| Description |
With this essay on Black British artists from 1970 onward, Sophie Orlando explores their influences on the Western contemporary art and introduces readers to an important, long-marginalized movement, recontextualizing it with groundbreaking scholarship.
The conditions of development of British Black art are tied up with a social and cultural history of Europe, especially the anti-immigration policies of Margaret Thatcher and their consequences, such as the Brixton riots of the early 1980s. However, artistic productions from this period onward must now be understood within art history as model and agent of its revision. Related to Elvan Zabunyan's A History of African American Art, this essay suggests new narratives about canonical artworks of the British Black art movement, such as Lubaina Himid's 1984 Freedom and Change, Eddie Chambers' 1980 Destruction of the National Front and Sonia Boyce's 1986 Lay Back keep Quiet and Think of What made Britain so great, interrogating their critical agency from an art historical perspective. These artworks, art historian Sophie Orlando argues, imply a critical analysis of Western art history. |