The one thing I know for absolute sure and without even a shred of doubt, is that those wit- less Europeans behind slavery and colonial- ism, whose air of invincibility (better known as ‘power’) gave their Eurocentric ideas of beauty a certain divine vigor (better known as ‘truth’) have a lot to be accused of. When you take even a cur- sory glance at our world today and see what it holds dear when it comes to beauty, the blood- stained fingerprints of those thirsty Europeans are everywhere. Here’s the thing, the ‘Beauty’ I’m interested in has nothing to do with statues of naked men by the Greeks, or aquiline noses, or the perversity of a white Jesus, or powdered wigs, or eminent artists from the Renaissance, or the three-movement structure of a concerto, or fake beauty spots on TikTok, or anything to do with runways at fashion houses or airports. The ‘Beauty’ I’m concerned with is the one that every artist I know, and probably every artist I don’t know, made them want to become an artist in the first place. It’s the one that gives you reason to pause, to make you wonder, to make you ponder, that lets you believe in the idea of God, scrambles your senses, and has humanity at the very core of its existence. Ridiculous as this sounds, and I must admit I feel a little queasy at my confidence, I believe that every artist, no matter what culture or tribe they come from, became an artist because they discov- ered something that spoke to the good in them, the humanity in them. Of course, if that discov- ery arrives when you’re eighteen years old, or, if you’re really unlucky, six years old, humanity’s the last thing you can imagine your unconscious- ness wanting to talk about. But that’s okay, that’s okay. If you’re too young to realize what hap- pened without your consent, your only responsi- bility is to keep on keeping on with your draw- ings in crayon, your songs on your toy piano, or your scribbled stories about dolphins and boats and a universe of glittery stars. The moment of truth will return and the path which knows which way to go will show itself soon enough. Around about here, with this very sentence, in fact, if I’m to be fair to you, dear reader, I should take my untethered, abstract idea of humanity and shape it into something concrete, something you can actually see. But fuck that!
Go write your own damn article if you want a vision of fairness! Naw, I’m only clowning around with you. But why would anyone need a concrete version of humanity when their uncon- sciousness already knows what it is? It would be a lonely and desolate place indeed if our instinct for humanity was not a song we all shared. Fortu- nately, the person standing next to you at the bus stop also has the same knowing, just as the person watching their laundry go round and round at a laundrette, just as the person buying and selling a slice of the future on Wall Street. We all have the same knowing. We all have the same knowledge. My moment on the road to Damascus came while sitting next to my extremely self-con- tained Father on the dumpy yellow couch in our cramped, but lovable flat in Brixton, south-east London. Father was watching the drama “Angels are so Few” by Dennis Potter on the British televi- sion series, “Play for Today.” I’m sure all I knew was that it was about an angel named Michael, which was, thankfully, all I needed to know to keep watching. But what I couldn’t have foreseen was that this story about an angel that arrives on the doorstep of a bored housewife, would knock me off my feet and I would keep on falling for the next ten years. Eventually my feet touched the ground again and my falling stopped, but only after I had directed my first play, Barrie O’Keefe’s “Kill- ing Time.” That was it, that moment on the couch was my introduction to humanity and the rest of my life. So, to that end, an artist, any artist, once bitten by their hidden humanity, sets off on their adventure with a packed lunch and a dreamy desire to add their voice to the cultural conversation. Or put another, less poetic way, a dreamy desire to make the world a better place. In my experience, and the experience of every artist I know and probably every artist I don’t know, that desire is fuel enough to create countless paintings, and countless books, and countless songs, and countless dances, and count- less photographs, and countless creations that don’t have a definition. It’s an adventure fueled by the personal. But don’t be fooled by the eti- quette of that word ‘humanity.’ When pushed to stand its ground by dictators or fascism or
rampant intolerance, humanity thinks highly enough of itself to respond with bared teeth and revolution, which might be hard to believe at this precise moment in time, but you can see it throughout history. For years, all I had to do was have an inspira- tion by whim from the good in me and that was enough. For myself, that is, it was enough for myself to simply have a whim and follow it. And then I moved to New York City from London. And then in 1999 Amadou Diallo had 41 bul- lets fired at his body from point-blank range, and sometime during that same year I started to listen to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” which I had heard a million times before, but hadn’t truly listened to. To be honest, my return to “What’s Going On?” wasn’t consciously to do with the Diallo murder, but unconsciously…. ? And then, as if to relieve myself of any hesita- tion, I saw David Bowie at the Roseland Ballroom and had a night of pure, unrestrained, ecstasy. In the larger scheme of things, I don’t know why this rock concert has anything to do with anything, but it does, it really does. I had lived through the butchering of Stephen Lawrence, the steel-capped boots of the National Front marauding the streets, the rocks and fires of the Brixton riots, the rebellion of the Notting Hill Carnival. But there was something about the Diallo murder, about being in America, about being on the verge of the 21st century that made it hit differently. Not long after that hail of Police bullets rang through the air, and I wish I could remember exactly when, I felt a Divine Elbow thrust itself into my ribs with real intent. The Divine Elbow said, ‘Wake Up! You’re not just an artist, you’re a Black artist, and that should mean something.’ And for the first time in my life, it did. So, here’s the thing. I was always a Black artist, obviously, but the unspooling of my faith in nat- ural justice left me naked and shorn of all feath- ers, save for the fact that I now had a new coat of responsibility, and it was a coat weighted to the bone with history. From that time onward, as best as I could, I tried to correct, or at least challenge a past narrative that marooned the Black experience in the corner of the room. You could see it in what I wrote about, the plays I directed, the events I attended, where I spent my time, where I spent my business, how I let myself be.
That was how it was for close to twelve years and I’m proud of that time, but then fatigue set in. It’s an ugly truth that I don’t always want to admit, but slowly and surely I found myself exhausted from doing what I knew had to be done, by what I knew was my responsibility. To change a past narrative about the Black experi- ence was to constantly wade again and again and again in the struggle of the Black experience, and bit by bit, day by day, month after month, year upon year, it eventually used me up. I remember thinking when no one was looking, ‘Is it okay if I create something that’s just beautiful? Some- thing that doesn’t have anything to do with cor- recting a narrative? Something that doesn’t have anything to do with the meaning of history? Something that doesn’t have anything to do with anyone or anything but me and mine?’ Then I heard the painter Amy Sherald speak on the pur- pose of her work: “Public Blackness has been codified to be something that’s always attached to resistance, which limits our humanity and the ways in which we can imagine ourselves existing. There has to be some relief from the battle or we can never evolve as a people. I often say that my paintings are a ‘resting place,’ a place where Black people can see a reflection of themselves that’s not in resistance or contention. It’s just a Black per- son being a person.” All at once, as if laid at my feet on a velvet cushion, I was given a landing and a new respon- sibility: Art as a ‘resting place.’ So, here's the thing. I was always a Black artist, obviously, but the unspooling of my faith in natural justice left me naked and shorn of all feathers, save for the fact that I now had a new coat of responsibility, and it was a coat weighted to the bone with history.
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