Back to Black - Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary The 1960s
and 70s was a period of dramatic transformation among black
communities across the world, one that pushed the successes of
the civil rights movement beyond a utopian colour blindness and
straight into the heart of an emphatic racial consciousness.
Back to Black - Art, Cinema and the Racial Imaginary presents a
major survey of the Black Arts Movement in the US, Jamaica and
Britain in the 1960s and 70s. Tracing its cultural impact in
painting, sculpture, photography and drawing, it also focuses on
the fashion, music and film that emerged over two decades.
Symbols such as the raised fist, Afro and dreadlock hairstyles,
African and Caribbean inspired clothing, media images of the
inhabitants of the ghetto, and icons such as Angela Davis,
Mohammed Ali and Bob Marley all infiltrated the art and popular
culture of the period. Artists such as Ernie Barnes, Vanley
Burke and Peter Simon were fascinated with inner city ghettos
from Los Angeles to Kingston to