No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990

Group show at Guildhall Art Gallery. 2015 - 2016
Date: 10 July, 2015 until 24 January, 2016
Curator: Makeda Coaston, Katherine Pearce et al.
Organiser: Friends of the Huntley Archives at LMA

No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990 was a sizeable exhibition and archive project, the centrepiece of which was a six-month exhibition that took place at Guildhall Art Gallery, London, 10 July 2015 – 24 January 2016. The visual art component of the exhibition featured work by Frank Bowling, Sonia Boyce, Winston Branch, Chila Kumari Burman, Eddie Chambers, Paul Dash, Sokari Douglas Camp, Uzo Egonu, Denzil Forrester, George Fowokan Kelly, Lubaina Himid, Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede, Claudette Johnson, Tam Joseph, Kofi Kayiga, Errol Lloyd, John Lyons, Ronald Moody, Keith Piper, and Aubrey Williams. The exhibition was broad in its historical scope (1960 – 1990) and range of artists whose work was represented. The exhibition aligned itself to, and had a pronounced interplay with, not only the struggles of immigrant communities in Britain, particularly during the 1960s to 1980s, but also some of the manifestations of these struggles, such as the Black bookshop, and Black British publishing initiatives.

No Colour Bar also commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Huntley Archives at the LMA, managed by the Friends of the Huntley Archives at London Metropolitan Archives (FHALMA). The exhibition took its impetus from the life works of activists and publishers Eric and Jessica Huntley and the Bogle L’Ouverture Press, a publishing house as well as a pioneering Black bookshop and cultural hub that they founded in 1969.

A significant numer of the works in the exhibition were drawn from collections such as the Government Art Collection, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, Museums Sheffield, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston, Victoria and Albert Museum, Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre.

Subsequent iterations of the exhibition were seen at Cubitt Art Gallery, 10 March - 12 April 2016; Hackney Museum, 7 October 2016 - 21 January 2017; Black Cultural Archives 13 October 2016 - 24 January 2017. From the section “Beyond the Galery: On Tour”, page 89 of the No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990 catalogue: “Following the end of the full-scale exhibition at Guildhall Art Gallery, the show went on a short tour from March 2016 at three partner venues: Cubitt Art Gallery, Hackney Museum and the Black Cultural Archives. Reimagined by curators, Michael McMillan and Gary Stewart, elements from No Colour Bar were repurposed as a pop-up exhibition, a digital Walter Rodney Bookshop installation and an installation of framed Bogle-L’Ouverture Publication book covers.

The exhibition was curated by Makeda Coaston, Independent Curator; Katherine Pearce, Curator, Guildhall Art Gallery; Michael McMillan, Installation Curator; and Gary Stewart, Dubmorphology, Digital Installation Curator.

»  No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990 catalogue

Catalogue relating to an exhibition, 2018