The Blk Art Group was formed in 1983 by four young black artists who produced work which was powerful, defiant and thought-provoking. A new exhibition at Sheffield's Graves Gallery will bring together a number of rarely-seen works to showcase the group’s considerable contribution to raising awareness of black British art.
In the early 1980s, Britain’s Conservative government was outspokenly anti-immigrant, the British National Party was on the rise and the Brixton riots were shaking London. While institutional racism was endemic in the UK, South Africa was in the grip of apartheid, with thousands of black men and women confronted by daily discrimination and violence.
Against a backdrop of injustice and unrest, the Blk Art Group emerged as a strong creative force in Britain. The collective was established by Eddie Chambers, Keith Piper, Donald Rodney and Marlene Smith, who each made powerful responses to the crises in race relations. Young artists who had originally met as art students, the group’s founders were amongst the first generation of black people brought up in Britain whose parents had moved to the UK in the 50s and 60s. Having faced racism throughout their lives, they produced work which actively engaged with the struggle of black people in the UK and overseas and were heavily influenced by the Black Power Movement in the US.
Using a wide range of materials, from straw and calico to newspapers and text, the Blk Art Group made radical, innovative work which expressed the black experience. The group was only active for a short period of time, but were a critical catalyst in raising the profile of the vibrant black art scene in the UK; their legacy has subsequently influenced a generation of British artists, including Chris Ofili and Steve McQueen.
The Blk Art Group: 1983–1984 will showcase a series of works that were acquired for Sheffield during the 1980s. The exhibition will also explore the role that regional galleries, including those in the city, played in supporting and promoting black British art at a time when many public art institutions were reluctant to engage with the work of black artists.
The Blk Art Group: 1983–1984 will feature large-scale works by Eddie Chambers, Donald Rodney and Keith Piper The exhibition will see Chambers’ How Much Longer (1984) and Piper’s Black Assassin Saints (1984), alongside later work from Rodney’s Britannia Hospital series (1988) from Sheffield’s collection shown together for the first time in over 20 years. The Blk Art Group will also include Rodney’s installation The House That Jack Built (1987), and acknowledge the importance of the work of Marlene Smith.
