Liz Johnson Artur - If You Know The Beginning, The End Is No Trouble

If You Know The Beginning, The End Is No Trouble

Liz Johnson Artur, Larry B, 2019

Liz Johnson Artur, Burgess Park, 2010

Liz Johnson Artur, Under 18s Rave, East London, 2003

Liz Johnson Artur lives and works in London, and has taken photographs across Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean for more than three decades. She calls this ongoing project the Black Balloon Archive, alluding to a 1970 song lyric by Syl Johnson that describes a black balloon ‘dancing’ in the sky, which is how Liz imagines her own movement when taking photographs.

She has exhibited internationally, including group exhibitions at Serpentine Galleries, London; David Nolan Gallery, New York; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Kunstverein Leipzig; the 10th Berlin Biennale. Her monograph with Bierke Verlag was listed by The New York Times in ‘Best Photo Books 2016’, and in 2017 she was nominated for the Aimia | AGO Photography Prize.

Liz Johnson Artur, Ethiopian wedding, 2009

Liz Johnson Artur, Nigerian Party, 1995

Liz Johnson Artur, Nigerian Party 2, 1995

Artur’s exhibition at the South London Gallery runs from 14 June – 1 September 2019 and follows her first museum show at the Brooklyn Museum, New York.

A Russian-Ghanaian herself, for her first solo show in the UK, Liz presents a new body of work alongside photographs selected from her substantial archive of images documenting the lives of people from the African diaspora. The show focuses on London, where she has lived since 1991, and captures the richness and complexity of Black British life. She explains: ‘What I do is people, but it’s those people who are my neighbours, and it’s those people who I don’t see represented anywhere.’

Liz Johnson Artur, Brixton, 2010

Liz Johnson Artur, Peckham, 2009

Artur transforms the high-ceilinged Main Gallery with a series of four hanging and floor-based bamboo cane structures. Each hosts a body of images taken across the city, including in Peckham Rye, blackmajority churches, non-binary club nights as well as a still life section she calls “Library”. These images are printed at various sizes, using both traditional photographic techniques onto paper as well as application to fabric, tracing paper and cardboard.

Installation view of Liz Johnson Artur: If you know the beginning, the end is no trouble at the South London Gallery, 2019.

Photo: Andy Stagg

The structures act as a flexible backdrop for an integrated programme of events, in which Liz will invite artists working across music, poetry, dance and theatre to create intergenerational collaboration, performance and discussion.

Liz Johnson Artur, Women’s Corner, 2019. Installation view at the South London Gallery, 2019.

Photo: Andy Stagg

Liz Johnson Artur, Women’s Corner, 2019 (detail). Installation view at the South London Gallery, 2019.

Photo: Andy Stagg

Liz Johnson Artur, Community, 2019. Installation view at the South London Gallery, 2019.

Photo: Andy Stagg

You can see more of Liz Johnson Artur’s work and current exhibitions at the following links:

www.lizjohnsonartur.co.ukwww.bierke.de/liz-johnson-arturwww.southlondongallery.org/exhibitions/liz-johnson-arturwww.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/johnson_artur