Keith Piper (artist)
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Keith Piper (born 1960) is a British artist, curator, critic and academic. He was a founder member of the groundbreaking
BLK Art Group The BLK Art Group is the name associated with a group of five influential conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists based in the United Kingdom. Keith Piper, Marlene Smith, Eddie Chambers Claudette Johnson and Donald Ro ...
, an association of black British art students, mostly based in the
West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
region of the UK.


Early life and education

Piper was born in Malta – a British colony at the time – to a working-class family of
African-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...
heritage: his father, originally from
Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Bar ...
, had gone to England in the 1950s, settled in Birmingham in the
West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
, and been posted on Malta's military base just before Piper's birth. Six months old when he arrived in Britain, Piper was raised in and around Birmingham.Chandler, David, & Kobena Mercer, 1997. "Keith Piper: Relocating the Remains", Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva). He was first attracted to art as a response to the industrialised, decaying landscape of his youth. Quoted in his monograph ''Relocating the Remains'' (1997), he recalls being "interested in the aesthetics of peeling paint, rust and dereliction and the multi-layered look of fly posters when they become torn off". Piper went on to attend
Trent Polytechnic Trent may refer to: Places Italy * Trento in northern Italy, site of the Council of Trent United Kingdom * Trent, Dorset, England, United Kingdom Germany * Trent, Germany, a municipality on the island of Rügen United States * Trent, California, ...
, where he gained his B.A.(Hons) degree in Fine Art in 1983, before graduating with a master's degree in Environmental Media at the Royal College of Art in London.


