Keith Piper

This series of blogs have been written to coincide with the Coming Home: William Wilberforce exhibition. On display at the Ferens Art Gallery, the exhibition sees the return of the famously unfinished portrait of William Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence, loaned from the National Portrait Gallery. This is part of a nationwide project by the National Portrait Gallery to return works of famous Britons to the places that they are most closely associated with. The blog series will highlight some of the key stories in the exhibition, which also includes art work and objects from the collections of the Ferens Art Gallery and Wilberforce House Museum.

Keith Piper

By Stephanie Edwards, Exhibitions Assistant

Keith Piper is an artist, researcher, critic, curator and academician.

As an artist, Piper’s practise has developed with multiple mediums over the past 40 years. He has been shown extensively across the globe, including in Hull. His creative response examines the representation of race, historical relationships and geographical sites.

Born in Malta in 1960, Piper was raised in Birmingham and is a member of the generation whose parents were part of the first wave of migration from the Caribbean. The early years of Piper’s adult life saw a broadening of political views and a rebellion from his conservative religious upbringing. At the time in the late 1970s, society was marked by the declining industrial manufacturing industry in Birmingham, the Notting Hill Riots and Margaret Thatcher’s notorious ‘swamping speech’ of 1978.

Piper’s time at university was filled with listening to radicalised Reggae music and reading the writings of Black American political figures. Along with similar minded artists, Piper founded the Wolverhampton Young Black Artists Group, which later became the BLK Art Group.

Although the BLK Art Group would only run for a few years, a movement emerged which gained the support of other influential artists: Rasheed Araeen, Joseph Olubu, Gavin Jantijes, Eddie Chambers and Marlene Smith. It also included those who later received recognition from the mainstream contemporary arts with Chris Ofili winning the Turner Prize in 1998, Steve McQueen in 1999 and Lubaina Himid in 2017.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Piper’s practice continued to develop. His work moved from painting, collage and print, towards more experimental film and media. He expanded into using projected film, audio, photographic technologies and sculpture. Using the low cost Amiga computer system, Piper characterised his practice with montages of film and sound.

In 2000, Piper made a career change to devote part of his time to academia. He took on a professorship at the Carnegie Mellon University is the USA and later moved to universities in the UK. He took a Readership in Fine Art and Digital Media at Middlesex University, where he continues to teach today.

Given Piper’s ongoing legacy exploring the representation of race and his interest in geographic placement, it seemed a fortuitous relationship to be involved with Hull Museums’ contribution towards the Bicentenary Commemorations of the abolition of the British Slave Trade in 2007. The Abolitionists Parlour was the piece commissioned by the Ferens Art Gallery as part of the commemorations.  The montaged images in the film show the interiors of Wilberforce House Museum during redevelopment.

The film shows the intimate interior images against grand exterior architectural images; both connected to the accumulated wealth of the slave trade. The melodic and steady beating soundtrack echoes around the gallery. Overlaid on video are a series of typed captions which tell the contrasting stories of the British abolitionists, and the simultaneous happenings of slave plantain life. It highlights the stark reality of the slave trade, and the enormous disparity in wealth and privilege.

What is remarkable about this film is that it has the ability to grasp the viewer and embark on a journey of revelation. The only person seen is the hand of a Black man writing in ink. Yet, the stories that the unseen narrator writes, prompts the viewer into a conversation to ask more questions: how had the slave trade continued? Who are these people? Why?

To view Keith Piper’s ‘The Abolitionist’s Parlour’, and explore more of Wilberforce’s legacy in Hull, visit ‘Coming Home: William Wilberforce’ on display at Ferens Art Gallery until 19^th January 2020.