Introducing Artology
It is not possible to be Everything, Everywhere, All at once! One of my new year’s resolutions was to take a step back from social media. This silence prompted several of my subscribers to check in - “Was I ok?” “Had I stopped creating art?” I was touched that they wanted to reach out to me but saddened to think if I stopped posting on social media, people would think I had stopped creating. In fact, the opposite was true. By stepping back from social media, I had given myself the gift of time and space to be more creative, make more art and invest in creating high quality content I truly believe in.
Over the last few years, I have published a number of academic papers and written articles for Tate Etc, Dorling Kindersley and the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and I just LOVE to write. I am therefore delighted to welcome you to the first edition of Artology. Artology is a new publication launching today on Substack, where I will discuss the themes that are central to my artistic practice - art, technology and ecology. The content will be varied because my practice is varied. I want to be able to write and create in an organic way that responds to my life and what is happening around me.
I hope you enjoy the first edition titled ‘Rethinking Art History’ and is about the importance of championing other stories in art and life. One of the great things about writing on Substack is you can like and comment on the posts. I would love to hear from you - let me know what you think of the first edition.
Image: Portrait of me in the studio, image by Claudia Agati and portrait of me for the shemza.digital project, image by Matthew Kaltenborn.
Rethinking Art History
After graduating from Middlesex University in 2012 I took on the role of Director of the Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza, who is my grandfather. Keith Piper, the esteemed artist and founding member of the Blk Art Group was one of my lecturers at Middlesex but unfortunately while at university I didn’t realise his significance. It was only after working with the Estate for a few years, that I learnt about the role race played in British art history and began to understand what a pivotal role the Blk Art Group had on shaping British Art. I also began to understand more about my own heritage as a third generation British/Pakistani when I started the process of digitising my grandfather’s archive.
Image: Shemza Digital: Across Generations exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Image by Matthew Kaltenborn.
Recently I gave a talk to Middlesex University students about my latest project shemza.digital, which combines my digital art practice with the work of my grandfather in order to extend his legacy for current and future generations. Keith Piper was at the talk and suddenly realised I was the granddaughter of the artist whose work illustrated the front cover of The Other Story. The Blk Art Group’s critique of institutional racism had led to the creation of the exhibition1 and Keith’s own work was exhibited alongside my grandfather’s. Held in 1989 at the Hayward Gallery The Other Story was a seminal exhibition curated by Rasheed Araeen which “is celebrated as a landmark initiative for reflecting on the colonial legacy of Britain and for establishing the work of overlooked artists of African, Caribbean, and Asian ancestry”.2 It’s funny sometimes how there are moments of clarity like this where the past and future are laid out before you and suddenly everything seems to make a bit more sense.
Image: The Other Story, installation shot, 1989. Courtesy Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza Archive.
In the last ten years there has been a rethinking of the place of migrant artists within British art history. Artists who came over to the UK in the 50s & 60s such as Frank Bowling, Avinash Chandra, Uzo Egonu, Donald Locke, David Medalla, Ahmed Parvez, Francis Newton Souza, Aubrey Williams and Li Yuan-chia3 are being given the recognition they deserve.
My grandfather Anwar Jalal Shemza (1928–1985) is one of these artists. He was a British/Pakistani painter who came over to London in 1956 to study at Slade school of Fine Art. Prior to his arrival he had achieved widespread recognition in Pakistan for his lyrical figurative works which drew inspiration from Mughal and Hindu themes.
Image: Victor Musgrove, Anwar Jalal Shemza and George Butcher at Gallery One, 1961. Courtesy Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza Archive.
When he arrived in London, Shemza’s Pakistani artistic achievements were not recognised. He was so disheartened by one of Ernst Gombrich’s lectures in which the historian dismissed all Islamic art as purely functional that he subsequently destroyed all his work and began an exploration of the modernist abstraction of Klee, Mondrian and Kandinsky. Later he would combine the simplified language of these artists with Islamic architecture and calligraphy to create his own unique style, for which he is well known today.
Anwar has now received widespread recognition for his work since his death with works in selected public collections including Tate (UK), Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), Metropolitan Museum, (USA), Guggenheim (Abu Dhabi), British Museum (UK) and M+ Museum (Hong Kong).
Image: Anwar Jalal Shemza, One to Nine and One to Seven, 1962. Courtesy and copyright Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza.
