Highlights

Meet the Collection Artists

Browse all collection artists

Art in the collection

Discover Black art and artists
More art makes

Listen

Art Terms

Find definitions of over 400 terms, including art movements, styles and techniques

Diaspora AfriCOBRA The black aesthetic PESTS Postcolonial art Spiral British black arts movement Activist art Black arts movement Identity politics Afrapix Collective Afrofuturism The Blk Art Group
See more Art Terms
Donald Rodney, ‘In the House of My Father’ 1996–7

Diaspora

Diaspora is a term used to describe movements in population from one country to another and is often cited in discussions about identity

AfriCOBRA

AfriCOBRA was a Chicago-based group of black artists whose shared aim was to develop their own aesthetic in the visual arts in order to empower black communities

The black aesthetic

The black aesthetic is a cultural ideology that developed in America alongside the civil rights movement in the 1960s and promoted black separatism in the arts
Guerrilla Girls, ‘Hidden Agender/Passing The Bucks’ 1986

PESTS

PESTS was an anonymous protest and pressure group of artists operating in New York in the 1980s who aimed to expose the discrimination, exclusion and tokenism directed towards artists from racial minorities by commercial galleries and public museums
Cildo Meireles, ‘Insertions into Ideological Circuits 2: Banknote Project’ 1970

Postcolonial art

Postcolonial art refers to art produced in response to the aftermath of colonial rule, frequently addressing issues of national and cultural identity, race and ethnicity

Spiral

Spiral was a New York based African American collective formed in 1963 with the aim of addressing how African American artists should respond to America’s changing political and cultural landscape

British black arts movement

The British black arts movement was a radical political art movement founded in 1982 inspired by anti-racist discourse and feminist critique, which sought to highlight issues of race and gender and the politics of representation
Tania Bruguera, ‘Tatlin’s Whisper #5’ 2008

Activist art

Activist art is a term used to describe art that is grounded in the act of ‘doing’ and addresses political or social issues

Black arts movement

The black arts movement was an ideological movement that emerged in the USA in the early 1960s when black artists and intellectuals came together to organise, study and think about what a new black art and black politics movement might be
Sonia Boyce OBE, ‘From Tarzan to Rambo: English Born ‘Native’ Considers her Relationship to the Constructed/Self Image and her Roots in Reconstruction’ 1987

Identity politics

Identity politics is the term used to describe an anti-authoritarian political and cultural movement that gained prominence in the USA and Europe in the mid-1980s, asking questions about identity, repression, inequality and injustice and often focusing on the experience of marginalised groups
Guy Tillim, ‘Protesters calling for a boycott of the elections, central Kinshasa, July 2006’ 2006

Afrapix

Afrapix was a photographers' collective and agency founded in South Africa in 1982 which encouraged its members to use photography as activism

Collective

Loosely defined, an art collective is a group of artists working together to achieve a common objective
Ellen Gallagher, ‘Bird in Hand’ 2006

Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that combines science-fiction, history and fantasy to explore the African-American experience and aims to connect those from the black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry
Donald Rodney, ‘How the West was Won’ 1982

The Blk Art Group

Formed in Wolverhampton, England, in 1979, The Blk Art Group was an association of young black artists who, inspired by the black arts movement, raised questions about what black art was, its identity and what it could become in the future

Dig Deeper

More Art In Depth