With rising unemployment rates, the destruction of the unions, the premiership of Margaret Thatcher and a growing right-wing conservatism, a group of young, defiant artists exploded onto the British art scene who would collectively come to be known as the Black Arts Movement. Born out of the active political energy of the radical West Midlands-based Blk Art Group (spearheaded by Claudette Johnson and Marlene Smith) who united in 1979, their mandate was to disrupt, discuss and debate what was deemed ‘British Art’. Claiming a Black British identity with their bold, powerful and explicitly
...more
