Richard Bell, Emory Douglas, Brian Elstak, Hosselaer (Farida Sedoc), Quinsy Gario, 020 Crew/Super Funk
Guest curator Vivian Ziherl
Co-curator Aruna Vermeulen (HipHopHuis)
In partnership with the University of Colour
A beach chair, a parasol and a fake grass tapestry: together these objects formed the centrepiece of Richard Bell’s solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA), brought in by the man who calls himself ‘an activist masquerading as an artist’.1 As cultural ambassador Bell occupied the SMBA territory with his Aboriginal Tent Embassy2 that functioned as a Trojan horse filled with a diverse group of local artists, student-activists and Hip Hop dancers. In the gallery, these local constituencies started to (de)colonise the white cube with their collectively produced series of political murals, discussion groups and a Hip Hop dance jam.
The key question posed by ‘BELL invites’ was ‘How to be relevant?’, and it examined how Bell, as an Aboriginal artist and member of the Black Power Movement, could be relevant in the specific context of Amsterdam. In order to find an answer to this complex question Bell invited his long-term collaborator Emory Douglas,3 the local communities of the University of Colour4 and the HipHopHuis,5 to develop the project with him. He transformed the SMBA gallery space into an embassy for the arts and culture of these communities which have remained absent for decades from the white spaces of art institutions. Local artists Brian Elstak, Farida Sedoc (Hosselaer), Super Funk and 020 Crew were invited to present their work in the institutional context of the SMBA. Through this invitation Bell acknowledged the existence of a plurality of art worlds, while asking to what extent ‘the global’ and the performances of local communities are represented in the