LONDON — It is one thing to commission surveys into an art institution’s links to colonialism or slavery. Repatriation and recognition of cultural objects obtained by nefarious means remain urgent issues. But what to do with the resultant findings? Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke has spent two years poring through the British Museum’s archives (insert joke about ongoing problem re mass theft of said archives) to present what have we here?, a display of items relating to trafficking, slavery, and colonialism across the Americas, Africa, and India, and Locke’s responses to them.
Artistically, Locke adapts existing archive material, such as attaching insignia of imperial conflicts, medals, skulls, and tropical foliage to antique busts of Princess Alexandra, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert, in a commentary on colonializing figures smothered by their own spoils (2023–24). Alongside the artworks, and indeed every archival and artistic item, are little yellow cards bearing written observations from Locke himself. For the above example, he writes, “Queen Victoria may have been a figurehead, but she was the head of an empire. And she supported a lot of things that happened under her watch, she’s not innocent.”
Locke’s introductory video, and soundbites of his voice piped into the room from hanging microphones, state his intention to use these fraught items to inspire debate: “let’s have a conversation where we face things properly” and “you make up your own mind,” he says. However, the notion of debate is hindered somewhat by Locke applying his yellow-card interpretation to every artifact, almost as if visitors are being followed around by someone asserting what they think at each turn. Though text and visuals are both subjective, the visual format is most conducive to debate.
This becomes problematic when the sheer volume of historic artifacts outweighs Locke’s artistic responses (his introductory video states that he has enough material for 15 exhibitions). He displays a Charter granted to the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa (1663) loaned from the British Library, issued by Charles II, formalizing England’s involvement in transatlantic human trafficking. There is no artistic response, but a yellow card notes, “It’s interesting that this charter doesn’t crop up much in popular history. Which history is more important? Is it that this monarch was a Catholic or a Protestant? Or that this monarch kick-started something truly horrendous?” Nothing about Locke’s observation here opens to debate or to making up your own mind about the content; what is most powerful is his objective historian’s choice of discovering and presenting it.
Perhaps if Locke had limited his survey to a more focused geographical or historical subject there would be greater scope for visual artistic interpretation, and indeed, debate. Yet the volume of artifacts he uncovered by rummaging in the archives — and the suggestion of 15 exhibitions’ worth more — illustrates the fundamental importance of objective historical research, for in a way these shocking pieces speak for themselves.
Hew Locke: what have we here? continues at the British Museum (Great Russell Street, London, England) through February 9, 2025. The exhibition was created by the artist and the British Museum with the assistance of Indra Khanna.