The Other Story (exhibition)

In the exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery Director Joanna Drew writes that "Making an exhibition on the basis of racial origin is not something that comes easily to the art world".^[7] The exhibition was first proposed to but rejected by the Arts Council in 1978 for being "untimely".^[8] Some critics argue that The Other Story was made possible thanks to the growing grassroots activism related to the British Black Arts Movement, feminist critique, and anti-racist discourses in the UK, the US, and South Africa.^[8] The selection criteria of the exhibition focused on the relationship between modernism in African, Caribbean, and Asian artists who resided in the UK for at least ten years.^[8] Therefore, the show is considered an intervention into the "exclusive canon of Euro-American modernism".^[9]

In his introduction in the exhibition catalogue, Rasheed Araeen asks: "Can true pluralism be achieved without recovering what we have lost in the past, for whatever reasons? Can we afford to be complacent any more?"^[10]

The Other Story was divided into four thematic sections: "In the Citadel of Modernism", "Taking the Bull by the Horns", "Confronting the System", and "Recovering Cultural Metaphors".^[11]

Although Araeen used "Afro-Asian" in the exhibition catalogue and the wall texts to refer to the participating artists, the promotional banner used a different title: "The Other Story: Asian, African and Caribbean artists in post-war Britain." Cultural historian Lucy Steeds argues that this terminology disbands the solidarity and the "hyphenated connectivity in 'Afro-Asian'".^[5]

Rashid Araeen has been criticized for the gender imbalance in the exhibition.^[8] Only four of the twenty-four artists were women: Sonia Boyce, Mona Hatoum, Lubaina Himid, and Kumiko Shimizu. Araeen stated that he was not able to locate Black and Asian women artists from earlier generations. He added that several women artists refused his invitation after hesitating that the organizing principle of the exhibition could create "a ghettoising context".^[8]

In her exhibition review published in December 1989, Sutapa Biswas criticized the show for the lack of representation of black women artists. In response to Biswas, Araeen wrote that the question of equal representation of black women artists is related to the "nature of postwar Afro-Asian immigration" in the UK while calling her approach "phoney feminism".^[12]