In this panel discussion, chaired by art historian Elizabeth Robles, artists and members of the BLK Art Group Keith Piper and Marlene Smith reflect on their experience of the First National Black Art Convention held at the Wolverhampton Polytechnic in 1982. Claudette Johnson’s presentation at the Convention about her art’s subversive representation of Black female subjectivity not only led to a breakout-group discussion among Black women artists but also sparked heated debates about the possible meanings and implications of ‘Black art’.
Using visual and audio archival documents of the Convention as a starting point, Piper and Smith will take a close look back at this often mythologised yet pivotal moment in the history of Black British art. Their conversation will speak to the practices and politics of Black artists at the Convention and explore how the Convention and its legacies can expand our understanding of Black British art now.
Dr Lizzie Robles is Lecturer in Contemporary Art and the Director of the Centre for Black Humanities at the University of Bristol. She is also the co-lead of the British Art Network’s Black British Artists Research Group. Previously she held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship for a project entitled ‘Making Waves: Black Artists & ‘Black Art’ in Britain from 1962–1982’. She is a specialist in the histories of Black and brown artists in Britain since the 1960s and is particularly interested in the formation of ideas around ‘b/Black a/Art’ across the twentieth century.
Recently she contributed a chapter to the Historians for British Art Book Prize winning collection Liberation Begins in the Imagination: Writings on Caribbean-British Art edited by David A. Bailey and Allison Thomson (London: Tate, 2021). Her co-edited exhibition publication The Place is Here: The Work of Black Artists in 1980s Britain (London: Sternberg, 2019) that she edited alongside curator Nick Aikens was also awarded the Historians for British Art Book Prize.
Marlene Smith is an artist and curator, and one of the founding members of Blk Art Group. She graduated from Bradford School of Art with a BA in Art & Design in 1987. She is currently Leader of the Black British Art Research Group/British Art Network, a Tate initiative. She was co-curator for Nation’s Finest, Putting Down Roots & Birthing (2021-2022) and associate Making Histories Visible archive at University of Central Lancashire, Preston, (2017 – 2020); UK Research Manager for Black Artists and Modernism, University of the Arts London (2015 -2017) and Director of The Public Gallery, West Bromwich (2001 -2009).
Keith Piper is a practicing artist and Professor of Fine Art at Middlesex University. His creative practice exists in response to specific issues, historical relationships, and geographical sites and has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Piper was a founder member of the Blk Art Group in the early 1980s, and during this period he established a research-driven approach prioritising thematic exploration over an attachment to any particular media. His work over the past 30 years has ranged from painting through photography and installation to the use of digital media, video, and computer-based interactivity. He has work in a number of museum collections both in the UK and internationally.
Organised by Professor Dorothy Price (Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History, The Courtauld) and Xiaojue Michelle Zhu (Doctoral Researcher, The Courtauld) as part of the 2023-24 Frank Davis Memorial Lecture Series, ‘Black British Art: Histories, Presence, Futures’.
