Narrator: What can we do with racist art? Over the last few years there has been a substantial shift in how the Western world views art and artefacts from the past. While global majority people have been discussing this for a long time, an outcome of the Black Lives Matter movement is that galleries and institutions have started to pay more attention to racist images within their collections. Artworks that were once unremarked upon or even viewed as entertainment and now coming under scrutiny. But is it enough for us to critique racist work, or should it ultimately be removed from galleries and confined to history? In this episode, we tell the story of one such artwork and chat to people who embody and explore this change in cultural life. We will follow artist, academic and co-founder of the BLK Art Group, Keith Piper, as he creates a new film that wrestles with the legacy of a racist mural at Tate Britain.
Keith Piper: How much would you see this as a visual equivalent to the use of the N-word in wrap.
Narrator: And speaks with scriptwriter Jacqueline Malcolm.
Jacqueline Malcolm: I honestly do not believe that Rex Whistler was racist.
Narrator: And historian Nikki Frater about how we can understand images like these today.
Nikki Frater: As ever with Rex Whistler, there are mysteries.
Narrator: We also hear from Black Lives Matter activist Jen Reid about how it feels to be the image of a historic moment.
Jen Reid: It's about representation, being strong, Black and defiant.
Narrator: And find out how artist Larry Achiampong examines racist imagery in his artwork.
Larry Achiampong: I've covered the faces with a derogatory type of imagery called golliwogs.
Narrator: You're listening to Tate's podcast, The Art of, this is a series telling the human stories behind art. In this episode, we are exploring the art of change. This podcast refers to artworks that contain racist imagery and language.
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Narrator: In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused museums and galleries around the world to close their doors indefinitely. Later that year, the Black Lives Matter movement that followed the death of George Floyd encouraged these institutions to look more carefully at racism in their collections. One artwork that came under heavy scrutiny was a racist mural that had been on the walls of Tate Britain's restaurant since 1927, even though concerns had been raised by visitors and staff over the years.
Narrator: The mural was painted by artist Rex Whistler when he was 21. It shows a hunting party, travelling around the world in search of exotic foods. At one point, the party meets and enslave a young Black boy while his mother watches from a tree overhead. While the mural itself is unfinished, its full story is revealed in a pamphlet written by Whistler's close friend and influence, Edith Olivier, and it uses racist language to describe the expedition. It was decided that while Tate Britain reopened, the restaurant remained closed and consultation would decide the future of the mural. Should the work be removed? Or was there a way that the mural could be used to talk about racism? After a year of consultation Tate decided that the mural would stay, but the space would be taken over by a contemporary artist. Keith Piper is the first artist to be commissioned to make an artwork. As the doors to the space reopen, we join Keith and art historian Nikki Frater as they examine Rex Whistler's mural.
Nikki Frater: So we're sitting in what was originally the Tate Gallery refreshment room, a kind of tea and buns sort of cafe. It was very gloomy, and they wanted the room to be made attractive to reflect the rest of the gallery.
Keith Piper: And it's actually true that they needed an artist who would work cheap.
Nikki Frater: It would be the same these days.
Keith Piper: So there's a young artist
Nikki Frater: There's a budget and they wanted to get value for money. Rex had proved himself that the murals that he did at the Boys' Club in Shadwell, so he came up on the list. The title of the mural, The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, so he wanted to convey a story about a bit of a motley crew, really, who would travel through distant lands and pick up items of fancy food. They come across this little Black boy, he's very frightened, the party ties his hands and they drag him off. There is a figure up a tree high above, and the pamphlet that was written by Edith Olivier and Rex Whistler after the mural, describes the figure in the tree as the boy's mother.
Keith Piper: That is the most controversial part of the mural.
Nikki Frater: Yes.
Keith Piper: The interesting thing is, if you just look at the image, it just looks like, a kind of primate type figure in a tree.
Nikki Frater: Yes.
Keith Piper: It's only when you then get to Edith's story.
Nikki Frater: Yes.
Keith Piper: That you realise it's a mother. If that figure had been described in any other way, it becomes less.
Nikki Frater: Yeah much less problematic.
Keith Piper: Yeah, yeah.
Nikki Frater: Much less emotional
Keith Piper: They chose the most problematic, you know, description. Even though it looks nothing like a mother. It looks nothing like a woman. It looks nothing like anything. But you know, because they've chosen to describe it as such then that makes it, you know, then there's very little else to go with that.
Nikki Frater: There's a question here of whether Edith described it as a mother.
Keith Piper: Yeah, or whether it's Rex.
