Review relating to an exhibition, 1986
Published by: Financial Times
Year published: 1986
Number of pages: 1

“There is rather a dearth of fun in this exhibition”

Deanna Petherbridge CBE was responsible for one of the major pieces of press coverge of From Two Worlds. Bold Conflict of Images From Two Worlds, exhibition review, The Financial Times, Thursday 7th August 1986, p. 21. This is an original clipping.

A substantial review, Petherbridge’s feature was indicative of the ways in which the mainstream press was beginning to take a sporadic interest in the work of Black artists, via exhibitions such as From Two Worlds. The exhibition represented the first time that Black artists were represented in a dedicated exhibition at a high-profile London gallery. The review was accompanied by a large reproduction of a work from the exhibition, by Keith Piper. This was a considered review that not only commented directly on much of the work in the exhibition, but also offered a sympathetic framing of what Petherbridge perceived as the conflicted and constrained position of Black artists. Like other critics, who perhaps should know better, at least one of the artists’ names was spelled incorrectly. Rasheed Araeen appeared as Rashid Araeen.

Petherbridge began, “What is impressive about the exhibition From Two Worlds - despite its cool presentation in the Whitechapel Art Gallery, that aptly named and icy temple of the art establishment - is that this is art with a real subject matter, social relevance and a determination to communicate. The urgency, the edginess arises out of the very real difficulties which each artist has to face in a society whose notions of “Britishness” still does not incorporate those with dark skins, however many generations have lived in the country.”

Later in the review, Petherbridge opined that, “In exhibitions of black or non-European artists working  in Britain, criticisms have been made of inadequate use of cultural models: what is not observed is that perhaps the standard and restricted models of mainstream Western art are not adequate for the passion, the newness, or the discord of the message.”