Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change, Royal Academy of Arts

Kara Walker Hon RA - no world, from An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters, 2010

As London’s major galleries flock to host exhibitions that readdress diversity and reframing of history, the Royal Academy of Art presents its most serious reflection on its historical relationship with colonialism and the resulting racial politics. The show arrives at the same time as the Dulwich Picture Gallery’s ‘Soulscapes’ exhibition, displaying landscapes by artists from the African Diaspora and The National Portrait Gallery’s ‘The Time is Always Now’ exhibition, displaying portraits of black figures. This year is busy, it seems, with major historical institutions beginning to answer calls for the spotlight to be moved to areas long left out of the canon.

John Singleton Copley RA - Watson and the Shark, 1778

It isn’t much of an historical milestone when a commercial gallery announces it is reshuffling its catalogue in the name of diversity, especially if it is one that was founded in the last 70 years or so. The ultimate guiding force in commercial galleries is sales and the market is dictated by changes in taste and opinion. Gallery attitudes toward representation depend on what is selling, and any statements of solidarity and ethics can largely be attributed to optics. It is far more poignant when an institution such as the RA makes radical changes to their programme. Major historical institutions like the RA have the influence and platform to change standard practice in the industry, with their exhibitions acting as landmarks in shifting art discourse. More importantly, the RA is still an operating school. A progressive ethos and open debate are crucial factors in a healthy educational environment and are essential for a positive effect on students who are likely to go on to occupy significant positions in the art scene of the near future.

Hew Locke RA - Armada (detail), 2017–19

With a history like the RA’s, it’s not just about showing more work by underrepresented artists, it’s a case of addressing its own complicity in colonialism and its effect on attitudes in the arts in Britain and across the world. This is exactly what the RA have done, and it is welcomed. As it is mentioned in the exhibition guide, the institutions first President, Joshua Reynolds, called the RA an ‘ornament’ to Britain’s empire. As a product of the British colonial mindset of the time, Reynolds presents a sense of pride in Britain’s expansionist military endeavours. John Singleton Copley’s painting Head of a Man is displayed in the first room of the exhibition, a Royal Academician that is known to have owned slaves. Further into the exhibition, we are shown a work by Sir Frank Dicksee PRA (The RA’s President from 1924 to 1928) entitled Startled (1892) where a mother and daughter are glowing in their pale whiteness, with a Viking longship in the background, a symbol of the ‘Nordic Race’. A picture that demonstrates Dicksee’s belief in using the classical figure as a representation of the white ideal, the majority opinion in academic art at the time. Dicksee himself rejected avant-garde art associated with Primitivism as racially impure, saying: “our ideal of beauty must be the white man’s”. These are a few examples of many, which evidence the RA’s historically colonial and white supremacist ideologies. This history of elitist, discriminatory leadership is perfectly illustrated, albeit unintentionally, in Frederick William Elwell’s 1938 piece The Royal Academy Selection and Hanging Committee, which depicts a table surrounded by mostly elderly white men in suits making lofty decisions.

Hew Locke RA - Armada (detail), 2017–19

Revealing artworks from the collection that illuminate an institutions racist past is a fundamental part of any serious conversation about race and colonialism in the arts, but an exhibition that only self-flagellates isn’t useful and that’s why a critical aspect of the show was the inclusion of works by leading artists of the African, Caribbean and south Asian diasporas. Here is an opportunity to invite people feeling the lasting effects of systems of oppression to creatively reflect on their personal experiences and their understanding of history. With a largely white, middle-class RA audience, the curators were right to present a mixture of candid history and a message of hope and constructive thinking. Frustratingly, in discussions of race and Britain’s colonial past, feelings of guilt can often get mislaid and result in some white audiences feeling attacked and blamed for historical events they had no personal hand in. It seems unfair to have to carefully attend to the feelings of white audiences in discussions concerning generational suffering and exploitation of racialised peoples, but the main goal of art exhibits like these should be opening up discourse and reaching wider audiences, and careful curation goes a long way. The curators of this exhibition have succeeded in this aspect, balancing an unflinching look at history with a platform for black and global majority artists to steer the conversation.

