I was first made
privy to this exhibition a short while prior to it's opening date and recently
had it brought back to my consciousness, so despite being able to view some of the featured portraits online, both Micky and
I decided to head on over to Shoreditch to see them up close for ourselves
and boy were they stunning.
Exhibited across two
floors, the pictures varied from Black and White to Sepia tone prints.
With the African subjects in particular, who were
photographed post colonial integration yet prior to WWI however, I
couldn't help but notice that despite a few of them smiling in their
portraits, some of them had quite a sadness (unforgettably a certain female member of The African Choir) or blank expression in their eyes, which left me feeling a little
uneasy as my thoughts somewhat shifted from admiring how Beautiful and Regal
they were in both traditional attire including fanciful headdresses and Western
attire, to what must have been going through their minds at the time and
more significantly the original reasons for them being photographed (at times prop like IMO) in the first place.
I know it is a very
good thing, that these images have been recovered as they showcase the Black
presence in Britain and our inclusion in certain parts of society during a very
unique time-frame but, I just felt there's an underlying possibility the
photographs could very well have been nothing but a continued Fetishization of the 'otherness' of African's in
general, largely because of the time period during which they were taken.
I could very well
be wrong but hey, art is subjective
and open to different to interpretation...
One bonus however is that, upon entry we were able to take two miniature replica photographs of Saragano Alicamousa and Peter Jackson (who kind of bears an uncanny resemblance to Jamie Foxx to my eyes lol)
My only critique about the overall experience is that it wasn't until we reached the second
floor of the exhibit, I noticed other people had been provided with laminated A4 pages containing all featured photographs in addition to further descriptions, which would have been very useful for me and Micky to have, as
there wasn't much information on the walls. Hopefully whoever is
operating the front desk during future exhibits will make sure to provide
all guests with the necessary additional components so they get to enjoy the experience
thoroughly.
Aside from that, it's s definitely worth visiting so for more info check out Autograph-abp.co.uk
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