The Art of Donald Rodney

… Black people had been making their way to Britain for centuries – some coming of their own free will, others very much against their will. But it was not until the post-war arrival of Caribbean immigrants that Britain’s Black population swelled significantly and irreversibly. Within months and years of settling, Caribbean immigrants such as Rodney’s parents started to establish families in their adopted country. Many of these Caribbean immigrants left children behind, looked after by grandparents or other members of their immediate or extended families. In time, when conditions and circumstances allowed, Caribbean immigrants began to send for these children. Simultaneously, other immigrants, such as Rodney’s parents, started to have children and build families in communities across the country. These two groups of children – those born in the Caribbean and those of Caribbean parentage born here – grew up to become the new generation of ‘Black British’ youngsters. Never before had Britain been home to those who embodied a curious and potent mixture of both ‘Blackness’ and ‘Britishness’…

…Whilst Jamaica produced the likes of Burning Spear, Augustus Pablo, Culture and the Wailers, Britain produced groups such as Capital Letters, Aswad, Black Slate and the Cimarons. One of the major British reggae groups to emerge in the 1970s was Birmingham’s Steel Pulse. In 1978, David Hinds, the major figure within Steel Pulse, outlined the rites of passage that led young Black people such as himself to embrace the cultural values and sense of self that Rastafari and Black Consciousness espoused: ‘As soon as you leave school you find that all the things you were promised – a job, a future and so on _ it’s all different. When you realise that, all you’ve got to turn to is your own culture and yourself. There’s nowhere else to look.” [John Plummer, Movement of Jah People: The Growth of the Rastafarians (Birmingham: Press Gang, 1978) 48] …

…A number of Black artists found themselves charmed by Marley’s reference to the burning of illusions and pollution. In 1981, filmmaker Menelik Shabazz had made a feature-length film which he titled Burning an Illusion. Its publicity described it as being ‘the story of a Black woman’s awakening’. Years later, in conversation with Lubaina Himid, Rodney referred to some of the influences that lay behind the making of one of his pieces, The Lords of Humankind (1986). This was a work dealing with slavery and its aftermath, that relied heavily on written text surrounding central images of a shackled slave and plans of slave ships crammed with human cargo. Himid referred to the burnt and seemingly damaged nature of the work. Rodney responded ‘I burnt the flags, that’s what that’s about. Burning that type of history […] I love that phrase – “burning an illusion” – that’s probably why I use burning a lot.’ [Donald Rodney in conversation with Lubaina Himid, ‘State of the Art’, Channel 4/Illuminations (Television) Ltd, television programme, 1987]…

… In 1976, during the course of the annual Notting Hill Festival, violent street battles erupted between Black youth and the police. But it was the rioting in St Paul’s, Bristol, in 1980 (plus major eruptions the following year in Brixton and elsewhere) that emphatically declared the arrival of the dissatisfied urban-dwelling ghetto yout. These were heady days. This, the late 1970s and early 1980s was quite possibly the most politically, culturally and racially charged period of Black British history. It was, additionally and coincidentally, the point at which Donald Rodney entered art school. He took a Foundation Course at Bournville School of Art, Birmingham, before entering Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham, to do a Fine Art degree course in 1981…

…The word ‘angry’ was one of the most frequently used descriptions to appear in press articles about Black artists’ work through the 1980s and beyond. Writing in 1984, the then Director of The Black-Art Gallery observed that ‘in many cases the realities being dealt with by artists […] is often misinterpreted by white/European viewers who see the work as being ‘angry’ and ‘aggressive’, when in reality there is little or no anger expressed – but simply the visually stunning and dynamic presentation of hard, cold facts.’ [Shakka Dedi, ‘Black Art in Britain Today’, Arts Review (9 November 1984) 556-557]...

The above extracts are from “The Art of Donald Rodney”, an essay by Eddie Chambers in Donald Rodney: Doublethink, (pages 20 - 41) published by Autograph ABP, 2003, edited by Richard Hylton, Preface by Stuart Hall, essays by Eddie Chambers and Virginia Nimarkoh.