''Liverpool and the Black Atlantic'' was a

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

of citywide series of

exhibitions An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...

and events initiated by

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The gallery was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corporatio ...

exploring connections between

cultures Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

and

continents A continent is any of several large geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single large landmass, a part of a very large landmass, as in the case of As ...

. Between January – April 2010, art galleries and museums in the city including

Bluecoat Chambers Built in 1716–17 as a charity school, Bluecoat Chambers in School Lane is the oldest surviving building in central Liverpool, England. Following the Liverpool Blue Coat School's move to another site in 1906, the building was rented from 1907 ...

, Metal, FACT Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...

, International Slavery Museum and

Sudley House Sudley House is a historic house in Aigburth, Liverpool, England. Built in 1824 and much modified in the 1880s, it is now a museum and art gallery which contains the collection of George Holt, a shipping-line owner and former resident, in it ...

all programmed exhibitions and public events in response to the Black Atlantic theme.

Liverpool and the Black Atlantic exhibitions

Tate Liverpool

''Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic'' The

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

show takes from

Paul Gilroy Paul Gilroy (born 16 February 1956) is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 ...

's book ''The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness'', published in 1993 in which he coined the term 'The Black Atlantic' in describing the fusion of black cultures with other cultures from around the Atlantic. ''Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic'' focused on Gilroy's idea of the Atlantic Ocean as a 'continent in negative', a network of surrounding and interconnecting cultures spanning Africa, North America, South America, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

and Europe, in tracing the real and imaginary routes taken by artists across the Atlantic from 1909 to today and the impact of different black cultures from around the Atlantic on art from the early twentieth century to today to reveal how black artists have played a central role in the formation of

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. The exhibition included work by artists including

Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (, ) (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York C ...

Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism ...

, Renee Cox, Aaron Douglas,

Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great ...

, Ellen Gallagher, David Hammons,

Isaac Julien Sir Isaac Julien (born 21 February 1960Annette Kuhn"Julien, Isaac (1960–)" BFI Screen Online.) is a British installation artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Early life Juli ...

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cubans, Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by ...

Ronald Moody Ronald Moody (12 August 1900 – 6 February 1984) was a Jamaican-born sculptor, specialising in wood carvings. His work features in collections including the National Portrait Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain in Londo ...

Wangechi Mutu Wangechi Mutu (born 1972) is a Kenyan American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work.

Chris Ofili Christopher Ofili, (born 10 October 1968) is a British painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was Turner Prize-winner and one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in ...

Uche Okeke Christopher Uchefuna Okeke (; April 30, 1933 – January 5, 2016), also known as Uche Okeke (), was an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was an art and aesthetic theorist, seminal to Nigerian modernism. Background Christopher Uche ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

, Keith Piper, Tracey Rose and

Kara Walker Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, printmaker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores Race (classification of human beings), race, gender, human sexuality, sexual ...

among others.

Walker Art Gallery

''Aubrey Williams: Atlantic Fire'' Painter

Aubrey Williams Aubrey Williams (8 May 1926 – 27 April 1990) was a Guyanese artist. He was best known for his large, oil-on-canvas paintings, which combine elements of abstract expressionism with forms, images and symbols inspired by the pre-Columbian art o ...

’ life and interests spanned the Black Atlantic and its universal themes, ideas and ideals. The exhibition ''Atlantic Fire'' contributes to a reassessment of Williams as an important international artist with a global outlook and a readiness to question an assumed dichotomy of ''figurative'' and ''abstract art''.

The Bluecoat

''Sonia Boyce: Like Love – Part 2'' ''Like Love – Part 2'' was a multi media installation exploring universal ideas around the concept of care. Sonia Boyce also curated the Bluecoat's additional gallery spaces in recognition and celebration of her involvement in ''Black Skin/Bluecoat'', her first exhibition at the Bluecoat in 1985.

FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology)

''Promised Lands'' Devised by Edward George and Anna Piva (Flow Motion), ''Promised Lands'' comprised a multi-disciplinary performance piece that fused music, words and triptych images in an exploration of the 'promised land' of the migrant experience intersected by history, fantasy and mythology spanning five continents over five centuries.

Metal

''Leo Asemota: The Handmaiden'' Advancing his longstanding work ''The Ens Project'' Leo Asemota's installation in the engine room of the Grade II listed Edge Hill station unravel from

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

and

contemporary history Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

, the origins of ''The Handmaiden'', a being central to the completion of his project.

International Slavery Museum

''Black Britannia'' An exhibition of 30 portraits by photographer John Ferguson celebrating the contribution that Black people have made to British culture and public life over the last few decades.

Sudley House

''Lubaina Himid: Jelly Mould Pavilions'' Using

as the starting point for a citywide trail of jelly mould pavilion models artist Lubaina Himid hand-painted jelly moulds to represent possible designs for public monuments that commemorate people of the

African Diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from List of ethnic groups of Africa, people from Africa. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West Africa, West and Central Africans who were ...

and their contribution to the city of Liverpool.

External links

Liverpool and the Black Atlantic listings

Tate Liverpool “Afro Modern: Journey’s through the Black Atlantic”

Bluecoat “Sonia Boyce: Like Love Part 2”

Walker Art Gallery “Aubrey Williams: Atlantic Fire”

Sudley House “Lubaina Himid: Jelly Mould Pavilions”

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Promised lands - Landing Page

Reviews

Afro Modern at Tate Liverpool: Voyage of rediscovery by Jonathan Jones

Behind the masks: Afro Modern at Tate Britain by Fred D’Aguiar

Review of Afro Modern by Sam Thorne in Frieze magazine

In Pictures: Union Black by Amanda Sebestyen
• {{DEFAULTSORT:Liverpool and the Black Atlantic Contemporary art exhibitions English contemporary art Museums in Liverpool Art exhibitions in the United Kingdom 2010 in England 2010 in art