Ekow Eshun

Ekow Eshun (born 27 May 1968) is a British writer, journalist, broadcaster, and curator.

Eshun rose to prominence as a trailblazer in British culture. He was the first Black editor of a major magazine in the UK (''Arena'' Magazine in 1997) and continued to break ground as the first Black director of a major arts organisation, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

Described as a "cultural polymath" by ''The Guardian'', he has been at the heart of creative culture in Britain for several decades, authoring books, presenting TV and radio documentaries, curating exhibitions, and chairing high-profile lectures.

Eshun curated ''In the Black Fantastic'' at London's Hayward Gallery in July 2022, a landmark exhibition of visionary Black artists exploring myth, science fiction and Afrofuturism. The show was critically acclaimed, being called "Spectacular from first to last" by ''The Observer''. ''The Evening Standard'' said: "There is "There is unlikely to be a better show this year."

As Chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group in Trafalgar Square, Eshun leads one of the most important public arts programmes in the world.

Biography

Ekow Eshun was born in London, England. His family are Fante from Ghana. His father was a supporter of Kwame Nkrumah and was working at the Ghanaian High Commission in London when Nkrumah was overthrown in a military–police coup in February 1966.

Although three years (1971–74) of Eshun's childhood were spent in Accra, for the most part, he was brought up in Kingsbury, North West London. He attended Kingsbury High School in North West London, later reading history and politics at the London School of Economics (LSE).BBC profile.
/ref> During his time at LSE, he edited both Features and Arts for the student newspaper '' The Beaver''.

Eshun was the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London from 2005 to 2010, during a period of turmoil for the organisation. Under his directorship, attendance figures rose by 38 per cent from 350,000 to 470,000, and two young artists shown in ICA galleries, Enrico David and Mark Leckey, went on to be nominated for the Turner Prize.

Eshun has appeared as a critic on '' Saturday Review'' on BBC Radio 4 and formerly on BBC Two's ''The Review Show''. He appeared in 2009 in the television advertisements for Aviva (formerly Norwich Union). He has also often appeared on More4's topical talk show '' The Last Word''. In 2019, he was the captain of the London School of Economics team on Christmas University Challenge. In October 2021, he wrote and presented ''White Mischief'', a three-part documentary on BBC Radio 4 on the history of whiteness.

Eshun's memoir, ''Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa'', published in 2005, deals with a return trip to Ghana, Ghanaian history, and matters of identity and race. (Review of ''Black Gold of the Sun''.) ''Black Gold of the Sun'' was nominated for an Orwell Prize in 2006.

He is the younger brother of writer Kodwo Eshun.

Curator

Since 2015, Ekow Eshun has worked as an independent curator working internationally on shows which often focus on race and identity.

''The Time Is Always Now''

''The Time is Always Now'' is a show that Eshun curated for the National Portrait Gallery, opening in February 2024. It is a major study of the Black figure – and its representation in contemporary art. The exhibition showcases the work of contemporary artists from the African diaspora, including Michael Armitage, Lubaina Himid, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Amy Sherald, highlighting the use of figures to illuminate the richness and complexity of Black life. As well as surveying the presence of the Black figure in Western art history, it examines its absence – and the story of representation told through these works, as well as the social, psychological and cultural contexts in which they were produced. The exhibition will be on display a
The Box
in Plymouth from 29 June-29 September 2024 before touring to the USA.

''In the Black Fantastic''

Eshun curated ''In the Black Fantastic'' at the Hayward Gallery in London in July 2022, a landmark exhibition of visionary Black artists exploring myth, science fiction and Afrofuturism. The show was critically acclaimed, being called "Spectacular from first to last" by ''The Observer''. ''The Evening Standard'' said: "There is unlikely to be a better show this year." The show also toured to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam.

To accompany his book and exhibition, ''In the Black Fantastic'', Eshun curated a season of visionary films exploring Black existence through sci-fi, myth and Afrofuturism at the British Film Institute.

''We Are History''

''We Are History'', was a group exhibition at Somerset House in London offering a different perspective on humanity's impact on the planet by tracing the complex interrelations between today's climate crisis and legacies of colonialism. The exhibition, curated by Eshun, won ''Time Out London''s Sustainable Event of the Year prize in 2021.

''Africa State of Mind''

''Africa State of Mind'' was an internationally acclaimed survey show heralding a new era in African photography. ''Africa State of Mind'' gathered together the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across Africa, including both the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. It is both a summation of new photographic practice from the last decade and an exploration of how contemporary photographers from the continent are exploring ideas of "Africanness" to reveal Africa to be a psychological space as much as a physical territory – a state of mind as much as a geographical place. It first opened at New Art Exchange in Nottingham, before touring to MOAD San Francisco, 2020, and Rencontres des Arles, 2021. ''Africa State of Mind'' was also the name of a book of African photography that Ekow Eshun published with Thames and Hudson.

''Made You Look''

''Made You Look'' at The Photographers' Gallery in London was a group show on photography, style and Black dandyism. Describing this exhibition in ''Wallpaper'' magazine, Eshun said: "It is about confounding expectations about how black men should look or carry themselves in order to establish a place of personal freedom; a place beyond the white gaze, where the black body is a site of liberation not oppression."

Writer

Creative non-fiction

Eshun's memoir, ''Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa'', published in 2005, deals with a return trip to Ghana, Ghanaian history, and matters of identity and race. Reviewing the book for the ''New Statesman'', Margaret Busby said: "His rich memoir, which comes fittingly adorned with a golden jacket designed by Chris Ofili, attempts to answer the question: 'Where are you from?' Eshun's search for home and identity is sometimes achingly poignant, a story of semi-detachment, of fragmentation and duality, which must have been cathartic to write. 'There is no singularity to truth' is its refrain." ''Black Gold of the Sun'' was nominated for an Orwell Prize in 2006.

