The Guardian Weekly 14 January 2022
56 Culture
peoples and the diaspora
share a common history and
identity, often symbolised
through the colours, red,
gold and green – was a guiding
principle for the group. “We
wanted to illustrate the connection between
Victorian colonialism and the struggle that we
had as teenagers to fi nd our place,” says Smith.
“We were all children of Windrush but, for me,
pan-Africanism wasn’t just about making sense
of the world but also about making sense of me.”T
he movement could only provide
limited answers, however. “Pan-Afri-
canism really fed me but it couldn’t help
me understand the role gender played
in my identity. We were devouring books in an
attempt to make sense of that time.” She men-
tions Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Femi-
nism, by bell hooks , who died last month, as well
as the work of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.
Smith remembers the fi rst meeting of Blk at
Chambers’ parents house : “ Claudette Johnson
did an absolutely jaw-dropping job of show-
ing her work in relation to the canon – Picasso,
Rubens, Manet’s Olympia. She showed us how
Black women were seen as decorative in art
history, either as exotica, or evidence of how
wealthy someone was.”
In a statement for The Pan-Afrikan
Connection, Johnson wrote: “While the black
woman experiences oppression on the grounds
of her sex, sexuality and race, there is not yet
a word that describes the specifi c and deliber-
ate nature of this oppression.” As she says now:
“The word ‘intersectionality’ didn’t exist at
the time.” Johnson’s career stalled in the 1990s Standing Figure
With African
Masks (2018)
by Claudette
Johnson▼ ▼ Go West
Young Man
(1996) by
Keith Piper
▼ The House
That Jack Built
(1987) by
Donald RodneyArt
but has restarted in earnest. Last month she
presented a solo exhibition, Still Here , at Hol-
lybush Gardens in London.
Sonia Boyce was a contemporary, as was the
future Turner prizewinner Lubaina Himid. Smith
and Johnson both mention The Thin Black Line,
a show curated by Himid at the Institute for Con-
temporary Arts in 1985, as the high-water mark of
Black British art in the period. The show featured
works from 11 Black female artists, including
Johnson, Smith and Boyce, and Himid herself.
“That show was like storming the citadel,” says
Johnson. “Lubaina had gone to the Royal Col-
lege and was trying to fi nd Black artists – she
curated, she wrote, she was like a magnet gather-
ing diff erent artists together .”
Marlene Smith says the YBAs took the DIY
strategies her contemporaries had used in alter-
native spaces and applied them in some of the
biggest institutions. “We were the AYBs – angry
young Blacks,” she jokes.
Says Piper: “We were serious about seizing
space and time in the venues that had previously
only been open to white artists. But we were also
just young kids, egging each other on and having
a good time. ”
Looking back, Piper thinks it was remarkable
how fully formed the group’s vision was at the
outset: by the time Chambers applied for degree
courses, Destruction of the National Front was
already under his belt: “I remember him work-
ing away in his room, marking up these fl ags and
tearing them to pieces. It’s mad to think he was
turned down with that in his portfolio. Now it’s
part of the national collection at the Tate.”
Keith Piper’s solo show is at the New Art Gallery
W a l s a l l , W e s t M i d l a n d s , u n t i l 2 4 A p r i l ; L i f e
Between Islands is at Tate Britain, London ,
until 3 AprilALEX MISTLIN IS A WRITER AND EDITORWe wanted to
illustrate the
connection between
colonialism and the
struggle we had to
fi nd our place