Join In The Black Fantastic
Daniel Nelson Installation photo: Zeinab Batchelor, Courtesy of the Hayward Gallery
Enter the Hayward Gallery and be hit by an explosion of colour, fantasy, imagination, masquerade, exuberance and weirdness. It’s a joy. A colourful joy.
A starburst of creativity erupts through paintings, photographs, videos, sculptures and mixed-media installations. Colourful creativity.
The 11 artists conjure up utopias and nightmares, unknown worlds and new perspectives. Did I mention how colourful these worlds are? The artists are diaspora Africans and they seem to be saying - no, proclaiming, ‘We are not defined by what you think; we are not going to be put in a corner as a racist, supercilious world has tried to do; we are not just responding to you: we are making our own worlds.”
Inescapably reaction to racism is pervasive, often overt, like Kara Walker’s animation of violence and terrorsm. It makes the work very different from that made by artists in Africa. Here, cosmopolitanism, hybridisation, exchange and migration are crucial components.
The show, In The Black Fantastic, was inspired and created by Ekow Eshun, a writer, journalist, presenter, commentator with a Ghanaian-British background.
“I hope you all agree that the works are fantastic,” he said at the preview. How could you disagree, whether it’s Wangechi Mutu’s strange, almost horror-like animation or Chris Ofili’s coupling of the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary; Nick Cave’s floor-to ceiling casts of his forearm joined like links in a chain or Ellen Gallagher’s slave trade undersea imaginings.
You are never sure what’s around the corner in the next room, with the works drawing on African folk tales, myths, American violence, science fiction and colonial statuary.
The exhibition is backed up by a programme of events and installations around the gallery site. They are well worth looking out for. I really hope schools make use of them. Taking part In The Black Fantastic could be provocative and inspirational.
* In The Black Fantastic is at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, £13.50, until 18 September.
Art installations around the site:
Dubmorphology: Emergence
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm - Every half hour on the hour and at half past the hour. Run time 3.09 minutes
Queen’s Walk
Free & unticketed
Ancient drums, future sonics and the voice of pioneering historian CLR James form a futuristic sound installation. Dubmorphology’s newly commissioned sound installation, Emergence, responds to the themes of the exhibition. It features CLR James speaking about Négritude, a movement from the 1930s intended to dispel stereotypes, cultivate a new Black consciousness and celebrate African beliefs and values. Interdisciplinary research group Dubmorphology make experimental sound and visual installations that examine the relationship between culture, history and creativity, reworking historical, political and scientific archives.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/dubmorphology-emergence
I. Nakhla: On the Lips of Time
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Queen’s Walk
Free & unticketed
Inspired by Egyptian iconography within Afrofuturism, artist I. Nakhla explores Egyptian heritage in a sonic blend of audio from home videos, music and memories of dreams. It also contains words from the song ‘Al-Atlal’ (The Ruins), made famous by singer Om Kalthoum, and adapted from poetry by Ibrahim Nagi. On the Lips of Time brings together an array of sonic material as a form of fictioning, in an attempt to get close to traces of histories connected to themes of place, time, power and family.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/i-nakhla-lips-time
Peter Adjaye: Music for Architecture
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Queen’s Walk
Free & unticketed
Adjaye uses sound to change how we experience space and architecture. A contemporary conceptual sound artist specialising in multidisciplinary collaborations, A djaye is a composer, producer, musicologist, creative consultant and educator,, and is passionate about exploring the crossover between the arts, science, architecture, fashion and film.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/peter-adjaye-music-architecture
Lina Iris Viktor: Syzygy, 2015
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Royal Festival Hall Wall, Mandela Walk
Free & unticketed
Viktor’s work of opulent gold and blue draws on artistic traditions and visuals from African symbolism and cosmology. https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/art-exhibitions/lina-iris-viktor-syzygy
Alisha Wormsley: There Are Black People in the Future
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Royal Festival Hall Wall, Blue Side
Free & unticketed
Inspired by Afrofuturist calls for Black people to claim their place, Wormsley’s message addresses systemic oppression of Black communities, offering reassurance by asserting the presence of Black bodies. https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/art-exhibitions/alisha-wormsley-there-are-black-people-future
Hew Locke: Bounty Killer, 2007
Until Monday 31 October 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall slip road, display space
Free & unticketed
This is part of Locke’s photographic series How Do You Want Me?, a collection of sinister character portraits confronting the stereotypes of Black artists. He created a clutch of dark characters and acted them out by wearing costumes and posing as they would want to project themselves. They are a portrait gallery of sinister figures, corrupt kings, tyrants and bandits, embodying both fear of, yet desire for, the exotic. Locke says 'How Do You Want Me?' is the question many people ask when having their portrait taken by a high-street photographer. How should they pose in order to be acceptable? ‘I am saying – OK – if this is how you want your black artists to be – dangerous, colourful, mysterious, edgy – then I can project that cliché for you.'
