Africans to sell in the Spanish colonies.

Question 3

‘Missionary Position II’ (1985) by Sonia Boyce

• Who is Sonia Boyce?
• Description of the artwork

Answer 3

Who? Boyce was born in London – Caribbean parents – mother from Barbados and father from Guyana
What? A multimedia piece that explored the ideas about British society in the 1980s, conflicting opinions about
religious beliefs across different generations and cultures. The artist uses herself as the model for both figures and the work reflects her growing antipathy towards her Christian upbringing. The praying figure suggests passive acceptance of white culture. The figure on the right, wearing a red turban, which Boyce associated with Rastafarianism, proposes an alternative position to the dominant ideologies of the day.

Question 4

Both Works

- Themes: hybridity and fluidity of Postcolonialism

Answer 4

• Central themes of hybridity and fluidity of postcolonialism are embedded in black visual art practice (e.g. Lubaina Himid, Sonia Boyce, Donald Rodney) – importantly: identity as positional and fluid, not fixed.

Question 5

‘Assembling the 1980s: The Deluge—and After’ (2005) by

Stuart Hall

Answer 5

Questioned notion of ‘black’: ‘Black because the artist is black? Or because they are about a black experience? Or because they deploy a black visual language? And if so, of what does this black aesthetic consist?’

Question 6

Eddie Chambers

Answer 6

Offers alternative way: ‘diaspora aesthetics’ (which avoids identity centred on race or colour): emphasises global interplay of art rather than fixed notion of ‘identity’ as ‘black.’