Eddie Chambers, 'History and Identity: Seven Painters'
In: Annotations 5: Run Through the Jungle: Selected Writings by Eddie Chambers. Edited by Gilane Tawadros and Victoria Clarke. London: Institute of International Visual Arts, 1999, pp. 97-101.
This catalogue text was written for Chambers’ exhibition ‘History and Identity: Seven Painters’ (Norwich Gallery, 1991) which is also referred to in relation to ‘Black Art Now’.
Ev'ry time I hear the crack
of a whip
My blood runs cold
I remember on the slave ship
How they brutalised our
very souls
Bob Marley, 'Slave Driver'
During the course of a recent conversation, a white man said to me 'Don't talk to me about slavery, slavery was abolished over a century ago’. Clearly, our conversation was getting more than a little uncomfortable, so, finding himself on the defensive, he decided to dismiss history as being a decisive and contributory factor in the position of Black people within the West, and within the world. He had failed to understand (or I had failed to make it clear to him) that for Black people, history and identity were inextricably linked and were ever-present in our individual and collective consciousness.
Within the work of African and Asian artists in Britain and around the world, two themes can clearly be seen as central and recurring. These are the twin themes of history and identity. This of course is hardly surprising. After all, the myriad experiences that characterised the existence of African and Asian peoples relate directly to their various histories, and the ways in which these people are viewed and treaded by those of European origin.
For Back people, ‘history’ refuses to be a lifeless and dull conglomeration of boring dates and events. Instead, it presents itself as earlier episodes of our current existence. We are the latest chapters of our history, and as such, we are scarcely able to downgrade its centrality and importance in our lives.
[…]
'History' determines who and what we are. In addition, we are constantly reminded that our ongoing ‘struggle’ is itself continually updating and extending our history. So we look back on events such as the Great Insurrection of 1980/81, the maiming of Cherry Groce, the death of Cynthia Jarrett, and the election victories of Bernie Grant, Paul Boateng, Keith Vaz, and Diane Abbott as being key and critical contributions to our history, and our identity. As Linton Kwesi Johnson proclaimed 'It is no myst'ry, we makin' hist'ry.'
Perhaps the centrality and pivotal position of history in our lives is due to the fact that our conquerors and colonisers have tried so hard to take our history away form us. Indeed, it has only been comparatively recently (the 1920s) that the recognisable notion of ‘Black History’ first clearly emerged, via the forceful personality of Marcus Garvey. Before this time, the Black struggle had tended to focus exclusively on the quest for liberty, justice and equality.
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origins and culture is like a tree without roots. Marcus Garvey.
This exhibition presents the work of seven painters, of African or Asian origin, each of them having their own interpretations and responses to their dual birthright of history and identity.
Said Adrus, an Asian of East African background has, over the years, produced a considerable body of work dealing with identity. As with artists such as Lesley Sanderson, he consistently uses the self-portrait as a vehicle to discuss his political identity, and his previous status as a refugee. For him, the royal coat-of-arms, as it appears on the 'British' passport offers itself as a perplexing, mocking and ultimately offensive symbol. In turn, the British passport becomes an icon of the transparently racist restrictions placed on Asian peoples who find that the ‘British’ passports they hold are effectively worthless in terms of allowing them unhindered entry into Britain.
In Portrait of Another Kind the artists presents the royal crest comprising the unicorn and the lion as having massive, disproportionate and debilitating bearing on his identity. One of Adrus’ other submissions to the exhibition, The Labelled Story graphically illustrates the constantly changing names and labels that have historically been attached to non-European people in Britain. Each change of label, each newly-introduced definition, each manifestation of the vagaries of political correctness - all these things seem to reinforce the precariousness of our collective social and political status. As a sub-text, the painting also laments our inability to decisively name ourselves. Is he Black? Is he African? Is he Asian? Is he British? Is he Black British? The name calling, the labelling, seems to be inexhaustible. I recently came across and article in the Voice newspaper in which a Black actress described herself as ‘Afropean’. The Labelled Story consistently obliges the viewer to critically assess the credibility of his or her nationality label.
[…]
For History and Identity Mowbray Odonkor is represented by two of her most articulate drawings. Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Now You See Me Now You Don’t and Self Portrait with Red Gold and Green Flag. In Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Now You See Me Now You Don’t Mowbray Odonkor draws herself not once but six times. Which one is the real Mowbray Odonkor? Each of these self-portraits almost shows her as being six different people, though in actual fact, they show her presenting herself in six different ways. In this piece of work the artist is attempting to challenge the universally held tendency to ‘judge’ and ‘assess’ people on the initial basis of their style of hair, mode of dress, etc. Commenting on Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Now You See Me Now You Don’t, Odonkor said:
This piece of work addresses stereotypes. Using self-portraiture it addresses the way we are all too often solely judged by our outward appearance. For example the way in which a person styles her hair, is often used as a criterion for judgement, resulting in assumptions that can be totally misleading. We need to look further than outward appearances and stop making rash judgements which pigeon-hole people through dress. Appearances can be deceptive.
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Medina Hammad brings a freshness, vitality, and a bold use of colour to much of her work. For her, the issues of history and identity offer the opportunities to explore the complexities and intricacies of her family background and her childhood. What draws me to her work is the way that it so effectively defies glib categorisation. Her notes for this catalogue caution against the dangers and limitations of the ‘Arab’ stereotype. She tells of being ‘brought up in surroundings where plaster cupids frolicked, lamp-shade pom-poms shook and the Mona Lisa, framed in moulded gold plastic, smiled at me from every corner’. And of a [Sudanese] father who ‘spent more time in John Lewis’ soft furnishings department than he did with me or my sister’.
To the British media, the word ‘Arab’ is currently synonymous and interchangeable with a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out ‘enemy’. Through her paintings, Medina Hammad shows us that in herself, her family and her observations, the word ‘Arab’ is more accurately synonymous with as wide, as rich, and as eclectic a range of experiences as can be imagined.
[…]