BLACK LIVES NOW - KETTLE'S YARD

Toussaint L’Ouverture at Bedourette

Art is often hard to fathom - more puzzle than enlightenment. By contrast Kettle’s Yard has something to say and declares it with flair. Walk into their new Exhibition and confront a familiar painting. Remember that heroic picture of Napoleon on a rearing white stallion ? Executed by the classical devotee of the revolution David, it springs off the wall with the confidence of a victorious warrior at the apogee of his fame. This new version by Kimathi Donkor has all the pizzazz and posture of Boney at his best, but this time the rider is Toussaint L’Overture the leader of the Caribbean slave revolt Not crossing the Alps like the all- conquering Emperor he leads his men into the battle of Bedourete fighting for freedom. Bold and Black , its heroes launch this show with flamboyance. Next to the dauntless Toussaint whose story is as inspiring as it is desperate, hangs another massive portrait in the style of Joshua Reynolds the eighteenth century drawing room painter. It’s  of Queen Nanny , who led the Maroon guerilla army against the French in 1700s Jamaica. Never heard of her? Me neither but what a way to start an art show? 

So much art around race in the past years has been about destruction. What not to show, who to leave on a plinth and who to tear down: prescription dominates the discourse. And in my view rightly so. But here we have a complex show packed with proud assertion about the nature of Black history and its resonance and Black lives lived now .

 Bravely this exhibiton is ready to delve deeper iint to the relationship of image and race. If Kimathi Donkor’s paintings fail to spark a fire, there are subtler gentler images. Outstanding is Phoebe Boswell. Her paintings are simply beautiful, well executed dream sequences of a peaceful utopia, African fishermen their feet in the white sand of their home, gaze fixed on the horizon – we see them from behind eyes on the horizon. Is it too fancifult to imagine them as the slaves once snatched from African native shores, dragged away from a world of family and fishing to a brutal future they could never have imagined.

 So much is packed into the exhibition. One excellent video presentation called Finding Fanon shows on five screens. It explores the partnership between two artists Larry Achiamponmg and David Blandy. They too tramp along the south coast beaches , captured by delightful camera work ( bust sadly accompanied by a muffled soundtrack that sounds like Carol Ann Duffy with a bad cold under a duvet). The warmth of the two men as they struggle across the shingle or stride along the sandy strand, is always accompanied by the sea. Again it’s a powerful image.

Other less accessible exhibits go that extra impenetrable mile towards mystification like the ‘ cultural exchange abstraction of two pianos in a room ‘in a battle of sorts” . Even more baffling is the explanation that the work will connect music at Kettle’s Yard with the  ‘ longstanding weekly ritual of changing the fresh flowers in the House’? Twee or what? 

 Back with the strong theme of the exhibition there is a three channel film shot at the Barbican of Greta Mendez who wanders along those concrete plant -filled balconies there, to somehow represent her role as ‘artist choreographer dancer carnivalist” How is not clear. She looks uncomfortable , even unhappy, throughout.

So much to enjoy and a clear assertive theme of affirmative Black presence : so why is the entire exuberant exhibition called Untitled?

 Less feeble suggestions on a post card please?