Nikki Frater: Or whether Rex Whistler painted it as such. I would say that Edith was a muse in a way, but I think she was a bit of a facilitator. She was 54 when they met.
Keith Piper: Yes 54.
Nikki Frater: And Rex was 19. I think politically she was quite conservative as well, as were most people of that middle to upper-class. Rex Whistler painted the mural, and then at some point, he and Edith sat down and wrote a fuller story.
Keith Piper: It becomes a map, it is the way that we that we decode.
Nikki Frater: Yes.
Nikki Frater: A lot of the stuff wich is on these walls, however, a lot of the stuff which is in the pamphlets is not on the walls. There's a lot that is missing.
Nikki Frater: Yes.
Keith Piper: And then there's stuff which is on the walls, but only half completed.
Nikki Frater: As ever, with Rex Whistler, there are mysteries and there are things that we just can't know. And when it hit the news in 2020, when so many other actions were going on against racist imagery, racist behaviour, I thought, oh, I wanted to stick up for the artist that I'd written about for so many years. But, I can't really stick up for an image like the small Black child and the mother up the tree, because why is it there? If I knew why he had put it there, and if there was a reason behind it, if he was making a comment on imperialism, if he was making a comment on slavery. If because he was politically aware later in his life, but he was a bit young at this point to be saying things like that. That's sort of deep and meaningful reflection.
Keith Piper: It could have just been that, you know, as a very young man, he found that funny. You know, I mean humour is a very it's a very serious thing, but it's also a very powerful thing. You know, and obviously now in retrospect, we will look at that and say, okay, yeah, unpack that please. I always think that it's so important to read an artist's work in the context of, of the time.
Nikki Frater: I think we've got to. Make an attempt to understand because we can't just cancel everything. This room couldn't be, well it could be cancelled. You know, there were voices that said rip it off the walls, just get rid of it, burn it. But, the Tate has a duty of care to artworks within its collection. And, it would be a horrible thought to have this room darkened and hidden away, when it's actually a really good opportunity to look at this young artist, trying to work out what might have been going on in his head. It necessarily evokes anger, but then when we look at the time, well, they weren't going to really see things as we see them. And it's a kind of moral duty, I think, to try and understand and these are important artworks.
Keith Piper: In a sense, it's that conversation which actually drew me to this project because I actually think that the conversation is actually, in a sense, even more important than the artwork itself. Because it's so important that a museum is a space where a historical object, artefact or item can sit, you know? And it may be that that's the original role intention of the people that made that object is hugely reprehensible to us. However, then the role of the museum is to have the objects and to help us in an understanding of what that moment was, you know, and so therefore, it becomes really important to actually look in-depth at the history of these objects, you know, and that's not to to endorse them. And in a sense, you know, we also then, can use that to actually point towards, you know, the wider political debates around these objects.
Narrator: What we see around us everyday matters. The images that we see can shape how we view ourselves and reinforce the values of our society. It hasn't just been galleries that have re-evaluated their relationship with racism. In recent years, there has been an unprecedented public reckoning focused on the visible legacy of slavery in cities across the country. Monuments and statues of slave traders have been defaced and destroyed, starting a heated debate over who should be commemorated in public spaces. This came to a head in 2020 during a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, which saw the statue of slave trader Edward Colston torn down from his plinth and thrown into a nearby canal. Seeing the plinth empty, Jen Reid climbed on top, taking Colston's Place and delivered the Black Power salute. A photograph of her standing defiantly with her face raised to the sky, went viral around the world and was turned into a statue by artist Mark Quinn. But this was taken down less than 24 hours later. Keith has gone to Bristol to meet Jen at the still empty plinth.
Jen Reid: So I missed, I missed the whole toppling.
Keith Piper: Oh, so you weren't there when they actually tore the statue down.
Jen Reid: I was not there and obviously I was being very COVID aware to look after my parents. I received a call from a friend to say they've taken Colston down, and I was just about to go home. I was like, oh my God, I have to see this. The mood, it was electric. It was very celebratory. It was like a carnival atmosphere.
Keith Piper: So what was more important? Was it a kind of cleansing of this space? Because this is obviously a public space? Yeah. Yeah. And so this space belongs to the people of Bristol.
Jen Reid: It does, yeah.
Jen Reid: And so it was, in a sense the people taking back this space.
Jen Reid: I think Bristol had spoken, people had had enough of Colston being there. So after that, I remember walking down here and obviously dressed as a Black Panther and people were around the plinth. And a friend said to me, you should get up there. And then my husband, bent down and I put my shoe on his thing, and I landed very ungracefully on my stomach and I slowly got to my got to my feet. And then I stood and then and I raised my fist, and I held my head to the sky. And I always say, I remember George Floyd, the enslaved, my mum, my daughter, my sister and I named it surge of power because I said I felt a surge of power and I did feel a surge of power. And even thinking about it, I'm still feeling that same, that same feeling like that has been cleansed of the slave trader and there's a new girl in town.
