If You Know the Beginning the End is No Trouble
Liz Johnson Arthur
South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, SE5 8UH
14 JUNE – 1 SEPTEMBER 2019
Free
Liz Johnson Arthur was born in Bulgaria in 1964 and has a rich Russian-Ghanian heritage. Despite being exhibited internationally, this is her first solo show in the UK. Taking photographs across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean, Arthur calls her ongoing project the Black Balloon Archive. This particular exhibition, however, focuses on London, where Arthur has lived since 1991, and captures the richness of Black British life.
As you enter the room in Peckham’s South London Gallery, you are immediately greeted by some large floor-based triangular sculptures. Attached to these are some prints on fabric – portraits of black British women on top of material which alludes to typical African dress worn by some of the subjects in images at the rear of the room. The structures and frames are made from bamboo and are a constant throughout the exhibition – giving the images a new lease of levels, life and perspective.
Arthur’s claims “What I do is people”, as seen through this exhibition which consists exclusively of portraiture. Her depictions of black British life are intimate and revealing. The characters, from beautiful twenty somethings, to children, to old men, are all depicted with such transparency and familiarity that you feel as though you may have met them before. I had too many favourites to count, the ones included in this post being memorable for their highly-saturated colours, their on-the-go street photography nature, and their diversity.
Arthur works exclusively on film, a fact instantly obvious by the homegrown and often grainy nature of her images. This suits the subject matter and message of the exhibition perfectly, alluding to a nostalgia of the past and a personal element of Arthur to her subjects and to the viewer. The differing sizes of images and variety of materials they are presented on (fabric, tracing paper, cardboard, bamboo) again allude to the diversity of the subjects and hammer home the message once more.
Overall, a really personal, intimate and meaningful exhibition with some absolutely stunning yet modest work of portraiture. Give it a go next time you find yourself in South East to remind yourself of the culturally rich city we are lucky to inhabit.
OVERALL RATING: ****
