Entangled Pasts

Published: 10/02/2024

"Entangled Pasts,1768 to now: Art, Colonialism and Change" is a current major exhibition at the Royal Academy. The exhibition spans the lifetime of the RA and brings together in dialogue works by academicians of the past with those of today. In the words of the RA website: "This spring, we bring together over 100 major contemporary and historical works as part of a conversation about art and its role in shaping narratives of empire, enslavement, resistance, abolition and colonialism – and how it may help set a course for the future." The idea for the exhibition developed in the pandemic and is a reflection of the impact of Black Lives Matter and the debate surrounding the toppling of the Colston statue.

Before going into the Royal Academy, you are met by a massive sculpture in the Courtyard. This is the First Supper by Tavares Strachan and is shown in the photo with this article. Strachan sees this as a meditation on humanity's struggle for progress. At the table are a range of historical figures including Mary Seacole, Harriet Tubman and Haile Selassie with produce from Africa in front of them.

As you go into the Academy and through the galleries, you are able to see paintings, prints, poems, sculptures and film that reflect different perspectives and values. By way of example, there is a print based on a lost work by Thomas Stothard that shows a nude Black woman rising from the sea that was used to illustrate a pro-slavery text, A contemporary artist, Margaret Burroughs, develops the same image in her linocut Black Venus to "transform the sexualisation of Black women into a hopeful image of resistance". Later on, seascapes by Turner contrast with Frank Bowling's Middle Passage, an abstract painting with reds and yellows alluding to the trauma involved.

One of the striking exhibits is a display of life size cut out figures by Lubaina Himid. These depict a range of African slaves put to work in Royal Courts in the eighteenth century, each with a brief story on the reverse.

The stories bring out each individual's African name and trade and the new names and jobs imposed on them in Europe.

The example here is:

"My name is Kwaboaso

They call me Polly

I painted patterns on my house

Now I keep their woodwork nice

But I have the shadows."

The installation, Naming the Money, comes near the end of the exhibition and is a dramatic part of it. It can be seen in the photos here.

The exhibition is nuanced and subtle and contains much work of great quality and impact. In the words of Lubaina Himid, "It will seem like a journey through time... a kind of pageant of great paintings, difficult paintings, great installations, but it will be like walking through a great city."