Black Atlantic: good for you, or simply good?

 

This is a review of the Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition “Black Atlantic: Power People Resistance”, viewed in October 2023.  

First, it’s absolutely essential that museums explore the origins of their funding. Much of the Fitzwilliam collection was acquired by money from the profits of slavery, clearly. This exhibition, Black Atlantic, starts from that point and, I assume, sets out to display what it has discovered, visually. 

As you might imagine, there are some real triumphs of detection. These include a bell, displayed in St Catherine’s College until recently, when it was discovered that the bell, dating from 1772, had been used in a slave plantation in what is today Guyana. 

The exhibition noted the change in depiction of black faces from before and after around 1700, when slavery became widespread. Before, black people were often recognisable, with an identity; later, under slavery, they became anonymous. But is this entirely true? It’s a thesis that cries out to be examined visually - perhaps in an exhibition dedicated to that one topic. There isn’t enough in this exhibition to prove (or disprove) this claim. 

Here was the problem. The exhibition was like a scattergun, covering far too many areas to look at any one of them in satisfying detail. There is no question of the validity of the topic of Black Atlantic, but was that exactly the subject? As I walked around the exhibition, I became increasingly confused: there is no way to cover all the potential exhibition themes in one show. In just three rooms, the range included:

• Studies by Keith Piper of black masculinity and relating to his father in the 1980s. The link seems to have been that Piper used the iconic depiction of slaves in a ship in one of the 14 images – very tenuous.
• A brief attempt to show objects created by the indigenous peoples (referred to in the catalogue with a capital “I”) of the Caribbean. There was one map and a few items, but this theme abruptly disappeared.
• Historic scientific instruments, including a sextant and a chronometer. The link is that such instruments enabled slavery to take place – which means you could include (by the same argument) ships, the navy, the history of navigation – the list is endless. It’s a similar situation with trying to define ESG  companies: do we discount companies that, say, extract oil, or do we discount companies that provide tools that can be used for extracting oil? Where do we stop?
• Two classical sculptures revealing implied depictions of slavery, one Greek, one Roman.
• Seven large-scale reproductions of rare plants and birds. The link was that these specimens had been gathered by black slaves for the white artist to draw from. The point is taken, but you can’t help looking at the exquisitely drawn plants and animals, not how they were collected. There is a tension between the quality of the artwork and the caption.
• A few objects from the Caribbean, because that is where Fitzwilliam made his money, but not a very thorough or detailed history of the region or survey of its indigenous art.
• One picture, by Gerrit Dou, is included simply because it was owned in the past by people involved with slavery, including Fitzwilliam himself. The picture, The Schoolmaster, has no connection with slavery. One picture by Rembrandt (or his studio) is included because it is painted on wood from South America.
• There are pictures of sea battles in the 17^th century between the Dutch Republic and England.
• The exhibition include gold weights from the Akan culture of sub-Saharan West Africa. 

You can see this is enough for several exhibitions, and putting them all together simply creates indigestion. But there were more fundamental problems with the exhibition.

Limitations of the exhibition

• Interpretation replaces assessment. Instead of being told to look at the objects, we are being told what the interpretation of the work is. Proselyting, pedagogical captions take the place of appraisal. Imagination replaces interpretation – the black servant in a portrait by William Dobson is described as suggesting “a deference he may well not have felt” – but it’s not visible in the painting itself.
• Several pictures by Barbara Walker, based on her reimagination of existing works including a black person – she shows the black character in full, with the other people only in outline. Unfortunately, in the exhibition we are not shown the original, so we have no way of comparing. In the catalogue, we see the originals, reproduced at tiny scale. Is this helpful?
• Similarly, Alberta Whittle’s work in response to 16th-century engravings does not include the original engravings, not even in the catalogue. No doubt the originals could be found via the Internet, but what is the point of an exhibition that leaves you to work everything out for yourself?
• Difficult to know where to stop when you identify not just human slavery, but evidence of white domination in, for example, searching for specimens for natural historians, or the wood used to make furniture, or the navigation instruments to enable slave ships to sail. It becomes difficult to draw the line.
• One orthodoxy simply replaces another. The history of the peoples of the Caribbean now doesn’t mention the Spanish conquest, which is a bit silly. The artworks by Barbara Walker cleverly show Western paintings that include a black figure, but with only the black figure displayed. This is fine – and Walker’s drawing is tremendously accomplished – but we are not shown the original! The captions refer to the original, so why can’t we those originals, even just as reproductions? 

It felt like this exhibition was the first time the Fitzwilliam had addressed the issue of where its wealth came from, and in an attempt to include all possible themes, the resulting show looked very provisional. It was like a simple search through the entire University collections to see anything with a link to slavery. Or representation of black people. Or indigenous art in Africa and the Caribbean. Or the history of navigation. And so on. 

Is it good for you or is it good?

One challenge faced by exhibitions of this kind Is fundamental. The criterion for display in the Fitzwilliam is quality. Of course, what constitutes quality will vary from one period to another, but you feel the curators strive to show  that every object in the collection is satisfying to look at. Of course, some works are shown because of extraneous circumstances – the subject is of great historical interest, like portraits of Martin Luther, or there is some association with a major event. Some years ago, the British Museum opened a gallery dedicated to the Enlightenment. Having just spent a lot of time reading Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu, I went to the new exhibition with great enthusiasm, only to be disappointed because the objects illustrated did not correspond to my vision. Nor could they, because they were based on what was visually appealing, rather than corresponding with the ideas of Diderot et al.

In this exhibition, there is a constant tension between what is good for you, and what is simply good to look at. The exhibition, in its excitement to communicate a new theme by which to interpret art history, frequently forgets to check what is good to look at, and instead relies on work that they believe is good for you. Keith Piper’s work is an example: I’m sure it’s good for you, but it simply isn’t very good to look at, and it has only marginal relevance to this exhibition. An example of a works that is both good for you and good to look at is the range of exquisitely decorated plates by Jaqueline Bishop (above). 

After the exhibition

Visitors emerge from the exhibition straight into the Fitzwilliam permanent collection, in this case a room of 20th-century works, but only a few of which are of black subjects, a missed opportunity. Nonetheless, there is a recent (loan) portrait of William Gates a stunning example, and hopefully an addition to the Fitzwilliam collection.

What to make of Black Atlantic?

In summary, there is a great theme here, but the execution was insufficiently thought through. Let’s hope the next related exhibition (they promise several more) is more focused, and less wide-ranging.