Hew Locke’s Interrogation of Power, Memory, and Identity at the British Museum, by Sabrina Roman
Installation view of ‘what have we here?’ at the British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Who does this belong to? It’s a question that pursues us throughout childhood, adolescence, and the declining years, and there comes a point when it becomes as ubiquitous in creation as it is in the lives of those who create. Perhaps, that is why it fits so appropriately in Hew Locke’s ‘what have we here?’ dialogue at London’s British Museum, Particularly as this exhibition, which presents over 150 objects, concentrates on Britain’s historical interactions alongside Africa, India, the Caribbean and occupies Room 35 of the Great Court Gallery, is partly a commentary of the past, nearly a speculation of the present and entirely a reckoning alongside the future. Although it’s difficult not only to notice the allegorical crime scene tape, especially given the accompanying press release freely admits to the exhibition’s determination to foster “imaginative groupings and juxtapositions of disparate objects, examining histories of empire and its afterlives from a personal perspective.”
For his part, Hew Locke also speaks of “visiting the British Museum’s collections for 40 years” whilst adding, “This project has enabled me to engage with them in a much deeper way than ever before, and in a way few artists have had the privilege of doing. I have always been interested in the way objects are interpreted through display in museums. What story has been chosen and is told or implied about the past? How does it relate to the present? How can this telling be questioned, disrupted or complicated? These are the questions I am tackling through this project.” Mirroring his perspective is the artist’s partner and studio curator, Indra Khanna, who says, “When Hew and I visit a museum, we wander pleasantly, revisiting old favourites and stumbling on new objects. They gather together in your memory, making visual and formal connections. We invite people to come to the show and admire the beauty of the old and contemporary objects. But then, if they want to go deeper into the stories, they can.”
Installation view of ‘what have we here?’ at the British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum
From a presentational opinion, this exhibition, indeed, looks like it has been digested and then disseminated; numerous antiquities sit contained, exposed in glass display cases, left to the uncompromising scrutiny of observers, who are, in turn, encouraged to “examine British imperial power” whilst “considering today’s often contentious and deeply felt debates around cultural heritage.” Locke leaves behind the succinct little notes left to influence their perspectives. In one accompanying the hard-wood spiritual figures which the pre-Columbian Caribbean Taino people crafted before they were spoils of the British Museum, he writes, “these sculptures are Jamaica’s Elgin Marbles… They’ve become symbols of collective memory, an idea of Jamaican nationhood.” Like many interventions in the exhibition, they hint at expiration and continuation, their indigenous creators were largely wiped out, having been either murdered or succumbed to disease after the arrival of the Europeans, but their national pursuit for autonomy persists.
The decision by Locke and lead curator Isabel Seligman to incorporate four individual areas of focus aids in exacerbating this struggle, particularly as one, dubbed Treasure (section four), presents “items seized through military conquest, which were often used in displays of sovereign power and status”. Another, this time named Sovereigns and Icons of Nationhood (section one), promises to navigate” how nations or empires invest power in symbolic images and objects, such as seals, coats of arms, and crowns, often appropriating symbols from other cultures.” Contemporary sculptural creations by Locke were also anticipated to be included in the exhibition, and here that anticipation arrives at its crest through the latter sections incorporation of the artist’s Souvenir series (2018-2024). The series comprises reinterpreted 19th-century commercially-produced Parisian ware busts of figures from the British royal family ornamented with plastic gilding, stitching and jewels, but also “replicas of medals, coins and other souvenirs of imperial conflicts.”
Hew Locke, Souvenir 20 (Queen Victoria), 2024. Mixed media on antique Parian ware bust. Courtesy the Artist. Photo by Anna Arca © Hew Locke
The second section, trade, battles through the intricacies of struggle and spoils more thoroughly by submerging itself into the influence of trading posts and businesses in British imperial enlargement. It also emphasises the Royal African Company and East India Company’s roles in erecting trading routes and patents. These monopolies normalised England’s participation in the transmarine trade of enslaved individuals. Emancipating and exacerbating the observer’s comprehension of this is the presence of numerous commodities from the Caribbean, such as a Barbados penny that was forged in 1788.
There’s a similarly existential dimension to Conflict (section three), particularly as it is the fruition of the artist choosing “objects that shed light on the impact of Empire – from encounters between cultures to violence and subjugation.” In protest to the barbarity of military campaigns, there are numerous circumstances of insurrection, anarchy and revolution in Africa, India and the Americas. Objects displayed include John White’s late sixteenth-century drawings of Algonquian people by an overseer of the Roanoke colony in Virginia. They make up some of the most archetypal, enduring, sketched portrayals of Indigenous Americans by a European artist.
Hew Locke, The Watchers, at the British Museum 2024. Photograph © Richard Cannon
Overlooking, or rather governing, all of the above are The Watchers (2024). They are carnivalesque figures positioned at numerous standpoints across the space, and the effect is the transformation of the observer from the lookers to the looked upon and the subjugators to the subjected. Some figures don insignias of diplomats and courtiers, while others are uniformed in garments once dressed in by foreign infantries. Pointedly, the Watchers(2024) have been left to dangle intimidatingly over the tops of the cabinets, which puncture the walls. Consequently, they appear to reign over this quasi-realm the artist has created. They also go beyond said ‘kingdom’ by spilling beyond the exhibition’s borders and into the British Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery (Room 1). Ultimately, ‘what have we here?’ and its watchers conquer but don’t divide; they are a creation of Hew Locke’s professional and personal thought processes. We gain further insight through his particular interest in an Akan gold weight that portrays a bird with its head turned to gaze over its back; the Sankofa explains, “illustrates a proverb that means we should look to the past to become wiser in the future. The object is small, but the symbolism is huge.”
The exhibition will be on view until February 9, 2025. For more information, please visit the British Museum.
Sabrina Roman uses exhibition reviews as a tool for critical reflection. She has contributed reviews, critical essays, and interviews to publications including Émergent, Whitehot Magazine, Trebuchet, Art Observed, and ART AFRICA. Her writing explores themes of desire, identity, commodification, and cultural production. She is pursuing postgraduate studies in English Literature at Queen Mary University of London, focusing on critical discourse and contemporary culture.
