This exhibition explores how art has helped to shape the story of empire, enslavement, resistance, abolition and colonialism, while also highlighting how it can help affect the future.
The new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts begins before you even step foot inside the gallery itself, with Tavares Strachan’s lifesize recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper titled ‘The First Supper’ with the parts being played by important figures in Black history. It is a sign of intent and impressive way to introduce the main purpose of the exhibition: to showcase the role of art has had in telling the story of Black history.
Entangled Pasts works at its best when it tells the story of those who are featured in the works of art (although on some occasions there is dispute about who they actually are, highlighting the need for further investigation to ensure their stories are told correctly), but it also has to be said that the more contemporary arts of work on display equally pack a powerful punch in bringing Black history in general to the forefront.
Highlights in the first room include plenty of fascinating stories relating to Ignatius Sancho (the first known person of African descent to have a vote in a British General Election) painted with great character by Thomas Gainsborough and Francis Barber who eventually became the servant and companion of Samuel Johnson are just two examples. Stories such as theirs are effectively interwoven throughout the exhibition and help the Royal Academy to examine their own past and the effects of colonialism that has entered its own walls – although in some ways it feels (particularly towards the centre of the exhibition) as though it is a bit vague.
What is also excellent is the way in which the past and present (with hints of the future) are all effortlessly intertwined, as seen through a room in which classical paintings are joined by Hew Locke’s Armada, a flotilla of ‘votive boats’ recalling different periods and places which is impressively displayed.
Elsewhere, Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour is a powerful and poetic tribute African American abolitionist and photographer Frederick Douglass is hypnotic in the way in which it tells his story, as is Lubaina Himid’s Naming the Money formed of 100 life-size painted wooden figures, each representing an enslaved person, servant or refugee, with sound that gives a voice to them as well. It is an incredibly powerful aspect to the display.
But equally important is the fact that entangled pasts acknowledges the role that artists themselves have had to play in capturing this history and in the case of contemporary artists how they can use their art as a way to challenge and help evoke change. This can really be seen through sculptor Betye Saar’s piece I’ll Bend but I Will Not Break (1998) which highlights the real-life outcomes of the white supremacist views of former RA President (and artist) Frank Dicksee. Saar’s piece (formed of a wooden ironing board, on which is the infamous diagram of the conditions found on the 18th-century slave ship Brookes, an iron manacled to the board, and a sheet of cotton hanging behind with the letters KKK embroidered into it) is opposite that of a painting by Dicksee titled Startled (1892) in which two white girls can be seen fleeing from a Viking ship. His views are shared close by in which he wrote horrifically: “our ideal of beauty must be the white man’s”
There is so much to say about this subject and the curators admit this freely very early on in the exhibition, but what is focused on is very profound and concise, leaving visitors with plenty to think about. We need more exhibitions like this.
By Emma Clarendon
Entangled Pasts is on display at the Royal Academy of Arts until the 28th April 2024.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