African Photography Encounters

Six must-see summer exhibitions – reviewed by our experts

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Thursday, August 3, 2023
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Looking for something to do this Summer? Our experts have gone to some of the best exhibitions around the UK and given us their take on it. From retrospectives of painter Peter Howson’s work in Edinburgh and filmmaker Brian Desmond Hurst’s work in Belfast to a groundbreaking photography exhibition in London and a huge inflatable sculpture installation in Manchester. 1. When The Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65 – Edinburgh City Arts Centre, Edinburgh Peter Howson’s story is about seeking dignity in human suffering and violence, and finding redemption.

Key Points: 


Looking for something to do this Summer? Our experts have gone to some of the best exhibitions around the UK and given us their take on it. From retrospectives of painter Peter Howson’s work in Edinburgh and filmmaker Brian Desmond Hurst’s work in Belfast to a groundbreaking photography exhibition in London and a huge inflatable sculpture installation in Manchester.

1. When The Apple Ripens: Peter Howson at 65 – Edinburgh City Arts Centre, Edinburgh

    • Peter Howson’s story is about seeking dignity in human suffering and violence, and finding redemption.
    • It is also uniquely Scottish.
    • An unmistakably Scottish feature of Howson’s work is the undertone of Calvinism with its god-fearing, joyless culture of toil and penitence.

2. Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris – Pallant House Gallery, Chichester

    • She didn’t create loud, macho work, nor sexy, objectified nudes, nor abstract forms, like many male modernists.
    • She was fiercely herself, making small, intimate, idiosyncratic paintings that share a definite style and palette over the course of her career.
    • It valiantly takes on the task of proclaiming her importance in the history of modern art.

3. A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography – Tate Modern, London

    • Simultaneously, it stands as a long-awaited affirmation of African photographers, validating their unique use of the medium.
    • The 36 featured photographers tell stories of an Africa that celebrates its spirituality and is untangling itself from its colonial past.
    • By working with masks, mirrors, self-portraiture or consenting sitters, the featured artists all circumnavigate the historic and often still-present exploitative relationship between the camera and the African continent.

4. Film as Art: Brian Desmond Hurst, Film Director – Ulster Museum, Belfast

    • This exhibition at the Ulster Museum presents the story of film director Brian Desmond Hurst’s eventful life and times through archive film posters, production stills, photographs, letters and a video compilation of clips from some of his work.
    • Born in the heart of working-class East Belfast in 1895, Hurst’s long life – like his film œuvre – was a bundle of surprises and contradictions.

5. Dippy in Coventry: The Nation’s Favourite Dinosaur – Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry

    • Billed as the “dinosaur in residence”, Dippy the famous sauropod from the Natural History Museum is on long loan to the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry.
    • This is the 26-metre skeleton of one of the longest dinosaurs ever – the marvel of the Jurassic.
    • What you see is a perfect, life-sized plaster cast of the original skeleton, which is in the Pittsburgh Natural History Museum.

6. Yayoi Kusama: You, me and the Balloons – The Warehouse at Aviva Studios, Manchester

    • The installations provide various levels of engagement, from playful interactions to deeper contemplation of meaning.
    • Kusama’s universe is magic to observe, in the first room visitors are confronted by inflatable tentacles that fill the room with their impressive size.
    • The large mirrored wall also creates distorted reflections, blurring the lines between reality and Kusama’s dream world.

A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography – Tate Modern show celebrates new generation of artists, but misses a trick

Retrieved on: 
Friday, July 14, 2023
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Twenty-seven years later, Tate Modern is introducing a British audience to the next generation of African photographers.

Key Points: 
  • Twenty-seven years later, Tate Modern is introducing a British audience to the next generation of African photographers.
  • With such a long gap, there are high expectations for A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography.
  • Simultaneously, it stands as a long-awaited affirmation of African photographers, validating their unique use of the medium.
  • At the same time, the artist herself is claiming her space in the exhibition as one of only 12 women featured.

Dialogue and consent

    • a group of masked women drag golden water canisters through the busy streets of Lagos, Nigeria.
    • It provokes dialogue where performance art is not widely understood or appreciated.
    • Ogunji, born in Nigeria, received her BA from Stanford University and an MFA from San Jose State University in the US.
    • They are part of the global art scene that sees African art as a growing investment opportunity.
    • What struck me most about the exhibition was the consent implicitly and explicitly expressed in all the works by collaborating with the sitters and avoiding works created through covert observations.