Cancelled Black British Artists & Political Activism: 'Black Art' and Black Power

Lecture Series – Elizabeth Robles, Keith Piper

2 December 2021
6:30 – 8:00 pm
Online

**Unfortunately, this event has been cancelled. You can find some reading materials on the topic, as well as recordings of the other lectures in the series, on our Recordings page.**

This is session five of the Black British Artists and Political Activism Public Lecture Course. In this session, the artist Keith Piper will join Elizabeth Robles in conversation to discuss the ways in which the politics of Black Nationalism, promoted by key figures such as Maulana (Ron) Karenga, and the internationalist socialism of the Black Panther Party were woven through artistic discourses of the early 1980s. Underpinning the formation of the BLK Art Group and the foundation of the Black-Art Gallery, he will trace their articulation across diverse and varied creative and curatorial episodes at the beginning of what has come to be known as a 'British Black Arts Movement'.

Image Credit: Flyer for the First National Black Art Convention, Wolverhampton, 1982.

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About the speakers

Elizabeth Robles is a researcher and lecturer in contemporary art in the History of Art Department at the University of Bristol. She is particularly interested in the formation of ideas around ‘black art’ across the twentieth century and is currently a British Academy postdoctoral fellow working on a project entitled Making Waves: Black Artists & ‘Black Art’ in Britain from 1962–1982. Most recently she co-edited the exhibition publication The Place is Here: The Work of Black Artists in 1980s Britain (Sternberg, 2019) alongside curator Nick Aikens. She also co-leads the British Art Network Black British Artists Research Group.