EXHIBITION: In the Black Fantastic showcases at the Hayward Gallery from June
An exhibition dedicated to the work of Black artists who use fantastical elements to address racial injustice and explore alternative realities is coming to the South Bank this summer.
From 29 June to 18 September 2022, the Hayward Gallery will present In the Black Fantastic, which will showcase new works and special commissions from Nick Cave, Hew Locke and Rashaad Newsome.
Curated by Ekow Eshun, the exhibition will bring together a group of artists who use elements of folklore, myth, science fiction, spiritual traditions, and legacies of Afrofuturism.
Mr Eshun said: “As a concept, the Black fantastic does not describe a movement or a rigid category so much as a way of seeing shared by artists who grapple with the inequities of racialized contemporary society by conjuring new visions of Blackpossibility.
“More than ever Black visual artists, as well as writers, film-makers and musicians, are thinking in boldly imaginative terms in order to explore race and cultural identity in the contemporary era.”
The artists reimagine the ways in which we represent the past and think about the future, whilst also engaging with the challenges and conflicts of the present.
The fantastical element is not about escapism, but instead confronts socially constructed ideas about race.
Opening the show, a new installation by Nick Cave is made from hundreds of casts of the artist’s own arm, joined together like links in a chain.
Alongside this, Cave will present a group of Soundsuits – the legendary series of wearable artworks begun 30 years ago in response to the brutal police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.
A new Soundsuit commemorating the killing of George Floyd will be shown.
Other artists using their own body to create works of far-reaching imagination include Hew Locke and Lina Iris Viktor.
Locke’s immersive installation comprises a series of portrait photographs of the artist masquerading as corrupt kings, tyrants and bandits.
Viktor’s mixed-media works draw from sources including astronomy, Aboriginal dream paintings, African textiles, and West and Central African mythology.
Similarly, Wangechi Mutu reimagines the human body, presenting collage and film works alongside two new female figure sculptures made from natural Kenyan materials including red soil, horn and shells.
Interwoven mythologies and history are explored by Ellen Gallagher who addresses the horror of the Atlantic slave trade and Chris Ofili whose paintings transport Homer’s encounter between Odysseus and Calypso to the islands of the Caribbean.
Accompanying In the Black Fantastic, a summer season of events will take place across the Southbank Centre, spanning literature, performance and music, as well as a series of outdoor installations.
A parallel programme of film screenings curated by Ekow Eshun will also be hosted at BFI Southbank.
In the Black Fantastic is at the Hayward Gallery from June 29 to September 18.
Image credits: Rashaad Newsome, Stop Playing In My Face!, 2016; Courtesy of Rashaad Newsome Studio and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco