[Many thanks to Annie Paul for bringing this item to our attention.] Apollo Journal interviews artist Hew Locke; learn excerpts beneath. [‘Hew Locke: The Procession’ is at Tate Britain, London, until 22 January 2023. ‘In the Black Fantastic’ is at the Hayward Gallery, London, until 18 September 2022.]
The sculptures of Hew Locke flip the symbols of state energy – from coats of arms to naval vessels, public statues and royal portraits – into instruments for analyzing the methods by which societies the world over have usual their identities, usually beneath the shadow of colonialism. Born in Edinburgh in 1950, Locke spent his adolescence in Guyana (his father was the celebrated Guyanese artist Donald Locke), earlier than returning to the UK to finish his Grasp’s on the Royal School of Artwork, London. Main public commissions embrace ‘The Jurors’, put in in Runnymede in 2015 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta; a large-scale retrospective toured from Ikon Gallery in Birmingham to 2 museums in america in 2019. At current, Locke’s fee for Tate Britain, ‘The Procession’ – an enormous carnivalesque group of greater than 100 figures, kitted out in vivid costumes that incorporate every little thing from pictures of the Benin bronzes to William Blake’s ugly depiction of a hanged slave – is on view on the gallery (till 22 January 2023); his work additionally options as a part of ‘Within the Black Implausible’ , a bunch exhibition on the Hayward Gallery, London, curated by Ekow Eshun (till 18 September).
[. . .] Do you retain relics from previous initiatives within the studio – maquettes or fashions?
No, as soon as a mission is finished, then it’s all saved some other place. My studio is dotted with small mannequin boats – however they’re all nonetheless ready to change into boat sculptures.
What’s the strangest object that you just maintain in your studio?
One object I maintain that’s notably odd is a penny issued for the colony of Barbados, I feel within the 18th century. It’s a gorgeous factor. On one facet there may be a picture of a pineapple and on the opposite facet a picture of a black man in profile – clearly, at the moment, a slave. He’s carrying the three-feathered crown of the Prince of Wales. Beneath him are written the phrases ‘I serve’ in English, which interprets again into the [German] motto of the Prince of Wales. So it’s form of a joke – planters having fun on the expense of the slaves who’re serving them. An fascinating, however very disagreeable object on the similar time.
Have you ever included this into any of your works?
Sure. Very often the imagery seems as plaques on boats. And it seems within the Hayward present, in a bunch of items known as the Ambassadors. 4 Black, equestrian figures, lower than half life dimension, and on the again of certainly one of their jackets is fastened a replica of the Barbados slave penny.
[. . .] Do you hearken to music when you’re working?
Generally – however once I’m on my own it’s audiobooks that mainly maintain me going, that soothe my thoughts. In the meanwhile, I’m listening to a sequence known as the Shadows of Males by Abir Mukherjee – I discover it fairly problematic and messy on the subject of the British Raj in India, but it surely’s fascinating. I’m continuously analysing who the viewers for these books is and what it’s that I’m being bought. [. . .]
For full interview, see https://www.apollo-magazine.com/in-the-studio-with-hew-locke/
[Photo of Hew Locke by Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy Acme Archive. Photo above by Anna Arca © Hew Locke 2022: “Ambassador 1” (2021), Hew Locke]