Hew Locke RA - Armada (detail), 2017–19

The artworks in question are a fascinating selection of prints, paintings, films and sculptures, curated in a way that creates a dichotomy between them and the historical pieces they are displayed alongside. A handful of works really stood out, such as Hew Locke’s installation: Armada, an expansive display of boats of all shapes and sizes, carefully adapted and customised with drawings, algae, rust and detritus. Karen Mclean’s Primitive Matters (Huts), a sculpture of seven traditional Caribbean wooden huts projected onto with a slideshow of The Magnificent Seven, a group of colonial mansions located west of the Queen's Park Savannah in northern Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Yinka Shonibare’s Woman Moving Up, a striking sculpture of a globe-headed figure in lavish Victorian dress made of traditional African textiles, ascending a staircase, symbolising upward progression. Mohina Chandra’s Imaginary Edens/Photos of my Father, a collection of small collages where Chandra’s father has been cut out of family photos leaving a silhouette that reveals a landscape inserted underneath. A meditation on her family’s forced relocation from India to Fiji as indentured labourers under the British Empire. Betye Saar's I'll Bend but I Will Not Break, 1998. A wooden ironing board with a slave ship diagram printed onto it, an iron is shackled to it, with a chain for a wire, and a white sheet is hung on a line with the letters KKK embroidered on the edge.

Sir Frank Dicksee PRA - Startled 1892

Throughout the course of the exhibition, we are presented with uncomfortable and upsetting artworks alongside accomplished pieces by celebrated artists, a reminder that in investigations into our past, we mustn’t shy away from looking at examples of the ugly and morally repugnant in order to forge a fair and responsible path into the future. One piece in this exhibition represents this sentiment more than any other, a reproduction of one of the most bizarre and abhorrent artworks of the slave trade era: Thomas Stothard’s the Voyage of the Sable Venus from Angola to the West Indies. The piece appeared in a book arguing against the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, presenting it as humane and depicts an African woman floating across the Atlantic surrounded by cherubs and sea creatures. The curators have paired this with responses by artists Margaret Burroughs and Kara Walker. Burroughs’ print Black Venus, 1957 hangs alongside Walker’s preparatory drawings for her Tate Modern Turbine Hall installation: Tate Fountains with Venus 2019, which includes a direct reference to John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark which is displayed earlier in the show. Kara Walker’s other print on display is No World from an Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters, 2010, a powerful image depicting giant black hands lifting a ship out of the ocean, which is used as the main image of the exhibition. 

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA - Woman Moving up, 2023

An interesting point is raised in the Beauty and Difference, Sculpture and Photography room where five sculptures of shackled women are assembled, asking the viewer to consider the line between art’s ability to draw attention to injustice and fetishising its subject. We are shown that even high-profile abolitionists can become misguided in their attempts to bring about positive change, with sexualised sculptures of women in chains becoming popular possessions amongst abolitionists at the time.

Mohini Chandra - Imaginary Edens / Photos of My Father (detail), 2005–15

In the section titled Beauty and Difference, Students, Models and Exhibitors, we are given a personal look into the RA’s involvement of people of colour, displaying documentation of William Morrison Brown, the RA’s first black student and Fanny Eaton, a much sought after life model of mixed heritage. This works to foster a moment of reflection on the individual scale before returning to that of the societal. The curators admit at this stage that often people of colour were included in works of art during the 1800s as way to explore the ‘exotic’ and the charms of the unknown, reminding us that not all inclusion of sidelined people comes with the best intentions.

Betye Saar - I'll Bend but I Will Not Break 1988

The pairing of Keith Piper's 2007 piece The Coloured's Codex an Overseers Guide to Comparative Complexion with Edwin Longsden Long's 1875 piece The Babylonian Marriage Market was clever in its discussion of hierarchy of lightness in skin tone. More insightful curation can be found in the room titled Crossing Waters, the Aquatic Sublime, where a shared exploration of traditional art history subjects: the sublime and the ocean links works by Turner, El Anatsui, Frank Bowling, John Akomfrah and Ellen Gallagher. The topic of the aquatic sublime is furthered with the addition of contemplation on the middle passage, the lengthy trip across the ocean that was at the centre of the triangular slave trade.

Margaret Burroughs - Black Venus 1957

The show is closed out with a piece by recent RA Schools graduate Olu Ogunnaike called I'd Rather Stand, making a point that the RA means to continue to interrogate its own relationship with colonialism and slavery and to provide opportunities for a new generation of artists who might have been sidelined in the past due to their race or background. The RA said the show was ‘conceived in 2021 in response to the urgent public debates about the relationship between artistic representation and imperial histories’, seemingly referring in part to the 2020 toppling of the bronze statue of merchant and transatlantic slave trader Edward Colston, and to the wider discourse about systemic racism that was heightened after the murder of George Floyd, also in 2020. This is incredibly important as it demonstrates what change can be brought about when collective action demands it. The RA wouldn’t have created this exhibition without being pushed by the changing public narrative around empire and race. As the RA admits ‘the works shown in this exhibition represent only a tiny fraction of the institution’s colonial links’ and thus, is only one step in an ongoing process of change in the art world that is essential for a healthy society. We can take this opportunity to celebrate our success in influencing historical British institutions to this degree, but the work is far from over. Let this be a sign of hope for the struggle ahead.