In Social Works II, only one of the curated artists, Rick Lowe, is represented by Gagosian, if I’m not mistaken. That’s even less than in New York, where Titus Kaphar and Theaster Gates were both represented. You’ve really been given carte blanche to transform Grosvenor’s Hill. I’m curious about the spatial notion of exhibiting these works at a recognised institution like Gagosian, and geographically in Mayfair.
Both shows were responsive to the literal space that they were presented in, which was one gallery in Chelsea, New York and one gallery in Mayfair, London. I also think both shows respond to the national context in which they are being shown. Social Works I presented American artists primarily thinking about America, like David Adjaye literally using New York subsoil – limestone was what made up his sculpture.
This show being in London, the British capital, thinks about how we’ve come to have the histories that have produced an African diaspora. Britain plays a large, problematic, and violent role in producing that identity. But from that, there has been an unbelievable production of community and identity that have come out of those circumstances of colonialism and imperialism. Keeping those histories very much at the forefront of my mind, I wanted to create a show that was international in scope, across the African diaspora. You have all of these dual identities from a lot of the artists, and having it presented here in London really contends with the histories that have produced what we now have come to call the African diaspora.
Witnessing this evolution from Social Works I in New York and travelling to Social Works II in London, how have you drawn on the unique history of each city? For example, the Harlem Renaissance or the British colonialism that we’ve just talked about. How do you utilise this geographical history within time and space?
I mean, that’s how the artists are utilising it, right? You have David Adjaye’s Asaase II sculpture that contemplates the passage of time. Isaac Julien’s film Lessons of the Hour examines the voyage of Frederick Douglass from America to Scotland, and highlights his famous speeches on photography that really resonate today. There’s a play with not only material, but also with the way that we’re thinking about figures throughout history and how they still reverberate today. Lubaina Himid’s work, a study for A Fashionable Marriage from the 1980s, brings up some of the very issues that we’re still talking about, which tell us that these concerns or questions, and the way that artists organise themselves into communities, isn’t new. It’s about the sweep of histories and making sure that whenever I do an exhibition, I’m always thinking about the present and the way that the past orders the present.