Entangled Pasts: 1768 To Now: Art, Colonialism and Change @ Royal Academy of Arts, London
Incredibly intelligent exhibition examining the legacy and impact of Colonialism, enslavement and Empire in the creation, collection and portrayals of art. Unlike the brickbat information cards of Tate Britain, this exhibition really made you think — through portraits of people (mostly men) of colour contrasted with Europeanised paintings of ‘their’ colonies.
It was wonderful to see Thomas Gainsborough’s Charles Ignatius Sancho, alongside the strong young man in a red suit whose subject remains unattributed and the beautiful portrait by Reynolds, probably of Francis Barber.
Or the ambiguous portrait of Dido Belle, exoticised and sort of turned into an attendant, yet in her liveliness bursting out of the painting. Also equal as her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray grasps her arm stopping her from being pushed back into the background, and in love and friendship — the touch is a powerful symbol.
Equally stunning was the detailed installation piece by Hew Locke ‘Armada’ (2017–19)— a fleet of ships with a difference. Incredibly beautiful and detailed. Look closely and you can see that some of the ships are collapsing, others have disturbing though delicate adornment (a person being enslaved in chains at gunpoint) and one ship has a broken mast and tattered rigging, with lots of other boats crumbling on it. Still others bloom with the precious objects of life — tiny carrier bags of belongings — and beautiful trailing flowers.
More disturbing still was the paradisation of an island — complete with swimming native nymphs. Even more shocking was the fabrication of a plantation using enslavd people for labour as a lush and verdant pastoral paradise — bathing women become like water goddesses stretched out in the water, men and children are shown happily working alongside the beneficent mistress who holds out her hand of plenty. It reminded me of the ‘model’ concentration camps of the Holocaust which showed a pretended happy inmate life to Red Cross official visitors. The artistic imagination and pretence was sickening, particularly when you saw the children. Noticeably the landscape was populated by a majority of women, presumably because the men were hard labouring elsewhere.
In the courtyard Tavares Strachan’s fabulous sculpture is rightly gathering, lots of attention.
I also enjoyed mingling amongst the community created by Lubaina Himid. Each figure had a name and symbolic piece of cloth reminding us that each enslaved person had a past, a history, a place, a people, a culture, a society — of who they were and what they do now. How much was stolen and taken, and of how lives and communities were turned upside down.
The use of black and brown figures was also explored — appearing in highly staged family portraits as an ‘ultimate accessory’, which is harrowing. And even depictions of servants can be misleading as the ‘ayah’ is most likely the child of an ayah, appearing no older than the youngest daughter of the family.
The representation of indigenous peoples also featured, where they are included alongside other ‘exotics and others’ such as the Scots. At the same time, such works are a historical record — they were here and participated, such as the depiction of First Nations people at the Battle of Delaware. The strength of this exhibition is in restoring the people as people.
However, the dramatic work showing a shark attack and rescue was completely different as a black man was depicted as a sailor and an equal amongst the survivors.
Richard Evans portrait of King Henry Christophe was fascinating, as he adopted the grand European manner beloved of royalty. It reminds me of George IV in pose. But we also feel his dignity and humanity, as well as his authority. Further more, I realised, looking at this work (and that of his son) how little I knew about the Haitian Revolution. This portrait, along with one of King Christophe’s son, was sent to William Wilberforce as a gift.
Most moving, for me, was John Singleton Copley RA’s portrait — Head of a Man, 1777/78. We don’t know who the sitter is — he could have travelled with Copley or have been a professional artist’s model. The sadness in his eyes and face moved me to tears.
At the same time, in a beautiful moment, all kinds of people gathered around a filmed life of Frederick Douglass and we all listened to his erudition and impassioned reasoning and intelligent debate, as well as his appreciation and reflection on life. (And the value of life, enslaved and free). Which is the best kind of art — bringing people together around truth.
