by Ashley Parry
This October, we at the Bodleian Art Library are celebrating Black History Month! So, this year’s Art Library graduate trainee, Olly Marshall, has put together a display highlighting some contributions of Black historians, artists, philosophers and other thinkers, in materials available from both here and the Bodleian’s off-site storage facility.
The theme for this year’s Black History Month – ‘Standing Firm in Power and Pride’ – inspired us to examine examples of Black resistance in the collections – ways in which Black creatives and historians have used their voices and skills to challenge erasure. For example, I have opened Art After Stonewall: 1969-1989 to a page1 featuring both Marsha P. Johnson and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who used their talents and skills in art and community-building to resist oppression. In fact, for a fantastic example of Johnson’s activism, I highly recommend the conversation between filmmakers Tourmaline and Sasha Wortzel, in this volume, in which they discuss, among other things, Johnson’s contributions to providing accommodation for queer youth.
But, there are also lesser-known figures in this display who are nonetheless resisting erasure and injustice in museum and gallery spaces and reimagining the fields of art and archaeology in ways that uplift diverse voices. For example, in Documenting Activism, Creating Change: Archaeology and the Legacy of #MeToo, the authors examine a range of case studies from an intersectional feminist perspective to consider how best to push for progress. Similarly, in Black Feminist Archaeology, Whitney Battle-Baptiste describes a liberatory framework through which we may approach cultural remembrance, defining terms and naming issues in cultural institutions to combat ignorance and misinformation. Then, in The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of Wesley Gilbert, John I. W. Lee pays tribute to a little known, but very important contributor to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Gilbert is also an intriguing figure because, as Lee writes, while ‘[i]nterest in African American engagements with Greek and Roman classics […] has burgeoned over the past few decades[,] [t]his interest […] has typically been framed in terms of black receptions of and responses to classical literature, with much less consideration of archaeology or art history’.2 Not only is Lee’s book something of a counterbalance to this trend, as well as to the larger trend of obscuring Black archaeologists in general, but it is also an impressive work of archaeology in itself, as the author travels far and wide to gather the scattered evidence of Gilbert’s life and work.
I also feel that these themes of whose work is remembered and how, and who has access to cultural institutions fits well with the Malcolm X Steles of Barbara Chase-Riboud. For, while the names of these sculptures suggest they should be seen as monuments, their abstract forms could be interpreted as – among many other resonances – inviting conversation about the fraught relationship between memorial and art, with its potential for commodification.
This, furthermore, led me to think about the work of Adrian Piper through this lens. She is represented by several books in the display, including a chapter in Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, by works in All These Liberations: Women Artists in the Eileen Harris Norton Collection, and Adrian Piper: Race, Gender, and Embodiment. A key theme of her work is questioning who is allowed a place within the art establishment, whose art is remembered, and how is that remembrance mediated? This is very obviously part of her installation Four Intruders Plus Alarm Systems, which is comprised of a dark room, with images of Black men on the walls. These are accompanied by recordings of racist comments that range from ignorant to nakedly hostile. Then, in other of her works, Piper draws upon her complex experience as a white-passing Black woman in the art world. John P. Bowles, in Adrian Piper, explains how this thread of autobiography in Piper’s art and her use of challenging language and second-person address has led some critics to simplify her body of work, casting the artist as ‘an angry [B]lack woman’ or a ‘distraught victim, lashing out unfairly at liberal museum-goers who might otherwise take her side.’ But, part of the power of Piper’s work is in resisting stereotype and constructing space for questioning systems and sitting with discomfort.
