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Photograph by Vanley Burke, image courtesy of New art Exchange
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My father's advice when it comes to writing essays is start with a definition. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines style as;
Style; 1. n. - ancient writing implement, a small rod with pointed end for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets & blunt end for obliterating.
This was not helpful.
2.manner of writing, speaking or doing, as opposed to the matter to be expressed or thing done.
There we go. 'The Meaning of Style', the new exhibition at forest fields' own Art Exchange is an engaging and well-meaning look at the efforts of a few black British artists in defining their roots and the place of their peers in Britain. At the same time it is an attempt to address the continuing crime and tragedy that seemingly stalks young black men on the streets of our cities.
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Duane McIntosh, Photograph by Clement Cooper (2002), image of courtesy of New Art Exchange
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Each artist takes a swing at what is a galactically-sized curve ball. Clement Cooper's photographed subjects are varied, beginning with groups of young rough and ready men in the youth clubs of 70s Manchester, posing, grandstanding or just mucking about with their friends. Cooper then moves to church portraits, particularly children enjoying what is the alien experience of religion in a country still new to many of the parishioners. As the pictures progress Cooper begins to focus on mixed race subjects, a question with an enigma for a sub-group perhaps not accepted by either side. The faces are on the whole expressionless, each displaying a certain barrier against both the camera and viewer, an uncertainty at odds with the simple, elegant black and white setting of the photographs.
Next, five pictures from Michael Forbes showing a group of young black men at an outdoor concert. From the written accompaniment there is something about a new generation seeing a camera as a path to instant fame rather than the intrusive presence that Clement Cooper's 70s youngsters saw it.
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Construct 4, Barbara Walker, image courtesy of New Art Exchange
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Around the corner Barbara Walker's rather beautiful set of drawings and painting depicting again young men, the majority of whom have their back to the artist, dressed in typical urban clothes and displaying the typical urban attitude of disdain. On second glance however, the very personal nature of these works emerge from the background. Amongst them is a picture of Walker's son imprinted on a stop and search form he received. The personalisation of a faceless and fairly grim targeted police method works as a very focused protest against what the artist sees as the steroetyping of young black males by Britain's police force. Also there is a video installation of a series of interviews with rastas, female rastas, young folk, old folk surrounding by newspaper cuttings regarding notorious acts of black violence, in particular the killings of Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis in Birmingham on New Years Eve a few years ago. If this is a protest at the media portrayal of young black men then the creator could probably have chosen a better subject than the coverage four men who machine gunned two innocent young girls to death for no good reason.
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Dollar, Gerard Hanson, image courtesy of New Art Exchange
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Next, Gerard Hanson's work takes shots of young, good-looking people and outlines them with colours and so forth. Somewhat commercial but at the same time undoubtedly intriguing and pleasing on the eye, giving each portrait a kinetic sense of youth and beauty.
Vanley Burke's pictures combine celebration and exploration with tragedy. As with Cooper the pictures work through time, from the energised, politicised 70s generation, pictured marching, protesting and socialising with a message and a destination, compared with the 21st century and a seemingly continuous spiral of shootings, police intrusion and funerals. With so much information to be seen in each picture, the viewer is suddenly knocked back by a very simple close picture of a drop of blood on a street, which lies within a series of photographs of a police scene and subsequent funeral of a young man shot in Birmingham.
As always with the Art Exchange, there is a little gem hidden upstairs in the Mezzanine gallery, in this case Tahera Aziz's [re]locate. In a dark room dotted with lasers, hidden speakers play an audio loop of a radio 4-esque reconstruction of the lead up, execution and aftermath of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. To sit down and listen quietly for ten minutes or so is an unsettling experience one way or the other and certainly worth the stair climb. On the wall outside the room is an inscription from Benjamin Zephaniah's poem 'What the Death of Stephen Lawrence has Taught Us' printed in full on sheets of paper for the audience to take away along with their impressions of the exhibit.
'Never take the tedious task of waiting for a bus for granted'
Indeed. In what is labeled as an increasingly multicultural age, in an increasingly multicultural city, 'the Meaning of Style' is a worthy, if not somewhat hit and miss attempt to provide a window into the continuing struggle of black young men for identity, meaning and purpose in the world they encounter. The show works best when showing the realities behind the headlines, in Burke's low-key pictures in particular. When the viewer finds out the tragic link between the of a young boy on a bike in the 70s and the shooting in Birmingham, the message of the exhibit can be seen in it's fullest scope and the question can finally be asked; "What has all of really this taught us?"
The Meaning of Style continues at the New Art Exchange until Saturday 10th April 2010.
Opening times: Monday to Friday 10am - 7pm and Saturday 10am - 5pm. Admission: FREE
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