October is Black History Month in the UK, a time to promote understanding of and celebrate the contributions made by Black individuals to British society and beyond. This year’s theme is Reclaiming Narratives, and focuses on the importance of recognising and correcting historical inaccuracies, while simultaneously showcasing and preserving the full complexity of Black heritage, culture and experiences.
To mark this important month, why not explore some of the following incredible exhibitions and installations.
Zanele Muholi at Tate Modern (until 26 January 2025): This major exhibition (which originally opened in 2020 but was cut short by the national lockdown) charts the trailblazing photographer and visual artist Muholi’s extraordinary career to date. Muholi records the lives of LGBTQIA+ communities in South Africa via vivid portraits that present the participants as empowered individuals, but the highlight of this show is Somnyama Ngonyama (translated as ‘Hail the Dark Lioness’); a series of dramatic black-and-white self-portraits, in which Muholi transforms themselves through unexpected props (clothes pegs, scouring pads, vacuum cleaner hoses) into powerful icons that unpack themes such as labour and Eurocentrism.
Barbara Walker: Being Here at The Whitworth (until 26 January 2025): The first major survey exhibition dedicated to the artist, this show features Walker’s paintings and sensitively rendered drawings from the 1990s to today, including the Turner Prize nominated series Burden of Proof (which imbues a sense of humanity and reverence to the Caribbean-born individuals impacted by the Windrush scandal). Soft Power, a major new enveloping wallpaper installation inspired by the Whitworth’s collections and the history of the French Toile de Jouy design, underlines the artist’s continued experimentation with materials, and contains Windrush communities in Manchester alongside landscape and decorative elements. From delicate pieces to monumentally scaled wall works, Walker plays with techniques of visibility and erasure to challenge conventions of representation and disrupt the archive, creating space for Black power and belonging.
Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation at Whitechapel Gallery (until 12 January 2025): Diving into interdisciplinary artist Sonia Boyce’s fascination with Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s radical practice (which also investigates themes of interaction and improvisation), this exhibition invites visitors to touch and respond instinctively to the artworks and challenge their assumptions and experiences in the gallery in new ways. Among the works on display, over 20 pieces directly address hair as a material and cultural signifier (and are made from both real and synthetic hair), with collages from Black Female Hairstyles, the video work Exquisite Tension and other photographic images all documenting hair through the lens of race and gender.
Conversations at Walker Art Gallery (19 October 2024 – 9 March 2025): Aiming to foster dialogue, this major exhibition encompasses painting, sculpture and video works from the past decade from around 40 Black British women and non-binary artists such as Alberta Whittle, Anthea Hamilton, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Lubaina Himid, Onyeka Igwe and Rhea Dillon. Explaining the thinking behind the show, Project Curator Sumuyya Khader notes that “much of the discourse surrounding Black British art, where it exists, concentrates on work made by a handful of artists, predominantly in the 1980s and 90s. While the exhibition acknowledges the impact and importance of their work, we want to focus on the vital conversations that contemporary artists are having with each other and with audiences right now. Through joyful, timely and thought-provoking pieces, they are responding to our current cultural climate – demonstrating how art can provide an avenue for interaction, exploration and learning”.
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker at Nottingham Contemporary (until 5 January 2025): This touring exhibition (previously on show at Bristol’s Spike Island and going on to London’s Whitechapel Gallery next year) brings together almost all of the late British-Jamaican artist Donald Rodney’s innovative surviving works across sculpture, installation, drawing, painting and digital media. Incisive and evocative in its analysis of the prejudices and injustices surrounding racial identity, Black masculinity, chronic illness (the artist suffered from sickle cell anaemia throughout his life) and Britain’s colonial past, Rodney’s work deployed recurring metaphors and a compelling personal iconography. In particular, look out for the photographic triptych Flesh of My Flesh and My Mother, My Father, My Sister, My Brother, a tiny maquette of a house made from dressmakers’ pins and the artist’s skin. In a 1997 interview, Rodney said of the latter: “It’s about the fragility of the human body…and of the human ego…bodies can be suddenly broken down by just a few cells working the wrong way”.
Alvaro Barrington: GRACE at Tate Britain (until 26 January 2025): This site-specific installation celebrates the women and places that have shaped Barrington’s artistic practice. Staged in three acts, and combining sound, painting and sculpture, the piece draws on the artist’s experiences of Caribbean carnival culture and memories of his upbringing in Grenada and New York, and foregrounds the key figures of his grandmother Frederica, sister-figure Samantha and mother Emelda. (To learn more, it is worth watching this video.)
If you have visited any of these exhibitions (or have other recommendations!), do share your comments and reflections – it would be great to hear what OCA’s student community is currently engaging with and being inspired by.
Image Credits:
Barbara Walker, The Sitter, 2002 © Barbara Walker. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2024.
Sonia Boyce, Exquisite Tension, 2006 © Sonia Boyce. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2024 Courtesy of the artist, APALAZZO GALLERY and Hauser & Wirth Gallery.
Donald Rodney, My Mother, My Father, My Sister, My Brother, 1997. Courtesy the Estate of Donald Rodney and the National Museum of Wales.
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