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/art-exhibitions/hew-locke-bounty-killer
Wangechi Mutu: Even my old soul has an old soul, 2019
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Royal Festival Hall Wall, Blue Side
Free & unticketed
Mutu’s inks and watercolours populate a strange world with female figures and birds, subverting preconceptions of the female body and the feminine. Working with a range of mediums, Mutu reflects on sexuality, femininity, ecology, politics, the rhythms of the world and our often damaging or futile efforts to control it. Mutu was first recognised for paintings and collages concerned with the myriad forms of violence and misrepresentation women experience, especially black women, in the contemporary world.
Namsa Leuba - La Déesse Hiti III from the Illusions series, 2019
Until Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Hayward Gallery Banner
Free & unticketed
In the fictional narratives of her staged photographs of Polynesian women, the photographer and art director challenges Paul Gauguin’s exoticised imagery. La Déesse Hiti III is part of Leuba’s most recent project, Illusions, created in Tahiti and inspired by the paintings of Gauguin and ‘tropical’ images in modern art. This type of imagery casts the Polynesian woman as beautiful, desirable, subservient, and connected to the natural environment.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/art-exhibitions/namsa-leuba-la-deesse-hiti-iii
Emily Mulenga - Stills from Orange Bikini, 2015; 4 Survival 4 Pleasure, 2017; and Electric Lady Land, 2018
Friday 15 July - Sunday 4 September 2022, 10am-11.30pm
Royal Festival Hall Wall, Mandela Walk
Free & unticketed
A multimedia artist using visuals and sound that draws on video games, cartoons and the internet, Mulenga explores themes of capitalism, feminism, technology and existential anxieties. Her output reflects a ravenous consumption of media where gloss and escapism meet humour and unease, spanning past, present and future. These stills are taken from three videos where the viewer is taken on a dreamlike journey through a succession of scenarios, in which the avatar takes part in a series of fantastical or luxurious activities.
Talks and events programme:
Artists’ Talk
Thursday 30 June, 7pm
St Paul’s Roof Pavilion, Level 6, Blue Side, Royal Festival Hall
Ticketed, £8.
Delve into the ideas behind the exhibition with curator Ekow Eshun and artists Sedrick Chisom, Cauleen Smith and Lina Iris Viktor.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/talks-debates/black-fantastic-artists-talk
Artists Talk
Thursday 30 June 2022, 7-8.30pm
St Paul’s Roof Pavilion, Level 6, Blue Side, Royal Festival Hall
Ticketed, £8, £5 concession
Curator Ekow Eshun delves into the ideas behind the exhibition with three of its artists. Sedrick Chisom, Cauleen Smith and Lina Iris Viktor.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/talks-debates/black-fantastic-artists-talk
Secondary Schools Morning: In the Black Fantastic
Thursday 7 July 2022, 11am
Hayward Gallery
Free & ticketed
Exclusively for secondary schools, sixth forms and colleges. Groups look at the exhibition at their own pace, using the gallery’s secondary schools resource, the Artists’ and Thinkers’ Guide to the Hayward Gallery, to dive deeper. Schools can also meet a curator and take time to sit and sketch in the space.
Teachers’ Twilight: In the Black Fantastic
Tuesday 12 July 2022, 5pm
Hayward Gallery
Free & ticketed
Primary, secondary and SEND teachers are invited to explore the exhibition and how to make the most of it with their classes. After a drinks reception, you’re introduced to the exhibition by curator Ekow Eshun and can discuss ways of exploring the ideas and themes of the exhibition with students. You can explore the gallery at your leisure and prepare for your next visit with your school.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/teachers-twilight-black-fantastic?eventId=913773
Hew Locke
Friday 15 July 2022, 7-8.30pm
Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room
Ticketed, £8, £5 concession
Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his artworks. https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/talks-debates/hew-locke
In the Black Fantastic: Live
Saturday 30-Sunday 31 July 2022, 7.45-9.15pm
Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room
Ticketed, £15. For ages 16+.
Combines music, live performances and visuals inspired by the exhibition. The performance draws on key works from the epic poem Sunjata to Amos Tutuola, incorporating narratives mirroring a journey from Africa to the forced migrations of the diaspora, and the dreaming of possible futures by writers including Toni Morrison and Octavia E. Butler. With live performances from actors and specially commissioned music from Space Afrika and visuals from Alistair Mackinnon.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/literature-poetry/black-fantastic-live
Writing In the Black Fantastic
Thursday 15 September 2022, 7.45pm
Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall
Ticketed, £10. For ages 16+
Writers Courttia Newland and Michael Salu join a panel chaired by Ellah P Wakatama, exploring the influence of the fantastical in their books, art, films and TV programmes, building alternate worlds which recast historic and current injustices and traumas into their own new narratives of Black possibility.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/literature-poetry/writing-black-fantastic
Photo-Fantastic: Creative Photography Course
Monday 8 - Sunday 14 August 2022, daily, 10.30am–5pm, Free
Tree week course led by Eddie Otchere and Holly-Marie Cato, supporting local talent and using the exhibition as inspiration.
Emerging photographers aged 18–24 who identify as Black, mixed race or from the Black African or African Caribbean diaspora, and who are resident in London, can apply.
In the Black Fantastic Weekender
Friday 15 - Sunday 17 July 2022
Explore three days of music, poetry, comedy, film and talks celebrating the breadth of contemporary Black art and culture.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/festivals-series/black-fantastic-weekender