Keith Piper: And so it was actually an art action on your part because you were dressed as a Black Panther.
Jen Reid: Yeah.
Keith Piper: So therefore, the rased fist gesture becomes a rechannelling of that.
Jen Reid: Yeah and my husband took a picture of me up on the when I had my fist raised and that image was such a powerful pitcture and he posted it. And then I got a call from Mark Quinn to say that he'd seen the image, we thought it was really powerful and wanted to know if he could recreate that in a statue? It's like wow, so this is pretty serious then.
Keith Piper: However, it was your work. It was your work with your action, you performed the thing.
Jen Reid: Yeah it's my work and that's the thing. And I think that's, but the thing for me is, it's for me, it's not about me. I think it's about what that image represents.
Keith Piper: Yeah. And the greatest shame was that it came down, because I have a friend who actually bought her grandkids actually, to see this new statue and you're gone by then.
Jen Reid: Yeah. Well, this is the thing and I think it was, I think it was such a shame. For me personally, I think it coming down and only being up for 24 hours, I think it kind of made the conversation last. You know, I think it just gave it more attention.
Keith Piper: And it's also raises all these questions about what art gets to kind of sit in what spaces, because it did make it one of the most important artworks of that period.
Jen Reid: Yeah and I think for me it captured a moment in time.
Narrator: Recently, Jen has spent her time focusing on a new project.
Jen Reid: Coffee?
Narrator: She has published a book called 'A Hero Like Me', which aims to empower children to be heroes within society.
Jen Reid: So, Keith, I'd like to show you a book that I have written, a fictional story of the events that happened that day. Every day on our way, we see him. A man made of bronze. He stands by the sea with buckled on shoes and ruffled up sleeves. A man who sold freedom for cotton and tea. They call him hero. But he's no hero. Not to me.
Keith Piper: Fantastic.
Jen Reid: So this little girl walks around the town and questions this man and who he is and I read this to children and I think children have a very, moral sense of what's right and what's wrong.
Keith Piper: This is about a kind of new, a new wave of image making. We need this stuff which gives our kids the sort of, the sort of positive.
Jen Reid: That's it.
Keith Piper: Images, histories, whatever. And this does it so well.
Jen Reid: And I think that's what I want people to take away from the Surge of Power is about representation being strong, Black and defiant and being proud and standing strong in who you are and what you believe. If I saw a statue of the Surge of Power when I was younger, oh my God, it would have stayed with me forever.
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Professor Shepherd in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: Ahh, you must be Mr. Reginald John Whistler.
Rex Whistler in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: Rex, please.
Professor Shepherd in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: Excuse me.
Rex Whistler in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: Call, me Rex.
Narrator: The artwork that Keith has made is an immersive video installation inside the former Rex Whistler restaurant.
Rex Whistler in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: You read Edith's pamphlet?
Professor Shepherd in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: I did more than that.
The film brings Rex Whistler back to life and sees him examined by an imaginary Black female professor. In order to understand why he painted the Black figures in the mural the way he did.
Professor Shepherd in Keith Piper’s film Viva Voce: So this is another a grown adult female who was nonetheless, what, happy to scamper up a tree?
Narrator: Keith's main collaborator on this project, script writer Jacqueline Malcolm, has come to Tate Britain to see the artwork being installed and to talk to Keith about the effects the project has had on them both.
Jacqueline Malcolm: Are you happy with the Rex Whistler that we finally portrayed?
Keith Piper: I am, however, what I wanted this particular project to kind of do was to be a way of examining the work on the wall.
Jacqueline Malcolm: Yes.
Keith Piper: And within that I wanted I wanted Rex Whistler's or the Rex Whistler character. His main role within that is to tell us how the work came about.
