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Museum Review: National Portrait Gallery and the display of Stormzy's HITH album artwork

Module: HST6367 Heritage After Empire: Decolonising Public History

By: Saramarie Harvey


In late 2019, my attention was drawn to the National Portrait Gallery when tweets circulated that a photograph of Black British grime artist Stormzy was being exhibited.[1] At a time where incessant austerity under a Conservative government is on full display in marginalised communities, I hoped the gallery would frame Stormzy’s image whilst conscientiously capturing the contemporary moment. This was superseded by its removal, two months after its temporary showing. Instead, Queen Elizabeth I’s portrait was on map covers and entrance banners, alongside the ostensibly welcoming ‘Come in. Meet the locals’. An upper-class monarch from a distant era is far from local: unlike Stormzy, Queen Elizabeth reflects neither my identity nor the multicultural cityscape in which the gallery is situated, having supported slavery and threatened to exile Black people from England.[2] Positioning Queen Elizabeth as the face of the gallery, the curators continue to elevate the Eurocentric historical narrative. This review interrogates other approaches to hierarchy in the National Portrait Gallery’s limited Black portraits. It will discuss linear timeline constructions and text panels coinciding with Black and white hierarchical figure relations in Thomas Jones Barker’s ‘The Secret of England’s Greatness’ (‘The Secret’), and Stormzy’s critique of the present-day hierarchical structure in the ‘Heavy is the Head’ (‘HITH’) album cover, taken by Mark Mattock.

According to John Berger, ‘[an image’s] uniqueness is part of […] the single place where it is. Everything around [the image] confirms and consolidates its meaning’.[3] A permanent sighting in the National Portrait Gallery, ‘The Secret of England’s Greatness’’s meaning remains uniquely within that institution. The canvas oil painting falls in line with the imperial style of the gallery’s interior and exterior architecture, and sequentially follows oil paintings from earlier periods. The National Portrait Gallery’s floor plan acts as a linear timeline, which is compulsory for visitors’ feet to chronologically adhere to. This establishes a forced way of seeing exhibition rooms as though progressing through time. Twenty-three rooms into the exhibition and almost four hundred years after the gallery timeline’s inception, ‘Empire and Expansion’, where ‘The Secret’ is located, represents a marker of rationality and development. This problematic, linear approach – and the permanence of the ‘Empire and Expansion’ artefacts – is perpetually used as justification for the colonisation of the Other. The timeline rejects notions of cyclical time (which would allow visitors to choose exhibits rather than following a straight path) and micronarratives, which Dipesh Chakrabarty notes are ‘exclusions [that] are ultimately epistemological’.[4] The Other is prohibited from narrating their histories in grandiose institutions, or from providing candid captions accompanying Black images. The gallery curators’ propagation of the Western timeline ideology through tangible gallery blueprints reflects their persistent belief of a grand narrative controlled by the West.

The stringent guidelines running through narrow corridors and boxed rooms prevent the visitors from investigating this parochial perspective. The enclosed space occupied by ‘The Secret’ and the onlooking visitor allows present-day hierarchies in galleries – its authoritative, supremacist grandeur informed by colonial fundamentalisms at the gallery’s core – to be maintained. For ‘The Secret’ to permanently take up space by reaching across the gallery walls ‘connotes’, asserts Margaret Lindauer, ‘a cultural hierarchy […] encased in a quintessentially Euro-American architectural structure’.[5] The portrait’s breadth, in conjunction with the neo-classical building depicting ideas of rationality and civilisation, enacts a colonial space, literally enlarging the idea that history is a single narrative monopolised by the West.

