In conversation with award-winning British artist Sonia Boyce, as she navigates through Black British history and its relationship to the present day
Sonia Boyce at Apalazzo Gallery
After her exhibition at the Venice Biennale, where the work Feeling Her Way won the British Pavilion the Golden Lion award, Sonia Boyce continues her research and work on the presentation and celebration of the black body and its complex relationship between history and modern-day in British society and institutions. In November 2022, Boyce presented new works at the Sixteenth century northern Italian exhibition space, Apalazzo Gallery.
Located in Brescia, out of the central artistic hub of Milan, Apalazzo Gallery prides itself on its openness to adapting the space to the works proposed by artists. Working together since 2014, Apalazzo Gallery presents Sonia Boyce’s latest video and wallpaper installations in a solo show titled The Disorderly, running until the end of January 2023. «Pattern tries to create and maintain order but actually the elements in the installations, such as the half-eaten apples in reference to Adam and Eve, refer to the disorderly which I am trying to bring into order».
Boyce’s work – Wallpaper as an art medium
A characteristic of Boyce’s work, she often incorporates wallpaper, a form of the domestic aesthetic, as part of the presentation of an artwork, the work itself, or together as an installation. Apalazzo Gallery boasts frescoes from the Sixteenth century, creating a strong contrast with the repetitive patterns and bold colors of the wallpapers made by Boyce herself.
«I have been working with wallpapers since I was a student, which was in the 1980s. Wallpapers have been in and out of my work for many years, it’s only recently that I started to make my own and develop them as an integral part of the work. When I was invited by Apalazzo Gallery to do a show, there was no way I couldn’t think of the building itself, and its own ornamentation, something that spoke to the building. The wallpaper will hopefully speak to the space».
Shaggy Bear Wallpaper and Crop Over
The Shaggy Bear Wallpaper (2021), which dominates the wall as the spectator enters, accompanies the two-screen video installation Crop Over (2007). Filmed in both North England and Barbados, the video investigates the connections created between the two locations through the history of slavery and economic profit.
«I visited Harewood House, in Leeds, which is a grand stately home, with acres and acres of land. The whole village surrounding the estate are people who work on the estate. The Harewoods were the biggest plantation slavery owners in the Caribbean, they owned fifty percent of the plantations in the English-speaking Caribbean. They are cousins of the Royal Family, which goes quite deep in English society. A few years ago, they wanted to revisit the family history of owning slaves, and how they developed an enormous amount of wealth from slavery. They asked me to come and work on a project. The film starts in England and later goes to Barbados, where my mother was from. Crop Over is a non-religious carnival; a celebration of when the last of the sugar cane is cut. A carnival built around plantation cycle life; a bittersweet feeling».
Shaggy Bear is one of several characters that come to life during carnival on the Caribbean island, a costume that is said to represent an African witch doctor figure.
Ain’t Misbehavin and Hylas and the Nymphs
The second video installation presented is Ain’t Misbehavin (2022), a performance that was originally filmed in 2018 at Manchester Art Gallery, however, it has been reworked and is now presented as a new piece and to be reflected upon accordingly. Again the two screens are surrounded by a reflective, silver wallpaper with the protagonist of the piece, Lasana Shabazz, printed multiple times, fitting to the ceiling covered in frescoes of cherubs and soft clouds.
The performance was one of six, where one in particular garnered a lot of media attention, when the painting Hylas and the Nymphs (1896) by English artist John William Waterhouse was taken down, instead left with an empty space for the public to leave their opinion. An act that was considered controversial, promoting censorship in cultural institutions, however, the takedown of the painting was part of a year-long discussion surrounding the museum’s curatorial narrative, the relationship with the public, and its responsibility in a post #MeToo world.
«There were five other performances that took place that night, the story that became part of the news was that the painting had been taken down by staff members, but people refused to talk about anything else. In Ain’t Misbehavin, Lasana coerces the public to sing Camptown Races along with him, a children’s nursery song, which is a racist song from the Nineteenth century. He knew that the public would know the song so it became awkward. You can feel the tension. I left the room but he managed to coerce members of the public to join in. They know the tune and the words, it has been sung to children for so many years».
