Members of Blk Art Group, a 1980s artist collective which tackled racism in Thatcher’s Britain, discuss their work with Alex Mistlin.
Shortly after Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in May 1979, Eddie Chambers made an artwork called Destruction of the National Front. Then a 19-year-old student in Wolverhampton, Chambers reconfigured the union jack as a swastika, before tearing it into fragments across four panels. The image stands as a defiant rebuke to a resurgent far right, evoking the anger many Black Britons felt at the time.
The work was emblematic of the Blk Art Group, a radical association of young Black artists founded by Chambers in 1979. The group, stylised as Blk and pronounced “Black”, aimed to combat racism with work that focused on the experience of being Black in Thatchers’ Britain, while promoting a distinctly Black British political identity. Although short-lived – it only lasted for five years – the group casts a long shadow over British art, through its influence on subsequent generations of Black artists and its impact on contemporaries such as Lubaina Himid and Sonia Boyce.
More than 40 years on from the group’s foundation, Keith Piper, 60, still looks every inch the artist in his red flannel shirt and goatee...Keep reading on The Guardian.
Shortly after Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in May 1979, Eddie Chambers made an artwork called Destruction of the National Front. Then a 19-year-old student in Wolverhampton, Chambers reconfigured the union jack as a swastika, before tearing it into fragments across four panels. The image stands as a defiant rebuke to a resurgent far right, evoking the anger many Black Britons felt at the time.
The work was emblematic of the Blk Art Group, a radical association of young Black artists founded by Chambers in 1979. The group, stylised as Blk and pronounced “Black”, aimed to combat racism with work that focused on the experience of being Black in Thatchers’ Britain, while promoting a distinctly Black British political identity. Although short-lived – it only lasted for five years – the group casts a long shadow over British art, through its influence on subsequent generations of Black artists and its impact on contemporaries such as Lubaina Himid and Sonia Boyce.
More than 40 years on from the group’s foundation, Keith Piper, 60, still looks every inch the artist in his red flannel shirt and goatee...Keep reading on The Guardian.