Alberta Whittle: Respectability Won't Save You: A Caribbean Haunting - Curated by Arianna Nourse

Overview
Film still from Alberta Whittle, RESET, 2020. Co-commissioned & co-produced by Frieze and Forma. © and Courtesy the artist, 2020.
Film still from Alberta Whittle, RESET, 2020. Co-commissioned & co-produced by Frieze and Forma. © and Courtesy the artist, 2020.

Alberta Whittle's ancestors arrived from rural Barbados in the 1920s, and earlier; but by the 1960s, they'd truly arrived. Bridgetown was culture, Bridgetown was class. Bridgetown was respectable-and respectability? Respectability was safety. 

Nicola Vassell Gallery is pleased to present Alberta Whittle: Respectability won't save you: a Caribbean haunting, an exhibition of paintings, tuftings, drawings and video work curated by Arianna Nourse.

 

For the artist’s grandfather, Gladstone Fitzroy Barker, there would be no combing of hair outside; no shiny clothes on his family before 6 pm; and certainly no island mysticism.  In silken armour - the cousins hoped - no officer would frisk you. Follow the codes - the aunties whispered - and nobody gets hurt. 

 

Years later, and a land apart, Gladstone’s granddaughter questions the price extracted by her forebear’s call to “self-contain”. For her solo debut in New York, Alberta Whittle summons a journey of assimilation, resistance and healing for herself, her family; indeed, for any of us prodded to “cover up” to get-by.

 

 

- "How to Avoid Becoming a Snake", by Arianna Nourse © 2022

Works
Installation Views
Back to exhibitions