Travelling through linear time searching for the ‘Heavy is the Head’ artwork proved futile because of its absence, but also because its anachronistic placement, when displayed, broke gallery convention. Regarded by gallery director Nicholas Cullinan as ‘a contemporary intervention within our historic galleries’, the brief transformation of room twenty-two into a ‘juxtaposition […] with historic paintings of influential figures from the Victorian era’ is made to appear radical.[6] That ‘HITH’ is a modern photograph in a minimalist, black frame contrasts the Victorian paintings in ornate frames and marble busts that line the Statesman’s Gallery and imitate classical ideals. Bathed in warm, ambient lighting, ‘HITH’’s lack of thematic link constructs incongruous, yet visually pleasing differences which illuminate Stormzy’s portrait and captivate visitors. Unlike the presentation of ‘The Secret’ amongst artefacts of its time, Stormzy’s portrait demonstrates what Achille Mbembe would confirm as ‘not a series but an interlocking of presents, pasts, and futures’.[7] Stormzy’s positionality contends with the linearly mapped timeline and endeavours to subvert the draconian organisation of objects in order of oldest to newest. Its placement and presence contest the idea of galleries acting as age-old heritage sites which exclusively honour antiquity.

The aesthetics of the display, however, are superficial: beyond the exciting spatial experience for the ‘ideal’ gallery visitor to consume without consideration, the juxtaposing colonial aspects beneath the surface are unsettling. Placed in a colonial era, the image of a prominent Black figure who uses his platform to condemn the perseverance of racial fundamentalisms undermines Cullinan’s attempts to ‘[intervene]’ and disrupt the orderly nature of consecutive time. This, alongside ‘HITH’’s removal just two months after its instalment, reflects Margaret Lindauer’s concern of artefacts being ‘constrained to follow a standard institutional approach’.[8] Challenges to dominant gallery perceptions are subdued via temporality; for a limited time, Stormzy’s portrait alone appears to ‘diversify’ the entire collection. Once it became unavailable for viewing, the potential for Stormzy’s photo to threaten chronological categorisation began to dwindle. The National Portrait Gallery’s attempts to appear radical are simply to tick an ‘inclusivity’ box and view decolonisation – and Stormzy’s critiques – as a metaphorical quandary. Hegemonic power is maintained by the gallery, whilst curators briefly pretend to act as agents of institutional change by parading Stormzy’s photograph.

The textual framings of the portraits contain political nuances which turn revealed or withheld information into structural powerplay. Where the gallery maintains jurisdiction and lays claim to neutrality and reliability as an authoritative source, its white curators simultaneously devalue visitors’ opinions and undermine the Black narrative. ‘The Secret’ text panel attempts to leave the colonial past as pictorial memory instead of considering its detrimental effect on the racialised Other in the present-day. Whilst raising the painting’s representation of the African envoy as ‘submissive to white masters’ as recurring intellection, fortified by ‘the Victorian belief in the superiority of British civilisation’, the panel evades direct denouncement of colonialism. This emphasises the gallery’s attempts to distance itself from the oil painting – whilst enjoying it as a staple artefact – to avoid being recognised as a product of imperial conquests. The Victorian sentiment that (white) British civilisation is superior is not restricted to that era alone and is crucial to the gallery’s survival as a supreme institution in the present. The National Portrait Gallery refuses to admit this. Shaheen Kasmani defines ‘decoloniality’ as ‘[decentring] the Eurocentric view and [valuing] the narrative that’s been Othered‘.[9] The gallery does not use the textual space to recognise the disruption colonialism wrought on the valuable, historical narratives of the Other. It disassociates itself from the gallery visitor and does not encourage debate. This makes it difficult to respond critically or construct an independent viewpoint that ‘decentres’ and could jeopardise the gallery’s ideological and architectural structure.

