Art and Institutional Racism

Why is the history of modern art only about the work of White/European artists? This question is not rhetorical, but about the reality of Eurocentric legacies of colonialism and racism, which not only sees artists of Asian and African origins as outside of art history but also excludes them from it. In this pioneering work, Art & Institutional Racism, Rasheed Araeen reveals how Asian, African and the Caribbean artists in Britain have challenged this exclusion.

Their work not only confronts the Eurocentricity of art history but also redefines modernism and its art history. And in doing so it aims to liberate art from Eurocentrism and also society as a whole from its lingering imperialism.

Rasheed Araeen, born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1935, has been a resident of London since 1964. A multifaceted individual, Araeen is a civil engineer, inventor, artist, writer, curator, and publisher. After pioneering minimalism in Britain, he turned his attention to the social issues of racism and imperialism, which prompted him to begin writing. Subsequently, Araeen created his own art magazine and an art journal to further explore and share his ideas, Black Phoenix (1978–79) and Third Text (1987–2012), respectively. He curated the seminal exhibition ‘The Other Story’, at the Hayward Gallery in 1989–90, showing artists who were ignored institutionally. A major retrospective of his own art was held at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Holland, which then travelled to Geneva, Moscow and Gateshead (UK). He participated in 2017 in both the Venice Biennale and the Documenta (Athens and Cassell). As an artist, he is now well-known internationally, with his work in the major museums of the world. His books include Making Myself Visible (1984), Art Beyond Art (2010) and Islam & Modernism (2022).