Art as a writer of history

Video art and installations alongside 250-year-old paintings: The media has always been about what is shown and how, and what is left out. In Entangled Pasts, 1768–now, the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London examines how works of art represent history and influence social discourse. Not only does art represent history, but the way it represents it consequently influences how history is perceived. Some painters, such as John Singleton Copley, who created one of the most famous paintings of his time with Watson and the Shark (1778), an innovative, modern version of Jonah and the Whale, also acted as historians. The exhibition was inspired in part by Yinka Shonibare's curatorial work in summer 2021, in which he presented the Western art canon as just one of many perspectives. The complex exhibition Entangled Pasts, 1768–now is on view from February 3 to April 28.

Entangled Pasts, 1768–now is presented in the RA's main galleries and is divided into three thematic sections. Sites of Power explores absence and presence in the portraiture and history painting of the Grand Manner and reflects on the decades surrounding the founding of the RA. This incorporates the height of Britain's transatlantic slave trade and the incipient movement for the abolition of slavery. Beauty and Difference traces the spread of aesthetic norms through drawings, prints, poems, sculptures and photographs in works that embody the moral contradictions of the Victorian age. Crossing Waters takes an international perspective on ecological consequences and uses immersive spaces to encourage reflection on history, its ramifications and contemporary issues. On show are works by Frank Bowling RA, Sonia Boyce RA, Lubaina Himid RA, Isaac Julien RA, Hew Locke RA, Yinka Shonibare RA, Kara Walker Hon RA, Ellen Gallagher, Joshua Reynolds PRA, Thomas Gainsborough RA, John Singleton Copley RA and William Turner RA.