The volume of problematic artifacts Locke uncovered in the British Museum’s archives illustrates the fundamental importance of objective historical research.

In "what have we here?," the Guyanese-British artist turns his probing eye toward the museum's own collection and the story it tells.

In "what have we here?," the Guyanese-British artist turns his probing eye toward the museum's own collection and the story it tells.

The artist’s pairing of unfamiliar African, Asian and South American objects with his own sculptures reveals dark and complex stories.

Let’s be clear: “alternative facts” are not a thing. But when it comes to alternative histories, which are British-Guyanese artist Hew Locke’s stock in trade, the words make a lot more sense.

This exhibition at the British Museum doesn’t so much prick the conscience as pummel it — we see the British Empire at its worst, but there’s no case for the defense.

No object is just an object: everything is a symbol. And in Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke’s excellent exhibition of items from the British Museum’s endless archives and stores, every object is a symbol of power, dominance and exploitation.

While Locke is unflinchingly curious about objects from the collection that evidence Britain’s colonial and imperial past, his personable and reflective commentary make this a maverick and often moving take on questions that have recently become all too polarised and entrenched.

After his triumphant Tate installation, The Procession, the artist is preparing a radical exhibition tackling Britain’s imperial past. He talks about why we must return plundered artefacts and rethink attitudes to heritage.

In a show full of beauty and horror, which even includes ‘Jamaica’s Elgin Marbles’, the artist places his own works alongside those plundered by Britain from long-destroyed peoples.

Sitting inside a grand office at the British Museum, with a bright green scarf draped over his slim black suit, Hew Locke, the 64-year-old British artist, is casting his mind back to the first time he visited its collection.

A major new exhibition by the renowned Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke to open at the British Museum in October.

The memorial is planned to be unveiled in east London in summer 2026.

“As well as the past, this memorial also needs to be about the present and the future – and children signify the future."

Whether in Aspen or Arkansas, there’s a bevy of bold new shows to inspire this summer's travel plans.

“The Procession,” a 140-mannequin mob made by the artist Hew Locke in 2022 for the Tate Britain, explodes with color and life.

140 life-size figures make up “The Procession,” British artist Hew Locke’s sprawling, carnival-esque installation commissioned by the Tate Britain in 2022.

In 2018, Locke embellished a photograph of the Columbus statue in New York’s Central Park, bedecking the explorer in pearls and gold filagree.

Meet the artists using traditional materials to weave a modern narrative.

On a mission to right imperial wrongs, “Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change” knotted together more than a hundred historical and contemporary works to explore “art and its role in shaping narratives of empire.”

After decades of visiting the British Museum, Locke presents overlooked objects and under-explored histories.

‘Entangled Pasts, 1768–now’ and the exhibition history the RA hopes to be part of

Winter is usually a sleepy season for museums across the world. Fall exhibitions remain on view with the hope of luring visitors during the cold months while curators typically prep big retrospectives for the spring. But that will not entirely be the case this time around.

British artist Hew Locke, whose past work has engaged with controversial public statues, weighed in on the new guidelines.

A selection of leading British and British-based artists have begun work on artworks reflecting on the Coronation.

Your list of must-see, fun, insightful, and very New York art events this month, including Hew Locke, Saif Azzuz, Miyoko Ito, Shona McAndrew, and more.

I got another visceral feeling looking at light streaming into British sculptor Hew Locke’s “Jumbie House 2,” a model of an abandoned plantation house featuring staggering detail and precarious engineering.

This year, we’re going big with a list of memorable shows from around the world, seen and loved by our editors and contributors.

To look back on the past 12 months in art-making, below is a survey of some of the most important artworks made or presented in a new light in 2022.

From experiential, multi-site projects to performance-based interventions, these works not only challenge expectations of what public art can look like, but also reflect and confront the legacy of historical injustices.

Locke’s stunning, sensuous spectacle of pattern and color, just like the grand tradition of Caribbean carnivals, hints at sinister elements that undergird the whole endeavor.

As a result of decades of conversation and scholarship, a wave of new public sculptures reflect and honor Black Britons.

His piece is deliberately ambiguous, leaving it open to many different interpretations, all of them intriguing. The overall effect is spectacular.

From Deana Lawson's depictions of urban life to intricate sculptures by Henry Taylor, there's a plethora of work from Black artists to see this season

Out front, “Gilt,” four sculptures by Hew Locke commissioned for The Met’s historic facade, is on display.

For a hit of culture, head to these fabulous exhibitions across the capital

The commission's title, Gilt, puns on the motivation for art world scrambling to account for centuries of pillaging.

The Guyanese-British artist’s commission for the museum was created in a tense dialogue with collection objects that are connected to conquest.

The British-Guyanese artist is the third sculptor to take on the Met's Facade Commission.

Over the entrance to the Met are medallion portraits of white, male art heroes. Enter Hew Locke with a timely and pointed message about “Gilt” (or “Guilt”).

The suite of sculptures is inspired by works in the museum’s collection with convoluted histories

Highlights include grand retrospectives of Alex Katz and Wolfgang Tillmans, a titanic assembly of van Gogh and a celebration of the pioneering Just Above Midtown gallery.

We surveyed museums from New York to Detroit to Los Angeles to get a sense of where equity initiatives stand.

Themed exhibitions exploring the Great Migration and showcasing works by young fashion photographers and metal workers in Memphis are amond the noteworthy shows featuring Black artists that opened in museums this spring and summer. 

The factual and fantastical collide, as a Black woman wearing an ebony helmet mask turns her head to gaze at the viewer even as she strides to our left.

In the Hayward Gallery exhibition “In the Black Fantastic,” Nick Cave’s powerful, newly commissioned installation takes center stage. The piece, entitled Chain Reaction, features hundreds of black cast-plaster arms—shaped from the artist’s own—joined together like chains. The hands grip each other as though trying to lift one another up. The installation touches on one of the show’s major themes: the legacy of slavery and colonialism.

The curator of “In the Black Fantastic” at London’s Hayward Gallery describes it as a “feel-good show about death,” which also looks beyond Afrofuturism.

The Commonwealth Games has kickstarted an explosion of culture in England’s second city, with loads to look at and listen to, as well as eat and drink

From the moment of its inception, the genre has been concerned with the promise and peril of breaking from modernity

In the Black Fantastic is a magical, fantastical exhibition featuring 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora; Nick Cave, Sedrick Chisom, Ellen Gallagher, Hew Locke, Wangechi Mutu, Rashaad Newsome, Chris Ofili, Tabita Rezaire, Cauleen Smith, Lina Iris Viktor and Kara Walker. 

The artist, who has wrapped a statue of Victoria in a wooden ship in Birmingham, prefers a retain and explain approach

Guyanese British artist Hew Locke is at a pivotal moment in his thirty-plus year career as a fine artist. 

The sculptures of Hew Locke turn the symbols of state power – from coats of arms to naval vessels, public statues and royal portraits – into tools for examining the ways in which societies the world over have fashioned their identities, often under the shadow of colonialism.