The text panel offers a contextual summary without exploring the repercussions of the colonial project on the Other. The Bible is mentioned when discussing its conspicuous, intertextual centring in the painting, engravement in the frame, and in wider, Western civilisation. The panel does not scrutinise the Bible’s role as an oppressive, colonial tool. Its manipulation of language feigns informativity, but reinforces the power structure by concentrating on the ‘grand narrative’. Frantz Fanon affirms that ‘Mastery of language affords remarkable power’.[10] Similar to missionaries using the Bible as a pretext to control the colonised, the curators would master the language of the text panel to manipulate gallery visitors learning about the colonial narrative. Unequal exchanges – prioritising ‘presenting’ the Bible to the envoy over showing off Queen Victoria’s ‘diamonds and her jewels’, and the looting of African objects – are in dialogue with one another, but the panels never bring this dialogue to the fore. This precipitates an unequal exchange between the curator and visitor. Arguably, the curator does not go into enough detail on England’s violation of Africa because they want to maintain a Eurocentric historical focus.

The curation of textual inequalities also recurs in contemporary portraits. The written companion to Stormzy’s photograph presents as a biographical description praising the grime artist for his musical catalogue and activism. In actuality, it is a cursory explanation which does not critically engage with Stormzy’s work. The curator glosses over the relationship between Stormzy and the stab-proof vest – besides attributing its customisation to Banksy (which elevates the photograph’s artistic value) and its exhibition at Stormzy’s visually and spatially captivating Glastonbury 2019 headline set.[11] It does not admit that Stormzy holds or wears the divisive stab-proof vest as armour against the surge in knife crime and the disproportionate criminalisation and incarceration of Black men under the broken justice system.[12] The vest visually underlines socio-political tensions between the Conservative government and the systemically oppressed. The curator rebuffs displaying these contexts in the text panel because the gallery and the government operate under the same structurally oppressive umbrella. Although galleries strive to be seen as apolitical, their imperial foundation suggests that portrait placement and textual accompaniments are politically driven. Whereas Stormzy’s critiques would undermine the gallery’s authority, expose the endurance of colonial fundamentalism, and evoke the system’s unravelling, his critical and artistically creative Glastonbury set did not conceal its politics. Stormzy’s Glastonbury performance became an alternative exhibition space about the UK’s political climate, which invited discussion online. Meanwhile, the gallery decontextualized ‘HITH’’s significance, preventing the advancement of Stormzy’s commentaries. Not offering thought-provoking questions about Stormzy or the contemporary political climate in the text panel dissuades visitors from interrogating the oppressive structure.

The National Portrait Gallery’s denial of contemporary contexts reduces Stormzy’s photograph to a simple diversity ‘tick-box’ under the curator’s informational control. This contrast Stormzy’s efforts to break into spaces omitting Black histories and perspectives, which consequently exclude Black visitors. Timothy Mitchell argues that ‘The experience of the world as a picture set up before a subject is linked to the unusual conception of the world as an enframed totality’.[13] The gallery captures and frames specific aspects of Stormzy’s career under the pretence of ‘progressive’ politics, whilst erasing portions of his history and his arguments against the discrimination which elevates the very gallery he was inducted into. The gallery capitalises on his platform without acknowledging the politics of Blackness, of tensions between grime and the racist institutions it criticises. Whilst off display, however, Stormzy’s image prevails in social media posts documenting his recent gallery feature. Berger claims that ‘The meaning of a painting no longer resides in its unique painted surface’.[14] Social media, then, can be used as a digital space which transcends the rigid Eurocentric narrative of the stationary art institution. Stormzy’s denouncement of systemic racism is compromised by the National Portrait Gallery’s temporary autonomy over captioning his image – but online posts have sparked engaging conversations with people too far from London or without the funds to travel for institutional access.

In June 2020, the National Portrait Gallery is set to close for three years. Despite this, upon reopening, its narrow-minded, chronological approach to history will remain the same.[15] Despite passively noting that even notable, Black figures were depicted as inferior in imperial portraits, and setting up Stormzy’s portrait as a rebellion pulling a grime artist from the margins to the centre against Eurocentric chronology, the gallery is not determined to deconstruct its straight-lined passage through time to advocate for decolonisation. Engaging with alternative archival spaces – live performances and online threads – will allow room for open dialogue without ownership of artefacts skewering conversations. This approach could imperil the gallery structure, potentially mobilising art curators to construct decolonisation projects berating colonial pasts.


