Transforming the Crown

Group show at Studio Museum in Harlem, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Caribbean Cultural Center. 1997 - 1998
Date: 14 October, 1997 until 15 March, 1998
Curator: Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd
Organiser: Caribbean Cultural Center

Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966 - 1996 was an exhibition presented by The Caribbean Cultural Center, New York. The exhibition was shown across three venues: October 14, 1997 - March 15 1998, The Studio Museum in Harlem; October 15, 1997 - March 15, 1998, The Bronx Museum of the Arts; October 16, 1997 - March 15, 1998, Picturing England: The Photographic Narratives of Vanley Burke, a component of Transforming the Crown, The Caribbean Cultural Center. All venues were in New York or the Bronx.

Catalogue produced in 1997. Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, who was at the time Curator and Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center curated the exhibition. Transforming the Crown was an ambitious exhibition and though there were several notable and conspicuous omissions, it was nevertheless a comprehensive undertaking. It brought together a large number of artists, all of whom had connections to the UK, either by birth, or by residence, either permanent or temporary. It featured work by Faisal Abdu’Allah, Said Adrus, Ajamu, Henrietta Atooma Alele, Hassan Aliyu, Marcia Bennett, Zarina Bhimji, Sutapa Biswas, Sylbert Bolton, Sonia Boyce, Winston Branch, Vanley Burke, Chila Kumari Burman, Sokari Douglas Camp, Anthony Daley, Allan deSouza, Godfried Donkor, Nina Edge, Uzo Egonu, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Denzil Forrester, Armet Francis, Joy Gregory, Sunil Gupta, Lubaina Himid, Bhajan Hunjan, Meena Jafarey, Gavin Jantjes, Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede, Claudette Elaine Johnson, Mumtaz Karimjee, Rita Keegan, Fowokan George Kelly, Roshini Kempadoo, Juginder Lamba, Errol Lloyd, Jeni McKenzie, Althea McNish, David Medalla, Shaheen Merali, Bill Ming, Ronald Moody, Olu Oguibe, Eugene Palmer, Tony Phillips, Keith Piper, Ingrid Pollard, Franklyn Rodgers, Veronica Ryan, Lesley Sanderson, Folake Shoga, Yinka Shonibare, Gurminder Sikand, Maud Sulter, Danijah Tafari, Geraldine Walsh, and Aubrey Williams. Donald Rodney was included in the catalogue, but his work was not in the exhibition itself.

The exhibition’s catalogue is extensively illustrated throughout. Contents as follows: Contributors [M. Franklin Sirmans (catalogue essay editor), Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, Eddie Chambers, Okwui Enwezor, Kobena Mercer, Gilane Tawadros, Anne Walmsley, Deborah Willis, Judith Wilson (catalogue essayists); Catalogue and Exhibition Credits; President’s Foreword (Dr. Marta Moreno Vega); Acknowledgments (Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd); Introduction (Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd). Followed by eight essays: London Bridge: Late 20th Century British Art and the Routes of ‘National Culture’ (Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd); The Caribbean Artists Movement (Anne Walmsley); Bodies of Diaspora, Vessels of Desire: The Erotic and the Aesthetic (Kobena Mercer); Running With the Hare and Hunting With the Hounds (Gilane Tawadros); Talking Back: Black Women’s Visual Liberation Through Photography (Deborah Willis); Surfing the “Black” Diasporic Web: Postcolonial British Art and the Decolonization of U.S. Visual Culture (Judith Wilson); The Emergence of the Black British Artist (Eddie Chambers). The final essay is A Question of Place: Revisions, Reassessments, Diaspora (Okwui Enwezor). There then follows the following sections: Exhibition Color Plates, Artist Biographies, Chronology, Exhibition Checklist, Bibliography and Photo Credits.

The exhibition secured a significant amount of press coverage, both within the US and also within the UK.

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Catalogue relating to an exhibition, 1997