Cathy's Art Diary

Inspiring lecture at the National Maritime Museum about a proposed installation on the plan of the Brookes slave ship. The plan was the famous one used by the abolitionists in their campaign. Elgin Cleckley, Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, who is also an architect, has been doing projects around the work and was planning an exhibition/installation. It took me a while to grasp that the installation hasn’t actually happened yet but I was fascinated by the idea as I have always been intrigued by the image which I first came across at school. I hadn’t realised the ship in question was a Liverpool one so it had that resonance for me as well as my family was from the city. He had done some amazing research on the various journeys of the ship and how many enslaved people were on each trip and how many got to their destination. He showed us mock ups of how an installation might look, how he imagines people interacting with it and what issues it might rase.   He mi...

Lovely opportunity to see pieces from this sculpture trail of painted globes by different artists exploring the Slave Trade and its effect outside the National Maritime Museum. I last saw them in Trafalgar Square and blogged about them. It was nice to see them in a different, very relevant venue. This time they were shown in a circle as if they were in a meeting. It was nice to stand in the middle of them although I didn't linger as it was a very wet day.   They were there as part of the museum's Caribbean Takeover day. Closes 1 April 2023 however I passed again on 12 April and they were still there!

Interesting display and trail at the V&A Wedgwood Collection at the World of Wedgwood examining Josiah Wedgwood’s anti-slavery medallion designed to promote and bring about the abolition of the Slave Trade. The display combined archive material from the collection with modern ceramic medallions by students from Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College reacting to the original. It’s a piece I fond of and I would love to own one. I am fascinating by how quickly the image spread and its impact. A trail round the main displays provided the context for the medallion and the wider history of the abolition and anti-racism. This trail was subtle giving insights without feeling too preaching. It led your eye from an object to a commentary which you might not have thought was relevant to the narrative. Closes January 2022  

I was intrigued to see one of the statues which had been removed as part of the Black Lives Matter campaign and as I would blog a new statue thought I would blog my thoughts on one disappearing. The statue of Robert Milligan , merchant and slave trader, stood outside the Museum of London overlooking West India Docks which he helped to construct. I must admit I have never consciously noticed it but did on this visit go to see the effect of its removal. I generally feel that statutes should be left as we cannot change our history, but should have new labelling to explain who the person is, why a statue might have been erected to them in the first place and how their legacy might be viewed now. In this case slavery was a terrible thing but it won’t have gone away by eradicating references to it. It should not be lauded but equally it should not be forgotten, as it has made the world the way it is, but we should acknowledge the damage that has done and problems the effects of it stil...

Small Room 1 exhibition at the National Gallery to commemorate 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade bringing together "Mrs Oswald" by Zoffany and "Colonel Tarleton" by Reynolds to look at their and their families role in the trade. Also looked at the role of slave trade money in art collection of the C18th and how those collections formed the foundation galleries such at the National itself. The initial core of the collection was given by John Julius Angerstein (of whom their is a portrait in the exhibition) who was instrumental in the development of LLoyds which profited from insuring slave ships amongst others and who also had shares in Caribbean plantations. The Room 1 exhibition was complimented by new work by Yinka Shonibore MBE both in that gallery and Room 36 where the two main portraits usually hang, which explores the effects of the wealth created by the trade on society. The main work were two headless figures shooting birds with clothes mirror...