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Showing posts with label colonialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colonialism. Show all posts

Saturday, 26 October 2024

International Times: From Auschwitz to Africa

My latest book review to be published by International Times is entitled 'From Auschwitz to Africa' and is about 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley:

'Turley, by rejecting the easy shorthand with which many write about Nolan, has succeeded in bringing the African Journey images out of the shadows and into the light. Through his extensive research, Turley succeeds in shining new light on Nolan’s examination of nature, human nature and the nature of modern civilisation. He revives Nolan’s warning to society by urging his readers to consider the effect that the Holocaust, animal extinctions, colonial disenfranchisement and human conflict has had not just on the artist but also on society.'

For more of my writings on Sidney Nolan see my Artlyst interview with Andrew Turley and my review of Sidney Nolan: Colour of the Sky – Auschwitz Paintings.

My earlier pieces for IT are an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, plus reviews of: Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's Together exhibition, What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album - 'Zany in parts, moving in others, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unusual, inspired & profound album this year. ‘Pissabed Prophet’ will thrill, intrigue, amuse & inspire' - and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published a poem, The ABC of creativity, which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'Broomfield', which is part of a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in Essex called 'Four Essex Trios'.

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The Alarm - Protect And Survive.

Sunday, 5 December 2021

Artlyst: Diasporan Identities: Life Between Islands Caribbean British Art – Tate Britain

My latest review for Artlyst on 'Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s - Now' at Tate Britain:

'Alex Farquharson writes about ‘the twinning of African-derived gods with Catholic saints and African possession ceremonies with Catholic mass – to carnival: African-derived masked ceremony and dance with Catholic European pre-Lenten carnival traditions.’ John Lyons combines gestural expressionist paint handling with vibrant colours, lines, shapes, and textures to create a playful dialogue between metaphor and psychology that captures the energy and spectacle of Caribbean folklore and mythology as expressed in carnival. Similarly, Zak Ové’s reimagined folk characters, such as Hairy Man 2013, explore the interplay between flesh and spirit, reality and possibility, parody and sacred ritual inspired by masking traditions found in carnival. Allison Thompson notes that ‘Disguise was a key strategy of survival and retention within Afro-Caribbean communities, evidenced for example in syncretic religious practices.’

Farquharson suggests that ‘Many of the artworks here are similarly transdisciplinary in their references, operating in multiple registers and evoking the cross-cultural dynamics of the Caribbean and its diasporic history.’ This is because ‘New forms were and are needed to tell new stories; to lend voice to historical subjectivities and experiences that colonial archives have silenced or grotesquely distorted.’'

For more on emigre artists see https://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2021/11/emigre-artists-and-their-cultural-impact.html. No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990 at the Guildhall Art Gallery covered some similar ground to Life Between Islands. Jamaican Spiritual was an exhibition at Stephen Walbrook that highlighted the strong spiritual nature of Jamaica and it's people. The variety of spiritual beliefs held on the island reflect the diverse nature of the people who live there and the motto of the country "Out of many we are one".

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Articles -
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Bob Marley - Redemption Song.