Drag and Shakespeare in Sofia Boyce’s work
Ain’t Misbehavin peels back several layers of interpretation, probing into modern-day racism, questions surrounding gender and even bringing Shakespeare into the mix. Boyce grants full freedom to her performers, often completely unaware of what will unfold in front of her and the public’s eyes.
«I never direct any of the performances that I present. I was invited to take part in the gallery takeover program, where an artist comes to respond to the permanent display. The interpretation and curatorial teams took me around the gallery and we stood in front of one painting called Othello, The Moor of Venice (1826), the painting was originally called ‘The Moor’ which means ‘The Black’. This was the very first work that started the Manchester Art Gallery collection. Over the years, the curatorial staff has carried out research to find that it is in fact a portrait of a famous Shakespearean actor called Ira Aldridge, so when Lasana is quoting from Shakespeare he is referencing Othello.
Moreover, he is also saying, I am more than just a Moor, I am more than just a Black body. He keeps repeating that throughout his performance. Lasana did his own research. He makes reference not only to that painting but also to Shakespeare and the whole question of drag, which is a Shakespearean term, Dressed Resembling A Girl. Drag can cause cultural anxiety because it is blurring the boundaries between what gender assignment might be».
Social Practice and Sophie Calle
Boyce’s work came to prominence on the British art scene in the early 1980s, at first as part of the group Young Black Artists. At the age of only 23, Tate bought her painting Missionary Position II (1985) for their collection, making Boyce one of the youngest artists to be bought and supported by such an established art institution. Over the years, Boyce has removed herself from the frame, concentrating on the expansive art of social practice. The artist brings together people, both professionals and the public, to see how they interact, react and adapt to each other.
«I stopped wanting to be the central figure of the work, I call them the wilderness years in my late 20s when I was figuring out how I could change my practice. At the time I was teaching at Goldsmith’s, we talked a lot about social practice, prompted by Sophie Calle. That question of bringing others into the work somehow. It took a long time for it to come into my work and become something tactile. It has grown since the mid-90s, in the last thirty years, and gathering pace. Most of my work involves working with other people. That process of inviting others in and deliberately not directing them».
Manchester Art Gallery
Following the backlash after the performance at Manchester Art Gallery, neither Boyce nor the museum staff were mentally prepared or equipped to handle the public’s reaction, neither in real life, in the media nor online. «There was a lot of social media which prior I hadn’t properly encountered. I started getting bombarded with emails. I was shocked by the vitriol and the anger, the commentary went on for ages. The curatorial staff even received death threats».
A nerve had been touched. Boyce had already been working with and understanding the museum’s collection through the takeover program, yet the shift happened post-performance. The discourse turned to which paintings were hung on the walls and which were kept in the basement and not on display.
«At that point, only two percent of works on display were by women artists, and so immediately they started to change the curatorial narrative and get works that were in storage on display. They did kick into action. Thinking about who is being represented, how they are represented, and to whom. There is the assumption with an institution of that length of time, has a permanent collection, therefore meaning that those works are meant to be on the wall, they have earned their place as if they haven’t been chosen by someone and also been chosen to stay on the wall».
Sixt Acts and the digital realm communication
In the time after the performance of Six Acts (2018), Boyce was made swiftly aware of how her work of social practice also breaches another social level, beyond reality; the digital sphere.
Questions arise of who is listening and «in what ways are people communicating? I realized that my understanding of the way I go about doing things is very much Twentieth century and not Twentyfirst. A lot of my work involves people, it’s a social practice, but I had never thought about the space of the digital realm, including social media. In recent years, we have come to realize what a powerful force it is.
We rely on it, communities build around it, and it has galloped at a pace to which I don’t feel that I have been able to catch up with it. That sense of what I thought was a social realm has shifted into a parallel universe almost. We behave in a different way in real life compared to how we live online, the space that is created where people can behave in a way that they wouldn’t if they were face to face».
Sonia Boyce
British Afro-Caribbean visual artist from London, where she currently lives and works. She studied at Stourbridge College of Technology and Art. In 2022, she represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, where her presented work Feeling Her Way (2022) won the Golden Lion award. In 2019, Boyce received an OBE as part of the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List. Boyce also works as a Professor of Black Art and Design at the University of the Arts London.