British publishing house Hamish Hamilton has acquired the rights to Eshun’s new book ''The Stranger,'' described as a “‘powerfully intimate, richly imagined’ investigation into Black masculinity.” ''The Stranger'' is “structured around the stories of several remarkable Black men, from the 19th to 21st century and across the global diaspora” and “will set out a ‘radical’ exploration of Black male identity and experience. From Victorian actor Ira Aldridge to philosopher and revolutionary Frantz Fanon to infamous rapper Tupac Shakur, each chapter will find its subject “standing at a crossroads, his life and the society around him in flux”. The book will be published in hardback, e-book and audio in 2024.

Art books

''In the Black Fantastic'' is a richly visual book that assembles art and imagery from across the African diaspora that embraces ideas of the mythic and the speculative. Neither Afrofuturism nor Magic Realism, but inhabiting its own universe, ''In the Black Fantastic'' brings to life a cultural movement that conjures otherworldly visions out of the everyday Black experience – and beyond – looking at how speculative fictions in Black art and culture are boldly reimagining perspectives on race, gender, identity and the body in the 21st century.The book includes an introductory text by Eshun, and extended essays by Eshun, Kameelah L. Martin and Michelle D. Commander.

''Africa State of Mind'' is a mesmerizing, continent-spanning survey of the most dynamic scenes in contemporary African photography, and an introduction to the creative figures who are making it happen. Dispensing with the western colonial view of Africa in purely geographic or topographic terms, Eshun presents ''Africa State of Mind'' in four thematic parts: Hybrid Cities; Inner Landscapes; Zones of Freedom; and Myth and Memory.

Eshun has contributed many essays to major art publications. He wrote an essay for ''Seeing'' by Duro Olowu. Eshun focuses on Olowu's role within Britain’s black and Afro-Caribbean creative community. He is also a contributor to ''Fashioning masculinities : the art of menswear''. which accompanied a major exhibition at The V&A.

Journalism and cultural commentary

Eshun is an influential writer delivering timely, insightful analysis of complex issues of culture, art and identity. He writes for publications including ''The New York Times'', ''The Financial Times'' and ''The Guardian'', and has been a Contributing Editor at ''Wallpaper''. For example, he wrote about Basquiat for ''The New York Times'' in 2017.

From his early days as the Assistant Editor of iconic style magazine '' The Face'', and then editor of ''Arena'' men's magazine, Eshun has written influential thought pieces exploring style, masculinity, race and the changing face of modern Britain, and has interviewed iconic figures from Prince and Bjork to Neneh Cherry and Hilary Mantel. In early autumn 1996, Eshun interviewed Prince at his Paisley Park complex outside Minneapolis.

Broadcaster

''Dark Matter: A History of the Afrofuture'' (BBC4, 2022)

Presented by Eshun, the film ''Dark Matter: A History of the Afrofuture'' (BBC4, 2022) is an exploration – from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Grace Jones – of how black artists use the sci-fi genre to examine black history and imagine new, alternative futures.

''White Mischief'' (BBC Radio 4, 2021)

In ''White Mischief'', a three-part radio series for BBC Radio 4, Eshun traces where whiteness came from and how its power has remained elusive.

Episode 1: The background hum

Episode 2: Kind of nightmarish

Episode 3: Dream for a moment

''Exploring the Black Atlantic'' (Tate, 2021)

In this four-part mini-series, Eshun examines the rich and boundless ways in which artists have engaged with the concept of the "Black Atlantic.

Works

Books

In the Black Fantastic
Thames and Hudson, 2022.

Africa State of Mind: Contemporary Photography Reimagines a Continent
Thames and Hudson, 2020.

Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for home in England and Africa
Hamish Hamilton, 2005.

Selected essays

* I Suck at Love': Nas, Jay-Z and Black Male Vulnerability", i
The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
Asma Naeem, 2023.
* The New African Portraiture, i
The New African Portraiture: Shariat Collections
Walther & Franz König, 2023.
* "The Hybrid of it all: The Making of Black British Style", in 

2022.
* A Conversation between Campbell Addy and Ekow Eshun, i
Feeling Seen: The Photographs of Campbell Addy
Prestel, 2022.
* "Why do we March? Joy Gerrard’s Exhilarating Bodies in Motion", i
Joy Gerrard: Precarious Freedom: Crowds, Flags, Barriers, Highlanes Gallery
2022.
* "Acts of Rememory", in 

Serralves, 2021
* "Portmanteau Biota", in 
Hurvin Anderson: Reverb
Thomas Dane, 2021.
* "Masterless People: The Free Republic of Raphaël Barontini", i
Raphaël Barontini, Marianne Ibrahim Publications
2021
* "Black is Ours", i
Amoako Boafo, Marianne Ibrahim Publications
2021.
* "Duro Oluwo and the Becoming of Black Britain", i
Duro Olowu: Seeing
Prestel, 2020.
* *Ways of Seeing: African Portraiture Looks Back at the Imperial Eye", i
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, Prestel
2020.
* "Every Moment Counts", in 
Linda McCartney. The Polaroid Diaries, Taschen
  2019.
* "To make figures and subjects walk into a frame": John Akomfrah in conversation with Ekow Eshun, in 
John Akomfrah: Purple, Barbican, 2017
* "Like Tulips in the Sun: Colonisation and Creolisation in the World Stage": Jamaica, i
Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Jamaica, Stephen Friedman, 2013
* Ekow Eshun Interviews Chris Ofili, in 

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eshun, Ekow
1968 births
21st-century English male writers
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Black British television personalities
Black British journalists
British male journalists
English people of Ghanaian descent
Living people
People from Kingsbury, London
Writers from the London Borough of Brent