Dead Artists' Society  

During the course of the relatively long period of time during which ‘The Other Story’ was in preparation, no fewer than four of the 24 artists included in the eventual exhibition died. A fifth, Aubrey Williams, lived just about long enough to witness the realisation of the exhibition, dying in April 1990, a few months after it happened. Had the Hayward Gallery taken up the exhibition when it had first been proposed by Rasheed Araeen, then Ronald Moody, Ahmed Parvez, Ivan Peries and A J Shemza would all have lived to see their work in the show. As it turned out, their involvement was posthumous. People die all the time. Artists die all the time. But somehow, what happened to Moody and company provides a salutary and sobering lesson about the art establishment’s prevarication and unease at dealing with black artists as living and fully functioning practitioners…

…In such a way, over the years, black artists have frequently been doubly wronged by the art establishment. On the one hand they are, above all others, most consistently ignored and pushed to one side when it comes to the dishing out of exhibition opportunities. And on the other hand, this discrimination is echoes by the posthumous attention they occasionally receive. Donald Rodney’s work was not considered good or interesting enough for any of his exhibitions to be reviewed substantially by the Guardian during his lifetime. Yet the Guardian was able to run why by anybody’s standards was a generously sized obituary. Likewise, the organisers/selectors of ‘The British Art Show’ never thought his work good enough to be included in the exhibition while he was alive. In death however, his inclusion was as inevitable as it was assured…

…Hammad Butt was, I believe, the first artist to receive the posthumous treatment. This ‘brilliant young artist’ had graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1990, dying just a few short years later. The very stylish publication Familiars was produced by InIVA in association with John Hansard Gallery subsequent to the artist’s death. But Hammad Butt had not spent several years knocking on the art establishment’s doors and getting precisely nowhere. In that sense he represents a much less troubling example of a dead artist’s career being resurrected, compared to the likes of first, Aubrey Williams, and now, Li Yuan-chia.

The above extracts are from a critique by Eddie Chambers that appeared in  Art Monthly, London, Number 244, March 2001: 52

This text solicited a hostile response from Gilane Tawadros, INIVA director, that appeared in Art Monthly, Number 245, April 2001. Subsequently, in Art Monthly, Number 247, June 2001. Rasheed Araeen wrote a response to Tawadros' response, "Rewriting History Another Story".