The book Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums also engages with these issues, examining the challenges and benefits of representing Black history in exhibition spaces. One of those challenges has been the building of these spaces or adapting of already existing ones (such as the conversion of the Lorraine Motel into the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis) and this links well with Here: Where the Black Designers Are. In this volume, prolific graphic designer Cheryl Holmes Miller details her own efforts to foster inclusion in her field – starting with her 1985 graduate thesis, ‘Transcending the Problems of the Black Graphic Designer in the Marketplace’ – and how such activism can create spaces that are ‘more rigorous, more functional, and more accessible for everyone.’3
Similarly, the artists in Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s-90s Britain, also had to contend with exclusionary institutions and some of their work and writing reflects this. In particular, Glynis Nelsen’s 1985 essay featured in the volume speaks to the economic and cultural barriers faced by Black women artists in representing themselves and having the representation respected – and how community and the pooling of resources are one way to combat this. This essay is striking in how, despite being forty years old (this distance in time being clear from the technologies she names as contemporary to her writing) the issues discussed are just as prominent now.
I also think that this volume is very valuable for specifically addressing Black British experiences. For, it is important to remember the indelible work of Black artists and resistance movements across the globe. For this reason, I thought it important to include books such as Phenomenal Difference: A Philosophy of Black British Art and Towards an African Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance.
Furthermore, attention must, of course be paid to the history of resistance on the African continent, represented here by The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994. I was particularly fascinated by the essay in this volume, ‘Colonial Pretense and African Resistance, or Subversion Subverted: Commemorative Textiles in Sub-Saharan Africa’, given my interest in the relationship between memorialisation and resistance. In this chapter, John Picton details how Asante and Yoruba weavers use wax cloth patterns to commemorate individuals or events, or to encapsulate ideas such as proverbs. In doing so, these weavers take ‘an inept Dutch imitation of Indonesian batik’4 cloth and create from it a richly meaningful artform. The history of wax prints is a good example of how, as with the art of Adrian Piper and of Barbara Chase-Riboud, much African art resists facile interpretation. Some have attempted to connect the origins of modern African art to European movements, but the evidence does not support this. As Chika Okeke argues, the modern African art scene exists more in spite of rather than because of European traditions. This is because ‘wherever art did feature in the colonial curriculum, it was restricted to the notion of craft’. For schools were ‘mainly concerned with fulfilling the colonial powers’ need for low-level manpower’. Indeed, given the influence of indigenous art on movements such as Cubism and Surrealism, it might be easier to argue that the artistic canon of the Global North owes much more to Africa than vice versa.5
Similarly in African Connections: Archaeological Perspectives on Africa and the Wider World, Peter Mitchell highlights the multifarious routes that African peoples’ trading relationships have taken over the course of the continent’s long, long history, and how those relationships were hardly if ever unidirectional. For example, the sheer amount of crafts and agricultural items that were both exported from and imported to African locations – many of which we now take for granted in our modern, extremely connected world – is nothing short of overwhelming.6 Mitchell also rightly takes pains to highlight the diversity of cultures that call Africa home and to debunk the myth of African homogeneity largely fostered by European minds.
The length and richness of African history is also attested to by Andrew Smith in First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan. In this accessibly written, but deeply researched book, Smith casts a spotlight on a chapter of Black history unknown to most: namely that of the Khoisan people who lived in what is now Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Not only does he explain why this slice of human history is so useful and fascinating – from linguistic analyses to explorations of farming and craft techniques – but he links the lack of interest in this story directly to colonial erasure. In doing so, he demonstrates, again like many of the other authors and figures in this display, that remembrance is an important step in resistance.
I cannot recommend these titles enough. It has been a joy to have this opportunity to explore and share the work of so many fantastic Black artists and writers for this project, and I hope that you also find the chance to be fascinated and challenged by them.
Bibliography
T. Akers, ‘Reverend Joyce McDonald: ‘Art was like therapy for me’, The Art Newspaper, vol.33, no. 381, September 2025, p.14 and p.16.
T. R. Aldridge and S. Belsheim (eds.), All These Liberations: Women Artists in the Eileen Harris Norton Collection, Santa Monica CA, Eileen Harris Norton Collection, 2024.
