‘Entangled Pasts’ opens at the RA
J.M.W. Turner and Ellen Gallagher. Joshua Reynolds and Yinka Shonibare. John Singleton Copley and Hew Locke. Past and present collide in one powerful exhibition.
Running from 3 February 2024, the Royal Academy of Arts’ Entangled Pasts is an important, complex and soul-searching exhibition in which the institution uses its own collection, international loans and its network of contemporary artists to offer an open-ended interrogation of the relationship between art, slavery and colonialism – and its own role in forging these histories.
Taking on the challenge of framing a wide-ranging, era-hopping exhibition that frankly and fairly confronts the RA’s own relationship with – and institutional culpability for – slavery is architectural studio JA Projects. Led by architect Jayden Ali, the JA Projects team have transformed 11 of the RA’s main galleries into an immersive – sometimes subversive – journey into painting, sculpture, installation, film and poetry, sensitively deploying texture, light and scale to choreograph the experience, guiding visitors through the exhibition and making space for each artwork to speak.
JA Projects’ set forms the backdrop to more than 100 artworks, spanning over 250 years of history from the Royal Academy’s foundation in 1768 to the present day. Historic artists including the likes of Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, John Singleton Copley and JMW Turner are put into dialogue with modern-day artists such as Frank Bowling, Sonia Boyce, Lubaina Himid, Isaac Julien, Hew Locke, Yinka Shonibare and Kara Walker. Creating connections across time and place, Entangled Pasts sets out to explore how art is intractably entangled with colonial histories and lifts the curtain on the international underpinnings of what we think of as ‘British’ art.
“In support of the RA’s brave investigation of its colonial past, we drew upon our ongoing enquiry into the entangled histories of the Black and Brown people in the West. For us, it was about helping to deliver an exhibition that challenged the historic optics of power that have done so much to shape the narratives, ideas and beliefs that supported enslavement and empire. And so, our design frames a forthright yet delicate conversation with the building, the people and the art that make up the Academy to honestly process the past, celebrate the pioneering Academicians of today and honour our collective tomorrow.”
– Jayden Ali, director, JA Projects
Working in close collaboration with the Royal Academy’s extended curatorial team and the featured contemporary artists themselves, JA Projects has developed a design approach that supports the often-challenging themes of power, representation and history behind the exhibition.
This spring, the RA brings together over 100 major contemporary and historic works as part of a conversation about art and its role in shaping narratives of empire, enslavement, resistance, abolition and colonialism – and how it may help set a course for the future.
Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change runs from 3 February - 28 April 2024
Main Galleries | Burlington House
Find out more here
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Images: Installation view of the ‘Entangled Pasts, 1768–now. Art, Colonialism and Change’ at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (3 February - 28 April 2024). © Thomas Adank