Career and works

Although Piper’s early and student work made use of traditional fine art media such as paint and canvas (as in ''The Body Politic'', 1983), from the late 1980s he became primarily associated with technically innovative work that explored multi-media elements such as computer software, websites, tape/slide, sound and video within an installation-based practice. Piper first came to public attention when, in 1982, while still a student, he joined
Eddie Chambers Edward Chambers (born March 29, 1982) is an American former professional boxer. He challenged once for a unified world heavyweight title in 2010. He was ranked as the fourth best heavyweight in the world by '' The Ring'' at the conclusion of 200 ...
, the late
Donald Rodney Donald Gladstone Rodney (18 May 1961 – 4 March 1998) was a British artist. He was a leading figure in Britain's BLK Art Group of the 1980s and became recognised as "one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation." Rodney's wo ...
and Marlene Smith in what came to be known as the BLK Art Group. Their politically forthright exhibition ''The Pan-Afrikan Connection'' garnered media attention as it toured to
Trent Polytechnic Trent may refer to: Places Italy * Trento in northern Italy, site of the Council of Trent United Kingdom * Trent, Dorset, England, United Kingdom Germany * Trent, Germany, a municipality on the island of Rügen United States * Trent, California, ...
in Nottingham; King Street Gallery in Bristol; and The Africa Centre in London. In 1983-84 a second touring exhibition, ''The BLK Art Group'', was held at the
Herbert Art Gallery Herbert Art Gallery & Museum (also known as the Herbert) is a museum, art gallery, records archive, learning centre, media studio and creative arts facility on Jordan Well, Coventry, England. Overview The museum is named after Sir Alfred Herb ...
in Coventry,
Battersea Arts Centre The Battersea Arts Centre ("BAC") is a performance space specialising in theatre productions. Located near Clapham Junction railway station in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, it was formerly Battersea Town Hall. It is a Grade ...
in London and, again, the Africa Centre.Pauline de Souza, " Rodney, Donald Gladstone (1961–1998)", '' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. However, the group's critique of institutional racism in and beyond Britain's art world became a part of the impetus that led to '' The Other Story'', a seminal survey of African and Asian artists at London's Hayward Gallery in 1989 as well as the founding of the
Association of Black Photographers Autograph ABP, previously known as the Association of Black Photographers, is a British-based international, non-profit-making, photographic arts agency. History Autograph was originally established in London in 1988. Founders included the photog ...
and the establishment of Iniva, the Institute of International Visual Arts – some of which have exhibited Piper's work. His photography was recognised in the 1992 survey by ''
Ten.8 ''Ten.8'' was a British photography magazine founded in 1979 and published quarterly in Birmingham, England, throughout the 1980s, folding in 1992. History ''Ten.8'' (the title referring to the 10" x 8" format of the traditional black-and-white ...
'' magazine Piper continued to practise throughout the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, exhibiting work in prestigious galleries and museums around the world, including, in 1999, the
New Museum of Contemporary Art The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...
in New York, in 2007, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and, in 2012, ''Migrations'' at Tate Britain. In 1998, Piper, along with Ramona Ramlochand collaborated on an exhibition called ''The Night Has A Thousand Eyes'' at the Ottowa Art Gallery. It included a collaborative installation between the two as well as their own separate ones. Examples of Piper's work are held in numerous public collections, including the Arts Council Collection Tate and the
Manchester Art Gallery Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupies three c ...
. His 'Untitled' (1986) painting acquired by Manchester Art Gallery was re-interpreted in 2022 for display as a central work in their Climate Justice Gallery. In 2002, Keith Piper was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Arts at
Wolverhampton University The University of Wolverhampton is a public university located on four campuses across the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in England. The roots of the university lie in the Wolverhampton Tradesmen's and Mechanics' Institute founded ...
and has taught for several years as a Reader in Fine Art at London's
Middlesex University Middlesex University London (legally Middlesex University and abbreviated MDX) is a public research university in Hendon, northwest London, England. The name of the university is taken from its location within the historic county boundaries ...
. In 2015–16, Piper's work ''(You Are Now Entering) Mau Mau Country'' (1983) was featured in the six-month exhibition '' No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990'' held at the City of London's Guildhall Art Gallery. In 2017, Iniva, in partnership wit
Bluecoat
presented a solo exhibition of Piper's work. Entitled ''Unearthing the Bankers Bones'', it featured large-scale painting, installation and digital works that address anxieties about the impacts of globalisation. Lending its title to the exhibition, the centrepiece of the show is a 70th Anniversary Commission for the Arts Council Collection with Iniva and Bluecoat, consisting of three synchronised high definition video projections, which depict a narrative of economic and social collapse. This was Piper's first monographic show since the retrospective ''Relocating the Remains'', produced by Iniva in 1997. The retrospective ''Body Politics – Work from 1982–2007'' was shown from October to December 2019 in Wolverhampton Art Gallery. In 2022, Piper created the exhibition ''Jet Black Futures'' which was presented at the New Art Gallery in Walsal from January 12-April 24. It was "a set of mixed-media digital montages printed onto white material and intended to serve as protest banners."


Multimedia installations and project

*''A Fictional Tourist in Europe'', 2001 *''The Mechanoid's Bloodline'', 2001 *''The Exploded City'', 1998 *''Four Frontiers'', 1998 *''Message Carrier'', 1998 *''Robot Bodies'', 1998 *''Relocating the Remains'', 1997 *''The Fictions of Science'', 1996 *''Four Corners, A Contest of Opposites'', 1995 *''Reckless Eyeballing'', 1995 *''Terrible Spaces'', 1994 *''Exotic Signs'', 1993 *''Transgressive Acts'', 1993 *''Another Step into the Arena'', 1992 *''Tagging the Other'', 1992 *''Trade Winds'', 1992 *''A Ship Called Jesus'', 1991 *''Step into the Arena'', 1991 *''The Devil Finds Work'', 1990 *''Chanting Heads'', 1988 *''Diaspora Wallchart'', 1987


References


External links


Keith Piper website

Keith Piper, People Directory
Iniva

at the New York New Museum of Contemporary Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Piper, Keith 1960 births Black British artists English contemporary artists Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Nottingham Trent University Living people 21st-century male artists