The Emergence of Black Art in Britain

This paper will map the emergence of black art in Britain through two exhibitions curated by Pakistan-born artist/writer/curator and activist Rasheed Araeen: Creation for Liberation (1984), a small open show at the Brixton Art Gallery, London; and The Other Story (1989), a groundbreaking exhibition of black British art at the Hayward Gallery. While the Brixton exhibition was part of the minority push to highlight local and community perspectives, the purpose of the latter exhibition was to install black British art, hitherto neglected by the ethnocentric art establishment, as a part of the story of British modernism. Thus the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London sought to address the lack of ―visibility‖ concerning black art.