I am unimpressed by the treatment the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has given Uncomfortable Truths, the museum's response to this year's bicentenary of the abolition of the UK slave trade.
It's not the essence of the project that I object to. In fact, inviting 11 international artists to interpret trade, enslavement, memory and survival is an interesting and refreshing take on the 2007 theme. What I have an issue with is how the museum has decided to display them.
Instead of a gallery space where visitors can view the creative talents of African artists such as Tapfuma Gutsa's outstanding granite sculpture and Anissa-Jane's erotic take on the ankle, the installations have been spread about the galleries - and worse, in stairwells or corridors. Rumour has it that the Kylie Minogue exhibition took the space previously earmarked for Uncomfortable Truths - a move that, if true, reveals where the V&A's values lie.
It is all the more galling given that African art has historically been unwelcome at the V&A. Devoid of an African department or gallery space, the museum's acquisitions policy excluded the collection of African material south of the Sahara. Reason being, says the museum, that these African objects were seen in the 19th century as ethnography, rather than art, so only European and Asian (and, of course, Egyptian objects) were actively hoarded.
Some African objects did slip through on 'technical merit' or from bequests. There are also 12 items of Asante court regalia from the British invasion of Kumasi, Ghana, in 1874, bought by the museum at a London crown-jeweller's auction.
Visitors can see some of these in the sister strand of Uncomfortable Truths - a trail running through the galleries - which is another missed opportunity. It takes a crash course in orientation of the rabbit warren that is the V&A to find the objects spread out on different floors and across galleries. I had terrible trouble finding many of the rooms and cases.
Although there is a comprehensive free trail guide, there are no signposts to the Uncomfortable Truths exhibition or trail anywhere in the museum, and the object labels give nothing away of the links with trade, art and design. It's more of a hunt than a trail - not too smart if wooing non-traditional audiences is one of the aims.
In 2000 an inventory of the African material held by the V&A was made. The result was the discovery of 3,600 related objects. A third of these come from Africa. The majority of objects show European views of Africa and Africans. But only a handful are on show (many in the British Galleries). There is also a sizeable holding of ancient material, mainly Egyptian, dating back to the 5th century AD.
A project backed by the Heritage Lottery Fund is researching these items. It is being carried out by Helen Mears, the African diaspora research fellow at the museum. Her post is funded for three years, ending in June 2008.
Mears says that once the objects are catalogued, curators will be keener to put them on show. But why should it be left up to individual curators to make such a decision? Shouldn't there be a museum-wide effort to reveal these previously forgotten pieces to the public, especially as the research and cataloguing exercise is part of the V&A's Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership project, which is mainly concerned with unveiling the hidden histories within its collections?
I would like to see a permanent space provided to showcase the objects that it already has. Additionally, the V&A could form a partnership with a Stateside or African gallery that has more relevant items and bring them to this country on a long-term loan.
It is not enough for the V&A to excuse itself from doing this just because London visitors have access to such material at the British Museum (BM) and the Horniman. If I am at the V&A, I want to see representations of Africa at that venue, just as Europe and Asia are presented at both the V&A and the BM.
And let's not make the mistake of thinking that showing these objects on their own or supplemented by loan material would just give African British visitors a reason to go. The point is to show Europeans the past and present artistic achievements of Africans - something that has been suppressed for too long.
The museum's 19th-century colonial legacy cannot be undone, but is it right to continue it today? And why not go a step further. The museum could explain why its collecting policy has been this way in this new African space. Surely honesty hasn't gone out of fashion.
There are indications that a short-term loan of African art by African artists could be coming to the V&A for the redeveloped medieval and renaissance galleries to open in 2009, but this is unconfirmed by the museum.
What is clear is that material objectifying the African will be displayed. It will be an opportunity missed if artworks by Africans, both ancient and contemporary, are prohibited from telling their own story.
Uncomfortable Truths runs until 17 June, but level two displays will be closed from 23 April to 4 June.
It's not the essence of the project that I object to. In fact, inviting 11 international artists to interpret trade, enslavement, memory and survival is an interesting and refreshing take on the 2007 theme. What I have an issue with is how the museum has decided to display them.
Instead of a gallery space where visitors can view the creative talents of African artists such as Tapfuma Gutsa's outstanding granite sculpture and Anissa-Jane's erotic take on the ankle, the installations have been spread about the galleries - and worse, in stairwells or corridors. Rumour has it that the Kylie Minogue exhibition took the space previously earmarked for Uncomfortable Truths - a move that, if true, reveals where the V&A's values lie.
It is all the more galling given that African art has historically been unwelcome at the V&A. Devoid of an African department or gallery space, the museum's acquisitions policy excluded the collection of African material south of the Sahara. Reason being, says the museum, that these African objects were seen in the 19th century as ethnography, rather than art, so only European and Asian (and, of course, Egyptian objects) were actively hoarded.
Some African objects did slip through on 'technical merit' or from bequests. There are also 12 items of Asante court regalia from the British invasion of Kumasi, Ghana, in 1874, bought by the museum at a London crown-jeweller's auction.
Visitors can see some of these in the sister strand of Uncomfortable Truths - a trail running through the galleries - which is another missed opportunity. It takes a crash course in orientation of the rabbit warren that is the V&A to find the objects spread out on different floors and across galleries. I had terrible trouble finding many of the rooms and cases.
Although there is a comprehensive free trail guide, there are no signposts to the Uncomfortable Truths exhibition or trail anywhere in the museum, and the object labels give nothing away of the links with trade, art and design. It's more of a hunt than a trail - not too smart if wooing non-traditional audiences is one of the aims.
In 2000 an inventory of the African material held by the V&A was made. The result was the discovery of 3,600 related objects. A third of these come from Africa. The majority of objects show European views of Africa and Africans. But only a handful are on show (many in the British Galleries). There is also a sizeable holding of ancient material, mainly Egyptian, dating back to the 5th century AD.
A project backed by the Heritage Lottery Fund is researching these items. It is being carried out by Helen Mears, the African diaspora research fellow at the museum. Her post is funded for three years, ending in June 2008.
Mears says that once the objects are catalogued, curators will be keener to put them on show. But why should it be left up to individual curators to make such a decision? Shouldn't there be a museum-wide effort to reveal these previously forgotten pieces to the public, especially as the research and cataloguing exercise is part of the V&A's Capacity Building and Cultural Ownership project, which is mainly concerned with unveiling the hidden histories within its collections?
I would like to see a permanent space provided to showcase the objects that it already has. Additionally, the V&A could form a partnership with a Stateside or African gallery that has more relevant items and bring them to this country on a long-term loan.
It is not enough for the V&A to excuse itself from doing this just because London visitors have access to such material at the British Museum (BM) and the Horniman. If I am at the V&A, I want to see representations of Africa at that venue, just as Europe and Asia are presented at both the V&A and the BM.
And let's not make the mistake of thinking that showing these objects on their own or supplemented by loan material would just give African British visitors a reason to go. The point is to show Europeans the past and present artistic achievements of Africans - something that has been suppressed for too long.
The museum's 19th-century colonial legacy cannot be undone, but is it right to continue it today? And why not go a step further. The museum could explain why its collecting policy has been this way in this new African space. Surely honesty hasn't gone out of fashion.
There are indications that a short-term loan of African art by African artists could be coming to the V&A for the redeveloped medieval and renaissance galleries to open in 2009, but this is unconfirmed by the museum.
What is clear is that material objectifying the African will be displayed. It will be an opportunity missed if artworks by Africans, both ancient and contemporary, are prohibited from telling their own story.
Uncomfortable Truths runs until 17 June, but level two displays will be closed from 23 April to 4 June.