We find ourselves in a period of reflection where the old colonial attitudes which once dominated the art world are being challenged and art history is being rethought. This is reflected in key exhibitions held at major institutions globally such as, Migrations, Tate Britain, 2012, Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-65, Barbican, 2022 and the radical Post-War: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-65, Haus der Kunst, 2016-2017 - all of which the Estate loaned works too. The latter was curated by the late Okwui Enwezor and sought to ‘reframe the origins of the post-war global order’.4 It was one of the first times that so called ‘migrant’ artists were exhibited alongside more familiar household names in this ground-breaking show.
These changes in historical discourse make it possible for further conversations to take place. In 2018, BBC4’s Whoever Heard of a Black Artist: Britains Hidden Art History5 featured the prolific artist and activist Sonia Boyce in conversation with Brenda Emmanus in the lead up to a new exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery, which highlighted remarkable artists of African and Asian descent. Speech Acts: Reflection, Imagination, Repetition curated by the formidable Hammad Nasar, a pioneer in this field (British Art Show 2021-23, Turner Prize 2021) and Sonia considered how public museums reflect and shape our collective imagination and examined how exhibitions can affect these shared narratives.6 In this exhibition my grandfather’s work War Sonnet was placed next to a work by Bridget Riley - a hang that considered the content of his work rather than the colour of his skin.
I met Sonia recently at an event surrounding the tour of her Venice Biennale show at Turner Contemporary in Margate. I explained who I was, and Sonia leapt up to give me a hug, a completely unexpected act of warmth that I was so grateful for. It was an honour to meet her as I really admire her work. Sonia was the British Pavilion Artist for the Venice Biennale in 2022 with her award winning Feeling Her Way installation featuring videos of five black female musicians.7
Image: Post-War: Art Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-65, Haus der Kunst, 2016-2017, installation shot, Courtesy Haus Der Kunst from the Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza archives.
And this is the perfect moment to move from one Venice Biennale show to the current edition. This year for the first time in Venice Biennale history a curator from the global south8 Adriano Pedrosa, the artistic Director of Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), was invited to curate the main exhibition. Foreigners Everywhere gives a platform to artists who have never before been exhibited at the Bienniale and who have been “long overlooked by the mainstream artworld markets”.9
“Foreigners everywhere, the expression has many meanings,’’ Pedrosa said. “One could say that wherever you go, wherever you are, you are always surrounded by foreigners. … And then in a more personal, perhaps psychoanalytic subjective dimension, wherever you go, you are also a foreigner, deep down inside.”10
The exhibition features a phenomenal work of my grandfather’s, Composition in red, green and yellow ochre, 1963 and is on until 24th November 2024.
It is my hope that through the celebrating and championing of other stories in art and life, we can move forwards to a more unified future. I would love to hear what you think in the comments section. »
Image: Anwar Jalal Shemza, Composition in red, green and yellow ochre, 1963. Courtesy and copyright Estate of Anwar Jalal Shemza.
Sinclaire, Leah. The BLK Art Group: how the West Midlands collective inspired the art world. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-blk-art-group-how-the-west-midlands-collective-inspired-the-art-world
Afterall. The Other Story: Afro-Asian Artists in Post-War Britain. https://www.afterall.org/the-other-story-1989/
Dadi, I. (2016). Anwar Jalal Shemza. Riding House, London, UK.
Bader, G. (2016). Post war: Art between the Pacific and the Atlantic: 1945-1965. https://www.artforum.com/print/201607/postwar-art-between-the-pacific-and-the-atlantic-1945-1965-62995
Kohmani, Naomi (2023). Sonia Boyce’s Venice Biennale winner to be exhibited in UK next year. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/26/sonia-boyces-venice-biennale-winner-to-be-exhibited-in-uk-next-year
Luke, Ben (2024). World view: Adriano Pedrosa, the curator of the 2024 Venice Biennale, discusses his show ‘Foreigners Everywhere’. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/04/05/world-view-adriano-pedrosa-the-curator-of-the-2024-venice-biennale-discusses-his-show-foreigners-everywhere
Bellamy, Daniel. (2024). Venice Biennale titled 'Foreigners Everywhere' gives voice to outsiders. https://www.euronews.com/2024/04/20/venice-biennale-titled-foreigners-everywhere-gives-voice-to-outsiders
Bellamy, Daniel. (2024). Venice Biennale titled 'Foreigners Everywhere' gives voice to outsiders. https://www.euronews.com/2024/04/20/venice-biennale-titled-foreigners-everywhere-gives-voice-to-outsiders
It is my hope that through the celebrating and championing of other stories in art and life, we can move forwards to a more unified future. I would love to hear what you think in the comments section. »