Jacqueline Malcolm: It's kind of impossible to write about them all without somehow portraying Rex Whistler. And so we do have I found a responsibility to who we were going to try and portray. And I've told people, I don't know how you found it, Keith, but when I tell people I was part of this project, the first thing they asked me is, so what do you think, Jackie? Is Rex Whistler racist? And it's like, oh, wait, wait, that's not what, this piece was actually about. It's actually about bringing up the dialogue in discussing the mural itself. But I actually loved your approach to it, which I thought was really clever, in having it through all the questions thrown at him through the character of the professor. And really, the piece is all coming from her own research, isn't it? That's what we're actually seeing. So Rex Whistler is just her imagination in the piece. That's how we tried to show Rex Whistler the respect that I think he deserved. He deserved the our respect, this is somebody who was very quick to volunteer to go and fight for his country. I think he was a brilliant artist. You know, suddenly here's this young 19 year old surrounded by the bright young things who were the, the rebels of the upper class, I imagine them as, you know, it's like Partygate. There's rules, but the rules don't apply to them. I'm saying all this to say, sometimes I wonder if in his imagination of what he was creating in this mural, it could be his views on their views of society, his views on their views of Black people. Because I will stand up in front of anyone and say, I honestly do not believe that Rex Whistler was racist. I do not believe it, but I do believe he came from a very racist society of the time.
Keith Piper: I would actually
Jacqueline Malcolm: Disagree
Keith Piper: I would disagree. However, he showed the racism of a very young man. He did seem to kind of take pleasure out of out of producing a very particular type of imagery, images which for the time were kind of pushing the envelope of kind of stereotypical depictions of Black people. When we actually talk about the comparison between his work and the work of Stanley Spencer, Resurrection, Cookham, which was also in the Tate and was also painted in the same year, 1927. And in that piece there are depictions of Black people, but they, you know, he's actually attempted to make them quite detailed, to make them nuanced, to make them interesting. They are not they are not caricatures. There's a problem that he copied this thing out of National Geographic. But you know, even that, you know, he made the effort. There's also in the Tate, interestingly enough, which wasn't there when we were doing the research. And then the incredible head of Paul Robeson, by Epstein, which is incredible piece of work, you know, also made in that same year. So you have these three depictions of Black people from 1927. You have the Rex Whistler, who's like, extremely cartoonist, even though he's 21. You have the Jacob Epstein, which is on the other end of the spectrum, this really, really powerful head of a named Black individual and you have, the Stanley Spencer. So therefore there is something happening there. There is something which is to be read in there that says that Rex Whistler was on at the particular edge of that spectrum. However, he was extremely young. I don't know if I would say he is racist. You know, he was racist then so he remained racist. Because there is a really, fantastic painting, which he did in the 1940s. I think it was like a year before his death of a mixed race child and this is the most beautiful painting. It's really nice. And so obviously there's kind of change there, there's an evolution. But at the time in 1927, he made, he made these images. And I think they are you know the images in themselves are deeply racist. Do we then say he's racist? You know, I'm not saying that I'm gonna say the work he made is racist.
Jacqueline Malcolm: My big takeaway was this, very, very maybe narcissistic, I don't know, but I wonder how people will talk about me in 100 years. Will I ever create something that will generate a conversation? And if they did, how would I want to be perceived? And I think by having to port Rex Whistler through that and Edith Olivier through that. That was my takeaway. Whatever I'm doing to them, I want someone to think that way. Because in 100 years, as manners evolved, now they'll think I'm a beast.
Keith Piper: I think that's interesting. I mean, we can never, we could never actually predict how will be see if at all in 100 years time. However, there is an important thing there in terms of Rex Whistler because, he was part of a group of artists, British figurative artists emerging in the 1920s who we basically don't know. And he's one of the only ones in that group that we actually know and are talking about. And the only reason why we know him and to talk about him is because of the racist content of his mural. And that is the interesting thing about art history, because when you think of 1920s, you know, the early modernists, that the ones that we are really interested in, we don't really we're not really interested in these figurative artists. They were the stars of their time, they were the Royal Academicians, they were the people who were at the top of their game. However, he's the only one that we actually think about and, in a sense, if it hadn't been for the racist content of this work, who knows if we'd ever even be thinking about Rex Whistler? I think that would be.
Narrator: Someone who interrogates the long standing impact of racism in cultural artefacts is British Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong. Larry uses racist imagery from pop culture to subvert and reappropriate its original intent. It's a cold morning in east London and Keith is in Larry's studio looking at his work.
Keith Piper: Oh, look at this how the man cover up the things to unveil it.
Larry Achiampong: So what you're looking at are a range of, repurposed posters. Usually you find them in places that have been that were previously colonised. Ghana, where I travelled to, as a kid, my mum took me as a kid. I found that these gigantic kind of huge posters which have, you know, white Christs and other people that are within either the Old or New Testament, depicted as white people essentially, they're depicted as Europeans. But what I've done is I've covered the faces with a motif that I refer to as the cloud face. But to be more specific with it, I've used the motif that has a relationship with the history of, a derogatory type of imagery called call golliwogs. They have a direct history related to the Minstrel Shows that go back to the early 1900s and further, in the United States.
