Call for Papers
Blk Art Group Research Project
30th Anniversary Conference

Wolverhampton University
Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th October 2012

The conference aims to enable and share scholarship and research into
the ‘Black Art Movement’, it’s core debates, precursors and legacies.
By bringing together artists, curators, historians and scholars we hope
to add to the pool of knowledge surrounding the ‘black art movement’;
to encourage those scholars already active in this field to further
develop and share their work and to uncover work that may have gone
unpublished or remain obscured.

This is a call for papers that contribute to the debate through the
detailed and critical examination of a single work, body of work or
group of works. Whilst the conference aims to focus on the 80s, papers
may include works that were produced prior to the 80s or later as long
as there is a clear rationale for their consideration in this context.
Finished papers should be suitable for a presentation of approximately
20 minutes. We ask that abstracts of up to 300 words and a brief
biography should reach us at blkartgroupresearchprojectgmail.com by
Friday 20th July. The deadline for completed papers is 28th September
2012.

On the 26th October 1982, The Blk Art Group, an association of young
British based visual artists, staged the ‘First National Black Art
Convention’ at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. This event, and in particular
the presentations by Dr Rasheed Araeen and Blk Art Group member
Claudette Johnson, have been consistently referenced over many years
and in several publications as watershed moments in the evolution of
what has come to be described as the ‘Black Art Movement’ in the UK
The Blk Art Group Research Project has been formed to mark the 30th
Anniversary of this Convention. It was launched in February 2012 with a
symposium in response to the retrospective exhibition entitled ‘Blk Art
Group’ at the Graves Gallery Sheffield 27th August 2011 – 24th March
2012.

Following on from the success of that event planning is now underway to
return to Wolverhampton for a weekend of debate, discussion and
exchange re-membering the ‘black art movement’ and the context in which
it emerged and to focus critical (re-) appraisal of the work that was
created.

The conference will take place over two days, conveners will moderate
three panels per day, and the format allows for significant
contributions from delegates. The first two panels will consist of
presentations from artists and scholars contextualising the movement
and re-engaging with the debates and ideas discussed in ’82. The
following four panels will address the work produced.
Contributors confirmed include:

Keynote Speaker - Dr Kobena Mercer
Professor in History of Art and African American Studies Yale
University,
Kobena Mercer writes and teaches on the visual arts of the black
diaspora, examining African American, Caribbean, and Black British
artists in modern and contemporary art. His courses and research
address cross-cultural aesthetics in transnational contexts where
issues of race, sexuality, and identity converge.

Chair - Paul Goodwin
Paul is a theorist, curator and urban researcher. He is Associate
Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban and Community Research,
Goldsmiths College and Curator of Cross Cultural Programmes at Tate
Britain. His current research work engages questions of post-colonial
migration and forms of cross cultural creativity, globalisation and the
production of alternative urban spaces.

Convenor, Panel I - Dr Courtney Martin
This panel looks back to the ideas and arguments that emerged at the
1982 conference
Post Doctorial Research Associate & Lecturer, Vanderbilt University,
USA, Courtney J. Martin’s research on twentieth century British art is
complemented by research and writing on modern and contemporary art and
architecture. Prior to her appointment at Vanderbilt, Professor Martin
was Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art department
at the University of California at Berkeley (2009-2010); a fellow at
the Getty Research Institute (2008-2009); and a Henry Moore Institute
Research Fellow (2007).

Sonia Boyce
Rip it up and start again – a discussion of “The Destruction Of The
National Front” by Eddie Chambers
Sonia Boyce came to prominence in the early 1980s as a key figure in
the burgeoning black British art-scene of that time – becoming one of
the youngest artists of her generation to have her work purchased by
the Tate Gallery, with paintings that spoke about racial identity and
gender in Britain. Since the 1990s Boyce’s practice has taken a more
multi-media and improvisational approach by bringing people together to
speak or sing about the past and the present.

Keith Piper
Pathways to the Eighties – an illustrated paper presenting an historic
and theoretical framing of the 1980s
Visual Artist, Reader in Fine Art and Digital Media and Course leader,
M.A. Fine Art, Middlesex University, Keith Piper was a founding member
of The Blk Art Group (1979-1984) and with Claudette Johnson and Marlene
Smith created the Blk Art Group Research Project. As an artist he
adopts a research driven approach to respond to specific issues,
historical relationships and geographical sites. Over the past 30 years
his work has ranged from painting, through photography and installation
to a use of digital media, video and computer based interactivity.

Dr Rina Arya
Auto-portraits in the work of Chila Burman
Reader in Visual Communication, Wolverhampton University, Rina Arya is
an art theorist who has a background in theology. She is interested in
a number of different subject areas including art, theology and
spirituality, Francis Bacon, Georges Bataille, gender studies,
aesthetics, critical theory, visual communication.