Michael Forbes
Michael Forbes
Plus VAT if applicable
Auto Portrait after Rembrandt, a Black Man in a Wig and Baseball Cap II, 2021
Print mounted on MDF with painted white edges and split baton at the back
120 x 80 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP
About this work
Auto Portrait after Rembrandt, a Black Man in a Wig and Baseball Cap is a series of self-portraits using synthetic wigs and baseball caps purchased by Forbes for his sculptural work, Masquerade. In these works, Forbes places himself at the centre of the images, visualising a direct link between him and the work he makes, whilst playing with the contradiction that the images are separate from him; a trace of his presence, a visual marker that can be created without consequences. He acknowledges that the photographic image will be a representation of something beyond him once it has been made.
Forbes here explores what is projected on the black body. The image of a black male symbolises many things beyond the individual, investigated through the gaze and the adornment of the wigs and baseball caps, though the artist acknowledges that these images may add fuel to the misreadings and interpretations of the subject. Throughout the works, the performance of the gaze is a central feature, which manifests in several ways, including the photographic gaze, the white gaze and the black gaze, all of which have their own subjectivity. Forbes has constructed the image to challenge and confront the viewer by consciously presenting a deadpan face, neither smiling nor gesturing.
Wigs and weaves have a long history of socio-political engagement and degrees of awareness within the African diaspora, but the question of the colonised mind, colonisation and decolonisation are all bubbling under the surface. Whiteness, white supremacy and white beauty are part of the unspoken narrative of the wearing of wigs, which aligns to the notion of European aspirational beauty. The artist is aware that there is extensive dialogue and academic research around the politics of hair within the African diaspora, which his work engages with to lesser and greater degree. A man wearing a wig also conjures notions of sexuality, queerness and drag. For Forbes, this plays into his notion of creating a photographic image, whereby he is free of the projected associations.
Over the years, Forbes has spent a long time looking at Rembrandts’ paintings and playful self-portraits, where he ‘dresses for the occasion’ and ‘plays up’ to his audience, which at the time of his paintings would have been a wealthy European merchant class. Forbes sees this series as, in many ways, a performance piece where, like Rembrandt, he both transcends and fully understands the image he has created.
About Michael Forbes
Michael Forbes is an artist living and working between Nottingham and London. He gained his MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London, after graduating in Photography from Nottingham Trent University. Forbes’ practice explores contemporary racial politics, migration, blackness and whiteness in relation to universal debates on race, class, wealth, history and religion. He works across sculpture, installation, photography and digital media, with each medium present in different concentrations and levels depending on the body of work.
Forbes has exhibited internationally, with exhibitions including: White Cube, online, Saatchi Gallery, London, Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects, the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and Gallatin Galleries, New York. He will have shows in 2021 and 2022 at Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Yorkshire, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, Royal Sculpture Society, London. Alongside his artistic practice, Forbes has curated many exhibitions and supports artists’ professional development. The artist played a leading role in developing the New Art Exchange, Nottingham, and its early programme, and is a founding member of Primary, an artist studio complex in Nottingham, where he holds a studio and is now Chair of the Board of Trustees.
Education
2018-2020 Royal College of Art, London, MA Sculpture
2015-2016 Progressive Property - VIP Programme, mentoring with Rob Moore and Mark Homer
2016 White Box Property Solutions - Property Developers Secrets with Andi Cooke and Lloyd Girardi
2009-2011 Landmark Education - Curriculum for Living
1995-1998 Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, BA (Hons) Photography
1994-1995 West Notts College, Nottinghamshire, BTEC Foundation Art & Design
Residencies and Awards
2021 Yorkshire Sculpture Park
2021 Selector for Kensington & Chelsea Art Week
2018-20 Rose Finn-Kelcey Scholarship
2018 Nominated for the Paul Hamlyn Artist Awardss
2017 Winner of Black Achievers Award for Arts, Media and Culture
2016-2018 The International Curators Forum (ICF), in partnership with University of the Arts London (UAL)
Mentor: Director of International Curators Forum, David A Bailey
2011 International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York
2002 British Council, Jamaica
Selected Exhibitions
2022 Blk This & Blk That (solo exhibition), Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham
2021 Untitled - Pop Up show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
2021 Cut & Mix: Visual Representations of Black British Masculine Identities, The New Art Exchange, Nottingham
2021 Space Lapse: RCA Sculpture 2020, Royal Sculpture Society, London
2020 London Grads Now, Saatchi Gallery, London
2020 Tomorrow: London, White Cube Gallery, London
2020 RCA2020 Royal College of Art, Degree Show
2018 Reformation - Guest Project. Group show - Nadim Chaudry, Michael Forbes, Barbara Walker
2018 Diaspora Pavilion I Venice to Wolverhampton - Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2017 Venice - Diaspora Platform - Internation Curators Forum, at Palazzo Santa Marina. see link for further details
2016 Nottingham Castle Open - Winner of the Nottingham Castle purchse prize
2016 Untitled, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire
2015 Acquistion, Quad, Derby
2014 Since 1843: In the Making, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham
2012 Opem 2, The Collection Lincoln
2012 Next Generation: Contemporary American Photography, Pasinger Fabrik Amerika Haus, Munich
2012 CPT:Time, History and Memory, Gallatin Galleries, New York
2011 Metropolitan Wonderland, ISCP, New York
2011 Souls Of The Diaspora, ISCP, New York
2010 Because I Can, Nottingham
2008 Next We Change Earth, The New Art Exchange, Nottingham
2007 The Redemptive Beauty Of Life After Death, The Bonington Gallery, Nottingham
2006 When Men And Mountain Meet, Gallery One, Zagreb
2006 Mostyn 2006 Open Exhibition, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno
2003 Celebration Of Death, Photo Club Zagreb, Zagreb
2003 Drawing With Light Festival, Waterstones, Nottingham
2003 Shot In JA, Picture House Centre for Photography, Leicester
2003 Celebration Of Death, Cankarjev Dom, Ljubljana
2002 There Is No Redemption, The Bonington Gallery, Nottingham
2001 International Print Competition, The Royal Photographic Society, Bath
2001 Celebration Of Death, The Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Nottingham
2000 Black, The Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon
1997 Recontres Internationales De La Photographie, Arles, France