We took some time to visit and find out more about the 'Reframing the Collection' mini exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery and its worthy of your attention.
The show is the result of work being undertaken across the museum sector to address problematic artworks, some of which are on show in their public gallery spaces but with many squirreled away, their problematic nature keeping them out of sight and often out of mind. These problematic works can range in severity from an outdated and now offensive titles like the 'Negress' or 'head of a Negro' and of course imagery and iconography relating to the British slave trade.
Slavery became a buzz word when looking at racial equality issues highlighted by the BLM movement a few years back, the reductive counter arguement often called for people to 'get over it, it's history' while failing to actually listen to the stories from those who's families had been affected by the trade, regardless of the timeline. Also in some parts of the US black people couldn't own land or a property until well into the 80's & 90's, a throw back to the racist legislation that aimed to make sure despite the progress of the civil rights movement in the 1960's black and people of colour would know their place. Racism dressed up as policy often dished out with a baton and badge. Even the UK was slow to rid its laws of racist legislation, simple steps and yet so many have been affected by it. Historical non issues to some, modern day institutional racism for many.
But it Aberdeen Art Gallery is ready to look at some of these issues as they relate to their own collection with 'Reframing the Collection' being an opportunity to learn more about it this behind the scenes efforts. Curator Jessica Barrie led us through a talk about the works on show, highlighting where painting titles had been brought into the 21st century. Along with these names some interesting stories have been uncovered thanks to Art UK. Historical portraits of people of colour are often highlighted when looking at the creative journey of a specific artist, often with details of the location and time period well documented like Gauguin in Tahiti for example but very little is recorded about the sitters or faces featured in these world famous works, used and forgotten like so much of our colonial past.
One such painting featured a nameless woman in a distinctive red bonnet and coat. The painting 'Untitled' by Claude Rogers has now been paired with another painting held in the Derby Museum & Art Gallery collection where it appears the same sitter has been painted but her counterpart painting has the title 'Imogen'. So the super sleuths at Art UK have deducted that our red coated sitter is in fact the same woman, how the the two artists came to paint the same person is still a mystery, perhaps she was a model for art classes at Slade in London although when I look at her portrait I get the impression of someone waiting, perhaps at a train station as apposed to in a painting studio. A romanticised notion on my part perhaps. But the death of Frank Graham Bell who painted the other painting in 1943 gives us an interesting date range for when the portraits may have been created, certainly before the arrival of many of the Windrush generation who came to the UK seeking the benefits of empire and yet met the same discrimination.
The reframing work encompassed a workshop element that saw locals take on these artworks as a starting pointing to tease out new narratives and creative responses that varied from poetry to mini essays which dissect and discuss the heart of the exhibition in addressing the harsh realities of colonialism. A simple object such as the sugar tongs rightly takes on a new weight through the words of Ashwini Rao who speaks of the delicate nature of the tongs but also the exploitative process of extracting the silver and other precious items from countries plundered in the name of empire. And some might feel like these past transgression are simply history and we should move on.
And yet just a few days ago I heard a gentleman complain about having to adjust his language with regards to races & genders and that it was silly. However he agreed when I pointed out that everyone should be able to enter a public space and not be confronted by offensive paintings or titles to which he strangely agreed. I've seen it often, enough to understand that many people can accept the facts of a matter but still disregard them to suit their own ideologies, often lifted straight from the Daily Mail or The Sun play book, a racist undertone without having to say the word. A quick scan through any GB News videos tells you this work is important and that there are more people out there holding onto racist ideas than we might like to acknowledge, generational racism that being passed down and often passed on in our communities unchallenged.
Indeed this is echoed by black friends who are amazed when we, as white people discover our moral outrage at the police being filmed brutalizing people of colour while going easy on white people in America and also the UK. Our new found outrage is matched by their exhaustion as they see this played out time and again as their lived daily experience and not just a one off incident that's made the news. Statistics tell us that black and brown boys are far more likely to be stopped and searched compared to their white counterparts and the old views of 'a least were not as bad as America' really don't hold true and hasn't for some time. A quick search of Met London reveals just how gross British policing is and that major reform is required.
So yes this work is important, it stimulates important debates and its' great to see Aberdeen Art Gallery tackling these issues and works head on. Check out more about the ongoing work renaming here and re-framing here.