Keith Piper: In terms of kind of both this, these images and the images, you know, which I'm working with at the Tate. They are in a in a way, seen as kind of sacred with them particular kinds of discourses. I mean, the Rex Whistler, I mean less so, but there's still a whole you know, a whole group of some politicians who say, leave our culture alone, maybe. Leave our culture alone. With this, it's even it's even braver on your part because these images are seen as sacred, literally sacred.
Larry Achiampong: They're two aspects. Of a colonial history that are conjoined. So the golliwog aspect of it, which, you know, has its relationship to eugenics. This idea of mythmaking regarding race or the idea of different races having all of these different, you know, weaknesses or whatnot in comparison to what is white being right, apparently. But then that aspect of myth connected with, an additional aspect of myth the whiteness of the profit. In this case, we're talking about Jesus right? You seen the way this person looks like they're apparently from Palestine, but there are like pasty as the walls here. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Keith Piper: And the boldness of this work is derived from the golliwog and it's really powerful black circle with the big red lips, etc., etc.. How much would you see this as, a visual equivalent to, for instance, the use of the N-word in rap, the way that word is then use it's a word which kind of comes from a particular history. It's taken outside history and then placed within these kind of new Black texts. And its use can be radical, its use can be subversive.
Larry Achiampong: There's that aspect of a subjectivity, but also there's that aspect of reclaiming power.
Keith Piper: Yes, you can make this, but you know, a white artist couldn't make this clearly.
Larry Achiampong: You know, but the weird thing is, is that white artists technically have been making this stuff again, which goes to the likes of Rex Whistler. This is my point, all of it is connected. When I heard that you were doing this work, one of my questions and it's interesting because it's kind of been hit to me when my work was acquired by Tate. But is your work or your practice going to be co-opted for this kind of, you know, argument to kind of sweep it away? And I say that only with reverence, knowing how much is a fan. I know I'm a fanboy of you, the likes of yourself Raimi Gbadamosi, Lubaina Himid you know, people whom whom without your practice. I'm not here. But my concern is all right, so you're bringing in this artist. But what are you looking to do beyond this? You know, because we get pulled into do all kinds of stuff, we're like Swiss Army knives, you know. So, my concern is that massive weight of pressure in relation to representation around such a discursive issue, is a polarising issue in conversation.
Keith Piper: The kind of Swiss Army knife thing. I really like that as an image, that you're called in to do specific things at specific times. Now, in terms of this particular project, there's this deeply racist and problematic piece of art in the Tate. It's coming out of this exclusive restaurant space, and being bought into the museum. So it becomes a museum artefact, 100 year old museum artefact. When people look at the work, the first half of the work is about the history of the mural. But then that the second part is this is what makes it so deeply problematic. And I hope I haven't pulled punches with that because it is, you know, even more racist in a sense that most people have realised. I don't think that all of these people will be able to look at the work at the Rex Whistler, work innocently. You've made a really important, point about then what happens, because I would really love, you know, this to be the basis of all kinds of conversations. You know, you could watch the film, then turn the film off, have a conversation. So in a sense, the film becomes the kind of starting point around which all these other conversations can take place within the space.
Larry Achiampong: Again, are we doing this stuff for a limited time only. Or is this a genuine thing that we're we're actually pushing?
Keith Piper: I think the important thing there is that I'm hoping that with this stuff that we've actually raised and brought to the light in this particular piece, there's no one that could come in now and say, oh, this is not, you know, whatever, because you'd be there and they wouldn't even have seen it. I really I'm going to come back to an image which I've which you said which I love, which is the Swiss Army knife. But this is a particular task within a very particular kind of institution. So the task here is look at it historical work, you know, explore it, pull it apart. So it's the Swiss Army knife.
Larry Achiampong: But again, you know, coming back to that analogy, the Swiss Army knife has got to be looked after. That's what I'm talking about. And the way that we're going to have this Rex Whistler piece, whether it's in front of people in the public or it's still behind the closed door, it still exists. So I want to know that Uncle Keith still exists in the same way.
Narrator: As galleries around the world explore the question of how to deal with problematic artworks. The one thing we know for sure is that there is still work to be done. Many have argued that the movement in the UK has stalled, while in the US new legislation has even begun to weaken institutional diversity. We have to learn from mistakes made in the past, and even if it means taking a hard, critical look at ourselves, the work is essential. This isn't the end of the story. You've been listening to Tate's podcast, The Art of. If you have enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe so you don't miss out on new episodes. This episode was produced by Adam Simons. The music was by Kieran Shuddall. Viva Voce by Keith Piper is now open at Tate Britain.