 

Footnotes


[1] DJ Silent Sam, ‘A black man from the ends…’, Twitter (@SilentSamDJ, 5 December 2019).

[2] ‘Draft proclamation on the expulsion of “Negroes and Blackamoors”, 1601’, British Library <https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/draft-proclamation-on-the-expulsion-of-negroes-and-blackamoors-1601> [accessed 2 March 2020].

[3] ‘John Berger/Ways of Seeing, Episode 1 (1972)’, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk&t=8s> [accessed 2 March 2020].

[4] Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Minority Histories, Subaltern Pasts’, in Provincializing Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 97-113 (p. 98).

[5] Margaret Lindauer, ‘The Critical Museum Viewer’, in New Museum Theory and Practice: An Introduction, ed. by Janet Marstine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 203-225 (p. 207). [6] Alice Broster, ‘A Photograph Of Stormzy Has Just Been Hung In The National Portrait Gallery’, Bustle (December 2019) <https://www.bustle.com/p/a-photograph-of-stormzy-has-just-been-hung-in-the-national-portrait-gallery-19427458> [accessed 1 March 2020]. [7] Achille Mbembe, ‘Time on the Move’, in On the Postcolony (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), pp. 1-23.

[8] Lindauer, p. 217.

[9] ‘Film: How Can You Decolonise Museums?’, MuseumNext (February 2019) <https://www.museumnext.com/article/decolonising-museums/> [accessed 2 March 2020].

[10] Frantz Fanon, ‘The Negro and Language‘, in Black Skin, White Masks, trans. by Charles Markmann (London: Pluto Press, 1986), pp. 17-40 (p. 18).

[11] ‘Stormzy’, National Portrait Gallery <https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2019/stormzy> [accessed 1 March 2020].

[12] David Lammy, ‘@stormzy using his headline spot…’, Twitter (@DavidLammy, 28 June 2019).

[13] Timothy Mitchell, ‘The World as Exhibition’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31 (1989), 217-236 (p. 227).

[14] ‘Berger’.

[15] ‘Inspiring People: Transforming Our National Portrait Gallery’, National Portrait Gallery <https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/news2/inspiring-people> [accessed 2 March 2020].

 

Bibliography

Broster, Alice, ‘A Photograph Of Stormzy Has Just Been Hung In The National Portrait Gallery’, Bustle (December 2019) <https://www.bustle.com/p/a-photograph-of-stormzy-has-just-been-hung-in-the-national-portrait-gallery-19427458>

Chakrabarty, Dipesh, ‘Minority Histories, Subaltern Pasts’, in Provincializing Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)

‘Draft proclamation on the expulsion of “Negroes and Blackamoors”, 1601’, British Library <https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/draft-proclamation-on-the-expulsion-of-negroes-and-blackamoors-1601>

Fanon, Frantz, ‘The Negro and Language‘, in Black Skin, White Masks, trans. by Charles Markmann (London: Pluto Press, 1986)

‘Film: How Can You Decolonise Museums?’, MuseumNext (February 2019) <https://www.museumnext.com/article/decolonising-museums/>

‘Inspiring People: Transforming Our National Portrait Gallery’, National Portrait Gallery <https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/news2/inspiring-people>

‘John Berger/Ways of Seeing, Episode 1 (1972)’, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk&t=8s>

Lammy, David, ‘@stormzy using his headline spot…’, Twitter (@DavidLammy, 28 June 2019)

Lindauer, Margaret, ‘The Critical Museum Viewer’, in New Museum Theory and Practice: An Introduction, ed. by Janet Marstine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006)

Mbembe, Achille, ‘Time on the Move’, in On the Postcolony (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001)

Mitchell, Timothy, ‘The World as Exhibition’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31 (1989)

Silent Sam, DJ, ‘A black man from the ends…’, Twitter (@SilentSamDJ, 5 December 2019)

‘Stormzy’, National Portrait Gallery <https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2019/stormzy>

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