C. Basualdo (ed.), Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcolm X Steles, New Haven CT, 2013.
W. Battle-Baptiste, Black Feminist Archaeology, Walnut Creek CA, Left Coast Press, 2011.
J. Billard, ‘Uptown and downtown re-imagined’, The Art Newspaper, vol.33, no. 381, September 2025, p.8 and pp.10-11.
E. Boone et al., Towards an African Canadian History: Art, Memory, and Resistance, Concord ON, Captus Press, 2019.
J. P. Bowles, Adrian Piper: Race, Gender, and Embodiment, Durham NC, Duke University Press, 2011.
M. Cheale, ‘A fresh lesson in art history at the Academy’, The Art Newspaper, vol.33, no. 381, September 2025, p.52.
H. Cobb and K. Hawkins (eds.), Documenting Activism, Creating Change: Archaeology and the Legacy of #MeToo, Bicester, Archaeopress Publishing Ltd., 2025.
T. R. Dahmani and J. Gregory (eds.), Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s-’90s Britain, London, MACK & Autograph, 2024.
O. Enwezor (ed.), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Munich, Prestel, 2001.
J. M. Hayes et al., Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman, Jacksonville FL, Cummer Museum of Art, 2018.
C. D. Holmes-Miller, Here: Where the Black Designers Are: A Life in Advocacy, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2024.
E. Jenkins and K. Sharp, Black Artists in America: From the Great Depression to Civil Rights, Memphis TN, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 2021.
G. H. Kessler, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 2004.
J. I. W. Lee, The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert, New York, Oxford University Press, 2022.
P. Mitchell, African Connections: An Archaeological Perspective on Africa and the Wider World, Walnut Creek CA, AltaMira Press, 2005.
Nikitag94, ‘Barbara Chase-Riboud cropped.jpg’, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barbara_Chase-Riboud_cropped.jpg, (accessed 22 October 2025)
C. Okeke, ‘Modern African Art’, in O. Enwezor (ed.), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Munich, Prestel, 2001, pp.29-36.
J. Picton, ‘Colonial Pretense and African Resistance, or Subversion Subverted: Commemorative Textiles in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in O. Enwezor (ed.), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Munich, Prestel, 2001, pp. 159-174.
C. Porterfield, ‘The Armory Show puts spotlight on the South’, The Art Newspaper, vol.33, no. 381, September 2025, p.1 and p.7.
L. Raicovich, Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest, London, Verso, 2021.
D. Sawyer et al., Art After Stonewall: 1969-1989, Columbus OH, Columbus Museum of Art, 2019.
A. Smith, First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan, Cape Town, South Africa, 2022.
Tourmaline and S. Wortzel, ‘Marsha P. Johnson: A Conversation Between Tourmaline and Sasha Wortzel’, in Art After Stonewall: 1969-1989, Columbus OH, Columbus Museum of Art, 2019, pp.128-131.
L. Wainwright, Phenomenal Difference: A Philosophy of Black British Art, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2017.
M. O. Wilson, Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2020.
- D. Sawyer et al., Art After Stonewall: 1969-1989, Columbus OH, Columbus Museum of Art, 2019, pp.206-207 ↩︎
- J. I. W. Lee, The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert, New York, Oxford University Press, 2022, p. 4 ↩︎
- C. Williams, ‘Foreword by Crystal Williams’, in Here: Where the Black Designers Are, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 2019,pp.9-10 ↩︎
- J. Picton, ‘Colonial Pretense and African Resistance, or Subversion Subverted: Commemorative Textiles in Sub-Saharan Africa’, in O. Enwezor (ed.), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Munich, Prestel, 2001, p. 160. ↩︎
- C. Okeke, ‘Modern African Art’, in O. Enwezor (ed.), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Munich, Prestel, 2001, pp.29-36. ↩︎
- P. Mitchell, African Connections: Archaeological Perspectives on Africa and the Wider World, Walnut Creek CA, AltaMira Press, 2005, pp.13-14: ‘Coffee, sorghum, millet, guinea fowl, and donkeys are some of those domesticated in Africa but now also grown or kept elsewhere; sheep, goats, camels, horses, wheat, barley, chickens, bananas, rice, some kinds of yam, maize, and cassava are among those with extra-African origins. […] Glassware, leather items, and artifacts and ingots of metal flowed along the same routes’. ↩︎